The Role of Ethnobotanical Skills and Agricultural Labor in Forest Clearance: Evidence from the Bolivian Amazon |
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| Authors: | Victoria Reyes-García Unai Pascual Vincent Vadez Tomás Huanca TAPS Bolivian Study Team |
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| Institution: | 1.ICREA and Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals,Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,Barcelona,Spain;2.Heller School for Social Policy and Management,Brandeis University,Waltham,USA;3.Department of Land Economy,University of Cambridge,Cambridge,UK;4.Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3),Bilbao,Spain;5.ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics),Patancheru,India;6.CBIDSI-Centro Boliviano de Investigación y de Desarrollo Socio Integral,San Borja,Bolivia;7.Tsimane’ Amazonian Panel Study (TAPS),San Borja,Bolivia |
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| 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. |
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| Keywords: | Ethnobotanical skills Labor inputs Market integration Slash-and-burn agriculture Tsimane’ (Bolivia) |
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