Local knowledge and exploitation of the avian fauna by a rural community in the semi-arid zone of northeastern Brazil

The Araripe National Forest is a sustainable use conservation unit located within the Araripe Environment Protection Area (APA Araripe) which was created by Brazilian federal decree number 9226/46. The APA Araripe, which is also a sustainable use protected area in the Brazilian semi-arid zone, covers approximately 1,063,000 hectares and was created on August 4th, 1997 [30]. This area includes parts of the Brazilian states of Ceará, Pernambuco, and Piauí.

The Araripe NF is located in the eastern extreme of the Araripe Plateau, including areas of the municipalities of Crato, Barbalha, and Jardim, and is considered to be the first Brazilian national forest [29]. The relief is flat, with a mean altitude of 800 m a.s.l. Mean annual precipitation is 1100 mm, with mean temperatures of between 15°C and 25°C. Vegetation types include seasonal semi-deciduous forest, cerrado savanna, savanna woodland, and scrub [31].The rural community of Macaúba is located within the APA Araripe (Figure 1), in the municipality of Barbalha (Brazilian state of Ceará), some 610 km from the state capital, Fortaleza. The community contains approximately 250 families, and most of the residents are farmers who also harvest plant species occurring naturally within the area of the Araripe NF.

Macaúba was selected for the present study based on information provided by local technicians of the federal environment protection agencies (IBAMA and ICMBio) who reported high rates of environmental crime in the region, in particular the hunting and capture of wild animals. In addition, the management plan for the conservation unit refers specifically to the traditional hunting practices of this community [29].

Field trips to Macaúba began with conversations with local residents who could indicate possible specialist informants within the community who were known to exploit wild birds in some way. These initial interviewees included the local public health agents and the president of the Macaúba residents association, individuals who had contact with all the local families. Specialists were the residents known to have the greatest knowledge on the local avian fauna and capture techniques, as well as being proficient hunters of birds. A total of 24 interviews were conducted between September, 2012, May, 2013 and November, 2014.

Following this initial contact with local residents, specialists were identified using the “snowball” technique [32], in which informants are selected through the identification and interviewing of specialists, who are asked to indicate other specialists, who are also interviewed, and so on successively until the names cited begin to be repeated, indicating that further interviews are unnecessary. Preliminary contacts with residents from the Macaúba community indicated the first interviewees, who in turn indicated all other informants. A number of residents hunt and capture animals, although the specific objective of the study was to obtain information on the exploitation of bird species, which led to the discarding of many interviews, given that most informants only referred to the use of mammals, such as deer, agoutis, cats, and monkeys, or no longer practiced hunting. This led to the selection of 24 residents, who constituted the complete sample universe, and were considered to be specialists on the region’s birds and the strategies used to hunt and capture the different species.

The local knowledge of all the informants was also investigated using semi-structured interviews [33] in order to understand the characteristics of the bird species – such as vocalizations or plumage – that determine the specialists’ preferences or choices, based on their knowledge and experience of the region’s avian fauna. All the interviews were recorded with the consent of the informants.

At the end of each interview, the informant was invited to review a check-sheet of photographs showing bird species known to occur in the region [27], as well as seven species that are not found in the study area, which were used as a control for the evaluation of the reliability of the information provided in the interviews. The informants were asked to point to the species they hunted for meat, raised for captivity or used for medicinal purposes.

A use-value or UV [34] was calculated for each bird species, providing an index of relative importance of the species to the local human population. The UV score is calculated for a species is given by UV = ΣU/n, where ΣU = the species was cited by an informant (for one or both uses) and n = the total number of informants.