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Use categories
Recreation
Hunting function
Tools
Miscellaneous
Basketry/rope
Marketable item
Ornamental/ritual
Medicine
Light construction
Fodder
Food
Heavy construction
Firewood
Biodiversity and Local Perceptions |
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Number of species
Figure 21. Total number of all useful plant species per category in primary, secondary
and plantation forests
8.6. Nonsubstitutable species
Hevea brasiliensis, Imperata cylindrica, Centella asiatica and Gomphia serrata
are the only plants that have functions or uses for which there were no known
substitutes according to the villagers. Rubber is used for its latex, the following
two as medicine and the last one to blacken the teeth (with its stem, which is
turned into charcoal).
From the uses of plants and land types, we can admit that the livelihoods of
villagers are no longer totally dependent on forests. We can observe a diversity
of sources of income and materials, some of them still found in the natural forest.
The multiple uses of land types show that people know their area still very well
(see participatory map of resources, Figure 8 in page 27). During our survey some
people said they were considering different options for use types concerning, for
example, medicinal plants, but they expected more education and training to that
end. They also considered the possibility of finding and using more ornamental
plants. ‘Life is easier nowadays, and one can start to think more about the additional
recreational or aesthetic things like ornamental plants’, said one villager.