Knowledge distribution of wood resources in rural communities in Córdoba (Argentina) in relation to informants? characteristics

RODRÍGUEZ LÓPEZ, SANTIAGO; BÁRBARA ARIAS TOLEDO; LEONARDO GALETTO

Río de Janeiro

Congreso; XV International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology; 2007

Society for Human Ecology

The environmental and socio-cultural variables in a community define people?s perception of vegetal resources. Ethnobotanical studies don´t usually focus on the second ones. Consequently, these studies don?t take into account the contribution socio-cultural variables make to the knowledge of vegetal resources. In this work, the distribution of people?s knowledge of wood resources was studied. Interviews were conducted in six rural communities in Córdoba, corresponding to three different vegetation areas (two communities per area). The wood knowledge was analyzed through the socio-cultural variables of each area (gender, age, level of education, job, origin, and way of access to resources). Data were obtained through 114 semi-structured interviews -one per household-, covering at least 80% of the homes in each community. 47 different species (34 native, 13 exotic) belonging to 28 different botanical families were mentioned by the interviewed people. Data were analyzed through frequency distribution, analysis of variance, and Spearman correlation among socio-cultural variables. Significant statistical differences of knowledge were found per gender, age, job, education and way of access to resources; such differences were not found in relation to the origin of the interviewed. Moreover, significant statistical differences were found in each particular area, based on these variables. The results show the importance of studying people?s knowledge of rural communities? critical resources and its value as a great tool for management and conservation studies.