Biodiversity and Conservation 12: 1715–1739, 2003. 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Perceptions, use and availability of woody plantsamong the Gourounsi in Burkina Faso

*METUS KRISTENSEN and HENRIK BALSLEVDepartment of Systematic Botany, University of Aarhus, Nordlandsvej 68, DK-8240 Risskov, Denmark;*Author for correspondence (e-mail: metus@biology.au.dk; fax: 145-89-424747)

Received 17 September 2001; accepted in revised form 2 September 2002

Key words: Burkina Faso, Conservation, Gourounsi, Indigenous knowledge, Quantitative ethnobotany,Species accumulation curves, Sustainable use systems, Use-values

Abstract. The present study was conducted in five villages around the Nazinga Game Ranch, BurkinaFaso. Fifty informants of the Gourounsi ethnic group were used. Eighty-one useful woody species wereidentified, out of a total of 110 woody species in the area.Woody plant use was quantified as: edible fruits(28 species), vegetable sauce (22 species), firewood (33 species), construction (29 species) and medicine(64 species and 167 remedies). Further, species accumulation curves were used to estimate that more than650 remedies for medicine are used in the area. The community’s knowledge of plants was analysed inrelation to age, gender, village of residence and amount of intercultural visits. The knowledge pattern wasremarkably uniform, with only two variations: (1) men generally identified more edible fruit trees thanwomen, and (2) one village reported more firewood species than the other four villages. The informantshad a variety of opinions concerning the availability of useful plants, but the majority found theavailability to be fine and 47% of the informants searched for useable products in the savanna on a dailybasis. No correlation was found between an informant’s impression of useful products availability andhis /her frequency of visits into the savanna. The results show that the Gourounsi people live in intimaterelation with the savanna surrounding their villages. They are aware of the environment and are willing tolearn and adopt new conservation practices.

Introduction

The West African savanna has been shaped by people and animals for thousands ofyears and is an ecosystem of immense cultural and economic importance (White1983; Skarpe 1992). Woody savanna plants provide edible fruits, raw material forvegetable sauces that accompany the porridge, which is the primary meal in WestAfrica, medicine, firewood and construction material for houses, grain storagecontainers and shade shelters. The savanna also supports large game animals thatlocal people hunt for meat. During the last decades the human population in theWest African savanna region has increased, from 172 million in 1990 to 222 millionin 2000 (Faostat 2001). The human population growth increases the exploitation ofthe natural resources. Savannas are being converted into farmland and as a resultplants and animals on the remaining savannas are being over-exploited (Smith et al.1996; Attwell and Cotterill 2000; Lykke 2000b). Moreover, severe droughts in thearid and semi-arid zone of West Africa have reduced the availability of grass andtrees (Scoones 1995) and forced the people to move further south to the more moist

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savanna regions. As a consequence, continued focus on ecologically sustainable useand conservation of the savanna and its species is becoming increasingly important.

In 1979 the Nazinga Game Ranch was created as the first of its kind in WestAfrica. It was established to improve the ecological situation for the wildlife in thearea and to allow controlled hunting benefiting local people. Today the game ranchis a reservoir of savanna plants and animals. Outside the game ranch lie villagesinhabited by the Gourounsi people. A mosaic of cultivated fields and savannasurrounds the villages and local Gourounsi try to use and conserve the savannavegetation at the same time. These people possess knowledge accumulated duringgenerations about traditional use of plants and resource management practices. Thiskind of knowledge has become increasingly recognised, and biodiversity conserva-tion projects have often been more successful when local knowledge was incorpo-rated (Meffe and Carroll 1994). Incorporating local knowledge in managementleads to co-ownership of conservation projects and the local people may providecertain inspiration for sustainable use systems that the management planner, who isoften an outsider, had not thought of. On the other hand, the local people’sperceptions of management strategies may be different from those of a professionalmanagement planner and a survey of their ideas can show if some ecologicalprinciples need to be passed on.

The sample size and sampling effort needed to cover traditional knowledge in acommunity must be considered when conducting an ethnobotanical study. Theecological concept of the species accumulation curve (Colwell 1997; Chazdon et al.1998) can be used to show the relationship between the number of informantsinterviewed and the number of plant species mentioned. The curve shows how muchnew information each new informant contributes and it reaches an asymptote whenno new information is added. If the species accumulation curve does not reach anasymptote within the available number of informants, the total number of usefulspecies can be estimated using a non-parametric species richness estimator. Inaddition, the procedure for selecting informants must be considered carefully asseveral studies document that local knowledge is unevenly distributed in thecommunity among people of, e.g., different age, gender, education level and income(Phillips and Gentry 1993; Cotton 1996; Caniago and Siebert 1998; Hanazaki et al.2000; Luoga et al. 2000; Byg and Balslev 2001). All these groups of informantsmust be included to appropriately cover the whole spectrum of useful plants.

