# Searching for a ghost?! The vain ethnobotany of foraging in three coastal Mediterranean areas

## TL;DR

This study examines the decline of traditional plant foraging knowledge in three Mediterranean coastal regions due to social and environmental changes.

## Contribution

The paper highlights how socio-environmental changes disrupt local ecological knowledge and suggest reconnection with local systems for revival.

## Key findings

- Land abandonment and tourism have eroded ethnobotanical knowledge in Mediterranean regions.
- Foraging traditions are now fragmented memories due to severed land-based practices.
- Reviving foraging knowledge requires reintegration with local agro-ecological systems.

## Abstract

This paper explores the erosion of foraging-related ethnobotanical knowledge in three coastal Mediterranean areas: Gozo Island (Malta), Kasos Island (Greece), and the Castagniccia region of Corsica Island (France). Based on recent ethnobotanical fieldwork between the summer of 2023 and the spring of 2025 in the three study areas, we document the few remaining wild vegetable uses in each region and contextualise the absence of robust LEK linked to plant foraging within broader socio-environmental changes. Our findings show that land abandonment, mass migration, desertification, and the rise of seasonal tourism have contributed to the disintegration of Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK). These forces have severed communities from everyday land-based practices, transforming vibrant ethnobotanical traditions into fragmented memories. We argue that LEK, particularly foraging knowledge, cannot survive in the absence of continuous interaction with the landscape, and that the revival of such practices requires more than nostalgic return, demanding a reconnection with local agro-ecological systems.