| Abstract Detail
Economic Botany Section Bullard-Roberts, Angelle [1]. Knowledge and Value of Local Plants in Trinidad and Tobago. Why are plants important? In the setting of developing countries, where the means for basic survival and livelihoods are still often directly linked to the utility of plants, one can typically expect that individuals will rank direct use (or consumptive) values above intrinsic (or existence) values. Still, could there be a happy medium? Do the regulatory services provided by plants, such as soil erosion prevention and watershed protection prove significant enough to be valued by citizens of developing countries? This research project used free listing and importance ranking exercises to find out from people in Trinidad and Tobago what plants were known to them and to indicate the top three reasons they considered plants to be important. Of particular interest is the finding that although the “free-lists” generally identified those plants commonly used as food or medicine, persons often ranked the regulatory values above the consumptive uses. The role of demographic differences such as rural vs urban and male vs female respondents will be explored. Possible implications of these findings for sustainable development strategies will be discussed.
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1 - Florida International University, Biological Sciences / Ethnobotany Lab, 11200 SW 8th St., Miami, FL, 33199, USA
Keywords:
Local plants.
Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Sections
Session: 5
Location: River Fork/Grove
Date: Monday, July 28th, 2014
Time: 8:45 AM
Number: 5002
Abstract ID:872
Candidate for Awards:Economic Botany Section best student paper |
