Browsing by Autor "Elizabeth Byron"

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Brief Communication: Does Integration to the Market Threaten Agricultural Diversity? Panel and Cross-Sectional Data From a Horticultural-Foraging Society in the Bolivian Amazon
(Springer Science+Business Media, 2004) Vincent Vadez; Victoria Reyes-Garc�a; Ricardo Godoy; V. Lilian Apaza; Elizabeth Byron; Tomás Huanca; William R. Leonard; Eddy P�rez; David Wilkie
Correlates of delay-discount rates: Evidence from Tsimane' Amerindians of the Bolivian rain forest
(Elsevier BV, 2002) Kris N. Kirby; Ricardo Godoy; Victòria Reyes-García; Elizabeth Byron; Lilian Apaza; William R. Leonard; Eddy Pérez-Then; Vincent Vadez; David Wilkie
Do Markets Worsen Economic Inequalities? Kuznets in the Bush
(Springer Science+Business Media, 2004) Ricardo Godoy; Michael Gurven; Elizabeth Byron; Victòria Reyes-García; James Keough; Vincent Vadez; David Wilkie; William R. Leonard; Lilian Apaza; Tomás Huanca
Ethnobotanical Knowledge Shared Widely Among Tsimane' Amerindians, Bolivia
(American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2003) Victòria Reyes-García; Ricardo Godoy; Vincent Vadez; L. Apaza; Elizabeth Byron; Tomás Huanca; William R. Leonard; Eddy Pérez-Then; David Wilkie
To preserve humanity's patrimony and diversity and avoid misappropriation by outsiders, laws should protect indigenous knowledge. Firms producing pharmaceutical, agricultural, and cosmetic goods have used ethnobotanical knowledge of indigenous people to develop commercial goods ([1][1], [2][2]). The commercial use of ethnobotanical knowledge raises concerns about payments owed to indigenous peoples who supply the knowledge ([3][3]). Indigenous peoples and their advocates say that ethnobotanical knowledge is held communally ([4][4]) and that firms should share the benefits from commercial uses of indigenous knowledge. Despite these claims, we do not know how much indigenous peoples share ethnobotanical knowledge. Here we use a cultural consensus model ([5][5]) to show that Tsimane' Amerindians share much ethnobotanical knowledge. The Tsimane' number ∼7000 people and live in ∼100 villages in the Bolivian lowlands ([6][6]). Habitats range from savannas to wet, moist, and gallery forests. Tsimane' show large variation in socioeconomic attributes. Some live in small villages without schools, speak only Tsimane', and forage and practice shifting cultivation. Others speak Spanish, live in large, accessible, permanent villages with schools, and sell crops and labor. Because Tsimane' contain much variation, they are ideal to estimate the amount of shared ethnobotanical knowledge in an indigenous group. We collected socioeconomic and ethnobotanical knowledge data during 18 months (May 1999 to November 2000) in two villages with different habitats and market exposure, Yaranda (which is a 3-day canoe trip from the nearest market town) and San Antonio (which is a 3-hour walk to the nearest town). Panel data served to develop a survey applied to 511 Tsimane' in 59 villages. In villages with ≤12 households, we surveyed all households. In villages with 13+ households, we randomly selected 12 households for interviews. For the interview, we randomly selected one household head. The average distance of the 59 villages to the closest town was 35 km (SD = 24.16, max = 100.5, min = 0.0). To construct the knowledge test, we used published literature and data from free listings of useful plants ( n = 50) used by the Tsimane'. From the list, we randomly selected 21 plants to construct a multiple-choice questionnaire. We asked all subjects whether each plant could be used for medicine, firewood, tools, construction, and/or food. We collected responses in a matrix with plant names on the x axis and their uses on the y axis. We define knowledge as agreement between informants and use cultural consensus and cultural competence to measure this parameter. Cultural competence is the proportion of questions each person answered correctly; we equate correct with the most frequent response in the population or group. Cultural consensus refers to the group average similarity in responses. Data are consensual if the first eigenvalue is at least three times larger than the second, provided no estimate of knowledge is <0. To estimate whether agreement was larger among people in the same village than among all subjects, we first estimated the agreement of each informant with people in the same village and then with the entire sample. When comparing subjects with people in the same village, we found that on a 0 to 1 scale, the average individual cultural competence was 0.83 (SD = 0.10) ([Table 1][7]). The average cultural consensus of the 59 villages was 90.60 (SD = 6.18). All villages but one fitted the consensus model, all informants had positive competence scores, and the ratio between the first and second eigenvalue was >3. Results suggest that people in the same village share more ethnobotanical knowledge than between villages. View this table: Table 1 Summary of cultural competence and consensus in 59 villages and 511 subjects. We pooled people in the sample to compare individual agreement for all Tsimane'. When people were compared with the whole group, the average cultural competence was 