From 12 to 15 July 2022, the Symposium on the Development of Ethnobotany as a Discipline in the New Era (the 7th Ethnobotany Training Course) was successfully held in the conference room on the 4th floor of the North Building of the Kunming Institute of Botany, CAS.

Forty years have passed since Prof. Pei Shengji published “A preliminary study of ethnobotany in Xishuangbanna” in 1982, the founding work of Chinese ethnobotany, and the field has made widely recognized progress. The symposium was held to meet the national call for high-level self-reliance in science and technology, to promote the development of ethnobotany as a discipline, to identify its goals, directions and theoretical questions in the new era, and to train young scholars and graduate students.

Thirteen renowned experts were invited, including Prof. Pei Shengji, Prof. Wang Yuhua, Prof. Xu Jianchu and Prof. Yang Xuefei of the Kunming Institute of Botany; Prof. Chen Jin and Prof. Yang Yongping of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden; Prof. Luo Peng of the Chengdu Institute of Biology; Prof. Xue Dayuan and Prof. Long Chunlin of Minzu University of China; Prof. He Jun of Yunnan University; Prof. Liu Aizhong of Southwest Forestry University; Prof. Qin Luping of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University; and Associate Prof. Zhao Fuwei of the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences — together with seven young scholars of the Institute, including Li Shan, who discussed the future of the discipline through thematic lectures.

Experts and young scholars shared domestic and international policies, opportunities and challenges, and discussed the positioning, goals, directions, theoretical hypotheses and scientific questions of ethnobotany in the new era at both macro and micro levels. They also presented case studies applying modern technologies to ethnobotanical research, giving participants a complete and deep understanding of the discipline in the new era.

Because of the pandemic, the symposium was held both on site and online, with 159 participants (68 on site from 14 institutions and 91 online from 41 institutions). The course was organized by the ethnobotany research group of the Kunming Institute of Botany, CAS.