The main purpose of this review is to document medicinal plants used for traditional treatments with their parts, use, ecology, and quality control. Accordingly, 80 medicinal plant species were reviewed; leaves and roots are the main parts of the plants used for preparation of traditional medicines. The local practitioners provided various traditional medications to their patients’ diseases such as stomachaches, asthma, dysentery, malaria, evil eyes, cancer, skin diseases, and headaches. The uses of medicinal plants for human and animal treatments are practiced from time immemorial. Stream/riverbanks, cultivated lands, disturbed sites, bushlands, forested areas and their margins, woodlands, grasslands, and home gardens are major habitats of medicinal plants. Generally, medicinal plants used for traditional medicine play a significant role in the healthcare of the majority of the people in Ethiopia. The major threats to medicinal plants are habitat destruction, urbanization, agricultural expansion, investment, road construction, and deforestation. Because of these, medicinal plants are being declined and lost with their habitats. Community- and research-based conservation mechanisms could be an appropriate approach for mitigating the problems pertinent to the loss of medicinal plants and their habitats and for documenting medicinal plants. Chromatography; electrophoretic, macroscopic, and microscopic techniques; and pharmaceutical practice are mainly used for quality control of herbal medicines.

This review is aimed at assessing and compiling the different ethnomedicinal studies in different parts of Ethiopia used to treat respiratory diseases. The data were collected from different published research papers through searching the web sources such as PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and other related websites. The important search terminologies included ethnobotany, respiratory diseases, medicinal plants, and Ethiopia. For this, a total of 65 articles of recent publications (from 2000 to May 2021 years) that provided full information about the use of medicinal plant species to treat respiratory disorder diseases in Ethiopia were consulted. Based on this, a total of 96 medicinal plants belonging to 57 families were reviewed. The commonly recorded families used to manage respiratory problems were Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, Solanaceae, and Fabaceae. Herbs and shrubs were the dominant plant growth forms. Due to the easiest form of their preparation for treating respiratory disorders, leaves are the most cited plant parts followed by roots. Crushing and pounding are useful methods of remedy preparation to treat respiratory diseases. This review concluded that different medicinal plants have a significant contribution in combating serious respiratory problems in Ethiopia. Hence, the complied review of medicinal plants on the treatment of respiratory problems would play a great role in further pharmacological and phytochemical investigations in developing new drugs used for the treatment of respiratory problems and in the conservation of these important medicinal plants.

The main purpose of the study was to investigate the ecological status, ecosystem services (ESs) with their relative importance, and the local communities’ perception of the management of Washa and Borale artificial wetlands located in the Semiarid Ethiopian Highlands. The results revealed that many of the communities relied mainly on farming and livestock rearing with small land size (≤ 1 ha) and large family size. Grass harvesting, free grazing, farming, wetland conversion, and water extraction were the main anthropogenic factors causing the wetlands’ ecological disturbance. The ecological status of Washa and Borale wetlands were thus moderately (67) and highly degraded (80), respectively. Yet, the various ESs categorized as provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services, were still delivered from both sites. Vegetables (carrots, potatoes, garlic), crops (barley, beans), grass, water, and crafting materials were the products obtained from the wetlands. Some educational, research, and recreational services were also delivered mainly from the Washa site. Still, erosion, flooding, carbon regulation, and biota (plants, birds, fish) supporting services were provided at both sites. Yet, many of the ESs provided had low and medium importance due to the wetlands’ impairedness. Yet, the water and food delivered from the wetlands had high and even higher importance than the other services due to their being designed for providing water mainly for irrigation and livestock watering. Still, Washa provided higher cultural, regulating, and supporting services than the Borale’s owing to its being moderately impaired and lesser buffer and catchment area disturbance. Overall, many of the ESs delivered had low and medium importance because of the wetlands’ biodiversity loss, ecological degradation, and water reduction chiefly in the dry season. Yet, the people had good perceptions of the wetlands’ management. Hence, for the wetlands’ restoration, urgent action is required via developing a management plan.