Diversity and use of palms in Zahamena, eastern Madagascar

Madagascar's palm flora is very diverse (171 species) and has a high degree of endemism (97%). Palm products make an important contribution to the household economy of many rural families, especially in the palm-rich eastern escarpments. Many palms are, however, threatened by overexploitation and habitat destruction. We investigated which palm species were found and used in three villages on the eastern escarpments of Madagascar. The importance local people accorded to each species was compared to the number of its uses, number of people using it, and other aspects of its use. From this comparison it was concluded that even if important palms are used for more purposes than less important palms, they owe their importance to one or two of their main uses. We also investigated if there were any patterns in the distribution of informants' knowledge and whether such patterns could be related to socio-economic factors. There was a positive relationship between knowledge about palms and personal wealth and a negative relationship between distance to the forest and amount of knowledge. The latter can be a sign of an ongoing knowledge erosion. Sustainable use of native palms should be encouraged as it may contribute positively to village economy and knowledge preservation, and may provide incentives for preservation of remaining forest tracts.     

Changing Ethnobotanical Knowledge of the Roviana People,Solomon Islands: Quantitative Approaches to its Correlation with Modernization

This study examines the acculturation of ethnobotanical knowledge in association with modernization by analyzing similarities and differences within a language group, the Roviana people of the Solomon Islands. Cultural consensus analysis and evaluation of either village-level or individual-level modernity were performed for seven villages. In one modernized and one less modernized village, detailed socioeconomic data at the individual level were collected. Intervillage variation of knowledge correlated with modernity only when the villages were referenced to the less modernized villages, while there was no correlation when the most modernized village was used as the base knowledge. An informant’s knowledge in the less modernized village was affected by socioeconomic factors, but this was not observed in the modernized village. From these results, I suggest that modern knowledge is easily integrated into the ethnobotanical knowledge system but is not directly related to the loss of indigenous botanical knowledge.     

Traditional Beverage Plants Used by Dai Villagers in Xishuangbanna

One hundred and fourteen plant species which belonging to 43 families and 93 genera were recorded in this study. All these species were used as traditional beverage plants by Dai people in two Dai villages (Man’an and Mansan)of xishuangbanna and 65 . 8% of the plants may hold medicinal functions. The results indicated that the species and the number of species were quite different between the two villages , and the difference between genders was not significant. However, the results of ANOVA showed that there was not significant difference between the average number of plant species mentioned in the villages and among genders, and the mean number of plant species mentioned in young group was significantly lower than that in old group, especially inMan’an village where transportation is much convenient. The study suggested that the indigenous knowledge was on the way of loss with the influence of exotic culture.     

Plant virtues are in the eyes of the beholders: A comparison of known palm uses among indigenous and folk communities of Southwestern Amazonia

Despite its central importance to tropical forest conservation, the understanding of patterns in traditional resource use still is incipient. To address this deficiency, we compared known palm uses among two indigenous (Yawanawd and Kaxinawá) and two folk (rubber tapper and ribeirinho) communities in Southwestern Amazonia (Acre, Brazil). We conducted one-hundred-and -forty semi-structured “checklist” interviews about palm uses with male and female adults in the four communities. The knowledge of each community about the uses of the 17 palm species common to all communities was compared by testing for significant differences in the mean number of uses cited per informant and by calculating the Jaccard similarity index of known uses of palm species among the four communities. The following three hypotheses were confirmed: 1) the use of palms differs according to the cultural preferences of each community; 2) indigenous communities know significantly more about palm uses than folk communities; and 3) part of the indigenous knowledge was acquired through contact with Amazonian folk communities.     