The fashion and extent to which local communities use the surrounding vegeta-tion differ among ethnic groups. The Gourounsi, for example, refuse to use anumber of different savanna trees as firewood (M. Kristensen and A.M. Lykke,submitted), even though the same species are known to be used as firewood by other

´ ´ethnic groups (Grundy et al. 1993; Sambou and Ba 1995; Kere 1998; Lykke 2000a).Therefore, the savanna can have woody plants that seem useful in the eyes of aconservation management planner, but these plants may be without value for theGourounsi searching for firewood. Furthermore, it appears that the perceptions ofhow extinction threatened particular local tree species vary among local people andalso the Gourounsi seem to disagree on the conceivable consequences of thepossible extinction of savanna species. The local people’s point of view may be

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influenced by their own level of use of the savanna. Lifestyles are changing due todevelopment and new products are more desirable than traditional products of thesavanna. For instance, those who can afford it use plastic bowls instead of basketsmade of grass, and stock cubs reduce or replace the use of local spices collected onthe savanna (Lamine et al. 1995; Mertz et al. 2001). It is important, though, toconserve traditional knowledge for coming generations, and in the future, whenmore land comes under cultivation, the value of the Nazinga Game Ranch as areservoir of culturally and nutritionally important plants and animals will probablybecome increasingly apparent.

The aim of this study, conducted among the Gourounsi people in south-centralBurkina Faso, was to identify local plant names and to quantify woody plant use inthe categories: edible fruits, vegetable sauce, firewood, construction and medicine.The number of informants required to cover the spectrum of useful plants wasevaluated and the distribution of plant-related knowledge in the community inrelation to age, gender, village of residence and amount of intercultural visits wasanalysed. Species rejected for use as firewood as well as the reason for the rejectionwere documented. Finally the relation between the frequency with which aninformant collected plants and their impressions of availability of plant resourceswas studied.

Study area

Ecological setting

The study was conducted along the northwestern edge of the Nazinga Game Ranchin the province of Sissili in south-central Burkina Faso (Figure 1). Altitudes rangefrom 270 to 380 m above sea level. Average annual rainfall is 1028 mm with a4-month rainy season between mid-May and mid-September. The average annualtemperature is 27.1 8C, with a maximum average monthly temperature of 31.7 8C inApril and a minimum average monthly temperature of 25.3 8C in August. The studyarea lies within the Sudanian phytogeographic region (Guinko 1984), and non-cultivated areas support savanna, which still covers around 60% of the province ofSissili (Howorth 1999). The savanna has a continuous herb layer and a discontinu-ous layer of trees and shrubs dominated by Vitellaria paradoxa C.F. Gaertn.,Terminalia avicennioides Guill. and Perr. and Piliostigma thonningii (Schumach.)Milne-Redh.

2The Nazinga Game Ranch covers 940 km . It supports 400 elephants, 300buffaloes, more than 4000 antelopes and 3000 warthogs. Most of the savanna withinthe game ranch is purposely burned in the beginning of the dry season to avoid moredestructive and uncontrollable fires later in the season. According to local people,fires have been increasingly frequent, strong and widespread during this century andthey suggest a reduction in frequency as a way to improve the management of thearea.

The villages around the game ranch interact with the game ranch by selling their

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Figure 1. Position of study area. The border of Nazinga Game Ranch is indicated (jjjj) and the fivevillages visited during interviews are marked with ellipses. Roads, permanent and seasonal rivers aremarked. A climatic diagram from Navrongo, 65 km from the study area, is shown (Walter et al. 1975).

handicrafts and food on the game ranch, by angling in the ponds and by gettinggame meat from the ranch. Also, a buffer zone outside the ranch border constitutesthe villagers’ hunting zone. Gourounsi contract workers and their families inhabit acamp inside the game ranch. Their work consists primarily of maintaining roads,paths, borders and barrages inside the game ranch, anti-poacher actions, abattoirwork and guiding and serving tourists during their stay.

When questioning the people living northwest of the game ranch it was found that94% of them consider the game ranch as a plus. It creates jobs, helps to conserve thesavanna and the wild animals and it financially supports schools, grain mills, storehouses etc. The local people appreciate and give high priority to the conservation ofthe savanna and it appears that the benefits obtained from the game ranch outweighits negative consequences, such as destruction of crops by game animals and

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restriction of cultivation areas, collection areas and fishing areas. The approach ofthe Gourounsi people is promising for nature conservation.

Cultural setting

´The area is inhabited by the Gourounsi people, from the Kassena and Nounasubgroups (Duperray 1984). The Gourounsi represent 5.3% of the population ofBurkina Faso (Atlas Jeune Afrique 1993) and the studied villages have an averagepopulation size of 294 adults (INSD 1996). The Gourounsi are bush farmers, i.e.they farm in the presence of a large number of trees and root systems. Fields arefarmed for an average duration of 4–5 years with follows traditionally being 20–30years long. Today more and more people travel to Ivory Coast and Ghana during thedry season as migrant workers. This trend forces the women to become moreinvolved in agricultural activities and as a consequence, traditional social norms arechanging as women are farming the fields rather than solely preparing the mealsafter the crops have been harvested. The major subsistence crops are sorghum(Sorghum bicolor), maize (Zea mays), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), ground-nuts (Arachis hypogaea) and yams (Dioscorea spp.). Cotton (Gossypium bar-badense) is grown as a cash crop.

During the last 15 years people from the Mossi and Fulani ethnic groups havebegun to migrate from the north into the studied area in search of new land suitablefor cultivation and grazing. The newcomers teach the Gourounsi to rear livestock.The Gourounsi were traditionally animists and resistant to missionaries who tried toconvert them to Islam or Christianity (Howorth 1999). But during the last years theyhave been subject to massive impulses from the newcoming Mossis and little bylittle they have begun to take in other religions. Now the majority have changedreligion merely by name, as Islam is seen as synonymously with ‘civilised’, butanimist practices and beliefs still survive.

