With an annual value of US$35 million, northern Bolivia’s non-timber forest product (NTFP) industry revolves chiefly around the extraction, processing and trade of Brazil nuts and palm hearts. Whereas most NTFP research focuses on rural populations and forests where the products grow, Stoain’s work in the Bolivian Amazon examines the urban dimension of the NTFP economy, which includes extraction, transport, processing and sale.

The study took place on the peripheries of the region’s economic center, Riberalta, and analyzed the role of NTFPs in the livelihood strategies of three different social groups of origin: long-established Riberalto dwellers (Riberalteños), ex-forest dwellers recently arrived to the urban environment, and extra-regional migrants. Semi-structured interviews yielded data reveling that 58% of all sampled households featured NTFP-related work as part of their livelihood strategies, and 37% of the households derived over half of their total income from such work. The job of extraction or gathering entailed temporary migration and a rural stay during the seasonal harvests. This work was complementary to working in more urban-based processing plants. The ex-forest dwellers were the most reliant upon extraction work, with 1/3 of their income stemming from rural areas. Riberalteños, receiving 1/5 of their income from rural areas, had jobs from the top end (plantation owners) to the bottom end (gathering and processing) of the income spectrum. For the extra-regional migrants, rural income proved to be of generally low importance. Migration patterns, social group of origin, level of neighborhood development, gender and education were seen to be key factors in levels and types of involvement in the industry.

It was found that work in extraction is a fairly lucrative endeavor and that it is not just a last resort livelihood for its urban participants, in contrast to other researchers’ assertions about NTFPs. Additionally, the author points out that rural-urban migration affords the children of NTFP workers opportunities to attend secondary and tertiary school, thereby increasing chances for poverty alleviation. This industry is deemed to be essential to the livelihood security and household resilience of the study’s urban-based participants. A rural-urban continuum concept for understanding urban ethnobotany is supported by this study. “Rather than a rural-urban divide, it is the rural-urban nexus underlying these strategies that explains their flexibility, adaptability, and viability” (p. 1485). The author urges that researchers pay more attention to all the links along NTFP chains of production, and adopt an analytical scope that recognizes the rural-urban continuum fundamental to many modern livelihood strategies.

Prepared by Megan Glore

Informed by 1980 and 1991 census data and municipal health services statistics from the Brazilian Amazon, this article highlights indicators deemed determinant of environmental quality in the vast region's urban settings. This time period was one of rapid urbanization and spontaneous, unplanned growth as precipitated by Brazil's debt crisis, government decentralization, reduction of agricultural subsidization, and booms in extractive industries. Perz's report focuses on three general aspects of environmental quality affecting urban populations: environmental hazard production, i.e. pollution; protection from such hazards, i.e., housing and amenities; and defense against such hazards, i.e. income and healthcare. Within each of these categories, he further explores other sub-concepts which fit into his analytical framework comparing different sized populations, populations of old and new municipalities and populations from distinct subregions of the Amazon. It is found that environmental hazard production has increased while protection and defenses against hazards have decreased. This poor inventory of environmental resilience was found to vary according to the type of urban population. New, frontier and small urban areas showed the worst statistics for environmental health. These findings cause concern today because the conditions that gave rise to such uncontrolled growth are still present in the current economic and political climate of the Brazilian Amazon. The author warns against the idea that bigger, established cities hold a promise for better environmental quality of life for new rural-urban migrants, and suggests that policies and economic measures focus on improving the sustainability of rural systems of agriculture or extraction, thereby addressing the larger urban population problem at its root. If this strategy does not yield successful, then the author predicts more chronic migration, possibly out of the Amazon entirely, as people search for economic security.

Prepared by Megan Glore

Interweaving the work of ethnobotanists Richard Evans Schultes and Mark J. Plotkin, studying Amazon cultures, this film explores the entire field of ethnobotany, focusing particularly on traditional medicine, shamanism and on the search for new medicinal compounds among indigenous tribes.

Synopsis and Review

An ardent and dramatic presentation, this film is inspired by Plotkin’s book of the same name. Interspersed with the work of Richard Evans Schultes and the history of ethnobotany, it tells the story of Plotkin’s time studying traditional medicine with the Tirio and Maroon communities of Suriname. Doing so, it shows the disappearance of traditional medicinal knowledge and illustrates the importance of preserving this knowledge for the future of both the local community and for Western society as a whole.

Most of Plotkin’s work centres on ethnomedicine, emphasising traditional medicine and shamanism. This may make the film’s focus seem too narrow to those aware of the diverse nature of ethnobotany and ethnoecology. But, the film does manage to touch, if only momentarily, on most contemporary issues in ethnobotany, including traditional ecological knowledge and its transmission, biopiracy, bioprospecting, and biocultural diversity. Plotkin’s pioneering Shaman’s Apprentice programme, created with the local community to counter the loss of traditional medicinal knowledge, is an excellent example of applied ethnobotany. Much as flagship species are used in wildlife conservation, Plotkin often uses “medicine hunting” to illustrate the importance of preserving cultural knowledge and landscapes. In the end though, he makes clear that his overall goal is to preserve culture for its own sake and to “help indigenous communities to have control over their own destiny”.

Prepared by Erin Smith