Rajasthan, India's largest state, exhibits wide variations in physiography, climate, soil, and vegetation. However, its biodiversity faces mounting threats from deforestation, habitat destruction, invasive species, mining, road construction, over-tourism, weakening cultural values, and other anthropogenic pressures. The state’s 13.47% tribal population—mainly Bhil, Meena, Garasia, Damor, Sahariya, and Kathodiya—resides in the surviving deciduous forests of the Aravalli and Vindhyan ranges. Living close to nature, these communities have developed unique traditional knowledge (TK) of the properties and uses of wild flora and fauna, which is transmitted orally through folklore and often guarded as a secret.

Field surveys among tribal and rural youth revealed their close observation of elders collecting plant resources for food, medicine, and materials. While youth adopt some practices—such as treating cuts, wounds, fever, and cough with plants like Tridax procumbens, Enicostema axillare, Adhatoda zeylanica, and Ocimum indicum—they prefer professional doctors over traditional healers for internal medicine. They relish wild fruits like Phoenix sylvestris, Annona squamosa, and Capparis decidua, but generally avoid other wild edibles. Ritual associations with plants (Ficus religiosa, Madhuca indica, etc.) and animals (snakes, owls) hold little significance for the younger generation. However, certain customs—such as the use of Boswellia serrata, Oryza sativa, and Desmostachya bipinnata in marriages—are still followed.

Exposure to urban education, employment opportunities, deforestation, and cultural assimilation has reduced the receptivity of tribal youth to TK. The erosion of indigenous knowledge is further accelerated by religious conversion, loss of indigenous languages, decline in traditional practices due to wage labor, restricted access to resources, and globalization. Consequently, traditional healing practices using wild plants and animals are fast disappearing. Documenting and conserving tribal knowledge is therefore critical to preserving Rajasthan’s cultural and ecological heritage.