Methods

Ethnobotanical data were collected in the following villages northwest of theNazinga Game Ranch: Sia, Natiedougou, Kontioro, Koumbili and at the camp insidethe game ranch (Figure 1). Fifty informants were interviewed, five men and fivewomen in each village. The selection of informants was done in collaboration withthe village leader. Care was taken to interview a representative combination ofinformants with respect to age and geographical position of the household within thedifferent villages. The informants were all over 18 years old, as it was not the aim ofthe study to test differences in information quantity between children and adults, butonly between different groups of adults. Only Gourounsi people were included, soas to exclude immigrants of Mossi and Fulani origin.

Using open-ended questions, the informants were asked to describe their use ofwoody plants (trees, shrubs and climbers) according to five use categories: ediblefruits, vegetable sauce, firewood, construction and medicine. Furthermore, each

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informant was asked (a) which woody species he /she did not use as firewood andwhy, (b) his /her frequency of plant collection and (c) his /her impression ofavailability of plant resources and whether this has changed over time. Thefollowing personal information was recorded for each informant: gender, age andhow often he /she had travelled beyond the studied area.

Plants quoted in interviews were collected and voucher specimens are depositedat the herbaria at University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and at University ofAarhus (AAU), Denmark. Nomenclature follows Lebrun and Stock (1991–1997).

Species accumulation curves were drawn of the cumulative number of speciesmentioned as being used, in each of the five use categories, versus number ofinformants interviewed. All curves were based on 500 randomisations of informantorder. For the medicine category a graph of the cumulative number of remediesmentioned was also plotted (Figure 2). It was investigated which of the followingeight species richness estimators performed best: Chao 1, Chao 2, abundance-basedcoverage estimator (ACE), incidence-based coverage estimator (ICE), Jackknife 1,Jackknife 2, Bootstrap and Michaelis–Menten means (MMMeans) (see Chazdon etal. (1998) for a further description of these). The computer program Estimates(Colwell 1997) was used to compute the species-richness estimators and thefollowing criteria were used to find the best estimator: rapid increase to S andmax

remain constant. Chao 2 was chosen as the best estimator and the S ’s were readmax

off the curves (Figure 2).The use categories edible fruits, vegetable sauce and construction contained

between 26 and 40 useful species, whereas 79 species were used for medicine out ofabout 110 woody species in total in the area (Hien 2001; M. Kristensen, inpreparation). In no case did the species accumulation curves reach S with 50max

informants, so more informants should be included to cover the complete spectrumof useful plants. However, Figure 2 shows that between 61 and 81% of the totalnumber of useful species in the use categories: edible fruits, vegetable sauce,construction and medicine were given by including 30 informants. This was taken tobe a reasonable compromise between effort and information gained. Local knowl-edge of species used for firewood and remedies used for medicine was veryspecialised and individual and Figure 2 shows that including 50 informants in theinvestigation was not enough to estimate S for these use categories. But themax

estimation revealed that more than 650 remedies for medicine were used in the area,indicating that many species have several curative effects. The present results forthese two categories are thus preliminary and on average each new informant added1.2 new species for firewood and 3.1 new remedies for medicine.

The explanatory variable ‘visits to other areas’ was divided into three groups: (0)never been away from home village, (1) been up to 30 km away from home, (2)been in the capital, Ouagadougou, or other countries. The ‘age of informant’variable varied from 19 to 105 years. This is the age given by informantsthemselves, which is not necessarily concordant with their biological age. Weestimate their biological age to be ca. 10 years lower than claimed. The variable wasdivided into three groups of equal size: (1) age ,36, (2) 36 # age ,56, (3) age $56years.

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Figure 2. Species accumulation curves (thick curves) and Chao 2 estimates (thin curves), divided up inthe five use categories. In the medicine category the cumulative number of species is shown as well as thecumulative number of remedies. Each point along the curves represents the mean of 500 randomisationsof sample pooling order. The estimated maximum number of species (S ) used in each category ismax

noted. The number of species cited by the first 30 informants is marked.

The ethnobotanical knowledge of each informant was expressed in terms of a‘relative use value’ ‘RUV’, divided into the five use categories. RUV measures howi i

many plant uses one informant knows relative to the average knowledge among allinformants (Phillips and Gentry 1993). A four-way factorial ANOVA, model II wasused to test whether there were differences in RUV on the basis of the categoricali

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variables gender, age group, visits to other areas and village (SAS Institute Inc.1994). The RUV values were transformed to achieve values of skewness andi

kurtosis ,u1.0u, and thereby approximate a normal distribution.Edible fruits, vegetable sauce and construction were transformed as: log(RUVi

(‘use category’) 3 100 1 1); firewood and medicine as: (RUV (‘use category’) 3i0.5100 1 0.5) . All first-order interactions were included in the analyses (interactions

of higher order do not make sense in the present case), but none of them weresignificant. Therefore the final models contain main effects only. When a significantdifference was found between the relative use values a multiple comparison by thestudent’s t test was used to pinpoint which categories differed (SAS Institute Inc.1994).

