Study area

The study area is located in Santa Catarina state in southern Brazil in the municipality of Ibirama in the Ribeirão Taquaras community, a community of German immigrants and descendants that is located in a rural area (Figure 1). The Xokleng indigenous group, who possessed nomadic habits and lived in the region for approximately 3000 years, initially occupied the Ibirama region [36]. At the end of the 19th century, colonization of the region by immigrants of German origin began; these immigrants established themselves near rivers and developed land for agricultural activities [37]. The German migrants came directly from Europe or from other colonies already established in Brazil, and they built houses and began cultivating crops primarily for subsistence [37].

The municipality of Ibirama has a population of 17330 and is divided into eight localities in addition to its urban center. The Ribeirão Taquaras community was selected for this study because the people of this community maintain cultural German traits and self-recognize as a German community and because of the presence of the species E.edulis in the landscape. The community is located approximately ten kilometers from the urban center of the municipality. Notably, the German dialect, which has been transferred down through approximately three generations, is still used within family units and at community gatherings by people who were born in the community.

Historically, the properties in Ribeirão Taquaras are small, and they still maintain this pattern. The current average property size is 25.7 hectares [38]. The landscape consists predominantly of a mosaic of secondary forests, agriculture and pastures [39, 40]. The vegetation types present are montane rainforest at higher altitudes and submontane rainforest at lower elevations; both are part of the Atlantic Forest biome.

The community is located in the vicinity of a sustainable-use federal conservation unit (CU) (Ibirama National Forest) that was established in 1988 and consists of 519.23 ha. The CU has the objective of conserving biological diversity and promoting scientific research with a focus on native forest resources.

Data collection

Initially, this study was submitted to the Ethics Committee on Human Research (CEPSH), of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Certificate No. 944) and the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) through the System Authorization and Information on Biodiversity (SISBIO), which provided proof of registration (No. 24423-1) to collect botanical material, fungal and microbial which allowed us to start working in the field.

A census was conducted between September 2010 and January 2011 in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with each family unit. The interviews consisted of questions related to the economic profile and economic activities of the family, the uses of the property and the family’s relationship with the CU. The interviews were conducted with the householders; 65% (N = 65) of the family units in the community agreed to participate in the study.

To provide information on the importance of E.edulis in relation to other species utilized by the community, a survey on local species knowledge was conducted using the free-listings method [41]. The free-listings were carried out individually with people who agreed to participate after the census interview. A total of 91 free-listings were conducted.

During the free-listing, each participant was encouraged to cite plants in the use categories of food, medicine, and manufacturing; other uses spontaneously described by the informant were also recorded [41–43]. The ending of the free-listing was subject to saturation for that use category. Plants were cited by popular name in Portuguese or German and were collected for identification of variation in popular names referring to the same botanical species. Collection and identification were carried out according to the work of Poderoso et al. [44]. The specimens were deposited in the FLOR Herbarium at the Federal University of Santa Catarina.

Based on the census and free-listing results, informants who possess a current relationship with E.edulis and those who possess a historical relationship with E.edulis were identified. Specific interviews were then conducted with each informant group.

Among informants who currently use the species, the first category consisted of persons who cultivate the species in their homegardens, and the second category consisted of people who extract the fruit of the species to make juices and extract the palm for food. Twelve interviews were conducted with the informants in the first category regarding the uses of the plant, its origins, and the motivation for cultivation in the homegarden. To obtain information regarding the use of the plant for fruit collection, income generation from this activity, time of year when this activity is carried out, collection location, and the incentive for the activity, ten interviews were conducted with persons who only extract the fruit. These people were found during the free-listing by their ability to recognize the use of E.edulis fruits.

