Levantamento de plantas medicinais comercializadas em Marabá, Pará

Abstract

Studying about the commercialization and public use of medicinal plants is important for the conservation of species and the popular knowledge related to them. This knowledge is called ethnobotany. This work aimed to make an ethnobotanical survey of plant species for phytotherapeutic purposes commercialized in Marabá, Pará, verifying types of establishments, the origin of products, the most commercialized plants and the influence of COVID-19 disease on the supply and demand of these products. Four fairs and their surroundings were studied. The organization of the study involved the execution of semi-structured interviews applied to sellers of medicinal plants, using direct observation techniques and snowball, with the listing of products being recorded in audio. A total of 219 medicinal plants were listed, being delimited in 15 of higher occurrence, and among these had asteraceae with the highest representativeness in number of species, with mostly exotic (87%). The work showed that most of the herbal traders are women, this sale takes place in fairs and herbal houses. No trader grows the commercialized plants and the products originate from the cities of Marabá-PA, Castanhal-PA, Imperatriz-MA, São Paulo-SP and Cascavel-PR. In general, the medicinal products marketed have good quality and safety to the consumer. And the pandemic caused by COVID-19 influenced, according to the interviewees' perception, the supply and demand of certain medicinal products, especially those with antithermal, anti-inflammatory and calming diseases.