Use of ecosystem services in the community «La Majagua»

Abstract

This work has as objective to present the interactions man-nature in the town La Majagua, located in the vicinity of the Forestry Experimental Station of Viñales (km 22 road from Pinar del Río, to Viñales) through the development of a methodology for the regaining of information accumulated by the population in their daily practices of direct usage of goods directly or indirectly obtained from the ecosystem. The data were attained during a work field developed in different encounters with the neighbors of the town, applying the method of surveys, the direct observation of the daily activities and the personal communication through open interviews to peasants, workers and proprietors of houses. There were identified 60 vegetable species, represented in 38 botanical families and 47 goods used by the population, which are distributed in 10 categories of final uses associated to eco-systemic services of provision of raw materials, and cultural: human feeding, animal feeding, spice, therapeutic, ritual and/or ceremonial, handmade, constructive, multipurpose, firewood and vegetable coal. They were also examined in a preliminary way some commercialization aspects, and of distribution of tasks associated to the family hierarchy and to the gender, as well as a detailed of the human dimension manifested in the assessed population segment.