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Cultural, practical, and economic value of wild plants: a quantitative study in the Bolivian Amazon

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/4239/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1663/0013-0001(2006)60[62:CPAEVO]2.0.CO;2
 
Title Cultural, practical, and economic value of wild plants: a quantitative study in the Bolivian Amazon
 
Creator Reyes-Garcia, V
Huanca, T
Vadez, V
Leonardo, W
Wilkie, D
 
Subject Others
 
Description Researchers have developed several indices to estimate the significance of plant species for humans. We build on previous methods in ethnobotany and anthropology to develop a new way to value plant species along three dimensions: cultural, practical, and economic. We used interview and observational data on the use of wild plants by the Tsimane', a foraging-horticultural society in the Bolivian Amazon. We calculated the cultural, practical, economic, and total values of 114 plant species from 46 families. We found a low correlation between the practical and the cultural values of species: some species rarely used were frequently mentioned in interviews, whereas some species frequently used were rarely mentioned in interviews. Indices of cultural, practical, and economic value measure different dimensions of the importance of plant species to society. The combination of the three indices offers a more comprehensive valuation of the significance of plants for humans than the use of only one index
 
Publisher The New York Botanical Garden Press
 
Date 2006
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/4239/1/EconomicBotany_60_1_62-74_2006.pdf
Reyes-Garcia, V and Huanca, T and Vadez, V and Leonardo, W and Wilkie, D (2006) Cultural, practical, and economic value of wild plants: a quantitative study in the Bolivian Amazon. Economic Botany, 60 (1). pp. 62-74. ISSN 0013-0001