Participatory ethnobotany: comparison between two quilombos in the Atlantic Forest, Ubatuba, São Paulo, Brazil

Ethical permissions

The following legal approvals were obtained for this research: (1) to access the Serra do Mar State Park area (COTEC n° 260108–009.510/2015); (2) to collect plants and access the Serra da Bocaina National Park (SIBIO n° 51199-1/2015 and n° 51199-2/2015); (3) to obtain prior informed consent and access traditional knowledge (SISGEN n° A648D14); (4) to be conducted by the Federal University of São Paulo (Research Ethics Committee n° 0452/2016 and n° 0843/2016); and (5) Quilombos’ Prior Consent Form (TAP): authorization from the representatives of the communities for the development of the study. UNIFESP’s Ethics Committee requires that researchers present their research registration in National System for the Management of Genetic Heritage (SISGEN). In order to carry out this registration, it is necessary that the research participants sign a document called Prior Consent Term, which authorizes access to their traditional knowledge through local leaders, in this case, the presidents of the associations of both quilombos.

Human groups and study areas

The study was conducted in two quilombola communities: the Quilombo do Cambury (QC) and Quilombo da Fazenda (QF), located in the city of Ubatuba, in the State of São Paulo, Serra do Mar State Park (PESM)-Núcleo Picinguaba (Fig. 1). With an area of 332,000 hectares is the largest conservation unit (UC) in the Atlantic Forest and an extremely important region, because it is also the largest biological corridor in Brazil (PESM, 2018). Nevertheless, a portion of the QC is within the Serra da Bocaina National Park (PNSB), also located within the Serra do Mar, on the border between the states of Rio de Janeiro & São Paulo. With an area of 104,000 hectares and established in 1972, the PNSB shelters in its territory ecological refuges for endangered species, in addition to being an important component of historical and cultural heritage in the regions of Paraty and Minas Gerais (Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio), Brasil, 2018).

The map (Fig. 1) was prepared by one of the authors (Sauini, T) using the free software QGIS, and a collection of spatial data from the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, and using the geographic coordinates reference system “sirgas 200” (Geocentric Reference System for the Americas).

According to the São Paulo State Forest Inventory (Inventário Florestal do Estado de São Paulo, 2020) and IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), 2012), both quilombos are located in the Atlantic Forest domain in phytophysiognomies of the Dense Rainforest. The QC is composed, in large part, of the Dense Submontane Rainforest and the Dense Montane Rainforest (the latter located in the northern portion of the quilombo), with a small stretch of Dense Rainforest of the Lowlands in the southwest. The QF is also composed of the Dense Sub Montane Rainforest and Dense Rainforest of the Lowlands, although with a greater presence of the latter vegetation. In addition, the QF includes a significant component of pioneer formation with fluvial influence, vegetation associated with alluvial plains, also called floodplains or swampy areas.

The formation of these communities followed the period of slavery, beginning in 1860, in the county of Ubatuba, when enslaved Blacks and ex-slaves fled from regions such as Ubatuba and Paraty and hid or simply occupied farmlands abandoned by bankrupt owners. Due to the geographic location of the two quilombos, the area remained isolated until 1970 when the BR 101 highway was built, thus favouring the movement of local residents and tourists and even the installation of electricity (FUNDART, 2014). It was defined as a Historical-Cultural-Anthropological zone, where the use of natural resources by these communities is allowed provided that there is resource management, thus supporting and strengthening the local way of life (São Paulo, 2006).

Quilombo da Fazenda

The area of this quilombo was an old monoculture farm, initially of sugar cane and later of coffee, that depend on the labour of the enslaved Blacks and was called Fazenda Picinguaba. It was formed by Italian immigrants and descendants of African slaves who migrated to Brazil during the colonial period to work in the mill. There are approximately 170 residents in an area of 5,208.47 hectares, located in the opposite direction from the beach and characterized as a region of thick forest between the slopes of the Serra do Mar and the sea shore (Setti, 1985; Fundação Cultural Palmares, 2015).

The QF does not have a school or health center, and the nearest hospital is located 35 km away (Yazbek et al., 2019). The local religions are Roman Catholicism and evangelical Christianity, and the main source of income comes from the sale of handicrafts. Some families maintain their subsistence gardens, but many residents work in the city as waiters, painters, bricklayers and in other professions. Tourism is also a source of income for many residents who work as Park guides and environmental monitors.