西双版纳傣族传统饮料植物利用的研究

利用民族植物学与人类学相结合的方法,对西双版纳州曼伞、曼安两个傣族村寨利用传统饮料植物的情况进行了调查。结果显示,两个村寨利用的传统饮料植物有114种,隶属43科、93属,其中65．8％的种具有药用价值。两村寨利用传统饮料植物的种类及物种数有较大不同,而村民传统饮料植物知识在性别间无明显差异。ANOVA分析表明,传统饮料植物平均被提及的物种数在村寨、性别间无明显差异,但在不同年龄组间有显著差异,即随着年龄减小,访谈中人均提及的物种数呈下降趋势,这种趋势在交通较为便利的曼安寨更为明显,表明环境变化和外来文化等对植物传统利用知识的传承有很大影响。     

Diversity of palm uses in the western Amazon

We used palm knowledge to understand the interaction between people and the rainforests and the factors that influence this dynamic process. We interviewed 278 informants in 12 villages in the Pastaza and Madidi areas of the western Amazon basin. Together they used 38 different palm species for 38 different uses in six use-categories (food, construction, utensils, ritual, medicine, commercial). Euterpe precatoria, Iriartea deltoidea, and Oenocarpus bataua were best known and were mentioned as useful by 76–72% of the informants in the 12 villages. There was a great variation in number of uses and in how widespread the uses were and five of the 38 useful palms were mentioned by only one informant. Among the socioeconomic factors analyzed, the residence village influenced the informants’ knowledge of palms and their uses more than any other factor. Length of education, prosperity and for how long the informant had lived in the village were also positively correlated to how many palms and palm uses were known. Gender differences in informants’ knowledge of palm uses were not observed in our data. We suggest, that the high importance of forest products to the livelihood of the villagers, the great variation in the knowledge they possess, and the fact that the differences between villages is so great, are important elements to consider when developing management plans for the sustainable use of the rainforest resources in the western Amazon.     

Perceptions, use and availability of woody plants among the Gourounsi in Burkina Faso

The present study was conducted in five villages around the Nazinga Game Ranch, Burkina Faso. Fifty informants of the Gourounsi ethnic group were used. Eighty-one useful woody species were identified, out of a total of 110 woody species in the area. Woody plant use was quantified as: edible fruits (28 species), vegetable sauce (22 species), firewood (33 species), construction (29 species) and medicine (64 species and 167 remedies). Further, species accumulation curves were used to estimate that more than 650 remedies for medicine are used in the area. The community's knowledge of plants was analysed in relation to age, gender, village of residence and amount of intercultural visits. The knowledge pattern was remarkably uniform, with only two variations: (1) men generally identified more edible fruit trees than women, and (2) one village reported more firewood species than the other four villages. The informants had a variety of opinions concerning the availability of useful plants, but the majority found the availability to be fine and 47% of the informants searched for useable products in the savanna on a daily basis. No correlation was found between an informant's impression of useful products availability and his/her frequency of visits into the savanna. The results show that the Gourounsi people live in intimate relation with the savanna surrounding their villages. They are aware of the environment and are willing to learn and adopt new conservation practices.     

Sharing Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Traditional Villages: Evidence of Food and Nutraceutical “Core Groups” in Bali,Indonesia

The island of Bali has several aga (indigenous) villages that have survived despite the pressures of an intense tourist industry and agricultural changes. A rich ethnobotanical culture persists, but the meaning of differences in traditional ethnobotanical knowledge (TEK) remains under-explored. We analyzed information obtained from interviews of inhabitants from diverse villages on food and nutraceutical plants to identify plant patterns, i.e., relevant plant groups with species sharing a similar occurrence. Through cluster analysis, we identified 12 main groups of species and found that species were grouped based on traditional knowledge and the use each community made of plants on the whole, and not on growth forms nor on specific uses. The frequency distribution of species clusters showed a bimodal trend, with several groups present only in few villages, and a few groups present in almost all villages. The latter are defined as “core groups,” and represent the shared TEK of each aga community. Other “satellite species groups” embodied in the local TEK were related to small isolated communities. Cultural erosion caused by modernization, with the consequent fragmentation of information, was judged to be one of the main causes of increasing TEK heterogeneity.     

