Evaluation of diversity in consumption of medicinal plants by settled nomadic households living under different management and livelihood status (Case study: Dyvarouieh region in Bardsir township, Kerman province)

Since the evaluation of the diversity indicators in consumption of medicinal species by the beneficiary’s households and its driving factors is of utmost importance in marketing, multi-purpose planning of rangelands and sustainable development, a questionary-based study was carried out to determine the diversity indices of medicinal species consumption in settled nomadic communities living under different management and livelihood situations in the rangelands of Dyvaroeieh in Bardsir township, Kerman province, Iran. To this end, the medicinal species consumed by each household (as a study unit) in addition to the diversity indicators of consumption (i.e., dominance coefficient and Shannon-Weiner index) were evaluated under two management sites comprising Rangeland Management Plan (RMP) (i.e.,Dvyaroeieh 1) and the nearest adjacent rangeland without RMP (i.e., Dyvaroeieh 2, as control treatment ) and three livelihood levels (i.e., very poor (<50 million Rials monthly income), poor (50-100 million Rials monthly income) and moderate (100-150 million Rials monthly income)) under factorial test in SPSS software environment. The study's results revealed that both of management and livelihood factors can be applied by manager to increase diversity indices in medicinal plants consumed by beneficiaries. More specifically, management through RMP was more powerful and effective tool in this way. Therefore, it could conceivably be argued that RMP can be considered as a driving factor in increasing the diversity of medicinal plant consumption and also be a suitable platform to meet the needs and demands of rangelands’ beneficiaries in this field.