The local food base consists of ingredients produced in the fields (such as manioc, yams and bananas) and vegetable gardens, as well as derivatives such as manioc flour and manioc bread (beiju). With easy access to roads, many of the ingredients that were previously produced in local gardens, such as coffee and sugar from cane, are currently purchased in city markets. There has also been the introduction of other industrialized foods such as crackers, meat, rice, butter, milk and cheese.

Quilombo do Cambury

The QC was formed by enslaved Blacks and ex-slaves who were strategically hiding in this territory, and were difficult to access at the time. Today, it features two access routes, the main road to BR 101 and a small trail used by residents, which connects the road to the beach.

Because it is located on the coast, the QC is composed of a mixture of indigenous, Afro-Brazilian and European peoples, who gave rise to the Quilombolas and Caiçaras (fishermen) of the community. It includes approximately 300 people distributed among 50 families who live in a rich and diverse environment but face daily difficulties such as the lack of transportation, health care and education; and also the intense flow of tourists, which directly impact the region (ITESP, 2002, 2018). In addition, the community has a basic early childhood education school, two evangelical churches and a health post for basic health care, with the nearest hospital located 25 km from the community.

Food is produced through traditional, subsistence agriculture, and includes manioc for flour, sweet potatoes, beans, fruits, vegetables and others, grown in gardens in the backyards of the houses. Since the quilombo is located in a coastal region, its inhabitants also rely on fish, which are obtained from traps placed on Cambury beach, known as “enclosures”. Handicrafts and tourism, attracted by beautiful coastal scenery and many local campsites and restaurants, are the main sources of income for the community.

Participatory ethnobotany

During a workshop held in 2015 at the Serra do Mar State Park—Núcleo Picinguaba, the managers of this Conservation Unit (CU) brought demands to the researchers of the universities present. One of them was the promotion of alternatives reconciling income generation and extraction of local natural resources legally by the residents of that CU.

Thus, the coordination of this project initiated meetings with the leaders of the two communities that occupy this area, in order to know how they could assist in local income generation and development from the plants used by communities. At first, the two main leaders were contacted (Mr. Zé Pedro, 11/30/1938-18/05/2021 and Mr. Genésio, 27/03/1927-12/01/2019), and they were responsible for forwarding the matter to the representatives of the Residents’ Associations. After several meetings between the project team (involving representatives of the academy and the community), it was concluded the need to register their knowledge before defining how these plants could be used for local development. Also, it was decided that some of the residents would participate in all phases of the study, from the design and documentation of local knowledge, training in anthropological and botanical methods, to the analysis and publication of data, to be accomplished through booklets and audiovisuals containing information about their practices: they are called here local researchers.

Approximately 1 year later, in May 2016, after all the authorizations were obtained, the fieldwork began, and it lasted until March 2018, totaling 178 days of fieldwork. Five quilombolas performed as local researchers: three women aged 39,46 and 50 years, in the QC (co-authors MASG, MAS and CC, respectively) and two men aged 35 and 42 years, in QF (co-authors GS and SB, respectively). Two of the QC researchers had been born and raised in the quilombo area, and the other was born in the city of Ubatuba, SP. They are artisans, cooks, and owners of a campground located within the quilombo. In the QF, one of the researchers is a descendant of enslaved Blacks in the region. When he was 18, married a local quilombola and started living in the community. The other was born and raised there. Both are artisans and experts on local plants and work in their home gardens and develop other activities when necessary.

In order to conduct the fieldwork, the academic researchers offered two trainings to the five local researchers: (1) anthropological methods, about how to conduct interviews with local experts (Bernard, 1988), and (2) botanical methods, for the collection of plants.

The local researchers also selected the interviewees of this study, here called local experts. The first local experts selected were the older individuals of the respective communities. Then, interviewees were selected according to their specialty. During fieldwork, it has been observed that certain genres are involved in specific knowledge—for example, experts in boat construction are usually men, not having been observed woman in this expertise, probably because it is an activity that involves a lot of physical strength and/ or due to local cultural issues. On the other hand, one of the men recognized as an expert in canoe construction also presented knowledge about food plants. This knowledge usually belongs to the women “known as cooks” in this same community. The knowledge about making crafts is widespread among men and women. Therefore, the influence of genders on the categories of plant uses was not observed, excepting for “shipbuilding” category.

