Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Biosystematics Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2021 Feb 18;16(2):e0247108. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247108. eCollection 2021.
In tropical rainforests, access to and availability of natural resources are vital for the dietary diversity and food security of forest-dwelling societies. In the Congo Basin, these are challenged by the increasing exploitation of forests for bushmeat, commercial hardwood, mining, and large-scale agriculture. In this context, a balanced approach is needed between the pressures from forest exploitation, non-timber forest product trade and the livelihood and dietary behavior of rural communities. While there is a general positive association between tree cover and dietary diversity, the complex biocultural interactions between tropical forest food resources and the communities they sustain are still understudied. This research focuses on the knowledge and use of wild food plants by the forest-dwelling Baka people in southeast Cameroon. By using two different sets of methods, namely ex-situ interviews and in-situ surveys, we collected ethnographic and ethnobotanical data in two Baka settlements and explored the diversity of wild edible plants known, the frequency of their consumption, and potential conflicts between local diet and commercial trade in forest resources. Within a single Baka population, we showed that the in-situ walk-in-the-woods method resulted in more detailed information on wild food plant knowledge and use frequency than the ex-situ methods of freelisting and dietary recalls. Our in-situ method yielded 91 wild edible species, much more than the ex-situ freelisting interviews (38 spp.) and dietary recalls (12 spp.). Our results suggest that studies that are based only on ex-situ interviews may underestimate the importance of wild food plants for local communities. We discuss the limitations and strengths of these different methods for investigating the diversity of wild food plant knowledge and uses. Our analysis shows that future studies on wild food plants would profit from a mixed approach that combines in-situ and ex-situ methods.
在热带雨林中，获取和利用自然资源对于居住在森林中的社会的饮食多样性和食品安全至关重要。在刚果盆地，由于森林被越来越多地用于狩猎、商业硬木、采矿和大规模农业，这些资源面临着挑战。在这种情况下，需要在森林开发、非木材森林产品贸易以及农村社区的生计和饮食行为之间，采取平衡的方法。虽然树木覆盖与饮食多样性之间通常存在正相关关系，但热带森林食物资源与维持它们的社区之间复杂的生物文化相互作用仍未得到充分研究。本研究重点关注居住在森林中的巴卡人在喀麦隆东南部对野生食用植物的知识和使用情况。我们使用两种不同的方法，即原地访谈和实地调查，在两个巴卡人定居点收集了民族志和民族植物学数据，探讨了已知野生食用植物的多样性、它们的消费频率，以及当地饮食与森林资源商业贸易之间潜在的冲突。在单一的巴卡人群中，我们发现实地走在树林中的方法比原地自由列表和饮食回忆等非原地方法能提供更多关于野生食用植物知识和使用频率的详细信息。我们的实地方法得出了 91 种野生食用物种，比原地自由列表访谈（38 种）和饮食回忆（12 种）多得多。我们的研究结果表明，仅基于原地访谈的研究可能会低估野生食用植物对当地社区的重要性。我们讨论了这些不同方法在调查野生食用植物知识和用途多样性方面的局限性和优势。我们的分析表明，未来对野生食用植物的研究将受益于一种混合方法，该方法结合了原地和非原地方法。
