Losing knowledge about plant use in the sierra de manantlan biosphere reserve, Mexico

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to document relationships between knowledge of plant use and indicators of modernization in Mexico. The model we are testing envisions increasing loss of plant use knowledge with increasing modernization indicated by loss of indigenous language and acquisition of nontraditional community services such as literacy and quality of housing. As predicted, we demonstrate that empirical knowledge about plant use is both more diverse and more evenly shared by people speaking an indigenous language—the Huastec—than by mestizo and Spanish-speaking indigenous populations in the Sierra de Manantlan. Our analyses also indicate that the adoption of modern community services by eight rural communities in the Sierra de Manantlan of western Mexico has had notable effects eroding traditional knowledge about useful plants in some but not all communities. From this we suggest that even though traditional knowledge about plants probably suffered a decline that accompanied loss of the indigenous language in Manantlan, traditional knowledge may be able to survive the modernization process today where such knowledge has an important role in subsistence.