Swiddeners' Household Strategies for the Wild Harvest of Rauvolfia serpentina and Amorphophallus bulbifer in a Karen Swidden System in the Bago Mountains, Myanmar

Abstract

© 2019, The New York Botanical Garden. Swiddeners in the Bago Mountains, Myanmar collect two economically important non-timber forest products (NTFPs)—Rauvolfia serpentina (L.) Benth. ex Kurz (Apocynaceae) roots and Amorphophallus bulbifer (Roxb.) Blume (Araceae) corms. We analyzed household strategies for NTFP collection at ST village located on a paved road with direct access to middlemen, and KC village connected to a paved road by 10 km of a non-paved foot path. The number and percentage of harvesters of both species was greater at KC village than at ST village. Males contributed more (79.5%) than females (20.5%) to the R. serpentina harvest at KC village but not at ST village. Women could collect A. bulbifer within the limited time they had available from undertaking household tasks at both villages. The average amount of both species per harvest was higher at KC village than at ST village. The total production amounts of R. serpentina were 441.2 kg and 626.6 kg (valued at USD 529.5 and USD 751.9), and those of A. bulbifer were 1175.8 kg and 2254.6 kg (USD 117.6 and USD 225.5) per year at ST village and KC village, respectively. The NTFPs provided supplementary income for household members in the pre-harvest season of the swidden livelihood.