Procurement of Traditional Remedies and Transmission of Medicinal Knowledge among Sahrawi People Displaced in Southwestern Algerian Refugee Camps

Traditional medicinal systems worldwide are based on natural resources from the surrounding environment and on the ethnobiological knowledge needed to exploit those resources. Culture is seen as the filter between man and the surrounding environment; this implies that when the latter changes, traditional knowledge and practices come under pressure. When displacements occur because of war or other calamities, migrants and refugees strive to keep the connection between cultural identity, traditional resources, and their homeland (Brainard and Zaharlick 1989; Pieroni et al. 2005). However, their cultural identity comes under threat due to the loosing of ties with the place of origin,