Use of Non Wood Forest Products by local people bordering the ...

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Belem et al.: Use of Non Wood Forest Products by local people bordering .......ment strategies from the study. The article ends withsome concluding remarks about the unsustainable resourceuse presently practised by the local populationnear the national park and the need for institutionalinnovation, technical training of the local population,and further research on a number of issues.Description of the study zoneThe study was conducted at Nobéré, located in theprovince of Zoundweogo (figure 1) which is part ofthe Centre South region of Burkina Faso, at 113 kmfrom the capital Ouagadougou, between latitudes11°25' and 11°45' North and longitudes 1°20' and1°84' West.The study area lies in the North sudanian climaticBurkina Fasozone with an annual precipitation varying between700 and 900 mm (Fontès & Guinko, 1995). Therainy season lasts 4 - 5 months and the dry season7 - 8 months. Tropical ferruginous soils are foundin this zone. Average annual temperature is about30°c with maxima between March and April. Themajority of soils are degrading due to several factorsincluding inappropriate land use, erosion and bushFigure 1: Study site location. The park is presented in greencolour.fires. The natural vegetation is wooded savannahsand woodlands. Agricultural landscapes are dominatedby parklands woody species, such as Vitellariaparadoxa, Parkia biglobosa, Tamarindus indica,Sclerocarya birrea, Lannea microcarpa, Adansoniadigitata and Faidherbia albida.The predominant ethnic groups are Mossi who livewith Bissa, Gourounsi and Fulani. Religions includeindigenous beliefs, Muslim and Christian. Traditionallocal knowledge and beliefs contribute to theregulation of natural resources uses. The populationdensity is 61.8 inhabitants per km². About 93 % ofthe population is engaged in (mainly subsistence)agriculture which is highly vulnerable to variations inrainfall. Sorghum and millet are the dominant crops.Other activities include animal husbandry and trade.Literacy level in the in the area is generally low. Theproportion of people living below the poverty line(8,2672 CFA francs or 126 euros in 1998) is 66%for the entire Centre south region to which belongsthe study area (Ministère de l’Economie et du Développement,2005). People rely on wood for cockingand trees for food, medicine, construction, animalfodder, making pressure on natural vegetation.With its 155,500 ha surface, the park borders manyvillages including Nobéré and provides forest productsand bush meat for the villagers. The NazinonRiver crosses the park from North - West to theSouth - East direction contributing to maintainriparian forest communities.Before the classification of the park, its managementwas based on customary law. Started in 1936,this classification ended in 1976. From this timeon, local people lost their access rights (Naturama,2003). The strategy of pure conservation or integralconservation as defined by Kjær & Nathan (2000)was applied. Such an approach creates conflicts withlocal communities (Sambou et al., 2003), who wishto use the park resources according to their willand needs. Despite the restrictions, villagers collectforest products in the park because some of theseproducts are not available or have become scarce inthe village vicinity (in parklands and fallow) (PET-REA-Burkina Faso, 2002). For these reasons, localpeople and herders who consider the resources of thepark as their property are perpetually in conflict withthe communal forest service, which is committed toprotecting the park and its biodiversity.Picture 1. Parkia biglobosa (Locus bean) in a field ofsorghum at Nobére. Picture: Sié Kambou.MethodologyOur study is concerned with inventorying the natureof Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) availableto local populations, identification of species used,
The Journal of Transdisciplinary Environmental Studies (TES)and how they are managed. NWFPs consist of goodsof biological origin other than wood, derived fromforests or wooded land and trees outside forests(FAO, 2001). The term NWFPs differs from thecommonly used non-timber forest product (NTFP)in excluding all wood while NTFP includes woodfor uses other than for timber, although there arestill many grey areas. In this article, toothpicks forexample are considered as NWFP.Ethnobotanical methodsEthnobotanical methods are useful for workingwith local communities to learn about their knowledgeand uses of the plant world, for example todetermine which social groups within a village usewhich species of plants in what quantities and forwhat purposes. Ethnobotanical studies can helpidentify conservation issues, such as in cases whererates of harvest of plants exceed rates of regrowth.The fact that ethnobotany is a collaborative venturebetween people in local communities and scientistsmeans that a start can be made to explore solutionsto conservation and development issues, even asinformation on plant use is being collected (Martin2004). In this study ethnobotanical surveys wereused to help local communities define their needsfor plant resources more clearly, thus assisting themto state their cases for continued access to certainareas of land or for provision of alternatives to wildgathering. Ethnobotanical studies can also play usefulroles in rescuing disappearing knowledge andreturning it to local communities.Ethnobotany is by its very nature an interdisciplinarysubject, demanding a holistic approach whichintegrates techniques from biology, anthropology,ecology, economy, sociology and many other fields.Techniques borrowed from these fields can be combinedto carry out a systematic survey of the traditionalbotanical knowledge in a single communityor region. Although originally developed to guideand evaluate development initiatives, many of theresearch tools used in the approach of ParticipatoryRural Appraisal (PRA) are readily applicable toethnobotanical studies as well. Thus, even thoughethnobotany began largely with direct observationsabout the ways in which people used plants andconsisted mainly of the compilation of lists morerecently, these subjects have adopted a much morescientific and quantitative methodology.In this study, we use a blend of qualitative andquantitative methods to investigate how local peoplemanage their environment. Thus, ethnobotanicaldata is combined with an ecological approach. Datawere collected using informal talks, structured interviews,free listing of plants, observation as wellas forest and tree walks in Nobéré commune andbotanical and ecological inventories in the park.Data was collected from June 2004 to January 2005.Informal talks are important to establish a rapportwith the community. The structured questionnairesserved to provide quantitative data on categories ofplant use as well as on species used. Hence, it is possibleto compare the relative usefulness of the plants,and rank the priorities of people in relation to utilizationof natural resources within the National Park.Free listing exercises often add more species thanmentioned in structured interviews. In the same wayforest walks serve to remind informants of speciesand uses that were not recalled during the interviewin the village. Observations of harvest and productsfound in household can verify information given ininterviews and may be used to distinguish betweenpotentially useful species and species actually used.The tree walk provides a number of repeated andindependent events. Uses of a specific set of treescan be compared for particular user groups basedon ethnicity, age, or gender. This method will tellwhich species are most valuable for specific usesand whether different social groups attach differentimportance to certain species.Eight categories of plants uses (CPU) based onBosch et al. (2002) and Belem (2000) are consideredin the survey; these are human food, medicine,construction, commerce, art and craft, fodder foranimals, customary rituals and traditional veterinaryuses. Determination of the plant uses within the first7 categories was realised by survey (observations andinterviews) in the villages of Bisboumbou, Koakin,Nobéré and Passintinga while the ethnomedicinesurvey was carried out in the villages of Donsin,Tewaka and Passintenga.Ethnobotanical information was collected withinthe first 7 of CPU using of a formal questionnaire.Questions include the following aspects: What speciesare subject to collection? What parts of plantother than wood do you use? Where can you findthem? (In fields, in fallows or in the park?). In eachvillage, a sample of 30 households has been chosen
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