Results and discussion

Woody plant use

In the present Gourounsi community 1264 reports of uses covering 81 species ofwoody plants were gathered. Appendix 1 lists the woody plant species used in thecategories: edible fruits, vegetable sauce, firewood and construction. The five mostpreferred fruit species were Vitellaria paradoxa, Detarium microcarpum, Parkiabiglobosa, Saba senegalensis and Gardenia sp. These wild fruits are important forthe health of the people, as they contribute to a varied diet and increase vitaminintake (Guinko and Pasgo 1992). Most of the fruits become available at the timewhen cultivators start their annual farming cycle and food stocks are low. At thistime the gathered wild fruits are critical for sustaining household food supply.

The five most preferred species for vegetable sauce were Strychnos spinosa,Adansonia digitata, Balanites aegyptiaca, Parkia biglobosa and Vitex doniana. A.digitata, P. biglobosa and V. doniana are highly esteemed in other similar areas, butB. aegyptiaca is only considered as famine food elsewhere in Burkina Faso andleaves of S. spinosa are rarely used among other ethnic groups (Humphry et al.1993; Lamine et al. 1995; Mertz et al. 2001). Different plant parts are used formaking vegetable sauce. Leaves are used in 43% of the cases, fruits 29%, seeds 23%and flowers 6%. Leaves are known to have high nutritional value (Marshall 2001)and vegetable sauces made of wild plant parts are very important for the nutrition ofthe rural population (Smith et al. 1996). Meat is eaten only rarely among theGourounsi, whereas vegetable sauce is consumed almost daily accompanying athick porridge. The sauce ingredients are available at different times of the year andmany of them can be stored until food stocks are low. Another plus of the wild plantspecies is that they are more drought resistant than domesticated species (Humphryet al. 1993).

The five most preferred firewood species were Vitellaria paradoxa, Detariummicrocarpum, Pterocarpus erinaceus, Anogeissus leiocarpa and Hymenocardiaacida /Gardenia sp. They overlap with the five most preferred construction species:Vitellaria paradoxa, Anogeissus leiocarpa, Pericopsis laxiflora, Burkea africana

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Table 1. Species mentioned as becoming rare by 50 Gourounsi people in south-central Burkina Faso.

Species No. of reports of becoming rare

Ceiba pentandra 4Adansonia digitata 3Ficus sycomorus 3Acacia macrostachya 2Bombax costatum 2Acacia dudgeoni 1Daniellia oliveri 1Detarium microcarpum 1Ficus glumosa 1Ficus platyphylla 1Ficus sur 1Khaya senegalensis 1Pteleopsis suberosa 1Sclerocarya birrea 1Sterculia setigera 1Tamarindus indica 1

and Pterocarpus erinaceus, which all have hard wood and are very resistant totermite attacks. Firewood is the only energy supply among the Gourounsi and largeamounts are used. Since the same species are used for construction, one wouldexpect that their populations in the area decline, such as in Senegal (Lykke 2000a).However, Detarium microcarpum is the only important firewood species theinformants thought was becoming rare (Table 1). So species preferred for firewoodand construction are not identical to species with declining populations. This couldindicate that the Gourounsi use with care and indeed, during the present in-vestigation only collection of dead wood for firewood was observed, all large poleswere not cut in one area and firewood was not sold on the markets. But theexplanation could also be that the most abundant species are considered the mostimportant and useful species, as seen in other studies (Phillips and Gentry 1993;Begossi 1996).

More than 90% of the population in Burkina Faso are totally dependent ontraditional medicine and have no means to buy western medicine or go to a hospital(Guinko 1984). The present study identifies 64 woody plant species used formedicine among the Gourounsi people in south-central Burkina Faso (Appendix 2).In total 167 remedies are mentioned. The three plant families containing mostremedies are Caesalpiniaceae, Combretaceae and Rubiaceae; and the speciesTerminalia laxiflora, Parkia biglobosa, Crossopteryx febrifuga and Sarcocephaluslatifolius all have more than nine reports of use. The plant parts most frequentlyused are leaves (35.8%), roots (33.8%) and bark (21.9%). In South Africa rootswere more often used (38.4%) medicinally, followed by bark (25.6%) and leaves /stems (13.5%) (Williams et al. 2000). Most informants described a disease bymentioning its symptoms rather than the name of the illness. This could be theirnormal way of describing a disease to the medicine man, as for example they

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probably do not distinguish stomach ache caused by worm infection from stomachache resulting from malnutrition.

Several remedies were mentioned by only one informant. In some studiesinformation reported only once is not included in the results (Phillips and Gentry1993; Lykke 2000a), because a single informant may be wrong, either because oflack of memory, because of insufficient knowledge or because of giving wronginformation on purpose. In the present case Figure 2 shows that not the wholespectrum of remedies used for medicine was covered. Including more informantswould probably raise the number of reports on each remedy. This is supported bycomparing the present results with those of Legemaat-Bruggeling (1989) from thesame study area. That study mentions only 64 remedies, but 34% of her remedies areidentical to the present results and 55% of these are mentioned by only oneinformant in the present study.

Knowledge distribution

The RUV quantified the knowledge of each informant (Phillips and Gentry 1993).i

Figure 3 shows the mean relative knowledge of informants in each of the five usecategories. Informants gave twice as much information about medicinal plantscompared to each of the other use categories. The Gourounsi are almost totallydependent on traditional medicine, which may explain why they know and use manyplant species for medicine. More species were found to have a medicinal effect thanto be used for edible fruits, vegetable sauce, firewood or construction, as describedin the Methods section.

