Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Role of Ethnobotanical Skills and Agricultural Labor in Forest Clearance: Evidence from the Bolivian Amazon

  • Report
  • Published:
AMBIO Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alston, M. 1999. Women and farming: Property and power. Sociologia Ruralis 39: 117–119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Angelsen, A. 1999. Agricultural expansion and deforestation: Modelling the impact of population, market forces and property rights. Journal of Development Economics 58: 185–218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Angelsen, A., and D. Kaimowitz. 1999. Rethinking the causes of deforestation: Lessons from economic models. World Bank Research Observer 14: 73–98.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Barrera-Bassols, N., and V. Toledo. 2005. Ethnoecology of the Yucatec Maya: Symbolism, knowledge, and management of natural resources. Journal of Latin American Geography 4: 9–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bellon, M.R., and J.E. Taylor. 1993. Folk soil taxonomy and the partial adoption of new seed varieties. Economic Development and Cultural Change 41: 763–786.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bentley, J., and G. Rodriquez. 2001. Honduran folk entomology. Current Anthropology 42: 285–301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berkes, F., J. Colding, and C. Folke. 2000. Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management. Ecological Applications 10: 1251–1262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bluffstone, R.A. 1995. The effect of labor-market performance on deforestation in developing-countries under open access—An example from rural Nepal. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 29: 42–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, D.R. 2006. Personal preferences and intensification of land use: Their impact on southern Cameroonian slash-and-burn agroforestry systems. Agroforestry Systems 68: 53–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Casse, T., A. Milhoj, S. Ranaivoson, and J.R. Randriamanarivo. 2004. Causes of deforestation in southwestern Madagascar: What do we know? Forest Policy and Economics 6: 33–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Janvry, A., M. Fafchamps, and E. Sadoulet. 1991. Peasant household behaviour with missing markets: Some paradoxes explained. The Economic Journal 101: 1400–1417.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deacon, R.T. 1995. Assessing the relationship between government policy and deforestation. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 28: 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deacon, R.T. 1999. Deforestation and ownership: Evidence from historical accounts and contemporary data. Land Economics 75: 341–359.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delang, C.O. 2002. Deforestation in northern Thailand: The result of Hmong farming practices or Thai development strategies? Society & Natural Resources 15: 483–501.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster, A.D., and M.R. Rosenzweig. 2003. Economic growth and the rise of forests. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118: 601–637.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fox, J., and J. Gershman. 2000. The World Bank and social capital: Lessons from ten rural development projects in the Philippines and Mexico. Policy Sciences 33: 399–419.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geist, H.J., and E.F. Lambin. 2002. Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation. BioScience 52: 143–150.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Godoy, R., V. Reyes-García, C.C. Gravlee, T. Huanca, W.R. Leonard, T.W. McDade, and S. Tanner. 2009. Moving beyond a snapshot to understand changes in the well-being of Native Amazonians Panel Evidence (2002–2006) from Bolivia. Current Anthropology 50: 560–570.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Godoy, R., V. Reyes-García, T. Huanca, W.R. Leonard, T. McDade, S. Tanner, and C. Seyfried. 2007. On the measure of income and the economic unimportance of social capital—Evidence from a native Amazonian society of farmers and foragers. Journal of Anthropological Research 63: 239–260.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunatileke, H., and U. Chakravorty. 2003. Protecting forests through farming—A dynamic model of nontimber forest extraction. Environmental & Resource Economics 24: 1–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hardwick, K., J.R. Healey, S. Elliott, and D. Blakesley. 2004. Research needs for restoring seasonal tropical forests in Thailand: Accelerated natural regeneration. New Forests 27: 285–302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huanca, T. 2008. Tsimane’ oral tradition, landscape, and identity in tropical forest. La Paz: Imprenta Wagui.

    Google Scholar 

  • Long, C.L., and Y.L. Zhou. 2001. Indigenous community forest management of Jinuo people’s swidden agroecosystems in southwest China. Biodiversity and Conservation 10: 753–767.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lopez, R. 1998. The tragedy of the commons in Cote d’Ivoire agriculture: Empirical evidence and implications for evaluating trade policies. World Bank Economic Review 12: 105–131.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDade, T., V. Reyes-García, W. Leonard, S. Tanner, and T. Huanca. 2007. Maternal ethnobotanical knowledge is associated with multiple measures of child health in the Bolivian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104: 6134–6139.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Nair, P.K.R. 1993. An introduction to agroforestry. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Omamo, S.W. 1998. Farm-to-market transaction costs and specialisation in small-scale agriculture: Explorations with a non-separable household model. Journal of Development Studies 35: 152–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palm, C.A., S.A. Vosti, P.A. Sanchez, and P.J. Ericksen. 2005. Slash-and-burn agriculture: The search for alternatives. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pascual, U. 2005. Land use intensification potential in slash-and-burn farming through improvements in technical efficiency. Ecological Economics 52: 497–511.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pascual, U., and E.B. Barbier. 2006. Deprived land-use intensification in shifting cultivation: The population pressure hypothesis revisited. Agricultural Economics 34: 155–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pascual, U., and E.B. Barbier. 2007. On price liberalization, poverty, and shifting cultivation: An example from Mexico. Land Economics 83: 192–216.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pendleton, L.H., and E.L. Howe. 2002. Market integration, development, and smallholder forest clearance. Land Economics 78: 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ramirez, O., and S. Shultz. 2001. Poisson count models to explain the adoption of agricultural and natural resource management technologies by small farmers in Central American Countries. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 32: 21–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-García, V., J. Broesch, L. Calvet-Mir, N. Fuentes-Pelaez, T.W. Mcdade, S. Parsa, S. Tanner, T. Huanca, W.R. Leonard, and M.R. Martinez-Rodriguez. 2009a. Cultural transmission of ethnobotanical knowledge and skills: An empirical analysis from an Amerindian Society. Evolution and Human Behavior 30: 274–285.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-García, V., R. Godoy, V. Vadez, L. Apaza, E. Byron, T. Huanca, W.R. Leonard, E. Perez, and D. Wilkie. 2003. Ethnobotanical knowledge shared widely among Tsimane’ Amerindians, Bolivia. Science 299: 1707.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-García, V., R.A. Godoy, V. Vadez, I. Ruiz-Mallen, T. Huanca, W.R. Leonard, T.W. Mcdade, and S. Tanner. 2009b. The pay-offs to sociability. Human Nature (An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective) 20: 431–446.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-García, V., J. Ledezma, J. Paneque-Galvez, M. Orta, M. Gueze, A. Lobo, D. Guinard, T. Huanca, A. Luz, and TAPS study team. 2010. Presence and purpose of non-indigenous peoples on indigenous lands. A descriptive account from the Bolivian Lowlands. Society & Natural Resources (in press).