Individuals who had a historical relationship with the species provided information on the community’s transformations. The interview questions for this category were related to the changes seen in the landscape, its transformations, the environments recognized in the landscape (landscape units, ecotopes), economic activities, changes in the population living in the community, and changes in the use of E.edulis over time. To represent the category of older residents, informants who were at least forty years of age and had used their properties for at least twenty years were included because twenty years is the time period thought to be required for the establishment of a new population of E.edulis in the forest [45]. The interview sample on historical changes in the community consisted of eight people, and the duration of each interview was approximately one hour. These people were identified during the census and agreed to participate in the second stage of the research. The mean age of the informants was 63.3 years (standard desviation- sd = 12.3), their average time of residence in the community was 59.8 years (sd = 15.3) and minimal use of the property was 27 years, being that some informants had inherited property from their parents or grandparents. From the interviews with older residents, the landscape units were identified, and guided tours were performed to identify the locations of these landscape units in the forests and homegardens where E.edulis is found. Homegardens were defined as areas that have both native and exotic species, cultivated or not, and are located near the residence [46–48].

Information on the community’s historical changes obtained from individual interviews was triangulated with information generated by the use of two participatory research tools, a timeline and a historical graph [49, 50]. The development of these tools was organized as a workshop with a group of residents over the age of 50. The participatory tools were used after all interviews were completed to confirm the historical information obtained from the older residents regarding the economic and social transformations and the changes in landscape that had occurred and the denomination and recognition of landscape units. The two participatory tools were used in a complementary way and allowed the identification of events in the history of the community since the 1950s. The timeline allows the recognition of key events within the last six decades, while the historical graph permits the quantitative evaluation of these events from the beginning of the period to the present by assigning an intensity scale with the use of easily recognizable symbols [49, 50]. The “+” symbol was used to quantify an event; (+) indicated very little, (++) a moderate amount, (+++) a substantial amount and (++++) a large amount; the number zero (0) represented the absence or the end of an event. The transformation events analyzed using this tool were the presence of exotic tree plantations, the raising of livestock (cows and pigs), the cultivation of sweet manioc and tobacco crops, the transformation of native forest areas, the presence of secondary forests, the number of people who work in agriculture, sawmill activities with native plants, the presence of agroindustries that process sweet manioc, the number of palm-heart industries, and the quantity of E.edulis cultivated in homegardens. The workshop was mediated by one of the researchers, who recorded all of the information presented by the informants in a paper poster; another researcher took photographs and made notes on the workshop. At the end of the workshop, one poster that presented all of the information obtained was created. The session during which these methods were applied was about two hours in duration and included twenty-four people, both men and women.

Data analysis

The census data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The free-listing data were used to calculate the use value of each ethnospecies (VU) [51] and the salience index of E.edulis[42]. The ethnospecies are considered generic folk taxa [52].

All categories of use were considered in calculating the use value (VU) for an ethnospecies (VU = ΣU/N, where “U” is the number of citations for the ethnospecies and “N” is the number of informants). Use categories cited during the free-listing of ethnospecies that were cited by fewer than ten informants were included in the category “other uses”.

The salience index (Sj) was calculated only for the category of food plants because this type of use has been maintained for E.edulis. The salience index Sj considers the ranking of use citation for the ethnospecies and was calculated as Sj = Rj/nl, Sjtotal = ΣSj/n, where Rj is the ranking of the item on a list, nl is the number of items on the list, Sjtotal is the average number of the item’s position, and n is the total number of respondents. In addition to the salience index, the citation frequency of each ethnospecies was also calculated. To calculate the salience index, the software Anthropac 4.0 was utilized [53].

The analysis of the current and historical relationships of the community with E.edulis and of the historical transformations in the community and landscape was conducted using qualitative analysis of interviews and the participatory workshop described above in which the timeline and historical graph were used. The analysis was conducted by identifying response patterns related to each informant’s perceptions. The data obtained from these tools were organized into chronological tables, and consensual information was registered for each time interval to reconstruct the transformations that have occurred.

Community characteristics

The family units interviewed totaled 118 men (54.6%) and 98 women (45.4%) with an average of 3.0 persons per family (sd = 1.3) averaging 35.4 years of age (sd = 20.5). The level of education is primarily the early grades of elementary school (47.4%).

