Abstract
Iriartea deltoidea grows abundantly from Nicaragua to Bolivia. The stem is harvested for construction, furniture making, and handicrafts. The objective of my study was to understand the potential for sustainable harvesting of this palm. Ethnographic fieldwork about market patterns and decision-making among harvesters revealed the nature of harvesting pressures near settled areas. The study also demonstrates methods for assessing social and economic influences on harvesting.
Similar content being viewed by others
Literature Cited
Alcorn, J. B. 1990. Indigenous agroforestry strategies meeting farmers’ needs. Pages 141–151 in A. B. Anderson, ed., Alternatives to deforestation. Columbia University Press, New York, NY.
—. 1991. Ethics, economies, and conservation. Pages 317–349 in M. L. Oldfield and J. B. Alcorn, eds., Biodiversity: Culture, conservation and ecodevelopment. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Anderson, P. J. 1998a. Demography, conservation, and stem harvesting of the palm,Iriartea deltoidea. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
—. 1998b. Using ecological and economic information to determine sustainable harvest levels of a plant population. Pages 137–155 in E. Wollenberg and A. Ingles, eds., Incomes from the forest: Methods for the development and conservation of forest products for local communities. Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia.
—, andF.E. Putz. (2002) Harvesting and conservation: Are both possible for the palm,Iriartea deltoidea? Forest Ecology and Management 170: 271–283.
Bernard, H.R. 1994. Research methods in anthropology: Qualitative and quantitative approaches, 2nd edition. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Blaikie, P., andH. Brookfield. 1987. Defining and debating the problem. In P. Blaikie and H. Brookfield, eds., Land degradation and society. Methuen, New York, NY.
Clay, J. 1992. Some general principles and strategies for developing markets in North America and Europe for non-timber forest products. Advances in Economic Botany 9:101–106.
Cunningham, A.B. 2001. Applied ethnobotany: People, wild plant use and conservation. Earthscan Publications Ltd., London, UK.
Dodson, C.H., andA. H. Gentry. 1990. Biological extinction in western Ecuador. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 78:273–295.
Dove, M.R. 1993a. A revisionist view of tropical deforestation and development. Environmental Conservation 20:17–24.
—. 1993b. Small holder rubber and swidden agriculture in Borneo: A sustainable adaptation to the ecology and economy of the tropical forest. Economic Botany 47:136–147.
Ervin, J.B., andP. Mallet. 2002. The rise of certification, the current state of the playing field for NTFP certification programmes and future prospects. Pages 7–19 in P. Shanley, A. R. Pierce, S. A. Laird, and A. Guillen, eds., Tapping the green market: Certification and management of non-tim-ber forest products. Earthscan Publications Ltd., London, UK.
Geertz, C. 1983. Local knowledge. Basic Books, New York, NY.
Hecht, S.B. 1993. The logic of livestock and deforestation in Amazonia. BioScience 43:687–695.
Henderson, A. 1990. Arecaceae. Part I. Introduction and the Iriarteinae. Flora neotropica. Monograph 53. New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY.
Johnson, D. 2002. Palm heart. Pages 75–84 in P. Shanley, A. R. Pierce, S. A. Laird, and A. Guillen, eds., Tapping the green market: Certification and management of non-timber forest products. Earthscan Publications Ltd., London, UK.
Joyal, E. 1996. The palm has its time: An ethnoecology ofSabal uresana in Sonora, Mexico. Economic Botany 50:446–462.
Myers, N. 1992. The primary source: Tropical forests and our future updated for the 1990s. Norton, New York, NY.
Nair, P.K.R. 1983. Agroforestry with coconuts and other tropical plantation crops. Pages 70–102 in P. A. Huxley, ed., Plant research and agroforestry. International Center for Research in Agroforestry, Nairobi, Kenya.
Nations, J.D. 1992. Xateros, chicleros, and pimenteros: Harvesting renewable tropical forest resources in the Guatemalan Petén. Pages 208–219 in K. Redford and C. Padoch, eds., Conservation of neotropical forests. Columbia University Press, New York, NY.
Neill, D.,W. Palacios,C. Ceron, andL. Mejia. 1993. Composition and structure of a tropical wet forest in Amazonian Ecuador: Diversity and edaphic differentiation. Presentation at 1993 Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology. San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Neumann, R. P., andE. Hirsch. 2000. Commerci-alisation of non-timber forest products: Review and analysis of research. Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia.
