sample thesis title with a concise and accurate description

277 Pages·2011·6.9 MB·English

by  Kirsten Stock

RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF CULTURAL IDENTITY AND MARKET ACCESS
ON AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY IN SWIDDEN-FALLOW LANDSCAPES OF
EASTERN PANAMA
by
Kathryn R. Kirby

M.Sc., McGill University, 2005
B.Sc., University of Toronto, 2001

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
(Forestry)

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
(Vancouver)

December 2011

© Kathryn R. Kirby, 2011
Abstract
Agricultural biodiversity is essential to local and global food security, yet is being rapidly
eroded world-wide. The increasing reach of global transportation and trade networks is
predicted to homogenize agriculture at regional scales. However, relatively little is known
about how cultural values and norms, as reflected in local farmer decision-making, will
interact with market forces to sustain or erode agricultural biodiversity. Working with
farmers from three ethnic backgrounds — Black, Emberá or Kuna — in a region of Panama
undergoing rapid landscape change, I determined the relative influence of farmer cultural
identity and market access on several indicators of agrobiodiversity. Twelve villages were
chosen to minimize environmental differences while maximizing differences in access.
Villages were classified as “highway” or “remote” based on time and cost of travel to
Panama City markets, with each ethnic group represented by two highway and two remote
villages. From 2007-2009, a combination of crop inventories and land-use mapping (for 645
fields) as well as interviews with > 130 farmers were conducted. Diversity of staple food
crop varieties, agroforest trees and shrubs, and the spatial and temporal dynamics of shifting
cultivation were compared among villages. Farmer cultural identity had a stronger impact on
agrobiodiversity indicators than did access. For staple food crops (e.g., maize, rice, yam,
cassava, bananas, and taro), ethnicity explained 2.5 to 8.5 times more variation in
assemblages than access. Distinct assemblages of staple crop landraces (varieties) and
agroforest trees and shrubs were associated with different ethnic groups, even where access
was high, reflecting culturally patterned dietary preferences, ceremonial or customary uses,
and culturally-bounded seed-exchange networks. Mean number, size, and types of fields
maintained (homegardens, outfield agroforests, annual fields, pastures), as well as their
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management (e.g., forest felling, herbicide use), also varied among ethnic groups. These
differences reflected culturally-based crop preferences, values of land, traditional settlement
patterns, and contemporary relationships to other actors, including the Panamanian
government. Together, the distinct agricultural practices of individual ethnic groups
combined to create diversity across many levels of biotic organization: from landrace, to
species, to patch, to landscape. These findings strongly suggest that new approaches to
conservation that support and respect heterogeneous socio-cultural systems will be critical to
global efforts to maintain agrobiodiversity.

iii
Preface

Statement of co-authorship: The research presented herein benefited from the insights and
suggestions of many people at different stages in the research process. I have tried to
highlight individual contributions in the Acknowledgements section; however, many
contributors, particularly those with whom I lived, traveled and worked in eastern Panama,
remain anonymous, as per our research agreements.
Authorship of Chapters 3, 4 and 5 is shared with Dr. Sarah E. Gergel and Mr.
Domingo Diaz. Individual contributions to these chapters were as follows: I conceived of the
original research questions and study design. I established research agreements with
participating congresses and communities, worked with local research teams and research
assistants to collect data, entered and analyzed the data, and wrote the first drafts of each
chapter. Dr. Gergel was involved as a supervisor in all stages of the research and provided
substantial feedback on my writing. Mr. Diaz acted as a translator (both of language and
meaning) in work with Kuna congresses, communities and farmers and made significant
contributions to the interpretation of results.
I am the sole author of Chapters 1, 2, and 6, though like all chapters they benefited
from feedback from my supervisory committee and other reviewers.

Behavioural Research Ethics Board approval: The research was approved by the UBC
Behavioural Research Ethics Board under certificate number H06-03927.
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Table of Contents

Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii
Preface ..................................................................................................................................... iv
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... v
List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... ix
List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... xi
Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. xiv
Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1
Agrobiodiversity change in response to markets .................................................................. 4
Linking cultural identity and agrobiodiversity ..................................................................... 7
Integrating spatial theories of the effects of markets and culture on agrobiodiversity ....... 11
Overview of study region.................................................................................................... 13
Regional boundaries........................................................................................................ 13
Environment .................................................................................................................. 155
Study population ........................................................................................................... 166
Study design ...................................................................................................................... 188
Quantifying market access ............................................................................................ 139
Sampling within villages................................................................................................. 21
Structure of dissertation ...................................................................................................... 24
Chapter 2: History of the study region .............................................................................. 25
Part I – History of the Darien Region ................................................................................. 26
Pre-Hispanic history........................................................................................................ 26
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The Spanish invasion ...................................................................................................... 28
African slaves.................................................................................................................. 30
Early agriculture.............................................................................................................. 32
Territorial re-organization ............................................................................................... 34
Kuna retreat and Spanish withdrawal ............................................................................. 37
20th century Darién: ethnic identities and land rights ..................................................... 39
Agricultural booms and busts of the 20th century .......................................................... 41
Darién as the country’s agricultural frontier ................................................................... 43
Post-highway events ....................................................................................................... 46
Part II – Impacts of the highway ......................................................................................... 47
Impacts of the highway on communities without direct access to it .............................. 51
Impacts of the highway on communities adjacent to it................................................... 51
Population structure and territorial divisions today ........................................................ 54
Management of land by different ethnic groups ............................................................. 56
Part III - Maintenance of ethnic boundaries ....................................................................... 58
Summary and conclusion .................................................................................................... 60
Chapter 3: Cultural diversity is essential to agricultural biodiversity in a tropical
frontier ................................................................................................................................... 62
Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 62
Methods............................................................................................................................... 64
Results ................................................................................................................................. 71
Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 79
Conclusions and implications ............................................................................................. 84
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Chapter 4: Complementary assemblages of agroforest species maintained by
neighbouring ethnic groups ................................................................................................. 86
Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 86
Methods............................................................................................................................... 89
Results ................................................................................................................................. 95
Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 105
Significance....................................................................................................................... 110
Chapter 5: Understanding spatial and temporal dynamics of shifting cultivation: the
roles of ethnicity and markets ............................................................................................ 112
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 112
Methods............................................................................................................................. 118
Results ............................................................................................................................... 126
Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 141
Summary and conclusion .................................................................................................. 155
Chapter 6: Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 156
Relationships between farmer ethnicity and agrobiodiversity .......................................... 159
Relationships between agrobiodiversity and market access ............................................. 161
What explains the weak relationship between market access and agrobiodiversity? ....... 163
Implications of findings for agrobiodiversity conservation .............................................. 166
Study limitations ............................................................................................................... 168
Relevance of findings to other regions of the world ......................................................... 170
Future work ....................................................................................................................... 174
In summary ....................................................................................................................... 177
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Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 179
Appendix 1: Overview of research process and community responses to research ..... 212
Appendix 2: Supplementary information for Chapter 2................................................. 229
Appendix 2.1 Interactions with intermediaries: Excerpt from field notes ........................ 229
Appendix 2.2 Data sources and methods used to create Figure 2.6 ................................. 233
Appendix 2.3 Data sources for Figures 2.9 and 2.10 ........................................................ 234
Appendix 2.4 Ethnic identities and boundaries: Notes from Tucutí ................................. 237
Appendix 2.5 Definitions of ethnic categories from national population census ............. 242
Appendix 3: Supplementary information for Chapter 3................................................. 246
Appendix 3.1 Soil sampling and characterization ............................................................ 246
Appendix 3.2 Rice, maize and Musa spp. landraces included in multivariate analyses ... 251
Appendix 3.3 Ranking of dietary importance of food crops ............................................ 255
Appendix 4: Agroforest species excluded from analyses................................................. 257

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List of Tables
Table 1.1 Summary of the characteristics of the thirteen study villages ................................ 22
Table 1.2 Summary of the characteristics of participating households in each village. ......... 23
Table 3.1 Distinctness of landrace assemblages ..................................................................... 76
Table 4.1 Agroforest species encountered in more than one village, organized by primary
use. .......................................................................................................................... 99
Table 4.2 Comparison of species and landrace richness among villages ............................. 103
Table 4.3 Distinctness of species assemblages ..................................................................... 104
Table 5.1 Dependent variables examined for their relationship with farmer ethnicity and
market access ........................................................................................................ 125
Table 5.2 Description and characteristics of main field types .............................................. 128
Table 5.3 Land-use histories of annual fields planted in rice or maize in 2008. ................. 131
Table 5.4 Comparison of the number and spatial arrangement of fields of all types
maintained by households of different ethnicities and with differing access to
markets ................................................................................................................. 137
Table 5.5 Comparison of outfield agroforest holdings among households of different
ethnicities and with differing access to markets ................................................... 138
Table 5.6 Comparison of homegarden holdings among households of different ethnicities
and with differing access to markets .................................................................... 138
Table 5.7 Comparison of annual-tuber field holdings and characteristics among households
of different ethnicities and with differing access to markets ................................ 139
Table 5.8 Relationship of pasture holdings to farmer ethnicity and market access ............. 140
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Table 5.9 Comparison of our findings with those of other studies of land-use by small-scale
farmers in the region ............................................................................................. 154
Table 6.1 Potential benefits of agrodiversity ........................................................................ 156
Table 6.2 Selected demographic, linguistic, environmental and economic characteristics for
Panama and other tropical countries .................................................................... 172
Table A2.1 Declared “sub-ethnic group” of Darién Blacks in the 2010 National Population
and Household Census ......................................................................................... 242
Table A3.1 Median soil values from sampled annual fields in each village. ....................... 248
Table A3.2 Critical levels of nutrients for agriculture (IDIAP 2006) ................................... 249
Table A3.3 Pearson correlation coefficients of maize landraces included in the multivariate
analyses in Chapter 3 ............................................................................................ 252
Table A3.4 Pearson correlation coefficients of rice landraces included in the multivariate
analyses in Chapter 3 ............................................................................................ 253
Table A3.5 Pearson correlation coefficients and descriptions of Musa spp. landraces included
in the multivariate analyses in Chapter 3 ............................................................. 254
Table A3.6 Average rank of nine crops in terms of their dietary importance ..................... 256
Table A3.7 Average rank of six crops in terms of their dietary importance ....................... 256
Table A4.1 Species excluded from agroforest analyses ...................................................... 259

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