Dataset Information

Born to Eat Wild: An Integrated Conservation Approach to Secure Wild Food Plants for Food Security and Nutrition.

ABSTRACT: Overlooked in national reports and in conservation programs, wild food plants (WFPs) have been a vital component of food and nutrition security for centuries. Recently, several countries have reported on the widespread and regular consumption of WFPs, particularly by rural and indigenous communities but also in urban contexts. They are reported as critical for livelihood resilience and for providing essential micronutrients to people enduring food shortages or other emergency situations. However, threats derived from changes in land use and climate, overexploitation and urbanization are reducing the availability of these biological resources in the wild and contributing to the loss of traditional knowledge associated with their use. Meanwhile, few policy measures are in place explicitly targeting their conservation and sustainable use. This can be partially attributed to a lack of scientific evidence and awareness among policymakers and relevant stakeholders of the untapped potential of WFPs, accompanied by market and non-market barriers limiting their use. This paper reviews recent efforts being undertaken in several countries to build evidence of the importance of WFPs, while providing examples of cross-sectoral cooperation and multi-stakeholder approaches that are contributing to advance their conservation and sustainable use. An integrated conservation approach is proposed contributing to secure their availability for future generations.

SUBMITTER: Borelli T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7601573 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Born to Eat Wild: An Integrated Conservation Approach to Secure Wild Food Plants for Food Security and Nutrition.

Borelli Teresa T Hunter Danny D Powell Bronwen B Ulian Tiziana T Mattana Efisio E Termote Céline C Pawera Lukas L Beltrame Daniela D Penafiel Daniela D Tan Ayfer A Taylor Mary M Engels Johannes J

Plants (Basel, Switzerland) 20201001 10

Overlooked in national reports and in conservation programs, wild food plants (WFPs) have been a vital component of food and nutrition security for centuries. Recently, several countries have reported on the widespread and regular consumption of WFPs, particularly by rural and indigenous communities but also in urban contexts. They are reported as critical for livelihood resilience and for providing essential micronutrients to people enduring food shortages or other emergency situations. However ...[more]

PMID: 33019632

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Project description:BackgroundThe interplay between different uses of woody plants remains underexplored, obscuring our understanding of how a plant's value for one purpose might shield it from other, more harmful uses. This study examines the protection hypothesis by determining if food uses can protect woody plants (trees and shrubs) from wood uses. We approached the hypothesis from two distinct possibilities: (1) the protective effect is proportional to the intensity of a species' use for food purposes, and (2) the protective effect only targets key species for food purposes.MethodsThe research was conducted in a rural community within "Restinga" vegetation in Northeast Brazil. To identify important food species for both consumption and income (key species) and the collection areas where they naturally occur, we conducted participatory workshops. We then carried out a floristic survey in these areas to identify woody species that coexist with the key species. Voucher specimens were used to create a field herbarium, which, along with photographs served as visual stimuli during the checklist interviews. The interviewees used a five-point Likert scale to evaluate the species in terms of perceived wood quality, perceived availability, and use for food and wood purposes. To test our hypothesis, we used Cumulative Link Mixed Models (CLMMs), with the wood use as the response variable, food use, perceived availability and perceived quality as the explanatory variables and the interviewee as a random effect. We performed the same model replacing food use for key species food use (a binary variable that had value 1 when the information concerned a key species with actual food use, and value 0 when the information did not concern a key species or concerned a key species that was not used for food purposes).ResultsConsistent with our hypothesis, we identified a protective effect of food use on wood use. However, this effect is not directly proportional to the species' food use, but is confined to plants with considerable domestic food importance. Perceived availability and quality emerged as notable predictors for wood uses.ConclusionWe advocate for biocultural conservation strategies that enhance the food value of plants for their safeguarding, coupled with measures for non-edible woody species under higher use-pressure.

Dataset Information

Born to Eat Wild: An Integrated Conservation Approach to Secure Wild Food Plants for Food Security and Nutrition.

Publications

Born to Eat Wild: An Integrated Conservation Approach to Secure Wild Food Plants for Food Security and Nutrition.

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