From Forest to Table: Role of Wild Food Plants in Promoting Food Security and Biodiversity Conservation in Kabal Valley, Swat, Pakistan

The use of wild food plants (WFPs) has become a topic of significant interest in recent years as the concept starts to be regarded as part of local food systems and important in terms of conserving plant biodiversity. With the increasing list of issues of the world today, including food insecurity, global warming, and the disappearance of biological and cultural diversity, WFPs now have become a means of ensuring sustainable rural development, food diversification, and ecosystem stability. The chapter is a document of the native knowledge, usage pattern and social-economic significance of wild food plants that were utilized by the locals in the Kabal Valley Swat District Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan. A 149 species of the vascular flora (64 families and 119 genera) were recorded to have been customarily consumed in an extremely wide repertory of dishes. These species were classed into six broad groups based on modes of consumption in that, vegetables (36.04%), cooked greens and tender shoots; fruits (30.96%), wild berries, nuts and drupes; salads (12.69%), raw and eaten as a food and source of flavor; herbal teas (10.66%), refreshing and medicinal; condiments (3.05%), natural spices and flavoring agents; and other (6.60%), e.g., gums, pickles and some of the WFPs also had great economic potential in addition to playing an important role in nutrition. The active trade of the species on local markets was twenty-one (14.1) that cost PKR 250-PKR 3000 per kilogram based upon the availability of the species and demand of consumers and the rarity of the species. Commercially important taxa included, among others, Bunium persicum (black cumin), Thymus linearis (wild thyme), Juglans regia (walnut), Zanthoxylum armatum (winged prickly ash), and Zizyphus jujuba (wild jujube). Generally, WFPs are multidimensional when it comes to enhancing food, rural livelihood, and biodiversity security as highlighted in this chapter. It also shows that there is an urgent need to deploy indigenous knowledge systems and cultural heritage in ensuring sustainable exploitation of the wild plant resources, and also provides policy and research recommendations on how the WFPs can be incorporated into the national plans on food security, rural development, and biodiversity management in Pakistan.