Abstract
Once local expert knowledge regarding the harvesting of various non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is lost, it is difficult to recover. We investigated whether the knowledge of expert forest harvesters can be used to determine the habitat distribution and harvesting sites of three popular edible wild ferns, i.e., ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris), bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), and royal fern (Osmunda japonica), in mountainous communities of western Fukushima, Japan. Using multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and geographic information system (GIS), we found that harvesters were easily able to recognize differences in the spatial characteristics of the habitat distribution of fern species due to both natural and anthropogenic factors. These factors were described by various GIS layers, such as vegetation and terrain features (e.g., gradient, aspect, and slope position) derived from a 20-m digital elevation model (DEM). Harvesting sites were limited by their distance from a roadway, which differed among species. By comparison with the GPS records of actual harvesting sites, we estimated the potential harvesting sites of each fern species with reasonable accuracy, particularly for bracken. Our results show that the knowledge of expert forest harvesters can be quantified using MCE and GIS, which is useful for determining the spatial characteristics of NTFP harvesting and ensuring sustainable management practices.
Highlights
Rural forest communities have long been dependent on a variety of ecosystem goods and services, and many individuals living in such communities have a rich empirical knowledge of the use of the local environment and its biodiversity [1,2,3,4]
We investigated whether the local knowledge of forest harvesters could be used to determine potential harvesting sites for three of the most popular edible ferns, i.e., ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris), bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), and royal fern (Osmunda japonica) using
Our results indicate that expert knowledge could be used to describe the spatial characteristics of habitat distribution and harvesting sites for different fern species based on multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) and geographic information system (GIS)
Summary
Rural forest communities have long been dependent on a variety of ecosystem goods and services, and many individuals living in such communities have a rich empirical knowledge of the use of the local environment and its biodiversity [1,2,3,4]. A typical example is the use of non-timber forest products (NTFPs), which can be categorized into biodiversity-based provisioning and cultural services [5,6,7]. Local people generally harvest various NTFP species; relatively few studies have investigated the spatial differences in harvesting sites among species, which is critical for their sustainable use, possibly due to the limited habitat requirements of some species in heterogeneous landscapes [13]. Because forest-related indigenous knowledge has been disappearing both in developed and developing countries [22], a specific methodology that can integrate such knowledge into spatially explicit models is urgently required
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