Factors that influence the intensity of non-agricultural management of plant resources

Abstract

We investigated the relationships of land tenure, biological, cultural and spatial variables and their effect on the intensity of management of 20 edible plants used by the Santa Maria Tecomavaca community in Oaxaca State, Mexico. We developed a non-linear generalized model showing that land ownership, cultural importance and biological characteristics of a plant are the most significant factors influencing farmers' decisions to intensify management of plant resources. On common land, species with high cultural importance and long life cycles are managed intensively, while, regardless of cultural importance, species with short life cycles are simply gathered. On land where particular people have an acknowledged right of use, species with long life cycles are always managed at an intermediate level of intensity regardless of their cultural importance, while for species with short life cycles, management intensity tends to slightly decrease as cultural importance increases. Even though management is generally more intensive in lands where individuals have use rights, as expected from the ''supervised collective action model'', culturally important resources are more intensively managed in communal areas, probably as a result of a long tradition of consumption and of their economic importance.Keywords Models of plant management Á Tehuacán-valley Mexico Á Wild food plants

Drivers of Management of Spider Plant (Gynandropsis gynandra) Across Different Socio-linguistic Groups in Benin and Togo

“…In order to assess farmers' intention to improve current management practices through higher investment of energy, intensive artificial selection, and land allocation González-Insuasti et al 2008), the interview included the following questions: are you satisfied with your current level of exploitation of G. gynandra? If not, what would you like to improve and how?…”

“…Social desirability bias may lead to a tendency to provide positive answers to environmental questions, especially in studies related to behavioral intention (Floress et al 2018). Information provided by farmers was used to compute an expected management scheme based on management forms typology adapted from González-Insuasti et al (2008). Five steps were identified including: simple collection with no selection (1); tolerance, protection, or promotion without selection (2); transplantation of selected spontaneous individuals (3); rain-fed cultivation (4); and intensive irrigated cultivation all year round (5).…”

“…González-Insuasti and Caballero (2007) described different management strategies including gathering from the wild, incipient non-selective management, incipient selective management, and occasional cultivation as a gradient of manipulation of plant resources. The intensity of management of a plant is determined not only by its biological characteristics but also by its cultural and/or economic importance and its availability González-Insuasti et al 2008;N'Danikou et al 2015). Many plant resources are managed in a variety of incipient forms and these forms may coexist for populations of the same species (Blancas et al 2010;González-Insuasti and Caballero 2007).…”

“…The intensity of management of a plant is determined not only by its biological characteristics but also by its cultural and/or economic importance and its availability González-Insuasti et al 2008;N'Danikou et al 2015). Many plant resources are managed in a variety of incipient forms and these forms may coexist for populations of the same species (Blancas et al 2010;González-Insuasti and Caballero 2007). For example, local resources management decisions in the Raramuri community in Mexico were based on a culturally embedded understanding of ecological processes.…”

Management and Motivations to Manage “Wild” Food Plants. A Case Study in a Mestizo Village in the Amazon Deforestation Frontier

“…Certainly, the values attributed to species by people will affect their incentives to manage them (Guijt, 1998) and to continue using them (Ogle, 2001). For instance, González-Insuasti and Caballero (2007) and González-Insuasti et al (2008) demonstrated, from a study conducted in Tehuacán-Cuicatlán (Mexico), that management intensity depends on a species' cultural importance and biology, and these factors, together with land ownership, substantially influence farmer's decisions to intensify management practices. It has also been hypothesized by a number of authors (Stoffle et al, 1990;Cunningham, 1993;Price, 1997) that intensive management of wild food plant species in anthropogenic systems occurs when species have multiple use value and are perceived as rare.…”