Future of Ethnobotany in the AI Era

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This article is part of the Yaogará Ark, a living archive of Amazonian teacher plants.

Abstract

The digital age is transforming the field of ethnobotany, offering unprecedented opportunities and profound challenges for the preservation and evolution of Amazonian plant knowledge—especially that concerning “teacher plants” used in healing, apprenticeship, and ritual. This study considers how artificial intelligence (AI) and digital archives can safeguard, systematize, and ethically disseminate botanical wisdom and cultural practices, with particular reference to the participatory aims of the Yaogará Research Archive. Situating technological advances within the social and ethical context of Indigenous knowledge transmission, the work examines shifts in methodology, access, and stewardship as ethnobotany adapts to a rapidly digitizing world. It explores: (a) the role of AI in reconciling Indigenous and scientific taxonomies; (b) multimedia documentation for intergenerational continuity; (c) data sovereignty and biocultural rights; and (d) analytical frontiers for phytochemistry, ecology, and conservation planning. The central contention is that ethnobotany’s digital future must remain accountable to place-based lifeways, ceremonial protocols, and community-led governance of knowledge.

Botanical Classification

This article addresses teacher plants (“plantas con madre”) as a living, interrelated field of botanical practice rather than a single species. In Amazonian ethnomedical systems, teacher plants include vines, shrubs, and trees drawn from multiple botanical families—most prominently Malpighiaceae (e.g., Banisteriopsis caapi), Rubiaceae (e.g., Psychotria viridis), Solanaceae (e.g., Brugmansia spp.), and others central to ritual diets (dietas) and apprenticeship. The scientific classification of these plants intersects with Indigenous taxonomies that emphasize experiential properties, relational ecologies, and ceremonial roles. Early and mid-20th century ethnobotanical work underscored the difficulty of translating local names, varietals, and ceremonial distinctions into Linnaean categories—an enduring challenge that AI-assisted multilingual indexing and taxonomic reconciliation can now address with greater scalability and nuance [2][4][8].

Rather than replacing expert fieldwork, AI-supported classification augments it by enabling:

  • Cross-referencing of herbarium vouchers, field notes, images, and recordings across dispersed collections [2];
  • Pattern detection among varietals whose ritual significance may diverge despite close botanical affinity [2][4];
  • Multilingual lexicons that respect Indigenous linguistic categories while linking to formal nomenclature [8].

These tools help resolve the “enigma” of historical collections—where plant use, name, and ritual function were documented unevenly—while preserving the integrity of local knowledge systems and ceremonial specificity [2][4][8].

Geographical Distribution and Habitat

The primary geographical focus is Western and Central Amazonia, including Peru, Colombia, and Brazil, where teacher-plant traditions remain deeply embedded in community life and regional ecologies [1]. Habitat mosaics—floodplain forests, terra firme, riverine corridors, and secondary growth—structure local pharmacopeias and ceremonial calendars. Knowledge about where, when, and how to gather plants is inseparable from a place-based ethnoecology of soils, waters, seasonal cycles, and interspecies relations.

Landscape ethnoecology provides an integrative frame: biophysical gradients intersect with culturally meaningful landmarks, ancestral itineraries, and ritual sites to codify where certain plants are sought, and how their “character” is read in relation to habitat [8]. In this sense, distribution maps are insufficient on their own; knowledge holders interpret ecological cues, kinship with plant “mothers,” and lineage-specific protocols to judge plant suitability for healing, initiation, or instruction [1][5][8].

Digital tools are expanding the scope of this work. Spatial data infrastructures and community-curated maps, combined with archival film and oral histories, make visible the movement of scholars and healers, the location of key collecting sites, and the continuity of ceremonial practice across decades [4][7]. Yet distributional knowledge remains sensitive, particularly where overharvesting, bioprospecting, or territorial disputes pose risks. Ethical archiving therefore requires granular access controls, community governance of geodata, and context-aware redaction to prevent misuse [3][4].

Ethnobotanical Context

Teacher plants—most famously Banisteriopsis caapi (ayahuasca vine) and associated admixtures such as Psychotria viridis—are central to Amazonian healing traditions among Indigenous and mestizo communities. Historically, these plants are administered in ritual diets (dietas) under the guidance of maestros curanderos, forming the backbone of apprenticeship in shamanic medicine [1]. Knowledge concerning plant selection, ceremonial orchestration, and effects is encoded in oral histories, ritual songs (icaros), and narratives, transmitted across generations [1][3][5][6]. Distinctions among species, varietals, and ritual significance often depend on local taxonomies and linguistic categories, making this knowledge context-specific and dynamic [2].

