A2. Justification

An approach to edible, medicinal and decorative plants is embraced given their importance across ethno-religious groups, and because it is an often neglected area of intervention and engagement between aid organizations and prioritized communities. The assessment conducted by the project in Phase 1 showed that approximately 77% of survey respondents reported using wild plants in some way (O’Driscoll et al, 2021). Importantly, close to “87% of Kakai reported using wild plants, with 58% using them for medicinal purposes and 78% for cooking. Shiite Shabaks also report widespread use of wild plants (83%), especially for medicinal purposes (67%). Turkmen communities had 91% of respondents note their use of wild plants, with 78% using them for cooking and 62% for medicinal purposes. In comparison, wild plants were used less by Sunni Shabaks (54%), although the majority of people did still collect wild plants for certain uses” (Ibid). 

Notably, villagers interviewed highlighted that wildflowers being used by women for beautification, and that Young Yezidi, both men and women, would collect and exchange flowers, for ornamental purposes. Through the interviews, some plant varieties for household consumption or exchange in markets were listed by participants, including cheeseweed or mallow, gundelia, curry leaves, truffles, turmeric, chamomile, and rosemary. 

Even though people reported in their majority that they could still collect wild plants, some Kakai and Turkmen respondents reported the destruction of plant varieties they used previously. Along with intentional destruction, drought, and the extensive use of fertilizers and pesticides, the presence of IEDs and booby-traps impede people’s ability to collect wild plants. The initial assessment conducted by the project demonstrated the important role wild plants play in all the minority groups’ cultural practices. Due to the cultural importance of wild plants and the limited focus on them, this forms an important entry point for project activities. An additional factor worth considering is that wild plants are a relatively apolitical topic around which the project can gather people and resources. 

A2. Approach

With a focus on wild plants and knowledge sharing and co-creation, this activity will build upon ethnographic and participatory approaches, as well as on storytelling to consolidate and exchange information through collaborative methods, such as cooperative workshops on planting, cooking, and storytelling, and skill building through resource mapping. The project will build upon previous experiences of UoD on collecting and recording oral memory and stories, seeking to consolidate that capacity for intentional use in UoD’s agricultural extension activities. In-depth interviews and conversations with community members will be undertaken, aiming at gathering additional details about wild plants and geographical areas that might play out as “biocultural refugia” for the preservation and renewal of domesticated and wild plants relevant for cultural practices for ethno-religious groups in Northern Iraq.

The project will develop a crowdsourced knowledge repository (digital, physical, or hybrid), that community members can contribute to, to complete an inventory of wild and domesticated plants, with descriptions of their uses and properties in relation to cultural practices.

Given the widespread use and importance of wild plant varieties of religious and cultural life, workshops and community events will be relied on as platforms for cross-cultural knowledge sharing about wild plants, stories, recipes, and dishes prepared with these plants. Given the gendered division of labor, and the fact that it is mostly women who possess and pass down culinary and medicinal knowledge to the new generations, these events and workshops will have women at its core. A combination of women-only, multi-generational, and community-wide events and workshops will be planned and agreed upon with the core female participants. Events and workshops will involve faculty at UoD as co-facilitators, who should coordinate with communities in planning and convening gatherings to share food made with wild plants, hold workshops to share knowledge about plants (how to identify, harvest, use for food or medicine), and to share knowledge (e.g., some groups may not use a particular plant at all, whereas others may use it frequently) as well as talk about how wild plants are important culturally.

A2. Brief description of sub-activities (in chronological order)

1. Viability Assessment: Interviews in communities to gather more information about wild plants and the ideas proposed here, including level of interest and buy-in by community members to participate (months 1-3)

2. Botanical Garden Action Plan Development: UoD and IU will complete a plan with community input to determine the community garden site location; local viability, feasibility and sustainability of the community garden; access to water; size/extent of gardens; garden usage norms and security; best seasons for building and planting (which may mean that this timeline would need to be shifted); identification of individuals/companies who would do the construction; initial sketches for building the site; decisions about what would be planted (month 1-6)

3. Work with leaders and local coordination: Series of meetings including UoD faculty and community members to jointly determine the most feasible knowledge preservation avenues and methods (e.g.: herbarium at UoD; website; other written documentation; local schools; audiovisual archives; etc.) (months 4-6)

4. UoD botanical garden and community garden construction: site development and small structures construction. Guidelines for the development of the gardens and the type of structures to be built will be defined in the Action Plan (sub-activity 1) (months 6-10)

5. Systems development: Set up knowledge preservation methods (e.g., herbarium; website; written and audiovisual record keeping), including mechanism for community members to be able to report plants whenever they would like in the future; continue check-ins with community members (months 6-12)

6. Rehabilitation of UoD’s botanical garden: the existing botanical garden of the UOD will be prepared to host culturally relevant plants, including but not restricted to varieties of wild plants. The botanical garden will be utilized as a teaching and/or community garden space depending on its location and size (months 6-14)

7. UoD botanical garden and community garden planting and cultivation: domesticated and wild plant varieties prioritized by community members will be stored and planted in the botanical gardens. UoD faculty, staff and students, as well as community members will be able to apply the knowledge acquired in training sessions. In month 12, full control of the three gardens at the prioritized locations will be transferred to communities for preservation, cultivation, exchange, and other community activities, receiving continued technical assistance from the Directorates of Agriculture in their respective jurisdiction (UoD’s botanical garden will remain as university's property) (months 10-18)

8. Event organizing and work with local media: advertise crowdsourced plant inventory, hold events to capture plants and plant information, such as a youth plant mapping days, plant story days, plants and food days, among other (months 12-18)