Firewood Resource Management in Different Landscapes in NW Patagonia

MORALES DANIELA; MOLARES SOLEDAD; LADIO A.

Ecology and Evolution of Plants under Domestication in the Neotropics

Lausanne: Frontiers Media

Año: 2019; p. 143 - 155

Ecosystems, their components, processes and functions are all subject to managementby human populations, with the purpose of adapting the environments to make themmore habitable and ensuring the availability and continuity of subsistence resources.Although a lot of work has been carried out on resources of alimentary or medicinalinterest, little has been done on associating processes of domestication with firewoodextraction, a practice considered to be destructive of the environment. In the arid steppeof NW Patagonia, inhabited and managed for different purposes for a long time byMapuche-Tehuelche communities, the gathering of combustible plant species has upto the present time played a crucial role in cooking and heating, and work is required toachieve sustainability of this resource. In this study we evaluate whether environmentswith less landscape domestication are more intensively used for firewood gathering.Using an ethnobiological approach, information was obtained through participantobservation, interviews and free listing. The data were examined using both qualitativeand quantitative approaches. Twenty-eight firewood species are gathered, both native(75%) and exotic (25%). The supply of firewood mainly depends on gathering from thedomesticated (10 species), semi-domesticated (17 species) and low human interventionlandscapes (17 species). In contrast to our hypothesis, average use intensity is similar inall these landscapes despite their different levels of domestication. That is, the differentareas are taken advantage of in a complementary manner in order to satisfy the domesticdemand for firewood. Neither do biogeographic origin or utilitarian versatility of collectedplants vary significantly between the different landscape levels of domestication. Ourresults show that human landscape domestication for the provision of firewood seems tobe a socio-cultural resilient practice, and shed new light on the role of culture in resourcemanagement. This approach may offer new tools for the development of firewood andcultural landscape management, and conservation planning.