La Tour du Valat

Institut de recherche pour la conservation des zones humides méditerranéennes

Titre :	The Role of Ethnobotanical Skills and Agricultural Labor in Forest Clearance: Evidence from the Bolivian Amazon (2011)
Auteurs :	Victoria Reyes-Garcia, Auteur ; Unai Pascual, Auteur ; Vincent Vadez, Auteur ; Tomas Huanca, Auteur
Type de document :	Article
Dans :	AMBIO (40(3) MAY 2011)
Article en page(s) :	310-321
Langues:	Anglais
Résumé :	Research on the benefits of local ecological knowledge for conservation lacks empirical data on the pathways through which local knowledge might affect natural resources management. We test whether ethnobotanical skills, a proxy for local ecological knowledge, are associated to the clearance of forest through their interaction with agricultural labor. We collected information from men in a society of gatherers-horticulturalist, the Tsimane' (Bolivia). Data included a baseline survey, a survey of ethnobotanical skills (n = 190 men), and two surveys on agricultural labor inputs (n = 466 plots). We find a direct effect of ethnobotanical skills in lowering the extent of forest cleared in fallow but not in old-growth forest. We also find that the interaction between ethnobotanical skills and labor invested in shifting cultivation has opposite effects depending on whether the clearing is done in old-growth or fallow forest. We explain the finding in the context of Tsimane' increasing integration to the market economy.

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