Karen Homegardens: Characteristics,Functions, and Species Diversity

Diversity is one of the most important traits of homegardens and contributes to maintaining their functions. Here, we investigated the diversity, characteristics, and functions of 75 Karen homegardens from four villages in Chiang Mai and Tak provinces in northern Thailand. In each homegarden, all used plant species were registered and classified according to their main use. The diversity and richness in each homegarden was estimated and the stratification of plants in horizontal zones was investigated. A total 268 plant species were recorded, ranging from 100 to 146 species in each of the four villages. These plants were mostly kept in the homegarden yard or along their boundaries. The most common species were mango (Mangifera indica L.), jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.), guava (Psidium guajava L.), and taro Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott. Besides these species, most plants differed from one village to another. Distance between the homegardens was important; homegardens in the same village were more similar than those in different villages. However, beyond the individual level, the distances alone could not be used to determine similarity. Despite the variation of species found in homegardens, the function and horizontal stratification of the Karen homegardens shared many traits. They satisfied both physical and aesthetic needs to the Karen people as witnessed by the high proportion of food and ornamental species. The reverse effects of urbanization (we used the distance from the nearest urban area as a proxy) on the diversity of ornamental species was also observed. In general, Karen homegardens had high richness and diversity which directly benefited the conservation of plant species. This diversity promotes food security at the household and community levels.     

西双版纳傣族曼仑村植物遗传资源研究:现状与保护策略

本文采用民族植物学和文化人类学的方法, 对地处我国西南边陲西双版纳勐仑镇的傣族村寨曼仑村的植物遗传资源进行了调查和研究, 结果表明: 当地仍然保存有十分丰富的植物遗传资源, 栽培植物有68个科, 136个属, 204个种, 地方品种也较丰富, 集中分布在葫芦科、天南星科、禾本科等8个科; 当地人与植物遗传资源的形成和发展关系密切, 随着社会变迁、经济发展和人口膨胀等各种因素的影响, 原本丰富的植物遗传资源锐减, 从而使与之共存的传统知识也面临消亡的危机。作者认为只有充分调动当地人的积极性, 主动参与到植物遗传资源的保护领域, 才能进行有效保护。     

Early biting rhythm in the Afro-tropical vector of malaria, Anopheles arabiensis, and challenges for its control in Ethiopia

The biting cycle of the malaria vector Anopheles arabiensis Patton (Diptera: Culicidae) was assessed by hourly light trap collections in three villages in Tigray, northern Ethiopia. Hourly catches were conducted in two houses in each village, for four consecutive nights. Light traps were set from 18.00 hours to 07.00 hours in houses in which people slept under untreated bednets. Anopheles arabiensis showed early biting activities, which peaked between 19.00 hours and 20.00 hours in the three villages; over 70% of biting activity occurred before 22.00 hours, when people typically retire to bed. This early biting activity may have a negative impact on the efficiency of bednets to control malaria.     

Influence of diversity and road access on palm extraction at landscape scale in SE Ecuador

The relationship between biodiversity and the activities of small-scale farmers remains poorly understood despite its importance for conservation. In tropical forest areas farmers often include extraction of forest products in their subsistence strategies, and it has been suggested that factors such as market access and diversity levels influence people’s use of forest products. To investigate these relationships, we studied the use of palms in five villages inhabited by colonists and indigenous Shuar in the lower montane forest in south-eastern Ecuador by means of interviews and line transects around the villages. We found that use of palms was not driven by the diversity of palms available in the forest surrounding each village. Instead, the most important factor seemed to be lack of market access so in villages furthest away from the nearest road people used more palm products for their subsistence life compared to villages closer to the road. Forests around more remote villages had higher utility levels when evaluated on the basis of the villagers’ use of palms, despite lower levels of palm diversity and richness in these forests. The lower diversity levels may reflect past human activity or ecological factors, or a combination of both. In either case, our results show that forests with higher diversity levels are not necessarily more valuable to local people compared to less diverse forests. Instead, socio-economic factors such as market access may be more important in shaping people’s relationship with the natural environment.     

