This section looks at approaches that are typically less quantitative and assesses their biometric value and relevance for NWFP inventory. Approaches include: · biodiversity
inventory |
What is biodiversity inventory?
Biodiversity inventory is basically a checklist:
'a list of biological entities from a particular site or area' (Stork & Davies, 1996).
Further reading:
HMSO, 1996
How is it done and used?
In general, specimens of all individuals are collected and archived in herbaria or museums - this makes the scientific names reliable. Results from biodiversity inventories are usually presented as checklists of species by family and genera for the locality. It allows comparison of data between different sites and contributes to preparation of species distribution maps.
Botanic survey is a type of biodiversity inventory that looks for landscape scale patterns. It uses many plots (fixed size or dimensionless) across the landscape, producing a list of species at various known and precise locations, though without quantification of abundance. It can help identify areas of high biodiversity and/or conservation priorities (Healey et al., 1998), and data can be analysed to produce vegetation classification (e.g. Hall & Swaine, 1981), distribution maps, ecological profiles for species, and understanding of environmental and evolutionary relationships (Hawthorne, 1996).
Biometric value and relevance for NWFPs?
NWFPs are obviously a subset of all 'biological entities', so biodiversity inventories can provide useful information on whether any known useful taxa are present, and on their distribution. But biodiversity inventories rarely note which taxa are NWFPs, and, more importantly, only occasionally include information on abundance - i.e. how much of the resource there is present.
Recent developments tend to emphasize the importance of quantitative techniques and abundance measures for management purposes. Plot-based work can be useful if there are many replications, as this provides more quantitative data and potential for statistical analyses.
What is a social science technique?
Social science techniques used in resource inventory tend to be based on participatory approaches to gain local involvement. They are more concerned with including local knowledge than providing biometrically sound information about the resource.
As noted above, participatory approaches are useful. However, it should be stressed that social science methods are not formalized protocols, but are rather approaches to information collection and processing. As Havel (1996) puts it, each is "... a combination of tools, held together by a guiding principle".
Some different participatory approaches include:
· rapid rural appraisal (RRA);
· participatory
rural appraisal (PRA);
· participatory learning and action (PLA);
·
gender analysis;
· objectives orientated project planning (ZOPP);
·
appreciation-influence-control (AIC); and
· social assessment.
Key features of these approaches are:
· involvement of multi-disciplinary researchers and
methods (though rarely statisticians or inventory specialists);
·
selection of tools and methods depending on the informant;
· adaptive
planning throughout data collection as researchers discuss results; and
·
Further reading: Davis-Case, 1990; Nichols, 1991; Ingles et al.,
1999.
triangulation - use of a variety of methods to cross-verify information collected in the field.
These approaches have developed over time. Earlier approaches, like RRA, tended to be extractive processes, whilst more recent approaches, like PRA, place more emphasis on local people being involved in the information analysis and problem solving elements of the process. The latter recognizes that local people are often better placed than outside researchers to analyse and seek solutions to their problems. More recently, PLA focuses less on information collection, more on local people learning from each other to promote rural development.
There are a broad range of ways of collecting information and exploring local problems, including a range of interview types, and different activities, visual aids and games.
About anthropological approaches
Anthropology is the study of human origins, institutions and beliefs - i.e. `culture'. It includes looking at the interaction between people and their environment, including the plants they use -known as ethnobotany.
External - Looking in from outside. Categorization
and organization of the environment by a non-local researcher, with
definitions and rules from western science. An outsiders approach is useful
when there is need for objectivity in management goals, or if some of the
goals are external (e.g. specific species conservation).
Internal and external approaches
There are two main approaches in anthropological methods - insider views and outsider perspectives. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive, but are rather the two ends of a continuum, and can be used together to optimize research efficiency.
Ethnobotany is an anthropological discipline concerned with the indigenous knowledge of plant uses - it takes an internal approach. Other potentially useful disciplines include ecological anthropology and human behavioural ecology. These have developed methodologies for studying human use of the natural world.
The external approaches from behavioural ecology (examples are given in Table 15) are more quantitative and allow statistical analysis of hypotheses. In this way they provide a more detailed, empirical and theoretical understanding of relationships between human populations and plant resources, as well as analysing plant significance from a cultural perspective.
Table 15: Externally lead behavioural research methods
Method |
General description and purpose |
Example methodologies |
Uses of information |
Spatial distribution analysis |
Describe and explain spatial relationships between human and resource communities |
Landscape mapping and remote sensing Ground mapping Extrapolating resource production Spatial distribution of resource production and productivity |
Various descriptive and analytical operations dealing with spatial relationships between human and plant communities |
Human activity studies |
Record the time spent at various resource-related behaviours through systematic observation techniques; compare time spent at different activities |
Time and motion studies Time allocation studies |
Statistical description and analysis of activity patterns of a community; necessary component of input-output studies |
Resource accounting |
Keep records of resource types and amounts procured or utilized by the study community during a given period |
Dietary survey (weighed inventory, dietary recall, food frequency, weighted intake) Marketing survey Ethnopharmacological survey |
Derive measures of the importance of different resource species and the level of exploitation pressure on these resource; necessary component of input-output studies |
Input-output analysis |
Cost-benefit type of analysis of different activities using time allocation and resource accounting data |
Rational choice models Optimal foraging analysis Linear programme analysis |
Describe or explain the interactive relationships between populations and resources |
After Zent (1996)
Such methods, while not yet applied to NWFP inventory, are potentially useful because:
· their quantitative nature provides more biometric rigour than classical anthropological approaches; and
· methods are compatible with those in other professional fields, such as forestry, economics and commercial development.