Transmission and continuity

  • Apprenticeships rely on long-term dietary restrictions, sensory discipline, and direct mentorship, often within family or community networks [1][6].
  • Elders and healers safeguard cosmologies, ceremonial grammars, and experiential pharmacologies that give teacher plants their meaning [3][5][6].
  • Globalization, ecological change, and socio-political pressures have introduced discontinuities, increasing the urgency of documentation that does not uproot knowledge from its ceremonial and ecological grounds [3].

Digital and participatory documentation

  • Community-driven platforms—oral histories, video testimonies, and collaborative fieldwork archives—are reshaping how knowledge is preserved and shared [4].
  • These archives support intergenerational continuity, enabling youth to access language, song, and plant lore within cultural frames set by knowledge holders [3][4].
  • International conversations on Indigenous data sovereignty—benefit sharing, access tiers, and culturally grounded consent—are increasingly reflected in archival practice, with potential to reinforce local custodianship [3].

Transformations and tensions in the AI era

  • Automated text and image analysis allows large-scale cross-referencing of historical texts, herbarium sheets, and photographs, improving accuracy in identification and cataloging while revealing patterns previously siloed across institutions [2].
  • AI-enabled linguistic reconciliation can bridge Indigenous classifications with scientific nomenclature, reviving and contextualizing earlier ethnobotanical records (e.g., Schultes’ documentation of yagé varieties) with greater nuance [2][4].
  • Participatory multimedia archives—testimony, ceremony recordings, and living lexicons—shift archives from static repositories to dynamic, co-curated systems that foreground cultural protocols [4].
  • Ethical AI and biocultural rights frameworks are critical to ensuring privacy, consent, and benefit sharing, mitigating risks of depersonalization or commodification of sacred knowledge [3].
  • Educational innovations (virtual herbariums, interactive maps, ceremony-informed learning modules) support cultural repatriation and language revitalization while maintaining contextual safeguards [4].
  • Analytical frontiers include AI-assisted modeling of phytochemical diversity, ecological distribution, and ritual practice—tools that can aid conservation planning and climate resilience when developed with sustained community collaboration [3].

Phytochemistry and Pharmacology

Teacher-plant pharmacology is both biochemical and experiential. In ayahuasca praxis, β-carboline alkaloids from Banisteriopsis caapi are paired with tryptamine-rich leaves of Psychotria viridis, producing complex effects that intertwine somatic, visionary, and pedagogical dimensions. Apprenticeship frameworks emphasize that pharmacological activity is only one layer of a broader ceremonial ecology; songs, diet, and relational conduct co-condition plant “instruction” [1][5][6]. This tenet complicates laboratory reductionism, urging methodological pluralism that respects emic categories of action alongside receptor-level models [2][3][5].

AI-assisted pharmacology and data integration

  • Corpus mining: Machine reading of scattered phytochemical reports, field notes, and museum catalogs can consolidate synonym-rich plant names, experimental contexts, and reported effects into structured datasets for meta-analysis [2][4].
  • Cross-modal identification: Image recognition applied to herbarium sheets and in-situ photographs can flag likely matches for under-documented varietals, improving linkage between chemistry, morphology, and ceremonial usage [2].
  • Pattern discovery: Unsupervised models can surface co-occurrence patterns among compounds, preparation methods, and ritual roles, generating hypotheses for targeted laboratory and community-guided inquiry [3].
  • Culturally aware analytics: To avoid reductive interpretations, analytical outputs must be read against ceremonial grammars and local explanatory models, ideally in co-interpretation sessions with knowledge holders [3][5].

Such integrative pipelines support a dialog between lab-based pharmacology and ceremonial epistemologies, allowing archives to host both quantitative and narrative forms of evidence without erasing the contexts that give them meaning [1][3][5][6].

Traditional Preparation and Use

Preparation and use are inseparable from pedagogy and ethics. Dietas govern not only ingestion but conduct, diet, and environmental engagement over weeks or months, oriented toward healing or the cultivation of perception [1][6]. Within these frameworks:

  • Selection and harvesting: Plants are chosen for their relational qualities (age, habitat, “character”), often mediated by dreams, songs, or lineage-specific criteria. Seasonal and lunar cycles may influence timing, with attention to sustainable gathering and offerings [1][5][6][8].
  • Preparation: Decoctions and macerations follow specific ratios, durations, and ritual gestures; for ayahuasca, combinations of Banisteriopsis caapi with Psychotria viridis are guided by tradition and intent, producing different tonalities of effect [1][5][6].
  • Ceremony: Maestros curate context through icaros, perfumes, and spatial choreography, shaping the experience and therapeutic arc. The ceremony constitutes a pedagogical space where plants “teach,” a concept widely documented among mestizo and Indigenous healers [5][6].
  • Apprenticeship: Students undergo progressive diets, observing taboos while learning plant-specific songs and protocols. Knowledge accrues experientially and relationally, not as decontextualized information [1][6].

