Hyun-Seok Lee, Chan-Hoon An, and Jae-Seon Yi
College of Forest and Environmental Sciences, Kangwon National University,
Chuncheon, Republic of Korea

Traditional knowledge (TK), indigenous knowledge (IK), or local knowledge generally refer to the long-standing traditions and practices of certain regional, indigenous, or local communities, which have been conveyed for generations about using materials originated from plants or animals in food, medicine, household, goods, etc. The survey and documentation were carried out for traditional knowledge on mountain-grown plants through the interviews of local people Baekdudaegan Mountain in Gangwon Province, Republic of Korea, which is located in the mid-eastern part of Korean Peninsula. The province was divided into five survey areas, for the sake of convenience, along the Baedudaegan Mountain. It was found that men have more traditional knowledge than women. It is presumed that men usually work in the field and have more chances to harvest plants in mountain and field than women. Persons older than 71 to 75 years old explained more usage examples and plants than persons of other ages. More than half of the plants surveyed were used as medicines to cure cold, fever, stomach ailments, joint pains, injury, woman’s disease, etc. The secondary usage was foodstuffs. Some of the plants were used differently both in purpose and method by different communities. Medicinal and edible plants were important during the last decades because medicine and food were not easily available due to social unrest during colonization and internal conflicts in the Korean Peninsula. Some plants used have toxic materials, but interviewees were familiar with the ways how to remove them, although the process was not supported scientifically and technologically. Thus it needs a lot of caution if one takes these plants as medicine or food. The popular part of a plant is the whole plant, leaf, root stem, etc. in order. It was believed that herbs are used more frequently than trees because they are easily accessible and not necessarily divided. The collection season was from spring to autumn, widely distributed throughout the year.