Altogether, 17 local experts were interviewed adding the two quilombos: there were a total of nine in the QC, seven men and two women aged between 35 and 50 years old; and eight in the QF, five women and three men aged 43 to 81 years old. Five QC local experts had been born there and grew up and still live there. The others were born in the surrounding cities: Ubatuba, SP or Paraty, RJ. In the QF, one local expert was born in the quilombo and seven of them in different cities in the State of São Paulo. According to the QF residents, this community is descended from approximately 40 individuals from two families who remained in the region after the establishment of PESM. Although six of the 17 local experts were not born in the quilombola communities, they spent much of their lives living in these places and therefore suffered cultural interference from those. In this survey it was observed that the birth or upbringing of the local experts within the community can contribute to a closer relationship with their parents and relatives, and consequently, a greater learning about the knowledge of the local culture over the years.

So that local researchers could record the use of plants of their respective quilombos, they scheduled unstructured interviews (Bernard, 1988; Alexiades, 1996) each lasting about 60 min and repeated from 4 to 5 times with each interviewee for greater comprehensiveness and to check for additional knowledge to record. Interview forms were used both for socioeconomic data (name, sex, age, education and occupation), and for ethnobotanical data (such as the local name of the plant, part used, type of use and method of preparation). The university’s technical team (coauthors Sauini and Yazbek) accompanied them throughout these recording activities, supporting the work by taking notes in field diaries (Bernard, 1988) and observing participants, living in the communities and attending festivities and other day-to-day activities, such as caring for the fields and their businesses (restaurants), as well as making handicrafts. The plants indicated during the interviews were collected with monitoring by the interviewees of the drying method (Alexiades, 1996) and following a collection form used by the CEE (Center for Ethnobotanical and Ethnopharmacological Studies); later, they were pressed, dried and taken to the Municipal Herbarium (PMSP) for identification and deposition. For more details on the methodology, see previously published articles derived from this study (Rodrigues et al., 2020; Yazbek et al., 2019; Sauini et al., 2020). After being identified, plant species were searched in botanical databases to determine which were native and which were introduced to the Atlantic Forest.

It is worth mentioning that this participatory research had as advantages the fact that: (i) considering that the work was conducted with the active participation of the residents, its final result reflects the perceptions of each of the individuals involved, who were collectively responsible for its realization; (ii) local researchers have appropriated themselves of their traditional knowledge during the interviews and records conducted, increasing their role in decision-making on how to use available resources in that environment; (iii) the selection of plant experts to be interviewed has been made by local researchers, expanding the possibility of exhausting the register of knowledge of those communities; since no one better than the members of a particular community to know who the real local actors are; (iv) the participants have demonstrated several aspects about how they see and perform conservation of their environment; which they wanted to leave recorded through the audiovisuals; still (v) the young people of the community began to value the knowledge of their “fathers and mothers”; once they understand that this knowledge, collected by the residents themselves, favor the maintenance of their culture.

Among the disadvantages of this method, one can highlight: (i) the fact that few people were actually involved in the research, although the entire community has been consulted and invited to participate. One of the factors that may be associated with this situation was the delay in the beginning of the research that took about a year for all authorizations to be approved by the various Brazilian agencies. A woman from the Quilombo da Fazenda, for example, participated in the initial meetings for the development of the project and showed interest in being a local researcher, but when the fieldwork in fact began her son was about to be born. The same occurred with other people who received job offers and other activities that ended up making their participation unfeasible; still (ii) although it has not been observed in this work; it is important to reflect that in a participatory research there must be care to ensure that all local experts in the community are selected and/or provide their knowledges, even if there is any personal conflict between the local researcher and them, otherwise this may be an unfavorable factor to record as close as possible the knowledge of that community.

The participatory ethnobotany methods utilized in this study incorporated the needs of the communities. Thus, the communities defined the objectives of the study to register their knowledge, which are going through a process of transformation and loss of their culture, due to various factors such as: (i) construction of a highway close to the communities, which facilitated access to the areas; (ii) the departure of some young people from the areas to the city, with no interest in continuing local practices; finally (iii) the death of the elders, who were highly knowledgeable about the local culture, mainly the two oldest community leaders (Mr. Zé Pedro and Mr. Genésio) who died during this study. They actively participated in the process of building this survey, as well as immortalizing their knowledge about the uses of plants, animals and aspects of conservation, through booklet and audiovisual records. It was also observed that with the dissemination of these records, young people, children and even some adults made comments valuing the local experts, such as: “Wow, look at my grandpa, how important” (pointing to the booklet). And they even learned more about their culture, for example, during one of the workshops held, the most experienced “canoe builder” in the community taught our team and local children about the techniques of building small canoes, used as crafts (Thamara Sauini, 29 October 2017, personal observation).