Digital mediation and fidelity to practice

  • Archives can host high-fidelity documentation—audio of icaros, stepwise preparations, narratives of plant encounters—while clearly flagging materials that are restricted or sacred, in accordance with community directives [3][4].
  • AI-assisted transcription and translation can enhance accessibility without displacing original languages or tones of address, provided community review governs final outputs [3][4].
  • Immersive media (e.g., 3D reenactments of preparation spaces) may help intergenerational learning, but should be designed to avoid simulation of restricted rites and to maintain ceremonial boundaries determined by knowledge holders [3][4].

Conservation and Ethical Considerations

Digitization and AI offer both promise and peril for biocultural heritage. On the one hand, robust archives can ensure long-term preservation, democratize access under community-defined terms, and strengthen Indigenous claims to cultural and intellectual property [3]. They can also facilitate targeted conservation by linking ethnobotanical knowledge to habitat data, enabling communities and conservation partners to prioritize protection of culturally significant sites [4][8].

On the other hand, ethical and legal frameworks lag behind practice in several areas:

  • Collective rights and consent: Standard intellectual property regimes inadequately capture collective, oral, and sacred knowledge. Archives must implement layered permissions, culturally relevant metadata, and dynamic consent that can be withdrawn or revised [3].
  • Data sovereignty: Communities must be able to define access tiers, embargo periods, and redaction protocols, including for geosensitive plant locations and ceremony materials [3][4].
  • Benefit sharing: Clear agreements should ensure that any downstream scientific, educational, or commercial uses produce reciprocal benefits—monetary or otherwise—aligned with local priorities [3].
  • Context collapse: Digital platforms risk flattening ceremonial nuance and erasing co-dependencies among plants, songs, and places. Editorial policies and interface design should preserve relational context and prevent decontextualized extraction [2][3][5].

Governance for the Yaogará Ark

  • Co-curation: Committees of knowledge holders, regional partners, and researchers should co-govern ingest, description, and access controls.
  • Culturally grounded metadata: Descriptions should include Indigenous language terms, ceremonial roles, and lineage attributions alongside scientific fields [8].
  • Interoperability with safeguards: While aligning with international standards, the archive should support community-specific protocols for sensitive materials and geodata [3][4].
  • Education and repatriation: AI-enhanced finding aids, language tools, and interactive exhibits can connect youth and elders, and repatriate dispersed collections in culturally meaningful ways [4][7].

Ultimately, conservation cannot be separated from the living forests, lifeways, and languages in which teacher-plant knowledge subsists. Ethical digitization is therefore a practice of accompaniment: strengthening territorial defense and cultural continuity while opening carefully framed windows for scholarly exchange and public understanding [3][4][8].

References

  1. Bussmann, R.W., Paniagua Zambrana, N.Y., & Hart, R.E. (2011). “Plantas Con Madre: Plants That Teach and Guide in the Shamanic Initiation Process in East-Central Peru.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 134(3): 739–753. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21295130/
  2. Martin, E. (2020). “The ‘Enigma’ of Richard Schultes, Amazonian Hallucinogenic Plants, and the Limits of Ethnobotany.” Social Studies of Science, 50(2): 281–300. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312720920362
  3. McKenna Academy. (2022). “People and Plants: Ethnobotany in the 21st Century.” https://mckenna.academy/course/an-introduction-to-ethnobotany/
  4. Harvard Peabody Museum (2022). “The Amazonian Travels of Richard Evans Schultes.” https://peabody.harvard.edu/video-amazonian-travels-richard-evans-schultes
  5. Luna, L.E. (1984). “The Concept of Plants as Teachers among Four Mestizo Shamans of Iquitos, Peru.” https://home.iscte-iul.pt/~fgvs/Luna_plants.pdf
  6. Metzner, R. (2014). “The Amazonian Plant Teacher.” EthnoPharm. https://ethnopharm.com/the-amazonian-plant-teacher/
  7. Plotkin, M.J. & Hettler, D. (2019). “New Interactive Map of Schultes’ Travels.” Amazon Conservation Team. https://peabody.harvard.edu/video-amazonian-travels-richard-evans-schultes
  8. Johnson, L.M., & Hunn, E.S. (2010). “Landscape Ethnoecology: Concepts of Biotic and Physical Space.” https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822392731

License

CC BY-SA 4.0 – Yaogará Ark — a living ethnobotanical research archive