Ethnobotany has been practised since 1895, though definitions and scope have changed. Current definitions still vary greatly, but in effect, it is about the study of local people's knowledge and relationships with plants.
Ethnobotany
What is ethnobotany?
Study of the interaction between people and their environment, including the plants they use.
Ethnobotanists are increasingly finding themselves as advisers in resource management. This makes it important for their recommendations to be well founded in order to avoid overharvesting of the plants in question (Cunningham, 1996b). Quantitative methods are key in the provision of best management advice. Consequently, ethnobotany is in an evolutionary state - moving from being a classical, purely descriptive method to a more quantifiable science as it acquires some of the methodologies noted above in Section 3. Table 16 highlights some of the key differences between the old and the new.
Classical ethnobotanical inventory |
Quantitative ethnobotany | |
Main thrust |
Typically, ethnobotanical inventory has prepared lists of plant species used by different ethnic groups. Scientific naming of plants is the main priority |
Transforms the traditional local knowledge into quantifiable relative use values |
Advantages for NWFP inventory |
The lists may provide a useful overview of the plants used by a local community |
Quantification means that: · studies can be replicated - two different researchers would get the same result · it allows statistical hypothesis testing of how significant given plants are to local people |
Drawbacks |
There is rarely any quantitative information on level of use or abundance, with no indication of relative importance to the society Data sources may be very varied, making comparisons and verification difficult Take more time than is usually available for NWFP inventory and assessments within development projects |
It is not biometrically rigorous as there are: · no formal sampling (systematic plot selection is time-consuming and expensive) · no or few replicates (often 1 plot per site) · no statistical compilation or analysis of data collected Requires familiarity with biometric sampling techniques and their theoretical bases to provide statistical rigour |
Developments needed |
There is limited progress with development of techniques for rapid assessments |
Greater use of biometric sampling where management recommendations are required, e.g. for extractive reserves or protected/conservation areas |
Quantitative ethnobotany and NWFP inventory
Despite lacking a sound biometric basis, quantitative ethnobotany has been used in NWFP resource assessment. Key methods involve relative use values - for species and for the forest as a whole.
Several species use value methodologies have been developed (see Table 17). This approach is promising, as it is both quantitative and focuses on the plants, but has its problems:
· Data are collected on a single day, providing a snapshot of local priorities, which might be different on another day through mood or seasonal changes. Repeating the collection on different days/seasons would help to minimize error, as would ensuring that there were adequate numbers of informants.
· It assumes that a plant with several uses (e.g. a plant used occasionally for several illnesses) is more valuable than one with a single use (e.g. a staple food), as it ignores frequency and amount collected.
· It might also miss NWFPs which are important to only a few members of the community.
Method |
Data required |
Calculations |
Subjective allocation |
Several types of interview technique and/or direct observation |
Relative importance of each use is subjectively assigned by the researcher on the basis of his or her assessment of the cultural significance of each plant or use |
Informant consensus |
Independent interviews of individual informants |
Importance of each use calculated directly from the degree of consensus in informants responses |
Uses totalled |
Interviews, sometimes by direct observation |
Number of uses summed by category of plant use, taxon or vegetation type. Not very good because, all uses given equal weights and total number of uses may be a function of research effort rather than true significance of plant, vegetation type, etc. |
(after Phillips, 1996)
The basis of the determination of forest use values is in the use of measured plots in which the number and importance of useful species are quantified by researchers and local people. The use values for species within the plot are added together to make a total use value for the plot. Plots are usually selected to be representative, for example, of forest types (external, scientific rationale) or of local uses and perspectives (internal, local rationale). With plots of typically 1 ha, this level of work is time-consuming and costly - usually few plots are sampled. Costs can be reduced if previously established ecological PSPs are used, as this eliminates the need for collection of samples and naming efforts.
From the plots, use values are often extrapolated across a forest type, whole community lands, or even sometimes nationally. However, the small numbers of plots used often makes the validity of such extrapolation questionable.
What are economic methods?
· They assess the contribution of NWFPs to local and macro economies through marketing and adding value; and
· evaluate the costs and benefits of including NWFPs in management plans.
Further reading: Godoy et al., 1993; Wollenberg, 2000.
Economic methods relate to the increasingly recognized potential of NWFPs to the development of new industries, markets and income sources, and to valuation studies. They are not designed to be biometrically sound methods - as they do not involve direct resource assessment, instead using market information (econometrics). However, they can be important in the design of NWFP inventory, as this information influences management decisions.
Further reading on market analysis and development:
Lecup & Nicholson, 2000
Market and income studies assess the income generating potential of NWFPs through:
· market research, either conventionally at the larger scale, or using participatory methods at the community-scale;
· investigating the patterns and quantities of products in the trading networks. This can estimate the amount of raw material involved in different enterprises, and is useful to highlight where there are supply problems in the chain or to improve understanding of trade relationships. In other words, it improves the picture of supply and demand, and can be used in conjunction with harvest records; and
· studying the relationship between local incomes and NWFP use, through putting together information on collection levels and price.
Cost-benefit and valuation studies look at the current value of the resource to different stakeholders, and can be used to compare values of different land uses - e.g. retaining forest cover vs conversion to agriculture. This has been used to add weight to forest conservation debates.
Clearly data on the resource base are needed along with economic studies for effective management of the resource, but economic studies can identify barriers to development of the resource that are not related to the resource itself.