Diversity of coevolved weeds in smallholder maize fields of Mexico and Zimbabwe

Theory and empirical data suggest the areas of origin of a crop to be the general area of origin of its coevolved weeds. These longer evolved weeds would have an advantage over species with a shorter evolutionary time and migrate more successfully. We seek to identify patterns by comparing two regions with a shared crop, similar physiographic traits, but little direct contact, one of which is the area of origin of the crop. We compared the diversity of the maize weed flora and its edible components between two rural villages each of Oaxaca, Mexico, and Honde Valley, Zimbabwe, using vegetation sampling, interviews and participatory observation. The Mexican fields had higher species richness and diversity than the Zimbabwean ones. Species richness and densities were higher in the villages that receive more rainfall. Mexican fields had a mainly native weed flora with almost 80% American species and very few of African origin, whereas Zimbabwe had 32% of American and 50% of African origin. The regions shared seven American species and one of African origin. American/Mesoamerican agrestal weeds appear to be more successful in maize. Subsistence farmers in both study areas consumed about 19 edible weed species of which four were common to all villages. Our results also suggest that the presence of 3–4 species of edible weeds per field may be a general pattern in the maize-based systems, and that people not necessarily want or need more, so usefulness—at least as an edible plant—would have a limited influence on migration success.     

Close relatives and outsiders: village people in the city of Yakutsk, Siberia

The paper presents a snapshot of the city-village connections in the city of Yakutsk and an anthropological account of the dynamics of the relationship between the city and villages around it. Demographic changes that started in the 1980s, prompted by a decline in agriculture, initiated an exodus of the rural population from the countryside into the city of Yakutsk. This paper explores the migration dynamics of the rural population to the city. Two conflicting aspects of the relationship between the city and village are the focus of this paper: treating village people as close kin and as outsiders. I examine the image of ulusnik [a villager] and consider rationales behind the stigma attached to it and a social role of the Other which is imposed on the people from the countryside.     

云南高黎贡山怒族对植物传统利用的初步研究

采用民族生物学和文化人类学等方法,广泛调查和研究了云南西北部高黎贡山地区怒族对植物的传统利用形式。结果表明：怒族对植物的传统利用主要表现在食用、药用、观赏、宗教祟拜和文化利用等方面。讨论了怒族的传统文化在当地植物多样性利用和管理中的作用和意义,并探讨了在植物多样性管理中传统管理和现代管理之间的关系以及在我国利用文化多样性进行自然生态环境保护的可能性、必要性和可行性。此外,面对优秀的传统文化知识和文化多样性逐渐消失的现实,作者建议加以拯救和广泛的研究。     

Geographic Distribution of Isolated Indigenous Societies in Amazonia and the Efficacy of Indigenous Territories

The headwaters of the Amazon Basin harbor most of the world’s last indigenous peoples who have limited contact with encroaching colonists. Knowledge of the geographic distribution of these isolated groups is essential to assist with the development of immediate protections for vulnerable indigenous settlements. We used remote sensing to document the locations of 28 isolated villages within the four Brazilian states of Acre, Amazonas, Roraima, and Rondônia. The sites were confirmed during previous over-flights and by image evidence of thatched-roof houses; they are estimated to host over 1,700 individuals. Locational data were used to train maximum entropy models that identified landscape and anthropogenic features associated with the occurrence of isolated indigenous villages, including elevation, proximity to streams of five different orders, proximity to roads and settlements, proximity to recent deforestation, and vegetation cover type. Isolated villages were identified at mid elevations, within 20 km of the tops of watersheds and at greater distances from existing roads and trails. We further used model results, combined with boundaries of the existing indigenous territory system that is designed to protect indigenous lands, to assess the efficacy of the existing protected area network for isolated peoples. Results indicate that existing indigenous territories encompass all of the villages we identified, and 50% of the areas with high predicted probabilities of isolated village occurrence. Our results are intended to help inform policies that can mitigate against future external threats to isolated peoples.     