Diversity of local species: comparison between quilombos

To test whether there were differences between the quilombos in the proportions of plants that were native species or introduced, a 2 × 2 contingency table was created, and a chi-square test was applied.

To assess whether there were differences in the composition of known species between the quilombos, the data on the mentioned species were initially converted into a Jaccard dissimilarity matrix. Then, a permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) was used to compare the dissimilarities in knowledge between quilombos; for this purpose, the adonis2 function of the vegan package was used (Oksanen et al., 2019), using 999 permutations. This procedure was performed for all categories of use studied, with the exception of the category of “combustion” because in one of the quilombos, only two individuals mentioned species for this category.

Subsequently, a multivariate dispersion homogeneity test (PERMDISP2) was used to assess whether the beta diversity (variation in the composition of species known among individuals) differed between quilombos. This analysis calculates the centroid of specific group (in our case, the people in each of the quilombos), and compares the average dissimilarity of the N individual observations of that group (the repertoire of species known to each of the local experts) using a measure of distance (in our case, Jaccard’s dissimilarity) (Anderson, 2006). Thus, if cultural and environmental differences determine the differences in species known between quilombos, low dissimilarity in local knowledge among individuals in each quilombo would be expected. It was performed this analysis using the betadisper function of the vegan package (Oksanen et al., 2019).

Finally, to visualize the patterns of dissimilarity in local knowledge, it was performed nonmetric multidimensional scaling (nMDS). In all cases, the stress of the nMDS graph was ≤0.1, indicating that the two-dimensional graph was sufficient to represent clearly the differences between the sampling units. It was designed all the charts using the ggplot2 (Wickham, 2016) and ggpubr (Kassambara, 2020) packages. Also it was performed all analyses in the R environment (R Core Team, 2020). The three categories: “handicrafts”, “shipbuilding” and “technology” were merged into the “fibers in technology” category, since individually they had low number of ethnobotanical indications, making impossible the statistical analyzes necessary for this study.

Analysis of the diversity of species known to local experts: comparison between quilombos

A total of 214 plant species were indicated by the 17 local experts in both quilombos; and they were grouped into eight categories of use, according to the classification used by Galleano (Galleano, 2016): “ornamental” (two species), “food/spices” (120), “technology” (47), “combustion” (23), “ritual” (2), “civil construction” (67), “shipbuilding” (45) and “handicrafts” (43), see Table 1 and Fig. 2. The same species can be present in more than one category simultaneously. The “medicinal” category, although documented in the present study, will be the subject of another publication due to its abundance of data, deserving deep and robust analyses. Table 1 presents the 214 plant species according to their families, voucher numbers, scientific and popular names, uses and parts used in both quilombos.

Sixty-three botanical families were identified in the two communities, the most frequent being Fabaceae (24) and Myrtaceae (21). With 210 genera and 2,694 species, Fabaceae is considered to hold great ecological relevance by some authors and is the most significant family in Brazil (Cavalheiro, Peralta & Furlan, 2003; Forzza et al., 2010). Myrtaceae, on the other hand, is represented in the state of São Paulo by approximately 150 species (Wanderley et al., 2011) (Table 1).

The most frequently cited species were Mabea piriri Aubl (mentioned 11 times, nine in the QC and two in the QF), Swartzia simplex var. grandiflora (Raddi) R.S.Cowan (mentioned nine times, four in the QC and five in the QF), Euterpe edulis Mart. (mentioned nine times, five in the QC and four in the QF) and Ecclinusa ramiflora Mart (mentioned eight times, all of which were cited in the QC). Of the total species, 59.34%, indicated with the asterisk in Table 1, are native to the Atlantic Forest ecosystem, while the others are introduced, or have not been fully identified. This is of great relevance because it reflects a greater use of local native species by residents, which is not seen in most studies of ethnobotany, in which the greatest use by communities has often been found for exotic species (Pinto, Amorozo & Furlan, 2006; Begossi, Hanazaki & Tamashiro, 2002).

