relation: http://oar.icrisat.org/5861/
title: The Role of Ethnobotanical Skills and Agricultural Labor in Forest Clearance: Evidence from the Bolivian Amazon
creator: Reyes-Garcia, V
creator: Pascual, U
creator: Vadez, V
creator: et al, .
subject: Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics
description: 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
publisher: Springer
date: 2011
type: Article
type: PeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
language: en
identifier: http://oar.icrisat.org/5861/1/AMBIO_40_3_310%E2%80%93321_2011.pdf
identifier:   Reyes-Garcia, V and Pascual, U and Vadez, V and et al, .  (2011) The Role of Ethnobotanical Skills and Agricultural Labor in Forest Clearance: Evidence from the Bolivian Amazon.  AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 40 (3).  pp. 310-321.  ISSN 0044-7447     
relation: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13280-010-0107-3