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Influence of Socioeconomic Factors on the Knowledge and Consumption of Firewood in the Atlantic Forest of Northeast Brazil

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Abstract

We aim to evaluate whether socioeconomic factors influence the knowledge, use, preference, and consumption of firewood in a rural community in Northeast Brazil. We conducted semi-structured interviews with heads of households to obtain socioeconomic data and measured daily consumption of firewood using in situ inventories during two distinct periods of the year. We performed GLM analyses to determine if the socioeconomic variables influence the knowledge, use, preference, and consumption of firewood per capita, per residence, and for the community over daily, monthly, and annual periods. The interviewees cited a total of 87 ethnospecies as known, 47 as used, and 29 as preferred for firewood. Age was the only variable that influenced species richness, whereas wood consumption was influenced by income, schooling, and number of residents. Although there is uniformity within the community in relation to cognitive aspects of richness known, used, and preferred, the consumption of firewood was influenced by socioeconomic factors.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the residents of the community of Limeirinha for all their availability, friendship, and assistance in the process of this research.

Funding

This work received financial support from “Edital Universal” do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (grant number 477795/2013–7). The first and second authors received scholarship grant from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) and Fundação de Amparo à Ciência e Tecnologia do Estado de Pernambuco (FACEPE), respectively. Albuquerque also received a productivity grant from CNPq.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós–graduação em Ecologia, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

    Hélida Lídia Sousa de Arruda & Juliana Ferrão Oliveira dos Santos

  2. Laboratório de Ecologia e Evolução de Sistemas Socioecológicos, Departamento de Botânica, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

    Hélida Lídia Sousa de Arruda, Juliana Ferrão Oliveira dos Santos & Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque

  3. Laboratório de Estudos Etnobiológicos, Universidade de Pernambuco, Campus Mata Norte, Nazaré da Mata, Pernambuco, Brazil

    Hélida Lídia Sousa de Arruda, Juliana Ferrão Oliveira dos Santos & Marcelo Alves Ramos

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  1. Hélida Lídia Sousa de Arruda
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  2. Juliana Ferrão Oliveira dos Santos
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  3. Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque
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  4. Marcelo Alves Ramos
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Correspondence to Marcelo Alves Ramos.

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de Arruda, H.L.S., dos Santos, J.F.O., Albuquerque, U.P. et al. Influence of Socioeconomic Factors on the Knowledge and Consumption of Firewood in the Atlantic Forest of Northeast Brazil. Econ Bot 73, 1–12 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-019-09444-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-019-09444-5

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