0.62 (SD = 0.11), 20% lower than when compared with people in the same village. Cultural consensus of ethnobotanical knowledge among the Tsimane' was 66.3, lower than the average within villages. All informants had positive answers; the ratio between the first and second eigenvalues was 3.38. Results confirm the idea that ethnobotanical knowledge is a consensual domain among Tsimane' of different villages. There is growing international and national agreement about the need for prior consent and benefit sharing with indigenous peoples when outsiders use ethnobotanical knowledge. As indigenous peoples have advocated and as this research shows, the collective nature of traditional knowledge should be considered when outsiders use indigenous knowledge commercially. Laws to protect indigenous knowledge must also acknowledge the communal endowment of indigenous knowledge and the traditional rights and responsibilities over such knowledge. 1. [↵][8]S. A. Laird, Ed., Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge (Earthscan, London, 2002). 2. [↵][9]K ten Kate, S. A. Laird, Eds., The Commercial Use of Biodiversity (Earthscan, London, 1999). 3. [↵][10]1. D. Posey , Anthropol. Today 6, 4 (1990). [OpenUrl][11][CrossRef][12] 4. [↵][13]Coordinadora de Organizaciones Indigenas de la Cuenca Amazonica, Initiatives for Protection of Rights of Holders of Traditional Knowledge, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (WIPO, Geneva, 1998). 5. [↵][14]1. A. K. Romney , Curr. Anthropol. 40, 6 (1999). [OpenUrl][15] 6. [↵][16]V. Reyes-Garcia, thesis, University of Florida (2001). 7. We thank M. Alvarado , R. Bernard, Z. Foster, Consejo Tsimane', Y. Gutierrez, D. Ista, A. Nate, J. Pache, P. Pache, M. Roca, B. Sandstrom, S. Tanner, E. Tayo, and A. Yakhedts. This work was supported by the NSF (grants 9731240 and 9904318) and McArthur and Conservation, Food, & Health Foundations. [1]: #ref-1 [2]: #ref-2 [3]: #ref-3 [4]: #ref-4 [5]: #ref-5 [6]: #ref-6 [7]: #T1 [8]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [9]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text [10]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3 in text [11]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DAnthropol.%2BToday%26rft.volume%253D6%26rft.spage%253D4%26rft.atitle%253DANTHROPOL%2BTODAY%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.2307%252F3032916%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [12]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=10.2307/3032916&link_type=DOI [13]: #xref-ref-4-1 View reference 4 in text [14]: #xref-ref-5-1 View reference 5 in text [15]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DCurr.%2BAnthropol.%26rft.volume%253D40%26rft.spage%253D6%26rft.atitle%253DCURR%2BANTHROPOL%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [16]: #xref-ref-6-1 View reference 6 in text
Income inequality and adult nutritional status: Anthropometric evidence from a pre-industrial society in the Bolivian Amazon
(Elsevier BV, 2005) Ricardo Godoy; Elizabeth Byron; Victòria Reyes-García; Vincent Vadez; William R. Leonard; Lilian Apaza; Tomás Huanca; Eddy Pérez-Then; David Wilkie
Local financial benefits of rain forests: comparative evidence from Amerindian societies in Bolivia and Honduras
(Elsevier BV, 2002) Ricardo Godoy; Han Overman; Josefien Demmer; L. Apaza; Elizabeth Byron; Tomás Huanca; William R. Leonard; Eddy Pérez-Then; Victòria Reyes-García; Vincent Vadez
Market Economy and the Loss of Folk Knowledge of Plant Uses: Estimates from the Tsimane’ of the Bolivian Amazon
(University of Chicago Press, 2005) Victòria Reyes-García; Vincent Vadez; Elizabeth Byron; Lilian Apaza; William R. Leonard; Eddy Pérez-Then; David Wilkie
For most of human history, people's main form of knowledge has been adapted to the local environment and based on experience and empirical testing.
Measuring Culture as Shared Knowledge: Do Data Collection Formats Matter? Cultural Knowledge of Plant Uses Among Tsimane’ Amerindians, Bolivia
(SAGE Publishing, 2004) Victòria Reyes-García; Elizabeth Byron; Vincent Vadez; Ricardo Godoy; Lilian Apaza; Eddy Pérez Limache; William R. Leonard; David Wilkie
In this article, the authors contribute to the empirical study of culture as shared knowledge by exploring correlations of individual responses to different questionnaires of the same tasks and correlation of individual responses to different tasks. They collected data on ethnobotanical knowledge from 149 adult Tsimane’ Amerindians in Bolivia. The authors used a cultural consensus model to calculate individual scores of cultural knowledge for each questionnaire, correlating individual scores using pooled samples and various subsamples. Results from multiplechoice questionnaires show high reliability. A comparison of competency scores from the paired-comparison and the average of the three multiple-choice questionnaires showed a positive correlation ( r = .46), although it was lower than when comparing multiple-choice to each other. Competency on the triad questionnaire did not correlate with information from any of the other questionnaires. The evidence presented suggests that cultural competence may be consistent across questionnaires of the same task but not necessarily across different tasks in the same domain.