Ethnobotanical knowledge of species with edible fruits differed between men andwomen, with men being the most knowledgeable (P 5 0.0052). Many of the ediblefruits are consumed when the men are in the bush preparing the fields or whenhunting. Wild fruits are often their only food intake during the day. So even thoughwomen collect wild products in the bush for the household and secure the foodstock, men eat wild fruits more regularly and this is probably why they are moreknowledgeable.

No significant knowledge variation was found with respect to an informant’s ageand use of edible fruits. Other studies have shown that knowledge of edible fruits isobtained rather early in life (Phillips and Gentry 1993; Hanazaki et al. 2000), as it iseasy to learn and very practical to know. It is concluded that all ethnobotanicalknowledge of edible fruits is obtained before the age of 36.

Informants who have visited other areas than the studied area were found not toknow of additionally useful fruit species compared to the informants who have beenaround their home village all their life. The vegetation on the West African savannais uniform, which can explain the fact that informants who have travelled have notseen many new useful fruit species. Maybe those who have been far from home havebeen in other types of vegetation, like the forests in Ghana, but probably they do notthink of these species while interviewed in their home village.

The level of knowledge concerning species with vegetable sauce ingredients wassimilar for men and women, young and old, people who have travelled or not and

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Figure 3. Relative knowledge of informants in the different use categories. (A) Divided between womenand men. (B) Divided between three age groups. (C) Divided between amount of visits to other areas. (D)Divided between the five villages. For each use category and explanatory variable, significant differencesbetween the explanatory variables are marked with a * and the actual P-value is given (analysed byfour-way factorial ANOVA).

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between the five villages. Women collect sauce ingredients and prepare meals, butmen must be aware of important species. The Gourounsi farming style is to leave alot of useful species in the field, so when the men clear new areas for cultivation theyneed to know which species to eliminate and which to leave in the field. The presentresults are similar to other findings (Phillips and Gentry 1993; Joyal 1996; Hanazakiet al. 2000).

The knowledge of species used for firewood was consistent for men and women,young and old, people who have travelled or not, but varied between villages. Theinformants of Koumbili mentioned significantly (a-level of 0.05) more firewoodspecies than those in the other four villages. An explanation could be that Koumbiliresides far from the other four villages and here the vegetation may containadditional firewood species. This agrees with earlier findings (M. Kristensen andA.M. Lykke, submitted).

Men from 20 to 50 years old perform the construction work; knowledge ofconstruction species is evenly distributed relative to gender, age, amount of travelactivity or village. Even informants who do not undertake construction work knowwhich species are used.

Knowledge of species for medicine is often shown to increase with age (Phillipsand Gentry 1993; Caniago and Siebert 1998; Luoga et al. 2000). In the present caseneither gender, age, visits to other areas nor village showed a significant influenceon the knowledge pattern. There may be a variety of reasons for this. First,informants were only asked to name useful medicine species and not how theyprepared the medicine. The differences in knowledge of medicinal plants may bebased on efficacy and actual preparation, more than on the quantity of plantsmentioned by each informant. Second, the Gourounsi live in a remote area and theydo not interact much with the outside world through trade or the like (Howorth1999). Therefore it is believed that they still maintain and rely on their ownmedicinal knowledge. Acculturation and thereby loss of ethnobotanical knowledgeis only occurring slowly (M. Kristensen and A.M. Lykke, submitted). Moreover,each informant was interviewed only once and after giving maybe 10 remedies he orshe may have lost interest and stopped. Returning to the same informant later onmight have shown that some informants knew only the few remedies they men-tioned the first time and others would report new ones, as it was estimated that thereexist more than 650 remedies among the Gourounsi (Figure 2). Finally, schoolshave been in the area for the last 15 years only. Only recently young people havebegun to use their time away from their families, who are known to pass onmedicinal knowledge from one generation to the next (Legemaat-Bruggeling 1989),so if acculturation occurs due to new priorities among the young it is too early to tell.But 17% of the informants said that the young people do not want to work as hard,as people used to do in order to survive in the bush.

Rejected firewood species

The informants give different reasons for rejecting some species for firewood (Table2). The explanations: ‘brings misery’, ‘forbidden’, ‘ancestors did not use’ and

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Table 2. Species rejected as firewood by the Gourounsi in south-central Burkina Faso, their reasons forrejection and number of reports.

Species Brings Forbidden Ancestors Totem Holy Burn Makes Gives name Do notmisery did not use badly you faint to children know

Acacia sieberiana 1Adansonia digitata 1 1 1Afzelia africana 1 1 2Albizia chevalieri 1Annona senegalensis 1 1 1 1Bombax costatum 1 1 1Ceiba pentandra 1Crateva adansonii 1Daniellia oliveri 4 3 2Diospyros mespiliformis 1 3 1 1 3Entada africana 1Faidherbia albida 1Ficus sycomorus 1 1 3Gardenia sp. 1Khaya senegalensis 6 1Lannea acida 1Lannea microcarpa 1Ozoroa insignis 3 1 1Parkia biglobosa 1Pericopsis laxiflora 1 1 1Piliostigma thonningii 2 2 7 1 3Prosopis africana 1Sarcocephalus latifolius 1Sterculia setigera 1 2Stereospemum kunthianum 1 1 2 1 7Tamarindus indica 1 1 1 1Terminalia avicennoides 1Terminalia laxiflora 1 1Vitex doniana 1 1

‘totem’ are similar and can reflect regulations made by ancestors. The Gourounsihave strong relations to their ancestors and because the ancestors did not use aparticular species – no matter for what reason – they do not use it either. Informantswho said that a species was not used for firewood without knowing why areprobably not aware of prohibitions made by ancestors. They just follow theprohibitions, or maybe they simply did not want to reveal the reason. Species withmany medicinal uses are not burnt, because it is their ‘totem’ or ‘because it isforbidden’. These regulations are probably made to conserve species with importantcurative effects and to satisfy the spirits within them.

