Victoria Reyes-García

Traditional Ecological Knowledge Trends in the Transition to a Market Economy: Empirical Study in the Doñana Natural Areas

Researchers and conservation managers largely agree on the relevance of traditional ecological knowledge for natural resource management in indigenous communities, but its prevalence and role as societies modernize are contested. We analyzed the transmission of traditional knowledge among rural local people in communities linked to protected areas in Doñana, southwestern Spain. We studied changes in knowledge related to local practices in agriculture and livestock farming among 198 informants from three generations that cover the period in which the area transited from an economy strongly dependent on local ecosystem services to a market economy with intensified production systems. Our results suggest an abrupt loss of traditional agricultural knowledge related to rapid transformations and intensification of agricultural systems, but maintenance of knowledge of traditional livestock farming, an activity allowed in the protected areas that maintains strong links with local cultural identity. Our results demonstrate the potential of protected areas in protecting remaining bodies of traditional ecological knowledge in developed country settings. Nevertheless, we note that strict protection in cultural-landscape-dominated areas can disrupt transmission of traditional knowledge if local resource users and related practices are excluded from ecosystem management.

Cultural, Practical, and Economic Value of Wild Plants: a Quantitative Study in the Bolivian Amazon

Researchers have developed several indices to estimate the significance of plant species for humans. We build on previous methods in ethnobotany and anthropology to develop a new way to value plant species along three dimensions: cultural, practical, and economic. We used interview and observational data on the use of wild plants by the Tsimane’, a foraging-horticultural society in the Bolivian Amazon. We calculated the cultural, practical, economic, and total values of 114 plant species from 46 families. We found a low correlation between the practical and the cultural values of species: some species rarely used were frequently mentioned in interviews, whereas some species frequently used were rarely mentioned in interviews. Indices of cultural, practical, and economic value measure different dimensions of the importance of plant species to society. The combination of the three indices offers a more comprehensive valuation of the significance of plants for humans than the use of only one index.

Market Economy and the Loss of Folk Knowledge of Plant Uses: Estimates from the Tsimane' of the Bolivian Amazon

victoria reyes -garc ı́a , v incent vadez , el izabeth byron, l il ian apaza, will iam r. leonard, eddy perez , and david wilkie Sustainable International Development Program, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454-9110, U.S.A. (vreyes@brandeis.edu) (Reyes-Garcı́a and Vadez)/International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC 20006-1002, U.S.A. (Byron)/ Protección del Medio Ambiente Tarija, Calle Alejandro del Carpio N E-0659, Casilla N 59, Bolivia (Apaza)/Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, U.S.A. (Leonard)/ Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Ecologia, Estación Biológica Tunquini, Bolivia (Pérez)/Wildlife Conservation Society, 18 Clark Lane, Waltham, MA 02451-1823, U.S.A. (Wilkie). 10 ii 05

Traditional ecological knowledge among transhumant pastoralists in Mediterranean Spain

Mobility is a millenary human strategy to deal with environmental change. An outstanding example of mobility is transhumance, an ancient pastoralist practice consisting of the seasonal migration of livestock between ecological regions following peaks in pasture productivity. The maintenance of transhumance depends partly on the preservation of related traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). We (a) identified and characterized social groups that hold transhumance-related TEK, (b) analyzed trends in transhumance-related TEK across generations and social groups, (c) examined the factors that influence variation in levels of TEK, and (d) analyzed elements of transhumance-related TEK as examples of adaptive strategies to cope with global change. We used transhumance on the Conquense Drove Road, a major active transhumant network in Spain, as a case study. Through an indepth literature review, participant observation, semistructured interviews, and a focus group discussion, we developed a survey to examine transhumance-related knowledge, practices, and beliefs. We collected survey data from 150 informants. Although a rich body of TEK persisted among transhumant shepherds, we found a marked loss of TEK among transhumants born after 1975, who scored one-fifth lower on survey items than other generations. The maintenance of transhumance on foot is the most important factor influencing TEK preservation. We conclude that in developed country settings, maintaining conditions for herd mobility can contribute to enhancing the adaptive capacity of agrarian societies to cope with global environmental change.

