title: Knowledge and valuation of Andean agroforestry species: the role of sex, age, and migration among members of a rural community in Bolivia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Agroforestry is a sustainable land use method with a long tradition in the Bolivian Andes. A better understanding of people’s knowledge and valuation of woody species can help to adjust actor-oriented agroforestry systems. In this case study, carried out in a peasant community of the Bolivian Andes, we aimed at calculating the cultural importance of selected agroforestry species, and at analysing the intracultural variation in the cultural importance and knowledge of plants according to peasants’ sex, age, and migration.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data collection was based on semi-structured interviews and freelisting exercises. Two ethnobotanical indices (Composite Salience, Cultural Importance) were used for calculating the cultural importance of plants. Intracultural variation in the cultural importance and knowledge of plants was detected by using linear and generalised linear (mixed) models.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The culturally most important woody species were mainly trees and exotic species (e.g.Schinus molle, Prosopis laevigata, Eucalyptus globulus). We found that knowledge and valuation of plants increased with age but that they were lower for migrants; sex, by contrast, played a minor role. The age effects possibly result from decreasing ecological apparency of valuable native species, and their substitution by exotic marketable trees,loss of traditional plant uses or the use of other materials (e.g. plastic) instead of wood. Decreasing dedication to traditional farming may have led to successive abandonment of traditional tool uses, and the overall transformation of woody plant use is possibly related to diminishing medicinal knowledge.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Age and migration affect how people value woody species and what they know about their uses.For this reason, we recommend paying particular attention to the potential of native species, which could open promising perspectives especially for the young migrating peasant generation and draw their interest in agroforestry. These native species should be ecologically sound and selected on their potential to provide subsistence and promising commercial uses. In addition to offering socio-economic and environmental services,agroforestry initiatives using native trees and shrubs can play a crucial role in recovering elements of the lost ancient landscape that still forms part of local people’s collective identity.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology/Geobotany and Botanical Garden, Martin-Luther-University, Am Kirchtor 1, 06108 Halle/Saale, Germany. regine.brandt@botanik.uni-halle.de.
authors.forename: Regine
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brandt
authors.forename: Sarah-Lan
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Mathez-Stiefel
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lachmuth
authors.forename: Isabell
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hensen
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rist
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000383:Agriculture; D044822:Biodiversity; D001838:Bolivia; D015988:Cohort Effect; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D005260:Female; D016468:Forestry; D063426:Human Migration; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012424:Rural Population; D012987:Soil; D014197:Trees; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D012987:Soil