Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ready to resort to violence provide little assurance that the large-scale destruction
of targeted mammals, birds, and reptiles will be reduced anytime soon.
The overexploitation, and eventual extinction, of wild animal species (above all
of herbivorous megafauna, primates, and large carnivores) receives incomparably
more attention than the damage done by foraging for food and medicinal plants,
but their collection remains an important addition to crop-based diets in many low-
income countries. Their contribution is mainly in terms of micronutrients (vitamins
and minerals) obtained by consuming leaves, seeds, tubers, fruits, and nuts. Among
114 species of trees and shrubs in the Sahelian zone of Africa 23 kinds are of great
importance and another 46 of a limited importance in diets; in rural Tanzania, 80%
of all leafy green vegetables are consumed, in West Africa, 24 of 165 studied plant
species are regularly eaten; and on the continent as a whole, more than 500 different
wild plants are consumed as food (Fleuret 1979; Ogoye-Ndegwa and Aagaard-
Hansen 2003; Shackleton 2003; Tabuti, Dhillion, and Lye 2004).
One wild plant food is also an important source of two macronutrients that are
commonly in short supply in crop-based diets. In West Africa, the beans of a legu-
minous tree,
Parkia biglobosa,
are boiled and fermented, and the dried concentrate
(
dawadawa
), which is commonly added to stews, contains 20%-50% protein (with
lysine content similar to that of egg) and 30%-40% lipids (60% being unsaturated
fatty acids), as well as iron and calcium (Campbell-Platt 1980). The calcium-,
protein-, and lipid-rich leaves of the baobab (
Adansonia digitata
) are a favorite
across large parts of western Africa (Lykke, Mertz, and Ganaba 2002; Chadare
et al. 2009), and nutrient-rich butter is extracted from shea nuts (
Butyrospermum
parkii
). India's variant of
dawadawa
is made from the unripe pods of
jant
(
Prosopis
cineraria
) in the country's western semidesert areas (Gupta, Gandhi, and Tan 1974).
Even in Switzerland, one of Europe's most afl uent countries, collected foods sup-
plied a staple well into the twentieth century: wild chestnuts in the canton of Ticino
(much as in parts of northern Italy) were dried and milled to produce a l our (as
well as marmalade and beer).
Aquatic Harvests
Fishing is an inaccurate but standard term for activities that include a great deal
more than just the capture of the many species of bony i sh living in freshwaters
(streams, lakes, ponds), in shallow coastal ocean waters, and in pelagic (near the
sea surface or in the water column) or demersal (on the seabed) habitats. Marine
i shing also includes the capture of numerous cephalopods (many species of squid,