Local financial benefits of rain forests: Comparative evidence from Amerindian societies in Bolivia and Honduras

Researchers generally express the local value of tropical rain forests in dollars/ha/year. The approach is problematic because it produces low values to local users, underestimating the importance of the forest expressed as a share of household consumption or earnings. Here we contribute to valuation studies of rain forests by estimating the financial importance of the forest measured in three ways: (1) the contribution of forests to annual household consumption and (2) earnings; and (3) the value of a hectare of rain forest to villagers measured through the biological goods consumed and sold. We collected panel data on consumption and earnings from 81 households in four villages of two Amerindian societies in two nations (Tsimane’, Bolivia; Tawahka, Honduras). Analyses suggest: (1) forests account for a large share of household consumption (median 38.5%; range 14.65–53.11%); (2) forests contribute more to household consumption than to household earnings (median 22.69%; range 16.56–44.81%); (3) the relative

Maintenance versus growth: Investigating the costs of immune activation among children in lowland Bolivia

Immune function is a central component of maintenance effort, and it provides critical protection against the potentially life threatening effects of pathogens. However, immune defenses are energetically expensive, and the resources they consume are not available to support other activities related to growth and/or reproduction. In our study we use a life history theory framework to investigate tradeoffs between maintenance effort and growth among children in a remote area of Amazonian Bolivia. Baseline concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP) were measured in 309 2- to 10-year olds as an indicator of immune activation, and height was measured at baseline and three months later. Elevated CRP at baseline predicts smaller gains in height over the subsequent three months, with the costs to growth particularly high for 2- to 4-year olds and for those with low energy reserves (in the form of body fat) at the time of immunostimulation. These results provide evidence for a significant tradeoff between investment in immunity and growth in humans, and highlight an important physiological mechanism through which maintenance effort may have lasting effects on child growth and development.

CONCEPTS AND METHODS IN STUDIES MEASURING INDIVIDUAL ETHNOBOTANICAL KNOWLEDGE

ABSTRACT We review 34 quantitative studies that have measured individual-level variations in ethnobotanical knowledge, analyzing how those studies have conceptualized and operationalized ethnobotanical knowledge. We found that this type of research is recent but growing, and is concentrated in indigenous peoples of developing countries. We also found that studies differ on how they conceptualize and measure individual ethnobotanical knowledge. As it is the case in other interdisciplinary research, the lack of conceptual consistency and comparable data limit the inferences that can be drawn from empirical analyses of ethnobotanical knowledge. Future research should 1) validate the consistency of measures of individual ethnobotanical knowledge; 2) analyze the reliability of data generated by the different methods developed so far; and 3) address the relationship between the various dimensions of ethnobotanical knowledge. Studies of individual ethnobotanical knowledge have the potential to contribute to a systematic understanding of humanitys most widespread and ancient form of knowledge.

Reinterpreting change in traditional ecological knowledge.

Much of the previous research on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (herefater TEK) has centred in 1) documenting fading knowledge (eg. Ferguson and Messier 1997; Pieroni et al. 2004), 2) understanding the parallel decrease of biological and cultural diversity (Maffi 2005; Harmon and Loh 2010), and 3) assessing the processes and drivers of change that lead to the loss of TEK (Benz et al. 2000; Kingsbury 2001; Godoy et al. 2005; Gray et al. 2008; Turner and Turner 2008). The general argumentative line in those works revolves around lamenting the loss of TEK as indigenous peoples and rural communities modernize and adopt western lifestyles. For example, in the last decade a growing number of studies have reported changes and losses in the medicinal (Begossi et al. 2002; Case et al. 2005; Lozada et al. 2006; Monteiro et al. 2006), nutritional (Turner and Turner 2008), and agricultural (Benz et al. 2007; Stone 2007; Gomez-Baggethun et al. 2010) knowledge of small-scale societies as they become more integrated in national societies and the market economy. The idea that TEK systems are capable of adapting both to external changes and internal frictions has been a mainstay of human ecology for some time (e.g. Berkes et al. 2000). Yet, by analyzing change primarily in terms of lost knowledge, the usual research perspective tends to downplay the dynamic nature of TEK systems, and little emphasis is put in understanding particular changes in TEK as an adaptive response to new environmental, social, or economic conditions. Likewise, few researchers have examined how the culprits of the loss of TEK (i.e., modernization, technology, schooling, or integration into the market economy to name the most commonly mentioned factors) actually affect the mechanisms that allow societies to generate, regenerate, transmit, and apply knowledge. In other words, our understanding of how these processes affect the resilience of TEK systems and their capacity to evolve and adapt is still limited. In this paper, we shift the focus from the analysis of trends in specific bodies of TEK, to the analysis of the factors and conditions that maintain or undermine people’s ability to adapt and regenerate TEK in the face of changing environmental and socio-economic conditions. In doing so, we advance our understanding on how factors underlying the loss of TEK affect the mechanisms used by societies to regenerate and transmit such knowledge in the face of global environmental change.

