Interações entre o uso de recursos florestais madeireiros e alimentícios e suas implicações para a conservação biocultural

Abstract

Wild woody food plants have high potential for food and nutritional security but may be under pressure from wood use. Therefore, it is important for us to understand whether in a context of interaction of uses, the importance of food use can act to protect woody plants from destructive uses. This thesis is divided into two chapters, which converge on the conservation of woody plants through the interaction between different uses, with one of these uses having a protective effect. In the first chapter, through a systematic review, we sought to identify priority species for biocultural conservation that are also strategic for maintaining food and nutritional security (in terms of micro and macronutrient composition) and potentially threatened by their multiple wood uses. We identified 42 species with applications in all categories of wood use analyzed in this study, considered versatile. Comparison of ethnobiological and nutritional data revealed eight versatile species for which nutritional composition information was available, among which three stood out in terms of macronutrient content, namely Anacardium occidentale L., Bauhinia cheilantha (Bong.) Steud., and Eugenia pyriformis Cambess. We found that many versatile species classified as threatened or declining have not been the focus of nutritional studies, signaling the need for greater nutritional research efforts. We also highlight the need to investigate whether the food importance exerts any protective effect on these species, reducing the pressure of wood use (protection hypothesis). In the second chapter, we conducted a field study in a rural community within the Restinga vegetation, in northeastern Brazil. In this chapter, we sought to fill a gap in the literature on how the domestic and commercial importance of woody food plants can protect them from wood exploitation. To this end, we examined the protection hypothesis from two different perspectives (generalized protection and protection targeted at key species). Our findings suggest that there is no protective effect proportional to the food use of the species. However, the domestic use of key food species exhibited a strong protective effect. Perceived availability and quality emerged as important predictors for wood exploitation. Thus, we discuss biocultural conservation strategies that increase the food importance of plants to ensure their protection, along with measures for non-edible woody species under greater pressure of use. Through this thesis, we discovered that food species with nutritional potential may be under pressure from use due to their wood employment. However, species with high importance have reduced wood use, controlling for perceived wood quality and availability. Therefore, ecological study of these species and adoption of conservation measures that include the valorization and sustainable use of plant resources are necessary.