PEMANFAATAN TANAMAN OBAT OLEH MASYARAKAT DI KABUPATEN MANDAILING NATAL

Abstract

Medicinal plant was used to solve the health problems by community both for prevention and medication. The medicinal plants utilization has a pivotal role on the sustainability and biodiversity of plants. Mandailing Natal Regency of West Kalimantan is dominated mostly by Malay ethnicity. They have different perspective in medicinal plants utilization, using a system of religion and belief that is continuously handed down from generation to generation. The study aims to analyze the patterns of medicinal plants utilization, plant use values, the degree of community approval, the most important plant species and to analyze the influence of socio-economic factors in the utilization of traditional medicinal plants, especially the Malay ethnic community in Mandailing Natal Regency. The study was conducted in Teluk Keramat Subdistrict (Sungai Serabek village, Sungai Baru village) and Tekarang (Sempadian village) where 80% of the population knew the use of medicinal plants. The data was collected by interview and observation to the head of the family or housewife with a purposive sampling technique. The data was analyzed using botany indexes i.e. Use Value (UV), Informant Consensus Factor (ICF), Fidelity Level (FL), and socio-economic factors using Chi Square test. The highest ICF value of 233 species for 103 groups of diseases, namely smallpox (1), promoting the brain (1), ear pain (1), and appendicitis (1). The highest value of FL are 81 species. The   highest values of UV is sirih (0,4926), follow by kunyit (0,3312), sirsak (0,3185), bawang merah (0,2994),  kalimao (0,2972), jahe merah (0,2314), kumis kucing (0,1996), saudagar (0,1911), jambu biji putih (0,1614), mengkudu (0,1486), pegagan (0,1338), kencur (0,1253), cocor bebek (0,1253), cengkodok (0,1168), and sirih merah (0,1040). The socio-economic factors that influence the utilization of traditional medicinal plants are gender, age, and religion.