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Use‐Values of Tree Species in a Communal Forest Reserve in Northeast Peru
Author(s) -
PINEDOVASQUEZ MIGUEL,
ZARIN DANIEL,
JIPP PETER,
CHOTAINUMA JOMBER
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
conservation biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.2
H-Index - 222
eISSN - 1523-1739
pISSN - 0888-8892
DOI - 10.1111/j.1523-1739.1990.tb00315.x
Subject(s) - geography , nature reserve , forest reserve , forestry , resource (disambiguation) , forest management , natural resource , agroforestry , socioeconomics , environmental protection , ecology , economics , biology , archaeology , computer network , computer science
Several rural villages in the department of Loreto, in northeast Peru, have sought to protect local control over access to natural resources by establishing communal reserves. Most of Loreto's villages have heterogeneous populations of detribalized Indians and mestizos, called ribereños (people of the riverbanks). The communal reserves of ribereño villages currently have no legal status, but are regulated by written communal rules and are actively guarded by community members. An inventory of trees greater than 10 cm in diameter was conducted in one ribereño communal reserve, a fifty‐year‐old secondary forest. A doubly random sampling procedure was used producing a total sample size of 7.5 ha Tree species utilized by community members were found to comprise 60% of the total number of species sampled. Uses were divided into six categories: food construction, crafts remedy, commerce, and other “use‐values” were assigned to each species, based on an ordinal system developed by Prance et al. (1987). The presence or absence of markets for specific forest products was found to be a major determinant of that species' overall use‐value to ribereño populations. Neither the existing markets nor the lack of firm land or resource tenure for ribereño communal reserves encourages sustained management of forest resources.