Okafor, J. C. 1999. The use of fanner knowledge in non-wood forest product research. Pages 123–132 in T. C. H. Sunderland, L. E. Clark, and P. Vantomme, eds., Non-wood forest products of Central Africa: Current research issues and prospects for conservation and development. FAO, Rome, Italy.
Padoch, C. 1992. Marketing of non-timber forest products in western Amazonia. Advances in Economic Botany 9:43–50.
Pearce, D. 1994. Deforesting the Amazon: towards an economic solution. Pages 80–101 in J. Weiss, ed., The economics of project appraisal and the environment. Edward Elgar, Hants, England.
Peck, R. 1990. Promoting agroforestry practices among small producers: The case of the Coca agroforestry project in Amazonian Ecuador. Pages 167–180 in A. B. Anderson, ed., Alternatives to deforestation. Columbia University Press, New York, NY.
Pedersen, H. B., and H. Balslev. 1992. The economic botany of Ecuadorian palms. Pages 173–191 in M. Plotkin and L. Famolare, eds. Sustainable harvest and marketing of rain forest products. Conservation International, Washington, DC.
Peres, C. A., C. Baider, P. A. Zuidema, L. H. O. Wadt, K. A. Kainer, D. A. P. Gomes-Silva, R. P. Salomão, L. L. Simões, E. R. N. Franciosi, F. C. Valverde, R. Gribel, G. H. Shepard, Jr.,M. Kanashiro, P. Coventry, D. W. Yu, A. R. Watkinson, andR. P. Freckleton. 2003. Demographic threats to the sustainability of Brazil nut exploitation. Science 302:2112–2114.
Peters, C. M. 1991. Plant demography and the management of tropical forest resources: A case study ofBrosimum alicastrum in Mexico. Pages 265–272 in A. Gomez-Pompa, T. C. Whitmore, and M. Hadley, eds., Rain forest regeneration and management. UNESCO and the Parthenon Publishing Group, Paris, France.
Rudel, T., andB. Horowitz. 1993. Tropical deforestation: Small farmers and land clearing in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Columbia University Press, New York, NY.
Schmink, M. 1994. The socioeconomic matrix of deforestation. Pages 253–275 in L. Arizpe, M. R Stone, and D. C. Major, eds., Population and environment: Rethinking the debate. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Schutz, A. 1962. Collected papers I: The problem of social reality. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands.
Shanley, P., andS. A. Laird. 2002. The process of drafting and revising guidelines for NTFP certification. Pages 20–27 in P. Shanley, A. R. Pierce, S. A. Laird, and A. Guillen, eds., Tapping the green market: Certification and management of non-tim-ber forest products. Earthscan Publications Ltd., London, UK.
Thrupp, L. A. 1989. Legitimizing local knowledge: From displacement to empowerment for third world people. Agriculture and Human Values 4:13–24.
Toman, M. 1992. The difficulty in defining sustainability. Resources 106:3–6.
Tyler, S. 1987. The unspeakable: Discourse, dialogue, and rhetoric in the postmodern world. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.
Uquillas, J. 1984. Colonization and spontaneous settlement in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Pages 261–284 in M. Schmink and C. Wood, eds., Frontier expansion in Amazonia. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, FL.
Vayda, A.P. 1983. Progressive contextualization: Methods for research in human ecology. Human Ecology 11:265–281.
Viana, V. M. J. Ervin, R. Z. Donovan, C. Elliott, andH. Gholz. 1996. Certification of forest products: Issues and perspectives. Island Press, Washington, DC.
Vickers, W. 1984. Indian policy in Amazonian Ecuador. Pages 8–32 in M. Schmink and C. Wood, eds., Frontier expansion in Amazonia. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, FL.
Wunder, S. 2000. The economics of deforestation: The example of Ecuador. Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, UK.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Anderson, P.J. The social context for harvestingIriartea deltoidea (Arecaceae). Econ Bot 58, 410–419 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1663/0013-0001(2004)058[0410:TSCFHI]2.0.CO;2
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1663/0013-0001(2004)058[0410:TSCFHI]2.0.CO;2