**Shared but Threatened: The Heritage of Wild Food Plant Gathering among Di**ff**erent Linguistic and Religious Groups in the Ishkoman and Yasin Valleys, North Pakistan**

#### **Muhammad Abdul Aziz 1, Arshad Mehmood Abbasi <sup>2</sup> , Zahid Ullah <sup>3</sup> and Andrea Pieroni 1,\***


#### Received: 21 March 2020; Accepted: 4 May 2020; Published: 8 May 2020

**Abstract:** A wild food ethnobotanical field study was conducted in the Ishkoman and Yasin valleys, located in the Hindukush Mountain Range of Gilgit-Baltistan, northern Pakistan. These valleys are inhabited by diverse, often marginalized, linguistic and religious groups. The field survey was conducted via one hundred and eighty semistructured interviews to record data in nine villages. Forty gathered wild food botanical and mycological taxa were recorded and identified. Comparative analysis among the different linguistic and religious groups revealed that the gathered wild food plants were homogenously used. This may be attributed to the sociocultural context of the study area, where most of the population professes the Ismaili Shia Islamic faith, and to the historical stratifications of different populations along the centuries, which may have determined complex adaptation processes and exchange of possibly distinct pre-existing food customs. A few wild plants had very rarely or never been previously reported as food resources in Pakistan, including *Artemisia annua*, *Hedysarum falconeri, Iris hookeriana*, *Lepidium didymium* and *Saussurea lappa.* Additionally, the recorded local knowledge is under threat and we analyzed possible factors that have caused this change. The recorded biocultural heritage could, however, represent a crucial driver, if properly revitalized, for assuring the food security of the local communities and also for further developing ecotourism and associated sustainable gastronomic initiatives in the area.

**Keywords:** ethnobotany; ethnobiology; local ecological knowledge; local food knowledge; Gilgit-Baltistan

#### **1. Introduction**

Food systems and their elements and relationships are subject to constant modifications by wider processes of change linked to regional and global trends. Moreover, with the natural environment being the basis of food production, food systems should always be understood as coupled social-ecological systems [1]. Mountain communities are considered particularly vulnerable to food insecurity, and their vulnerability is sometimes assumed to be increasing because of difficult conditions for agricultural production, social and political marginalization, and the negative impacts of climate change. A number of ethnographic studies have pointed out that food systems in mountains are fragile, dynamic and multifaceted, relying on diverse farm and off-farm sources of livelihood while being subject to manifold social, economic, political and ecological changes [2–5].

Wild food plants (WFPs) have provided a key source of food to humans since prehistoric times, although their importance in the human diet has diminished, first with agricultural expansion and later more dramatically with industrialization and urbanization processes [6]. While traditional/local ecological knowledge (LEK) identifies the complex body of understanding/knowledge, practices and beliefs (UKPB) that human societies have developed in inextricable relationships with their natural environment, and which is dynamic and coevolving with social and ecological changes [7], we believe that traditional/local food knowledge (LFK) refers to the UKPBs related to the environmental foodscape (agroecosystems where ingredients are produced), as well as the culinary practices/skills, the local recipes, and the social contexts of food consumption within a given community.

Both LEK and LFK, therefore, represent an integral part of sustainable and sovereign local food systems that need to be dynamically preserved; however, for a few decades, global environmental and socioeconomic changes, and especially food industrialization, commodification and globalization have had a negative impact on LEK and LFK, which are often considered vanishing and somehow eroded, since they are often perceived as part of a fading, orally-transmitted, local biocultural heritage. Nevertheless, since environmental and social relationships are constantly changing, LEK and LFK are actually not static but should be more correctly seen as a mutating complex that are continuously renegotiated [8,9].

Over the last decade, ethnobiologists have documented LEK on gathering and consuming WFPs in very different regions of the world ([10–14], and references therein), in order to provide concrete tools for fostering sustainable trajectories of rural development, or even sometimes for contributing to food security [15–23]. More recently, especially in Europe and the Middle East, an interesting trajectory of ethnobotanical research has concerned the cross-cultural comparison of wild food plants used among various ethnic and religious groups or among diasporas [24–30]. This emerging area may provide reflections concerning the ways though which cultural factors influence the transmission, evolution and change of plant ingredient use in traditional cuisines.

Pakistan boasts various kinds of natural resources, but the country still experiences food shortages. According to a report of the global hunger index (GHI), the country is facing serious food security issues [31]. In recent years, various biophysical and socioeconomic factors have led to a depletion of natural resources across the Hindukush Himalayan region. This has resulted in a significant loss of ecosystem services, particularly in terms of soil nutrients, water and biomass, and the resultant decline in food productivity [32]. Gilgit-Baltistan (Northern Pakistan) represent a multicultural and multilingual reservoir, which is inhabited by various marginalized linguistic minorities [33] that have a close attachment to natural resources for their livelihood, largely based on small-scale horticultural and pastoralist activities. It is relevant to mention that in northern areas of Pakistan, the completion of the Karakoram Highway in 1979 has had an impact on the local communities [34–36] and there has been considerable economical change, which has led to the diversification of livelihoods. However, at the same time, there are several communities residing at higher elevations that still today can be reached only by foot, and have little reliance on markets to supply food. Therefore WFPs play a crucial role in these peripheral communities [37,38] and surrounding regions as well [39,40]. In recent decades, the rapid processes of "modernization" and changing lifestyle of mountain communities have led many locals to embrace the western-style way of food procurement via large-scale markets, and this phenomenon has been and still is detrimental to LEK and LFK on WFPs [26]. Moreover, the local perception of the effects of climate change already seems to be considerable in Gilgit-Baltistan [41], while its specific effect on LEK is still understudied.