Two species are pointed out as holy among the Gourounsi: Diospyros mespilifor-mis and Ficus sycomorus. A village often has its own species of holy trees. In thepresent case a large individual of F. sycomorus was growing in the middle of one ofthe villages. Only one informant from the village mentioned it, but this is probablymerely an oversight of the other informants. A tree can be holy because it wasplanted when the village was established, or because it was pointed out as ‘tree of

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the village’ when the village was established, or because of the spirits living withinit, or because it has given a name to children. Species that give names to children arehighly valued. For example, if parents wish their child to be fertile, it will be namedafter a species with edible products. Felling a tree that has given a name to a child isviewed as an attempt to kill the person. Species that make you faint develop apoisonous smoke when burnt and people around Tenkodogo in Burkina Faso had the

´ ´same experience with Stereospermum kunthianum (Kere 1998).Species rejected as firewood were often said to ‘burn badly’. Adansonia digitata,

Bombax costatum and Ceiba pentandra belong to Bombacaceae, which havespongy, porous, low quality wood and the same is true for Sterculia setigera. Theother species rejected because they burn badly are used for firewood elsewhere in

´ ´West Africa (Sambou and Ba 1995; Kere 1998; Lykke 2000a). The Gourounsi canchoose the best and do not have to use everything they find because plenty of woodis available in the studied area.

Impressions of availability

The 50 Gourounsi informants had different opinions concerning the availability ofthe useful plants in their area (Figure 4); 31% said it was easy to find neededproducts in the bush, 16% said it was difficult, 35% said that some products wereeasy to find and others were difficult to find, and the rest of the informants did notknow or answered that the availability was satisfactory. The high percentage ofinformants who said that the availability of useable products is good shows that thesavanna area is not degrading rapidly and that it does provide wild products for thelocal people. However, Table 1 reveals that A. digitata and B. costatum, amongothers, are viewed as becoming rare by a few informants. These two species are veryimportant food sources and the result indicates an emerging problem. The pressureon natural resources is rising in the area because of growing human population –due to immigration and a high birth rate (Smith et al. 1996; Attwell and Cotterill2000; Lykke 2000b). Useable products are collected more intensively and more landis withdrawn for cultivation. Personal observations exposed that the invading Mossipeople clear the land more thoroughly when cultivating.

The Gourounsi live in close relation with the surrounding savanna vegetation and47% of the informants daily searched the savanna for useable products. Additional-ly, 24% of the informants went into the savanna two to three times a week. Only oldinformants did not venture into the savanna, but they had gathered knowledgeduring their entire lifetime. It was expected that informants who seldom go into thesavanna would rank availability higher, as they have less experience. But overallthere was no correlation between an informant’s impression of useful products’availability and the frequency of his /her visits into the bush (Figure 4). Theinformants who went into the savanna daily disagreed on the products’ availability.Either they did not search for the same kind of products, they did not know of thesame good locations or some of them might not know that previously it had beeneasier to find the needed products. In conclusion, the local knowledge gathered inthe present study confirms that useful products from the savannas are still available

1729

Figure 4. Impressions of availability of useable products among 50 Gourounsi people in south-centralBurkina Faso. The informants’ impressions are compared to how often they go in the bush. The numberof reports is given.

and in reasonable amounts, but the picture is beginning to change and alertness isnecessary.

Implications for conservation

The present study shows that the Gourounsi people live in close relation with thesurrounding savanna. They depend on the savanna for food, firewood, constructionmaterial and medicine. The degradation occurs at a slow pace because the popula-

2tion density (27.5 inhabitants /km ; Anonymous 1992) is low and because of a highawareness of the importance of non-destructive use and knowledge about theenvironment acquired through generations. But a beginning decline of importantspecies is indicated by the study and a high awareness of the limited naturalresources is needed to secure biodiversity for future generations.

The Gourounsi have a high degree of comprehension concerning management inthe area and during the study they suggested that it would be useful to have a personin each village who could teach them how to conserve the savanna. It shows theirawareness of the environment and their willingness to learn and adopt newconservation practices. Before implementing this suggestion, it must be investigatedwhether this ‘management consultant’ should be the same person for the whole

1730

ranch and travel from village to village, and if it should be an outsider, e.g. a foresterwho is educated from a national education centre. Otherwise the game ranch couldtrain a villager from each village in conservation management and let the villagerpass on his knowledge to his neighbours.

The competition for natural resources between wild animals and the humanpopulation must be followed closely in order to secure a reasonable level of gameanimal populations, so they do not cause unreasonable damage to the savanna and inthe villages surrounding the game ranch. Continued information concerning thejustification of the game ranch existence and its advantages must be given to thevillagers to ensure their continued collaboration. It is important to retain theirsupport and loyalty, as this will keep them from collaboration with poachers andsabotage.

