Uso e conservação do candombá (Vellozia sincorana), planta endêmica da Chapada Diamantina, Bahia, Brasil

Abstract

Communities living around the areas of access to natural resources hold important information about the use and potential of useful plants available, as well as the skills and techniques adopted for collection. However, overpumping of plants can modify their population structure and change the dynamics of the individual in the long term. Thus, this study collected data on knowledge, use and collection techniques of candombá (Vellozia sincorana L.B.Sm. & Ayensu), an endemic plant of the rocky fields of Chapada Diamantina, Bahia, Brazil, used by locals as fuel to start burning in wood stoves, and evaluate their population structure in collection areas suggested by local collectors, whose populations are under varying degrees of accessibility. The study was outlined to answer the following questions: a) To what purpose the residents of local communities in the Chapada Diamantina use candombá? b) The uses listed vary by occupation and gender of the informants? c) What are the most used categories of use in communities? d) What are the main sites for the extraction of the species? e) What are the techniques used to cut and plant selection? f) There are differences in the densities, heights and diameters of the individual populations of V. sincorana two operating environments? We interviewed 37 key informants in six rural communities in the Chapada Diamantina. The usage category "Fuel" was the most reported with 55 citations, followed by trade (12) technology (10) ritual (2). Both men (G = 14.1272, p <0.01), compared to women, as the ex-miners (G = 32.643, p <0.001) compared to other occupations seem significantly better understand the utility of the species indicating that probably the difficult access to candombá, associated with its location in the vicinity of the old mining areas benefited men to better knowledge of candombá. We sampled 814 individuals of V. sincorana the six populations studied. Environments more distant tracks presented density (ind.m²) is significantly higher compared to the environments closest track, indicating that the environments more accessible to the resource are more disturbed, but now seem to be being replaced by more distant areas, which can be found higher plant density and individuals with characteristics preferred by collectors. It can be inferred that currently candombá has no economic importance, but has great cultural significance for human populations in rural communities of the Chapada Diamantina, which hold techniques and skills for collecting the resource that are relevant to subsidize actions management and conservation of V. sincorana, since this species populations showed changes in structure between different access environments the species.