Caracterização e estado de conservação de espécies lenhosas utilizadas em um quilombo no litoral da Paraíba, Nordeste do Brasil

Abstract

The intensive use of natural resources by humanity has resulted in the destruction of vast areas of native environments. This reality has led several sciences to concentrate efforts on the delimitation and identification of priority areas and species for conservation. In this sense, ethnoecological studies contribute by describing how societies relate to nature, providing contextualized alternatives to biodiversity exploration and management practices. In view of the above, the present work has the objective of characterizing and classifying the woody species that are used directly from forest remnants, by the quilombola community Ipiranga, Conde-PB municipality. Information on the use of woody plants was obtained through semistructured interviews, applied to eight informants, defined by the 'snow ball' method. Plant availability in the wild was verified through a phytosociological survey carried out on the main local forest remnant, which has about 11 ha. Were distributed a total of 100 plots of 10 X 10 meters, 20 m apart, were sampled all woody individuals with CAP> 5 cm and at least 1 m in height. The species were grouped into categories of uses and for each one were calculated the Value of Use, Conservation Priority Index (CPI) and phytosociological parameters. The Spearman correlation test was performed between IPC, VU and relative density. Were cited as useful 64 species, belonging to 27 families and 44 genera. The Informants attributed 48 types of uses to the plants cited. The category of technological use had a greater species richness. A large part of the verified uses are made through the extraction of the trunk, mainly for the manufacture of support rods of yam production and handicrafts. Values of Uses per family ranged between 0,5 and 7,625, with a greater emphasis on the Leguminosae family. As for the CPI, of the species analyzed, 16 were in Category 1 (priority for conservation), 41 in category 2 and 7 in category 3 (species with little restriction of use). There is a significant correlation between the CPI and the VU (rs = 0.4413; p = 0.0003) and with the relative density (rs = 0.3777; p = 0.0021), indicating that the plants that presented the highest values in the IPC are the ones that had the highest Value of Use and lower density in the forest inventory. The study showed that most of the plants used require intervention on the means of extraction and harvesting frequency, indicating also that the initial efforts of conservation should be directed to Handroanthus impetiginosus (Pau d'arco) and Bowdichia virgilioides (Sucupira), because have the highest CPI score, register a low density and have uses essentially related to the extraction of the bark and wood.