西双版纳勐宋哈尼族的传统文化与生态系统多样性管理

世界各地的原住民族 (ｉｎｄｉｇｅｎｏｕｓｐｅｏｐｌｅ) ,在悠久的历史发展过程中 ,与当地的动植物和森林结成了极其密切的关系 ,他们之间互相作用、互相影响 ,形成了多样化的原住民知识体系 (ｉｎｄｉｇｅ ｎｏｕｓｋｎｏｗｌｅｄｇｅｓｙｓｔｅｍ)和传统文化信仰 (ｃｕｌｔｕｒａｌｂｅｌｉｅｆｓ)。这些知识体系和传统文化包含着丰富的认识、利用与保护动植物以及生态系统的知识与实践 ,因而也就成为这些原住民族与当地生态环境、生物多样性相互协调和持续发展的社会基础和技术保障[3 ,8,1 0 ,1 1 ] 。在全球性环境变化和生物多样性迅…     

Nuclear and mitochondrial genetic variation in the Yanomamö: a test case for ancient DNA studies of prehistoric populations

Ancient DNA provides a potentially revolutionary way to study biological relationships in prehistoric populations, but genetic patterns are complex and require careful interpretation based on robust, well-tested models. In this study, nuclear and mitochondrial markers were compared in the Yanomam?, to assess how well each data set could differentiate among closely related groups. The villages selected for the study share a recent fission history and are closely related to each other, as would likely be the case among prehistoric peoples living in the same valley or region. The Yanomam? generally practice village-level endogamy, but some migration and gene flow are known to occur between villages. Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA data were compared using F-statistics and genetic distance analyses. The nuclear data performed as expected, males and females from the same village were similar, and the villages were genetically distinct, with the magnitude of genetic differences correlated with historical relationship. However, mtDNA analyses did not yield the expected results. The genetic distances between villages did not correlate with historical relationship, and the sexes were significantly different from each other in two villages. Both the Lane and Sublett and the Spence methods, used to test for archaeological residence patterns, were consistent with endogamy. Hence, ancient DNA can, in principle, provide us with a unique opportunity to study genetic structure and gene flow in archaeological populations. However, interpretations, particularly those based on single loci such as mitochondrial DNA, should be cautious because sex-specific migration and sampling issues may have dramatic effects.     

The impact of group fissions on genetic structure in Native South America and implications for human evolution

In a series of publications beginning in the 1960s, Neel and colleagues suggested that genetically nonrandom, or "lineal", population fissions contributed to genetic structure in ancient human groups. The authors reached this conclusion by studying the genetic consequences of village fissions among the Yanomamo, a Native South American group thought to have been relatively unaffected by European contact and, therefore, representative of the human past. On the basis of ethnographic accounts and pedigree data, they further concluded that patrilineal relationships were particularly important in shaping the genetic structure of villages following fissions. This study reexamines the genetic consequences of village fissions using autosomal STRs, Y-chromosome STRs, and mitochondrial DNA sequences collected from large samples of individuals from multiple Yanomamo villages. Our analyses of the autosomal STRs replicate the previous finding that village fissions have produced substantial genetic structure among the Yanomamo. However, our analyses of Y-chromosome STRs and mtDNA d-loop polymorphisms suggest that other population processes, including village movements, inter-village migration, and polygynous marriage, affect genetic structure in ways not predicted by a simple model of patrilineal fissions. We discuss the broader implications of population fissions for human evolution and the suitability of using the Yanomamo as a model for the human past.     

Viewing Change Through the Prism of Indigenous Human Ecology: Findings from the Afghan and Tajik Pamirs

The effects of socioecological transformations such as climate change, the collapse of the Soviet empire, and civil war are examined for 14 villages in the valleys of the Pamir Mountains in the historical Badakhshan region, now divided between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Preliminary findings indicate concern for food sovereignty, evidence of biocultural impacts of climate change, an increasing burden on women, debilitating opium addiction, the ecological importance of sacred sites, and other priorities related to sustainable livelihoods, such as energy needs (for fuel and lighting) and physical and social infrastructure in the form of roads and schools. In the complex setting of the Pamir Mountains, characterized by both cultural and ecological diversity and marked by artificial political boundaries, the creative and pragmatic interaction between indigenous and scientific knowledge sustains the best hope for survival. Applied research must combine communities of inquirers (research institutions) with communities of social practitioners (farmers, pastoralists, and civil society institutions) to facilitate indigenous participation in generating context-specific knowledge. The goal of such research is practical outcomes that will meet the urgent priorities of village communities. This paper establishes a baseline from which undertake applied human ecological research related to livelihood security.