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| Methods
the results of community meetings and focus group discussions. Information was
gathered from each household head on socio-economic aspects (demography,
sources of income and livelihoods) and some other cultural aspects (history of
the village, social organization, stories and myths, religion). The questionnaire
and data sheets also provided basic information on local views by gender, threats
against biodiversity and forests, perspectives on natural resource management and
conservation, and land tenure.
Participatory mapping exercises began during the very first days of the survey
with two women and men groups of villagers using two basic maps, assisted by
two research members to explain the objectives of the exercise. They facilitated
the process through discussion with villagers about which resources and land
types to add to the basic maps. These maps were then put together to build a single
map representing the perception of the overall community. During all our onsite
activities, the map was available to any villager for adding features and making
corrections. In the case of Khe Tran, we worked a second time with a group of key
informants to increase the precision of the map, and two young villagers drew the
map again with their own symbols.
Village activities involved:
(a) community meetings to introduce the team and its activities to the village
members, to cover basic information on land and forest types available,
location of each type (through participatory resources mapping) and categories
of use that people identify for each of these landscapes and resources;
(b) personal and small groups interviews to learn about village and land use
history, resource management, level of education, main sources of income,
livelihoods and land utilization system;
(c) focus group discussion on natural resource location, land type identification
by category of uses, people’s perception of forests, sources of products
for household consumption and important species for different groups of
informants using the scoring exercise known as ‘pebble distribution method’,
or PDM. PDM was used to quantify the relative importance of land types,
forest products and species to local people by distributing 100 pebbles or
beans among illustrated cards representing land types, use categories or
species (Figure 1). In the following tables and figures with information from
PDM, the 100% value refers to the total number of pebbles. The pebbles were
distributed by the informants among the cards according to their importance.
Field activities
The field team consisted of four researchers assisted by one translator, two local
informants and a field assistant. This team was responsible for botany, ethnobotany
and site history data collection. It gathered information through direct
observations, measurements and interviews in each sample plot using structured
datasheets.