Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation And Development In A ...

8.2 Ethnoecological insights into the ecological consequences of
human resource use
This chapter explores possible uses of ethnoecological data, which is here integrated
with data on cultural ecology, in order to generate hypotheses concerning the
ecological consequences of human activities. The ethnoecological data set used is a
list of species of plants consumed by a set of animal species of particular importance.
This is combined with data on the human ecological relationships with the plant
species concerned, in order to determine predict how anthropic factors affect the
availability of food for these animals.
A list of food plants was derived from ethnoecological interviews on six species
of animals: the major game animals Tayassu tajacu, T. pecari, Agouti paca,
Dasyprocta agouti and Mazama americana, and the ecologically important Tapirus
terrestris. All the food plants attaining more than one mention in ethnoecological
interviews on at least one of these species were listed, a total of 55 species. To each
of these was assigned a score, based on frequency of occurrence in ethnoecological
interviews. For each of the six animal species, the proportion of interviewees to
mention that food item was calculated. For each food item, these figures were
summed across all six animal species. The sums represent an index of overall dietary
importance of these food species for the six animal species concerned, at least
according to ethnoecological interviews.
The accuracy of the figures thus calculated for the importance of food plants in
the diets of the animals concerned can not be determined in the absence of detailed
local ecological data. The demonstrated accuracy of ethnoecological data suggests
they are of some value, in that high scores are likely to reliably indicate high levels of
consumption. On the other hand, the limitations of the ethnoecological data set
already observed must also affect this data (chapter 7.14.1). The list does not
include all the food items for the animals concerned, and it may be that even food
items of considerable importance are omitted. It seems likely that the list would be
biased in favour of those food plants which are also of importance in human
subsistence, as these are generally more familiar, often more frequently visited and
presumably given closer attention to than those with no known uses. Given the focus
of this particular exercise on the overlap between human and animal interactions with
plants, it is unlikely that its aims will be dramatically undermined by any such bias.
However, it is possible that the extent of overlap of human and animal use of plants is
overstated in this analysis. A further weakness is that the methods used take no
account of seasonality, which may be a key factor contributing to the dietary