Agrobiodiversity constitutes an essential resource for traditional rural populations. Home gardens are "hotspots" of agrobiodiversity and important loci of in situ conservation efforts. This study seeks to understand the factors affecting gardeners' choices and to assess the accessibility of planting material in rural communities of the Peruvian Amazon. Household surveys and garden inventories conducted in 15 villages of the Corrientes river (n = 300), and case studies in three of these villages (n = 89), allowed to describe the local and regional patterns of garden agrobiodiversity and the structure of planting material exchange networks. Analyses reveal a strong link between species diversity and both household cultural and socioeconomic characteristics, and village ethnicity and size. Planting material flows primarily through matrilineal bonds, from advice-givers to advice-seekers, from old to young and from rich to poor. Farmers with exceptional species diversity, propensity to give and/or expertise are identified and their role in the conservation of cultivated plants is assessed. Expertise is not found to be as closely related to high species diversity as expected, but knowledge and planting stock dissemination go hand-in-hand.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.83198 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Perrault-Archambault, Mathilde |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Geography.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002294264, proquestno: AAIMR22614, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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