Acknowledgements

We thank the ‘Ministere des Enseignements Secondaire, Superieur et de la Re-cherche Scientifique’ for research permission in Burkina Faso. We thank S. Guinkoand J. Boussim for support during fieldwork, and S. Nana and I. Nganga forallowing us to work in and around the Nazinga Game Ranch. We are grateful to N.Neti for valuable support as interpreter during interviews with local residents and to

´B. Some, M. Hien and N. Neti for help during plant collection. We are indebted tothe Gourounsi people for generously sharing their knowledge of plant use with us.A.M. Lykke is thanked for helpful comments on the manuscript and C. Lange andA. Sloth for drawing the map. Finally, we are grateful to WWF/Novo A/SBiodiversity fund, Knud Højgaard’s fund, the Faculty of Science at the University ofAarhus and the Danish Natural Science Research Council (grant 11-0390) forfinancial support.

1731

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1630

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1733

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1734

Appendix 2

Woody plant species used for medicine among the Gourounsi people in south-central Burkina Faso. Theplant part used for medicine is noted as: ash from the tree, ba: bark, fr: fruits, la: latex, le: leaves, re: resin,se: seeds, st: stem and ro: roots. The local Gourounsi names of the plants are written in French and thestressed syllable is underlined. The habits of the plants are included T: tree, S: shrub and C: woodyclimber.

Family /Species Habit Local names Plant part Remedy for No. of reports

ANACARDIACEAE

Lannea microcarpa Engl. and K. Krause T Katchogo ba dizziness 1]

ba, le diarrhea 1le for good health 1

Mangifera indica L. T Mango ba stomach ache, 1]

malaria, diarrheaOzoroa insignis Del. T Doua-nampanan le, ro snake bite 1

] as headache 1ANNONACEAE

Annona senegalensis Pers. S Kawalou le for good health 1]

ro general pain 1APOCYNACEAE

Carissa edulis (Forssk.) Vahl S Boumbahallou ro malaria 1]

ro sick children 1ro snake bite 1

Saba senegalensis (A. DC.) Pichon C Loho ba general pain 1]

ba, le stomach ache 2ba, le for good health 2le an arm or the like 1

out of jointro diarrhea 1ro dysentery 1ro healing of wound 1

ASCLEPIADACEAE

Calotropis procera (Ait.) R. Br. in Ait. f. S Pollou ro snake bite 1]

Leptadenia hastata (Pers.) Decne. C Bnagassaha le stomach ache, malaria 1]

BOMBACACEAE

Adansonia digitata L. T Koun-nou ro, ba healing of wound 1]

CAESALPINIACEAE

Burkea africana Hook. T Tagnan ba back-ache 1]

ba general pain 1`Cassia sieberiana DC. T Tchepounghan ro stomach ache, malaria 7

]Cassia singueana Del. T Kassila le for good health 1

]le stomach ache 1

Daniellia oliveri (Rolfe) Hutch. and Dalz. T Katcholo re sick children 1]

ro hemorrhoids 3Detarium microcarpum Guill. and Perr. T Kadankoualo, Dankoualo ro hemorrhoids 2

] ]ro diarrhea 3ro, se stomach ache 1le, st wash newborn 1

Isoberlinia doka Craib and Stapf T Thoorou le malaria 3]

le stomach ache 1le for good health 2

Piliostigma thonningii (Schumach.) Milne-Redh. T Vagnon-non le, ba for good health 1]

Tamarindus indica L. T Sonhon-non ro stomach ache 1]

CAPPARACEAE

Cadaba farinosa Forssk. S Tihiyan le diarrhea 1]

Crateva adansonii DC. T Kadjira le diarrhea 2]

CELASTRACEAE

Maytenus senegalensis (Lam.) Exell S Poho, Gaou-paou, Lahaou ro, le for good health 2] ] ]

ba woman is ill 1le malaria 1ro cough 1

1735

Appendix 2. (continued)

Family /Species Habit Local names Plant part Remedy for No. of reports

CHRYSOBALANACEAE

` ˆParinari curatellifolia Planch. ex Benth. T Kalie song ba if children have no appetite 1]

le malaria 1le stomach ache 1

COMBRETACEAE

Anogeissus leiocarpa (A. DC.) T Loua, Lou ba hemorrhoids 1] ]

Guill. and Perr.le, ba diarrhea 1

Combretum collinum Fresen. T Lahponi ro stomach ache 1] le for good health 1

le malaria 1Combretum glutinosum Perr. ex DC. T Kamaloho, Kamaloho-pong, ro stomach ache 1

] ]Taviou]

Combretum molle R. Br. ex G. Don T Sanvatua le stomach ache 1]

le for good health 1Combretum paniculatum Vent. S Bouvahon, Vlavahan le for good health 1

] ]le malaria 5le pain in the eyes 1

ˆGuiera senegalensis J. F. Gmel. S Kaladohori le for good health 2]

le stomach ache 1le malaria 1le pain in the eyes 1

Pteleopsis suberosa Engl. and Diels T Gnissogo re sick children 1]

ro, ba stomach ache 2ro for good health 1ro boils 1le malaria 1

Terminalia schimperiana Hochst. T Koro le headache 1]

syn T. avicennoides Guill. and Perr.ˆ `Terminalia laxiflora Engl. and Diels T Koro-kone le, ba malaria 1