  • Reyes-García, V., T. McDade, V. Vadez, T. Huanca, W.R. Leonard, S. Tanner, and R. Godoy. 2008a. Non-market returns to traditional human capital: Nutritional status and traditional knowledge in a native Amazonian society. Journal of Development Studies 44: 217–232.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-García, V., V. Vadez, E. Byron, L. Apaza, W.R. Leonard, E. Perez, and D. Wilkie. 2005. Market economy and the loss of folk knowledge of plant uses: Estimates from the Tsimane’ of the Bolivian Amazon. Current Anthropology 46: 651–656.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-García, V., V. Vadez, T. Huanca, W.R. Leonard, and T. McDade. 2007a. Economic development and local ecological knowledge: A deadlock? Quantitative research from a native Amazonian society. Human Ecology 35: 371–377.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-García, V., V. Vadez, N. Marti, T. Huanca, W.R. Leonard, and S. Tanner. 2008b. Ethnobotanical knowledge and crop diversity in swidden fields: A study in a native Amazonian society. Human Ecology 36: 569–580.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-García, V., V. Vadez, S. Tanner, T. Huanca, W.R. Leonard, and T. McDade. 2007b. Ethnobotanical skills and clearance of tropical rain forest for agriculture: A case study in the lowlands of Bolivia. AMBIO 36: 406–408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sackett, R. 1996. Time, energy, and the indolent savage. A quantitative cross-cultural test of the primitive affluence hypothesis. Los Angeles: University of California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saito, K., B. Linquist, B. Keobualapha, T. Shiraiwa, and T. Horie. 2006. Farmers’ knowledge of soils in relation to cropping practices: A case study of farmers in upland rice based slash-and-burn systems of northern Laos. Geoderma 136: 64–74.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Shively, G.E., and S. Pagiola. 2004. Agricultural intensification, local labor markets, and deforestation in the Philippines. Environment and Development Economics 9: 241–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Toledo, V., B. Ortiz-Espejel, L. Cortes, P. Moguel, and M. Ordoñez. 2003. The multiple use of tropical forests by indigenous peoples in Mexico: A case of adaptive management. Conservation Ecology 7: 9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vadez, V., V. Reyes García, R. Godoy, L. Williams, L. Apaza, E. Byron, T. Huanca, W. Leonard, E. Perez, and D. Wilkie. 2003. Validity of self-reports to measure deforestation: Evidence from the Bolivian lowlands. Field Methods 15: 289–304.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vadez, V., V. Reyes-García, T. Huanca, and W.R. Leonard. 2008. Cash cropping, farm technologies, and deforestation: What are the connections? A model with empirical data from the Bolivian Amazon. Human Organization 67: 384–396.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Research was funded by grants from the programs of Biological and Cultural Anthropology of the National Science Foundation (0134225, 0200767, and 0322380). Thanks go to R. Godoy for comments to a previous version of this article, and to GT-Agroecosystems, ICRISAT-Patancheru, for providing Reyes-García with office facilities.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICREA and Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Bellatera, Barcelona, Spain

    Victoria Reyes-García

  2. Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 02454-9110, USA

    Victoria Reyes-García

  3. Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB39EP, UK

    Unai Pascual

  4. Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Alameda Urquijo 4, Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain

    Unai Pascual

  5. ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics), Patancheru, 502324, Andhra Pradesh, India

    Vincent Vadez

  6. CBIDSI-Centro Boliviano de Investigación y de Desarrollo Socio Integral, Correo Central, San Borja, Beni, Bolivia

    Tomás Huanca

Authors
  1. Victoria Reyes-García
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Unai Pascual
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Vincent Vadez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Tomás Huanca
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Consortia

TAPS Bolivian Study Team

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Victoria Reyes-García.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Reyes-García, V., Pascual, U., Vadez, V. et al. The Role of Ethnobotanical Skills and Agricultural Labor in Forest Clearance: Evidence from the Bolivian Amazon. AMBIO 40, 310–321 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-010-0107-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-010-0107-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation