Traditional ecological knowledge of bamboo in the Dulong community of northwestern Yunnan, China

Abstract

The Dulong people have accumulated a wealth of traditional botanical knowledge (TBK) over a long period on bamboo use to adapt to their living environment, which impacts many aspects of the life, culture, and creative productivity of the Dulong people. However, research on TBK associated with bamboo in Dulong communities is still lacking. It is urgent to investigate and document the TBK related to bamboo in the context of rapid economic development and social changes in Dulong communities. Field surveys were conducted four times between 2019 and 2020. Thirty informants were selected using snowball sampling and were interviewed using free lists and semi-structured interviews. Most informants were or had been engaged in bamboo collection and weaving. The participatory observation approach has also been applied to field surveys. The use value (UV) of bamboo species and the relative frequency of citations (RFC) were used to evaluate and compare the importance of bamboo plants used by the Dulong people. Through ethnoecological investigations, 12 bamboo species belonging to seven genera traditionally used by the Dulong people and TBK associated with bamboo were recorded. Phyllostachys sulphurea, Dendrocalamus fugongensis, and Fargesia pleniculmis were the most valuable and favored species, as indicated by their relatively high RFC and UV indices. The Dulong people have accumulated a wealth of TBK associated with bamboo and are familiar with the distribution, ecology, morphology, characteristics, and purpose of bamboo species in the Dulongjiang region. These bamboo plants and their traditional knowledge have great potential for conserving the local biodiversity and sustainable development. In the future, we will increase the growth of industries related to bamboo plants, such as bamboo shoots as food, bamboo as medication, bamboo for the weaving industry, and bamboo for biocultural diversity conservation.