Indigenous peoples such as the Tawahka in Honduras have been practising sustainable agriculture on tropical forest lands for thousands of years. Central to their agricultural harvesting practices is an holistic concept of the 'forest'. By applying it, they have successfully integrated a rich assortment of crops with differing soil types and seasonal variations in rainfall with degrading the forest environment. Now socio-economic pressures are forcing the Tawahka to defend their lands' by seeking protected reserve status. Comparative analysis of the Tawahka's farm management and coping strategies features in a recent Overseas Development Institute report on studies by a University of Reading ethnobotanist.

Investigations among Tawahka communities in the remote Rio Patuca region of Honduras have yielded insights into innovative shifting cultivation and multiple-use techniques. A typical Tawahka village system might incorporate many richly differentiated environments: orchard gardens, riverside gardens and beanfields in the lowlands, manioc fields and rice fields in the uplands and home gardens in the main residential area. Some 76 useful plant species and more than 90 varieties of edible produce are grown in an almost continuous cycle. The report examines in detail the Tawahka's agricultural management practices in this assortment of agricultural niches. Home gardens are exclusively the domain of women, and are of great importance to households. The highly seasonal riverside gardens provide extra cash income, fresh produce for family use, or both. Versatility also rules the larger crop systems, as witness:

• in orchard gardens, crops (different varieties replanted seasonally for guaranteed yields) are grown between non-orchard trees and plantain groves, cacao has been introduced as a cash crop, and timber and medicinal products are harvested year-round
• upland farming plots are rested in dynamic fallow cycles, upland manioc production and rice monoculture are diversified by judicious intercropping with other species
• cultivation of beanfields is integrated with other productive practices in lowland fields and gardens.

The report traces similarities between Tawahka agriculture and that of other groups indigenous to Mexico and the Peruvian Amazon. In striking contrast to these sustainable regimes are the farming practices of migratory farmers (campesinos) operating in the same neighbourhoods as the Tawahka. Mostly subsistance-farmers and cattle ranchers, they lack awareness or experience of local micro-environments and the destructive impacts of permanent forest clearing. They favour intensive monocropping or cattle ranching over crop diversity or low-density market gardening and tend to hold indigenous knowledge in low regard.

With support from Unesco, the Tawahka are taking steps to safeguard their environment and traditional way of life. A draft resolution to gazette an exclusive Tawahka 'conservation region' is presently before the Honduran Congress, while the Federacion Indigena Tawahka de Honduras is coordinating efforts to designate the Rio Patuca basin a protected reserve. Recognising the impossibility of remaining a cultural island, the Tawahka are working to develop self-help programmes to adapt to the challenges of coping with rapidly growing communities, generating cash income, maintaining clean water supplies and treating sewage.

Source(s):
Forest Farmers: A Case Study of Traditional Shifting Cultivation in Honduras. Rural Development Forestry Network Paper 21b, ODI, London. Paul House (1997)

Funded by: Darwin Initiative

id21 Research Highlight: 1998-May-06

Further Information:
Paul House
Departamento de Biologia
at the Universidad nacional autonoma de Honduras
Honduras

Contact the contributor: prhouse@lenz.unah.hondunet.net

Rural Development Forestry Network, ODI, UK