Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Sustainability of Miskito Slash-and-Burn Agriculture in the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve of the Mosquitia Rain Forest Corridor, Honduras

博士论文研究：洪都拉斯莫斯基蒂亚雨林走廊里约普拉塔诺生物圈保护区米斯基托刀耕火种农业的可持续性

• 批准号: 0071243
• 负责人: Peter Herlihy
• 金额: $ 0.96万
• 依托单位: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-06-01 至 2001-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0071243&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Sustainability; Miskito

One response to the growing world-wide attention to environmental issues has been the establishment of an international network of biosphere reserves, which have been established to protect areas of high biological and cultural diversity. A special challenge of managing these reserves is determining how to preserve the natural ecological characteristics of places at the same time opportunities are provided for indigenous peoples residing in and near the reserves to engage in traditional and new forms of sustainable economic activity. Analysis of the interrelationships between indigenous resource use and protected-area management is crucial to assessing the long-term viability of conservation initiatives in these locales. This doctoral dissertation research will analyze the sustainability of indigenous Miskito slash-and-burn agriculture within the context of proposed conservation management guidelines for the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve of eastern Honduras. The project will focus on the land-use practices of Wampusirpi, an indigenous Miskito community along the southeastern boundary of the reserve. For the purposes of this project, sustainability is defined as the length of time that agriculture in the reserve will be able to supply village subsistence and cash needs given current forest clearance, population growth, and the proposed biosphere land-use restrictions. Participant observation and other ethnographic research techniques will be used to collect socioeconomic, demographic, and agricultural data from each household in the community. These data will be used to construct a predictive model that simulates future population growth and land-use expansion for the community, thereby facilitating an assessment of the sustainability of slash-and-burn agriculture in the biosphere. The project will document current land-use patterns of an indigenous Miskito community in Rio Platano, and it will provide a range of possible scenarios for future land-use practices, thereby identifying the pressures that subsistence and economic needs of biosphere residents might place on management of the reserve in the future. By analyzing the sustainability of agriculture within the context of the Rio Platano management plan, this project will contribute to current debates on the role of indigenous people in conservation and the viability of protected areas as models to conserve biological diversity and provide for indigenous land and resource rights. Project results therefore will valuable for the formulation of future conservation policy in Rio Platano and other inhabited protected areas in Latin America. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.

对全世界日益关注环境问题的一个反应是建立了一个国际生物圈保护区网络，建立生物圈保护区是为了保护生物和文化高度多样性的地区。 管理这些保留地的一个特殊挑战是，确定如何保护这些地方的自然生态特征，同时为居住在保留地内和附近的土著人民提供机会，使他们能够从事传统和新形式的可持续经济活动。 分析土著资源利用与保护区管理之间的相互关系，对于评估这些地区保护举措的长期可行性至关重要。 本博士论文的研究将分析土著米斯基托刀耕火种农业的可持续性范围内拟议的保护管理准则的里约普拉塔诺生物圈保护区东部洪都拉斯。 该项目将侧重于Wampusirpi的土地使用做法，Wampusirpi是保护区东南部边界沿着的一个米斯基托土著社区。 在本项目中，可持续性的定义是，在当前森林砍伐、人口增长和拟议的生物圈土地使用限制的情况下，保护区内的农业能够满足村庄生存和现金需求的时间长度。 参与者观察和其他人种学研究技术将用于收集社区每个家庭的社会经济，人口和农业数据。 这些数据将用于建立一个预测模型，模拟该社区未来的人口增长和土地使用扩展，从而有助于评估生物圈中刀耕火种农业的可持续性。 该项目将记录里约普拉塔诺土著米斯基托社区目前的土地使用模式，并将为今后的土地使用做法提供一系列可能的设想，从而确定生物圈居民的生存和经济需求可能对今后保护区的管理造成的压力。 通过在里约普拉塔诺管理计划的范围内分析农业的可持续性，该项目将有助于目前关于土著人民在养护方面的作用以及保护区作为养护生物多样性和规定土著土地和资源权利的模式的可行性的辩论。 因此，项目成果将对制定里约普拉塔诺和拉丁美洲其他有人居住的保护区的未来保护政策具有重要价值。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。