Wild edible plants traditionally gathered in Gorbeialdea (Biscay, Basque Country)

This ethnobotanical study aims to describe the domain of wild edible plants in Gorbeialdea (Biscay, Iberian Peninsula), and to assess the cultural importance of the different species and food categories. Field work was conducted between 2008 and 2010, interviewing 103 informants about the traditional use of wild plants for food. The edible use of 49 species was recorded, 45% of them gathered for their fruits. The most important species coincide with those registered in other regions in the north of the Iberian Peninsula (Prunus spinosa, Rubus ulmifolius, Castanea sativa, Fragaria vesca, Rumex acetosa, Vaccinium myrtillus and Arbutus unedo). However, the importance of some species and uses that had not been previously recorded as edible in the ethnobotanical literature of the Iberian Peninsula, highlights the singularity of the area. The consumption of the leaves of Fagus sylvatica, the seeds of Pinus radiata, and the shoots of Pteridium aquilinum are some examples of specific uses. The eating of the fruits of Quercus robur, and Q. ilex was common until some decades ago and is still remembered by the informants. However, the consumption of those fruits has now a social stigma, and as shown in this paper, it can be overlooked by a methodology only based on open interviews. The most important use-category was ‘fruits’, following the trend found in other northern regions of the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas. ‘Snack vegetables’ is also a relevant category, including 35% of the cited species, with a high diversity of chewed plants, mainly as hunger or thirst quenchers. On the contrary, there was a low valorization of condiments and elaborated vegetables.

The relevance of traditional knowledge systems for ethnopharmacological research: theoretical and methodological contributions.

BackgroundEthnopharmacology is at the intersection of the medical, natural, and social sciences. Despite its interdisciplinary nature, most ethnopharmacological research has been based on the combination of the chemical, biological, and pharmacological sciences. Far less attention has been given to the social sciences, including anthropology and the study of traditional knowledge systems.MethodsI reviewed the literature on traditional knowledge systems highlighting its potential theoretical and methodological contributions to ethnopharmacology.ResultsI discuss three potential theoretical contributions of traditional knowledge systems to ethnopharmacological research. First, while many plants used in indigenous pharmacopoeias have active compounds, those compounds do not always act alone in indigenous healing systems. Research highlights the holistic nature of traditional knowledge systems and helps understand plants efficacy in its cultural context. Second, research on traditional knowledge systems can improve our understanding of how ethnopharmacological knowledge is distributed in a society, and who benefits from it. Third, research on traditional knowledge systems can enhance the study of the social relations that enable the generation, maintenance, spread, and devolution of cultural traits and innovations, including ethnopharmacological knowledge.At a methodological level, some ethnopharmacologists have used anthropological tools to understand the context of plant use and local meanings of health and disease.I discuss two more potential methodological contributions of research on traditional knowledge systems to ethnopharmacological research. First, traditional knowledge systems research has developed methods that would help ethnopharmacologists understand how people classify illnesses and remedies, a fundamental aspect of folk medicinal plant selection criteria. Second, ethnopharmacologists could also borrow methods derived from cultural consensus theory to have a broader look at intracultural variation and at the analysis of transmission and loss of traditional ethnopharmacological knowledge.ConclusionsEthical considerations in the ethnopharmacology of the 21st century should go beyond the recognition of the Intellectual Property Rights or the acquisition of research permits, to include considerations on the healthcare of the original holders of ethnopharmacological knowledge. Ethnopharmacology can do more than speed up to recover the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples to make it available for the development of new drugs. Ethnopharmacologists can work with health care providers in the developing world for the local implementation of ethnopharmacological research results.