The Herbarium of the University of Navarra has incorporated for conservation 27 sheets with 30 specimens of flora from the Roncal Valley.

The materials collected are the fruit of an ethnobotanical workshop carried out by the Xeingorri Ikerketa project, promoted by the Chair of Basque Language and Culture with funding from the Government of Navarra. The initiative has been carried out by the ethnographer, historian and member of Etniker Navarra Pablo Orduna and the botanist Virginia Pascual, authors of the Ethnobotanical Guide of the Roncal Valley, with the collaboration of Professor Aritz Larraia.

These samples are in addition to the more than two million specimens of plants and animals housed in the Museum of Natural Sciences of the academic center, managed by staff of the Department of Environmental Biology.

The ethnobotanical workshop was proposed as a pilot experience, exportable to other areas and regions, with the aim that young people discover their own community cultural landscape and make contact with the tangible or intangible, as well as natural and ethnographic heritage of their locality, valley or region of residence. At the same time, the work methodology has allowed contact with printed scientific sources, the building of intergenerational relationships with their elders and the development of different social, linguistic and digital skills.

On the other hand, through the delivery of materials to the vascular plant collection of the University of Navarra, multidisciplinary collaborative work between ethnography and the study of the environment is encouraged. In the same way, it is committed to the introduction of ethnobotany in scientific research and the inclusion of 'traditional knowledge' about flora in the university world.

Digital ethnoherbarium

The set of the 27 donated sheets is being digitized in the University Herbarium to be published on the Internet freely and free of charge through GBIF, the world's leading biodiversity data platform. For its part, the Chair of Basque Language and Culture has added to its website the most significant samples of the specimens collected, as well as the various teaching materials and guides developed as part of the project to create a digital ethnoherbarium of the Roncal Valley.