Wild food knowledge beyond documentation: what comes next?

Sulaiman Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-026-00912-6 (2026) 22:58 Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine Open Access E D I TO R I A L Wild food knowledge beyond documentation: what comes next? Naji Sulaiman1* The ethnobiology of wild foods has been largely shaped by a question that now appears increasingly insufficient: how much do people know? The field developed through the documentation of species, vernacular names, culinary preparations, gathering practices, and use categories, producing an extensive and genuinely valuable empirical record. Yet this tradition also rested upon an assumption that has rarely been examined directly. Ecological knowledge was largely approached as a cultural possession accumulated across generations and transmitted through language, memory, and practice, such that recording it before its disappearance became an urgent scholarly task. Documentation, therefore, became central to how the field defined its purpose and scholarly contribution. The studies included in this collection suggest that this assumption is no longer fully adequate to the realities now shaping wild food systems across many parts of the world. Each contribution documents a specific ecological and cultural context. Across highly different regional settings, several recurring patterns become visible. Wild food knowledge persists most strongly where ecological engagement remains part of everyday life, labour, subsistence, and social practice. Where those conditions weaken, knowledge often retreats from practice into memory. Species may remain present within landscapes. Cultural identity may remain vibrant, and linguistic continuity may survive. However, the practical familiarity that once reproduced ecological knowledge through ordinary participation becomes increasingly fragile. *Correspondence: Naji Sulaiman 1 University of Gastronomic Sciences, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II 9, Pollenzo 12042, Italy This distinction between biocultural memory and biocultural practice emerges repeatedly throughout the collection. It is also one of the most significant conceptual implications generated by the studies when considered collectively rather than separately. In central Tuscany, diachronic comparison across two decades demonstrates measurable contraction in the diversity of recognised and actively used wild food taxa despite continued cultural familiarity with many species. Informants frequently recalled plants and culinary uses associated with earlier periods of rural life, even where those practices no longer formed part of present-day subsistence or household routines. A similar trajectory appears in the coastal Mediterranean case studies from Gozo, Kasos, and Corsica, where ethnobotanical fieldwork increasingly records partial memories of foraging traditions detached from the everyday ecological interactions that once sustained them. The studies conducted in the Italian Alps complicate this picture further. Minority languages among Cimbrian, Mòcheno, and Ladin communities remain institutionally recognised and culturally valued, while several forms of plant knowledge have nevertheless contracted substantially. At the same time, mushroom gathering and wild fruit foraging appear comparatively more resilient where communal land-use systems continue to maintain regular engagement with local landscapes. The contrast is important because it suggests that symbolic continuity alone does not necessarily sustain ecological practice. Knowledge appears more likely to persist where material and institutional conditions continue to support direct interaction with landscapes across generations. Comparable dynamics emerge across very different geographical and cultural settings. In Kashmir, ecological familiarity remains unevenly distributed according © The Author(s) 2026. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Sulaiman Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2026) 22:58 to gender and occupational trajectory. Women engaged in gathering, preparation, and household provisioning retain deeper practical familiarity with wild plants and mushrooms than individuals whose educational and economic pathways have become increasingly detached from land-based livelihoods. In north-west Pakistan, displacement disrupted the social environments through which ecological knowledge had historically circulated between generations. The weakening of shared gatherings, collective movement through landscapes, and routine intergenerational interaction appears more consequential for transmission than the persistence or loss of cultural identity itself. The same structural tendencies also appear in contexts where wild food systems remain highly active. In Guinea-Bissau, gathered plants continue to contribute directly to household food security and local economies, particularly during periods of agricultural shortage. In north-west Morocco, women vendors maintain ecological knowledge through local market systems that embed gathering within ordinary economic activity. Knowledge of seasonality, preparation, and plant identification continues to circulate because these practices remain economically meaningful and socially embedded. The study of edible insects in northern Uganda offers another important example. It suggests that entomophagy remains an ordinary and nutritionally recognised component of everyday food systems across multiple ethnic communities. Across these cases, the studies point towards the same underlying dynamic. The continuity of ecological knowledge cannot be understood solely through cultural attachment, symbolic value, or the preservation of identity. The evidence assembled here repeatedly indicates that knowledge remains most resilient where gathering practices continue to be materially grounded in subsistence, labour, economic exchange, or everyday ecological engagement. The studies do not suggest that institutions alone determine the fate of ecological knowledge. Culture, memory, and identity clearly remain important. What repeatedly emerges across the collection, however, is that ecological knowledge is more likely to remain active where cultu (...truncated)