The overarching aim of this research was therefore to document these threatened local knowledge systems related to WFPs, and to provide stakeholders a possibly useful baseline of data for revitalizing them. We specifically investigated the impact that linguistic and religious affiliations have on the gathering and consumption of WFPs in two remote valleys of Northern Pakistan. The objectives of the study were therefore: (a) to record traditional wild food plant uses among different linguistic and religious communities living in the Ishkoman Valley and the Yasin Valley; (b) to compare the same data with the pre-existing food ethnobotanical surveys conducted in Northern Pakistan and (c) to better understand the diachronic dynamics of change of LEK and LFK linked to WFPs in order to possibly promote this heritage in sustainable rural development programs.

#### **2. Materials and Methods**

#### *2.1. Study Area and Communities*

The study area is situated in the mountainous territory that is part of the Western Ghizar (or Ghizer) District in Gilgit-Baltistan, Northern Pakistan. The Ghizar District represents the westernmost part of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan and is a crossroads between Gilgit and Chitral via the Shandur Pass, and also to China and Tajikistan via the Broghil Pass through the Ishkomen Valley. Ghizer District belongs to the Western Himalayan floristic region [42] (Figure 1) and has a humid continental climate (subtype Dwb) according to the Köppen classification [43]. The district is the home of four major linguistic groups: Shina, Kho, Burusho and Wakhi [44].

**Figure 1.** Landscape of the study area (an east-west view) with a wheat crop field. at Chatorkand, Ishkoman Valley, July 2019.

#### 2.1.1. Ishkoman Valley

The Ishkoman Valley is located in the transition zone between the Hindukush and Karakoram mountain ranges. In a historical perspective, Ishkoman figured as a regional political entity between the principalities of Hunza in the west and Yasin in the east. The northern boundary is contiguous with the Afghan controlled part of Wakhan. During the 20th century, the average growth rate of the population in Ishkoman steadily increased at a rate of 3% per year. Shina-speaking residents claim to be descendants of immigrants from Darel and Yasin, while additional migrants arrived from neighboring regions introducing other languages. In the central part of the valley, Khowar-speaking families from Ghizer, Turkho and Laspur (Chitral) took residence. In 1883, the ruler of Wakhan, Mir Ali Mardan Shah, fled his principality and took refuge under the protection of the Mehtar of Chitral. Mehtar Aman-ul-Mulk allocated barren tracts of land in the Karambar side valley to a growing group of Wakhi refugees [45]. In 1906, the total population of Ishkoman consisted of 1220 people, of which 390 claimed to be Khowar (32%), 377 Shina speakers (31%) and 453 Wakhi (37%) [46]. Wakhi habitations were clustered in Karambar. Shina speakers dominated the oldest settled parts of the upper Ishkoman River in addition to both banks of the lower valley where the Ishkoman borders Punial, a Shina speaking area. The Kho occupied the central fertile lands of Pakora, Chatorkhand and Dain. The three original settlement centers of importance continue to be the domain of Wakhi, Shina and Khowar speakers, while younger migrant groups have altered this pattern [44].

#### 2.1.2. Yasin Valley

Yasin valley is one of two valleys located in the middle of the western-central part of the mountainous belt of Northern Pakistan. Linguistic field research has found that the valley has remained the home of the speakers of the isolated Burushaski language [33,47–49]. Jettmar [50,51] asserted that there is evidence proving that the Burusho people descend from an archaic stratum of migrants or even the original inhabitants and that in later times Shina superseded and replaced Burusho in the Hunza and Yasin valleys. Researchers have claimed that it is highly likely that the arrival of Indic languages to the area started with the ancestors of present-day Kho and Shina speakers about a millennium ago and resulted in the occupation of the lower parts of the valleys; Gilgit and Chitral became their political centers from which further settlements spread into adjacent valleys. Previous research studies have shown that intra-montane migration was undertaken in order to search for cultivable land and grazing pastures. Significant migration within the mountain belt has taken place during the present century. New settlements were established in previously unoccupied territory either on barren terraces through irrigation or by converting temporary pasture settlements into permanent villages [44]. The literature indicates that for long periods Ghizer was under Chitrali rule, resulting in the migration of Kho people into the area from Chitral [44].

#### *2.2. Field Study*

A field ethnobotanical study was carried out from June to July 2019 in 9 mountain villages (Figure 2) in the Yasin and Ishkoman valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan, North Pakistan.

**Figure 2.** Map of the study area and visited villages: 1. Barkolti; 2. Sandi; 3. Ghojalti; 4. Sultan Abad; 5. Thawoos; 6. Yasin Khas; 7. Chatorkand; 8. Ishkoman Khas and 9. Imit.

Information was gathered from different linguistic and religious groups that were dispersed in different villages across the valleys. Study participants, which were recruited through the snowball technique, were selected among middle-aged and elderly inhabitants (range: 52–69 years old), including farmers, shepherds and housewives who were considered possible knowledge holders. From each of the studied groups, twenty participants were selected for interviews, including both male and female community members.

Table 1 provides a brief summary of the characteristics of the visited villages and the considered sample.