]ro hemorrhoids 5ro stomach ache 4ro, le children have no appetite 1

EBENACEAE

Diospyros mespiliformis Hochst. T Kakanon, Kanon ro, le children have no appetite 2] ]

ex A. DC.ba to give mother milk to breast 1ba, le for good health 1le general pain 1st healing of wound 1le pain in the eyes 1fr diarrhea 1

EUPHORBIACEAE

Excoecaria grahamii Stapf S Tholla la, ro stomach ache 2]

FABACEAE

Acacia dudgeoni Craib ex Holl. T Sabouara singan ba hemorrhoids 1]

ba to give mother milk to breast 3ba a sore throat 1

Acacia macrostachya Reichenb. ex DC. T Pahaou ba to give mother milk to breast 3]

ba for good health 1ro cough 1ba if mother is bleeding after 1

giving birthAcacia sieberiana DC. T Sabarpong, Sabouarpong ro general pain 1

] ]Kampor-lia ro boils 1]

1736

Appendix 2. (continued)

Family /Species Habit Local names Plant part Remedy for No. of reports

Albizia chevalieri Harms T Boussounhou le stomach ache 1]

Faidherbia albida (Del.) A. Chev. T Nouzon-non ba if mother is bleeding after 1]

giving birthba cough 2

Lonchocarpus laxiflorus Guill. and Perr. T Lanterpona, tanlorpouna le diarrhea 1] ] le malaria 1

le, ro snake bite 1le for good health 2

`Pericopsis laxiflora (Benth.) van Meeuwen T Tche-kourou ro hemorrhoids 1]

le malaria 1´Pterocarpus erinaceus Poir. T Tangue ba dizziness 1

]ba healing of wound 1

¨Xeroderris stuhlmannii T Koubo-vor le wash newborn 1]

(Taub.) Mendonca and Sousa le malaria 1FLACOURTIACEAE

Oncoba spinosa Forssk. T Kounkouolo le wash newborn 2]

HYMENOCARDIACEAE

Hymenocardia acida Tul. T Dankoualka-lansinga le hemorrhoids 1]

le general pain 1le sick children 1

LOGANIACEAE

Strychnos innocua Del. T Kampoua biya ro malaria, stomach ache 3] ]

ro the magic of snakes 2ro stomach ache 2

Strychnos spinosa Lam. T Kampoua ro back-ache 1]

ro for good health 1MELIACEAE

Khaya senegalensis (Desr.) A. Juss. T Pnou, Pnaha ba, ro stomach ache 1] ]

ba hernia 1Pseudocedrela kotschyi (Schweinf.) Harms T Gnouborri ro toothache 1

]Trichilia emetica Vahl T Nahdoua ro for good health 1

]ro stomach ache 1le sick children 1ro if children have no appetite 1ro hernia 1

MIMOSACEAE

Entada africana Guill and Perr. T Bouassong, Gouasson-non fr cough 1] ]Koullasson-non fr toothache 1]

Parkia biglobosa (Jacq.) R. Br. ex G. Don T Sounhou ba, ro stomach ache 6]

ba, le hemorrhoids 5ro snake bite 1ba diarrhea 1ba, se sick children 1

MORACEAE

Ficus platyphylla Del. T Kapro-Kagnon ba stomach ache 1] ]

Ficus sycomorus L. T Kapro-pong ba to give mother milk to breast 2] ] ba diarrhea 3

ba a sore throat 1OLACACEAE

Ximenia americana L. S Muhiyou, Filounou le, ro malaria 1] ]

ro general pain 1ro difficult and pain when urinating 1ro stomach ache 1

1737

appendix2. (continued)

Family /Species Habit Local names Plant part Remedy for No. of reports

OPILIACEAE

Opilia amentalea Roxb. C Lahamounou ro for good health 2]

le malaria 2le wash newborn 1ro back-ache 1

POLYGALACEAE

Securidaca longipedunculata Fres. S Sihiya le, ro snake bite 2]

ro general pain 2ro boils 2ro back-ache 1ro for good health 1

RUBIACEAE

Crossopteryx febrifuga (G. Don) Benth. T Lobadihia le for good health 3]

ba general pain 1le, ro malaria 1ro stomach ache 2le, st wash newborn 5le sick children 1

Feretia apodanthera Del. T Tchilatchiga le stomach ache 2]

Mitragyna inermis (Willd.) O. Kuntze T Blatooro le malaria 3]

Sarcocephalus latifolius (Smith) Bruce T Gloholon, Djoholon ro if children have no appetite 1] ]

ro, fr, le stomach ache 9ro, le for good health 1ro wash newborn 1ro, se malaria 5

SAPINDACEAE

` `Paullinia pinnata L. T Bouvala, Anoubi-yere le wash newborn 1] ]

le malaria, tiredness 5le for good health 2le pain in the eyes 1

SAPOTACEAE

ˆVitellaria paradoxa C.F. Gaertn. T Song re sick children 1]

ba hemorrhoids 2ba stomach ache 1ba to give mother milk to breast 1se healing of wound 1la snake bite 1ba a sore throat 1ro diarrhea 1

STERCULIACEAE

Sterculia setigera Del. T Kouhou-poulou ro stomach ache 1] le pain in the eyes 1

VERBENACEAE

Vitex doniana Sweet T Kanounou ba leprosy 1]

Vitex madiensis Oliv. T Tambari-kanounou ro infectious hepatitis 1] ]

ro general pain 1

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