Cycad Conservation, Peasant Subsistence, and the Military Coup in Honduras

Abstract

In rural Honduras, collaborating U.S. and Honduran researchers have elucidated indigenous technical knowledge and customs surrounding local uses for, and conservation of, an endemic cycad—Dioon mejiae Standl. & L. O. Williams (Zamiaceae)—that is an important food source for the lowest economic stratum of local society. Dissemination of research findings within the region has produced positive outcomes for the cycad's conservation without undermining the usufructuary rights of cycad-dependent families. This experience suggests the elements of an effective, low-cost approach to promulgating noncoercive, community-based resource stewardship. However, recent presidential elections notwithstanding, the 2009 coup has undermined the conditions under which participatory research and conservation can take place in Honduras, highlighting the need for researchers and practitioners to consider and confront the assaults on human rights, intellectual freedoms, and natural systems that transpire in the countries where they work.

Keywords:

• community-based conservation
• coup
• cycads
• ethnobotany
• Honduras
• hydroelectric
• indigenous technical knowledge
• political ecology
• subsistence
• violence

Thank you to our reviewers and the editors of this journal. Graham is grateful for grants from Berkeley's Division of Arts and Humanities, its Center for Latin American Studies, and the Tinker Foundation. Bonta wishes to thank AFE-COHDEFOR, Agenda Forestal, Delta State University, Instituto Hondureño del Turismo, Louisiana State University Board of Regents, and Montgomery Botanical Center, and TEFH Herbarium of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras for substantial field research support. We also acknowledge and thank our many tiusinte project collaborators. Our deepest gratitude goes to the Honduran communities that hosted and helped us.

Notes

Tiusinte, the cycad discussed here, should not be confused with teosinte, which refers to various grasses in the Zea and Tripsacum genera. Both names derive from the classical Nahuatl “teocentli” (sacred maize ear).