Land Use, Ethnobotany and Conservation in Costa Rican Montane Oak Forests

Abstract

A large number of studies on human impact on tropical mountains underline the vast destructive and often irreversible effects that settlements and inappropriate land use practices may have on local forest resources (e.g., Baker and Little 1976; Budowski 1982; Stadel 1986; Churchill et al. 1995; Kappelle 1996, 2004; Kappelle and Brown 2001; Bewket 2002; Benitez 2003). However, still little is known about the impact of man on tropical highland oak forests, the often unsustainable use, and the utilization of native plants by indigenous peoples and locally dwelling peasants (ladino colonists). At many places in Mexico, Central America and Colombia, oak trees have been cut for timber, fuelwood and other uses, and entire oak forests have been converted to pastures and croplands (Kappelle and Juarez 1995; Helmer 2000; Chaps. 16, 17, 21 and 31). In order to gain a better insight into the past and present use of these forests and their vascular plants, we conducted a case study and assessed land use history, changing trends in agricultural practices, and current ethnobotanical knowledge in the montane oak forest zone of Costa Rica’s Talamanca Mountains, with emphasis on the largely cleared Los Santos Forest Reserve, a Human Inhabited Protected Area (HIPA).