The family unit income comes mainly from paid labor, which constitutes the primary source of income for 58.5% of the informants and is the occupation of most of the economically active persons in the community (51.2%). Many families combine employment activities in urban areas with subsistence farming, a trend that began in the mid-1980s with the weakening of the local agricultural economy [40]. The average age of economically active people whose work is dedicated exclusively to agriculture (mean = 42.9 years) is higher than that of people whose work is dedicated to non-rural occupations (mean = 32.9 years).

The areas of use are mostly private property (90.7%) with an average area of 17 ha (sd = 20.3); most are classified as small farms according to the Brazilian property classification [54]. Only 8 family units indicated that agricultural activities are their main source of income. Properties whose family incomes are associated with urban occupations were found to be smaller (mean = 13.3 ha) than properties belonging to family units whose incomes are primarily associated with agricultural activities (mean = 33.1 ha).

Local historical changes

It was possible to reconstruct the history of the community from the 1950s based on information obtained from the interviews with long-time residents and from the participatory methods. The information obtained from individual long-time residents was confirmed during the workshop and is described below. All long-time residents interviewed perceived that changes related to the decrease in agricultural activities have occurred in the community since the 1950s. The extractive and agricultural activities that were historically performed in the community included dairy cattle and pig raising, planting of sweet manioc varieties (Manihot esculenta), timber extraction, and cultivation of native palm and tobacco plantations. Since the 1960s, planting of exotic trees such as pine (Pinus sp) and eucalyptus (Eucalyptus sp.) has acquired greater economic importance, with a significant increase between 1990 and 2000. Plantings of exotic trees have replaced some fields that once existed. The decrease in agricultural activities and the increased cultivation of exotic trees have been accompanied by a decrease in the number of people involved in rural activities. One important justification for the latter is the devaluation of agricultural products and the consequent difficulty of obtaining sustenance exclusively from agricultural activities. Thus, many planting areas have become plantations of exotic trees or regenerated secondary forest, which has expanded the forest cover of the community since the mid-1970s. In addition to the expansion of forest regeneration due to the abandonment of cultivated areas, another factor that has contributed to this process has been the regulation of the use of forest species due to restrictive legislation enacted in the 1990s. Furthermore, the creation of a federal conservation unit in the late 1980s expanded the mechanisms of prohibition, enforcement and punishment of farmers who use forest resources.

Landscape units

Information about landscape units was obtained through interviews with historical residents in workshops and through guided tours. The landscape units, forest environment and homegardens are those where E.edulis is found (Figures 2 and 3). Forest environments are distinguished and named in Portuguese and German according to different types of forests within the community. The community identifies the forest landscape unit (FLU) as “urwald” or “mato nativo” (native forest), which is defined as forest that has never been fully cleared for crops. This type of forest is recognized by the species that comprise it, for example Ocotea spp., by its physiognomy, such as the presence of large trees, and by the history of the area. Another recognized FLU is the “aldacapavera” or “altacapavera” in German and “capoeirão” in Portuguese, which is characterized by the presence of secondary forest of varying advanced ages. This FLU generally has a canopy height similar to that of a native forest, but its trees are smaller in diameter, and there is a predominance of initial or secondary pioneer species such as “jacatirão” in Portuguese or “jacatiron” in German (Miconia cabussu Hoehne, M.cinnamomifolia (DC.) Naudin), “cabroca” (Myrsine coriacea (Sw.) R.Br.), “licurana” (Hyeronima alchorneoides Allemão), “pau-jacaré” or “jacaré” (Piptadenia gonoacantha (Mart.) J.F. Macbr.), embaúba (Cecropia pachystachya Trécul.). Another FLU is “capavera” in German or “capoeira” in Portuguese, which is an intermediate between “capoeirinha” and “capoeirão”, comprising a lower canopy height with dominance of pioneer species such as “cabroca” (M. coriacea) and “jacaré” (P.gonoacantha). Another FLU is called “kleincapavera” in German and “capoeirinha” in Portuguese; this is an abandoned growing area two to three years old containing small trees and a reduced presence of E.edulis individuals. The word “capoeira” and its variations such as “capoeirinha” and “capoeirão” derive from the Tupi-Guarani expression [caá or kaá (forest)] + [coêra (which was)] and can be translated into English as “forest that existed”.

