Abstract
Timber resources are constantly used by traditional communities to meet their everyday needs. Assuming the importance and use of these resources for energy purposes, we applied the inventory in situ method, over 12 months, aiming to identify the species most used as firewood and charcoal, their dynamics of renewal, and species availability in the forest fragment studied. The study was conducted in the Rural Community of São Francisco, Municipality of Cabaceiras (Paraíba State, Northeast Brazil). Overall, we recorded 15 species, 14 genera, and 6 botanical families, from which Fabaceae (8 spp) and Anacardiaceae (3 spp) were the most prominent, due to having greater diversity of species. The most used native species in the community was Myracrodruon urundeuva Allemão (aroeira) and we also recorded the constant use of Prosopis juliflora (algaroba), which is an exotic species. The results evidenced the effective use of natural resources, and may complement in general ethnobotanical studies.
Highlights
The Caatinga is marked, historically, by its seasonality, and pressure on its species, due to the removing of timber resources, mainly for energy purposes, leading to the wrong characterization of this area as poor in endemism, animal and plant diversity (Severo, 2009)
From the 15 species recorded in the inventory in situ, seven belonging to six genera and five families were found in the forest fragment studied
Lucena et al (2013), in an ethnobotanical study conducted in two rural communities, using the inventory in situ method in the forest fragment of Barrocas and Cachoeira (Northeast Brazil), observed the same prominent families and species we identified in the vegetation of Community Rural of São Francisco
Summary
The Caatinga is marked, historically, by its seasonality, and pressure on its species, due to the removing of timber resources, mainly for energy purposes, leading to the wrong characterization of this area as poor in endemism, animal and plant diversity (Severo, 2009). Several studies have been performed over the years, in various fields of science, such as ethnobiology, which seeks to record and evaluate the empirical knowledge concerning natural resources (Ford, 1978; Posey and Overal, 1990; Berlin, 1992; Balick and Cox, 1996; Diegues and Arruda, 2001)
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