Edge‐Related Variation in Medicinal and Other “Useful” Wild Plants of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda

Abstract

Harvesting of wild plants for nontimber uses is widespread in the tropics, but its impact is usually quantified only for one or a few species at a time. Thus, forest managers are never clear about how well their efforts are protecting such plants. We quantified abundance and edge-related variation in 91 species of useful wild plants commonly harvested by communities around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP), Uganda, to evaluate the effect of their harvest. Forty percent of these species were harvested exclusively for medicines, 22% for weaving, and 24% for other uses. Fourteen percent were harvested for combinations of uses. Plants were surveyed around the entire periphery of the park transects that extended out 1 km into the forest interior from the edge. Analyses of edge and interior distribution were controlled for effects of topography. Individually, nine (10%) species were very rare, occurring in <0.5% of the plots searched. Of the remaining 82 species, most (50%) decreased significantly away from the park boundary, whereas 4.9% increased and 45.1% showed no pronounced edge-related distributions. Rarer species were no more likely to be less abundant near the edge than commoner species. These results suggest that most plants used for nontimber purposes in BINP are not currently being harvested unsustainably. In this respect many of the species of useful wild plants we examined resembled animals commonly hunted in tropical forests for bushmeat because they increased in abundance in disturbed habitat. Conservation action should initially aim to understand what influences distributions of very rare species. Edge-based assessments of distributions may be valuable for revealing harvest impact on species of useful wild plants commonly harvested by people living around forest islands in the tropics.

Healing Animals, Feeding Souls: Ethnobotanical Values at Sacred Sites in Central Italy

“…Such a relation accounts for the greater diversity of useful plants recorded at SNS, and is consistent with the insight that disturbed anthropogenic sites often serve as repository areas where ethnobotanical resources thrive (Marshall and Hawthorne 2012;Olupot et al 2009;Voeks 2004). Unexpectedly, however, we found that this greater diversity is not also accompanied by a higher proportion of useful species at SNS.…”

Lianas and Livelihoods: The Role of Fibrous Forest Plants in Food Security and Society around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda

“…The situation has worsened markedly since then. In their recent study, for example, Olupot et al (2009) found that L. apocynoides only occurred in 2.1% (41) of plots along 1-km long transects into Bwindi-Impenetrable National Park. As further evidence of harvest impacts close to the national park boundary, Olupot et al (2009) detected a positive, although not statistically significant, increase (p = 0.060) in L. apocynoides densities deeper into the forest.…”

The status of anthropogenic threat at the people-park interface of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda

“…Others have examined how flora and fauna are aligned along edgehabitat interior gradients in forests around the world (review by Laurance & Bieregaard 1997) and in the site studied here (Olupot 2009;Olupot et al 2009). Changes in habitat extent through time have been recorded (Westman et al 1989;Ite and Adams 1998;Hudak & Wessman 2000;Mayaux et al 2000;Vascouscelos et al 2002;Ambrose & Bratton 2005;Sivrikaya et al 2007;Forrest et al 2008).…”