Meat prices influence the consumption of wildlife by the Tsimane' Amerindians of Bolivia
(Cambridge University Press, 2002) Lilian Apaza; David Wilkie; Elizabeth Byron; Tomás Huanca; William R. Leonard; Eddy Pérez-Then; Victòria Reyes-García; Vincent Vadez; Ricardo Godoy
Wildlife (bushmeat or game) is the primary source of protein for most poor households in tropical forests, and its consumption is resulting in unsustainable hunting of large animals, even in isolated regions. As a result, loss of fauna is often a more immediate and significant threat to the conservation of biological diversity in tropical forests than is deforestation. Although the potential effects of the extirpation from tropical forests of large, seed predating and seed dispersing wild animals is poorly understood, it is likely that there will be irrevocable changes in the structure and function of these ecosystems. We carried out a survey of 510 households of Tsimane' Amerindians in the rainforest of Bolivia to investigate how the prices of game and meat from domesticated animals affect the consumption of game. The results indicated that the price of fish and meat from livestock is positively correlated with consumption of wildlife, suggesting that policy makers may be able to reduce the unsustainable hunting of wildlife for food by reducing the price of fish and the price of meat from domesticated animals relative to that of wildlife. Increasing the production of livestock without causing environmental degradation will require long-term public investment in agricultural research and extension, and substitution of fish for game meat in the absence of sustainable management regimes will result in over-exploitation of riverine and lacustrine fish stocks.
Physical growth and nutritional status of Tsimane' Amerindian children of lowland Bolivia
(Wiley, 2004) Zoë Foster; Elizabeth Byron; Victòria Reyes-García; Tomás Huanca; Vincent Vadez; L. Apaza; Eddy Pérez-Then; Susan Tanner; Yáñez Gutiérrez; Brittmarie Sandström
This study examines patterns of growth and nutritional status of indigenous Tsimane' children under 9 years of age (n = 199 boys and 210 girls), based on a cross-sectional sample from 58 villages from the Beni Deparment of lowland Bolivia. Compared with US children, Tsimane' children are quite short, with linear growth tracking at or below the US 5th centile in both sexes. The prevalence of low height-for-age ("stunting;" HA Z-scores </=-2) is 52% in boys and 43% in girls. In contrast, weight-for-height in Tsimane' children approximates the US median, with the prevalence of low weight-for-height ("wasting"; WH Z-scores </=-2) being only 4% and 6% in boys and girls, respectively. Tsimane' boys and girls are leaner than their US peers, but their levels of body fatness are not so low as to indicate severe energy stress. Arm muscularity of Tsimane' children is similar to that of their US age peers, and this suggests that they are not experiencing acute protein malnutrition. Variation in measures of nutritional status of Tsimane' children is modestly correlated with village-level differences. Degree of isolation, as measured by distance to urban centers or to primary forest, was not a strong predictor of children's anthropometric status. Rather, in both boys and girls, nutritional status was most strongly associated with number of teachers in the village, a measure of access to education. Comparative analyses indicate that high levels of statural growth stunting are common among indigenous populations throughout lowland South America. This problem appears to be largely attributable to poor dietary quality (diets low in key micronutrients) and high disease loads. Further research is needed to identify the specific causes and potential interventions for the high rates of childhood growth stunting in this region.
Validity of Self-Reports to Measure Deforestation: Evidence from the Bolivian Lowlands
(SAGE Publishing, 2003) Vincent Vadez; Victòria Reyes-García; Ricardo Godoy; Luke Williams; Lilian Apaza; Elizabeth Byron; Tomás Huanca; William R. Leonard; Eddy Pérez-Then; David Wilkie
To assess rates of deforestation, researchers typically use questionnaires. But do questionnaires provide accurate information about the extent of forest clearance by households? In this article, the authors provide data on the amount of deforestation in a Tsimane' Amerindian village (Bolivia) and assess informant error by cross-checking three different assessments: (1) a direct physical measure by a research team of each plot cleared from the forest, (2)an estimate by the household head of the entire area cleared by his household during the year before the interview, and (3)an estimate by the plot owners of the area cleared of each plot he owns. Results show a high correlation between direct measures and estimates of areas provided by informants; plot owners provided more accurate information than heads of households. Results suggest that asking Amerindians about the area of forest cleared will yield reliable estimates of deforestation.