The FLU defines “aldacapavera”, “altacapavera”, and “capoeirão” as secondary forests resulting from a period of fallow after swidden cultivation. These landscape units expanded in area after reduction of community agricultural activities in the late 1970s.

The homegardens in Ribeirão Taquaras contain small populations or individuals of E.edulis along with other cultivated species. The information obtained from older residents and in the workshop reveals that homegardens containing E.edulis expanded in the community during the 1980s, whereas previously the species primarily occurred in forest environments in the area. Thus, landscape units on the farmers’ properties in which E.edulis is present are the “urwald”, “aldacapavera”, and “capavera” as described in German and homegardens that were reported in Portuguese as “quintais”.

Current and past use of Euterpe edulis

According to long-time residents, E.edulis was used for various purposes in the past, including as stem anchors and in roof construction (1950s to 1980), as a fiber for making chairs, as fodder for cattle and as food (some long-time residents reported remembrance of its use as food during their childhood). Moreover, its importance at sporadic events, such as consumption of palm heart on festive occasions (birthdays, community celebrations) and its use to generate income for the improvement of equipment or for unexpected health expenses, was emphasized. Nine of the ten older interviewed residents mentioned that people within their family units extracted E.edulis on private properties and maintained some reproductive individuals in the forests locally known in Portuguese as “bagueiras”. The maintenance of some reproductive individuals was a rule in the past among community members that favored the E.edulis population. The theft of E.edulis individuals from these areas is seen as offensive and is a source of great dissatisfaction. Currently, within the forest areas there is extraction of the species only for consumption by family units. Nine historic residents and those present in the workshop perceived the increase in the number of palm individuals during the past 20 to 30 years as due to prohibition and regulation by the CU and the sowing of E.edulis seeds by farmers in the forest areas.

According to the long-time residents interviewed, the species occurs preferentially in the “urwald” and “aldacapavera” FLU. Four long-time residents indicated that the growth of the species in the “aldacapavera” is faster due to the high availability of light. Interestingly, farmers recognize different types of E.edulis, “white palm-heart” and “purple palm-heart”, which are found within different environments.

At the beginning of the 2000s, the community members began to gather and use the E.edulis fruit, calling the fruits “açaí”. Use of the fruit for this purpose can be explained by the influence of the successful use and commercialization of the Amazonian species Euterpe oleracea and E.precatoria in Brazil, which are known as “açaí” in the North. Interestingly, the use of “açaí” to refer to E.edulis fruit is borrowed from an Amazonian folk name that is currently used to refer to E.oleracea and E.precatoria. The gathering of E.edulis fruits took place primarily in homegardens because E.edulis individuals are smaller in size and there is less danger of falling while collecting the fruit. Managers of the CU and the state agricultural research organization encouraged this initiative by conducting courses for people in the community. However, the gathering of fruits has not yet become a source of income for the people of the community due to various factors that include its overlap with other activities performed by residents and difficulties in commercialization that reduce the income-producing potential of this activity for some farmers. A group of people maintains this activity, however, and has prospects of eventually increasing it in the future.

In addition to the use of the species to obtain palm heart and for pulp extraction for the production of “açaí”, the species was found to be cultivated in homegardens. Individuals of E.edulis were intentionally planted on the properties of five family units (42%) or favored after dispersal by fauna in four family units (33%). Three family units (25%) indicated that the occurrence of the species is due to planting as much as to dispersion by fauna. The motivation of the participants to let the species grow in homegardens included the use of the plant to obtain palm heart (cited by eight family units, 67%), its ornamental appearance (also cited by eight family units, 67%), and the attraction of animals or for shade, which was cited by two family units (17%).