However, this finding demonstrates the diversity of species that can be found in the region, reflecting the great biodiversity of Brazil, which has an estimated flora of 41,000 species (Martinelli & Moraes, 2013). Euterpe edulis (palmiteiro) and Mabea piriri (canudo-de-pito) are frequent species in the areas of use of both the QC and the QF (Conde et al., 2020).

The following numbers of species per category were indicated in each quilombo: “ornamental” (two species QC and zero QF); “food/spices” (72 and 71); “technology” (25 and 24); “combustion” (18 and six); “ritual” (zero and two); “civil construction” (45 and 33); “shipbuilding” (42 and five) and “handicrafts” (33 and 14), see Fig. 2. While the number of coincident species cited in both quilombos were: “ornamental” (zero species); “food/spices” (23); “technology” (two), “combustion” (one), “ritual” (zero), “civil construction” (11), “shipbuilding” (two) and “handicrafts” (four), Fig. 2.

Figure 2 shows that in general, the categories containing the highest numbers of species indicated were “food/spices” (72 QC and 71 QF) and “civil construction” (45 QC and 33 QF), consistent with the findings of other investigations, that have also presented these categories showing greater numbers of species (Crepaldi & Peixoto, 2010; Miranda et al., 2011; Baptista et al., 2013). Many of the ethnobotanical uses related to the construction of houses are somewhat neglected, possibly due to the complexity of the use of timber resources and less sustainability involved, when compared to the non-timber resources, which are more often investigated (Kang et al., 2017). Traditional uses involving wood in these quilombos began before the Park was established in the region, when logging was not restricted.

The “food/spice” category featured the greatest number of species shared between quilombos (23 species). This can be attributed to an adaptation of the first residents who arrived at these places in the face of geographical isolation from the nearest urban centers. Since at the time there were no roads, they began to use the forest to meet their needs. This may also be a reflection of the fact that the cultivation of land is the basis of local subsistence, which remains to this day and reinforces the relationship of these communities with the environment in which they live.

Most of the species known to experts from both quilombos for all categories of use are native; however when we compare the proportions of native and introduced species in both quilombos, we observe that there are no differences, considering all categories of use, including “food/spices” (χ² = 1.91, p = 0.17), “fibers in technology” (χ² = 0.0006, p = 0.93), “combustion” (χ² = 7.09e−30, p = 1) and “civil construction” (χ² = 2.70, p = 0.10) (Fig. 3).

Different patterns were observed for each of the categories between quilombos in terms of species composition and beta diversity. For the category “food/spices”, there were no differences between quilombos in species composition (R² = 0.06 F = 1.17 p = 0.12) or in beta diversity (F = 0.65 p = 0.44) (Fig. 4). Additionally, it is possible to verify that there was a marked disparity (observed by the distances between points in the figure) in the repertoire of species known among to local experts from both communities (Fig. 4). Some of the species cited by local experts of both quilombos included Eryngium foetidum L., Coffea arabica L., Euterpe edulis Mart., Morus nigra L. and Myrciaria glazioviana (Kiaersk.) G. M. Barroso ex Sobral (Fig. 4).

For the category “fibers in technology”, it was observed that part of the variation in species composition was due to differences between quilombos (R² = 0.09 F = 1.57 p = 0.002) (Fig. 5). Furthermore, for the “food/spices” use category, no differences were found between quilombos with respect to the beta diversity of known species (F = 0.24 p = 0.63) (Fig. 4). These findings indicate that there are species used for “fibers in technology” that are peculiar to each quilombo, probably because the vegetation found in each quilombo and/or the activities developed by its members are peculiar, since, while the QF is located in a “sertão” region with wetlands, the QC is on the edge near the beach, featuring more extensive areas of montane rainforest (type of vegetation absent in the QF). Thus, there are floristic differences between quilombos due to the phytophysiognomic differences observed in relief/soils and in distance from the ocean. Still, food plants are usually herbs and can be easily transported from one quilombo to the other through exchanges of knowledge between its residents. Perhaps this explains why in the category “food/spices” the plants used in both quilombos show no differences. The trees used as fibers do not have the same ease of cultivation and could explain the difference found between the quilombos for the category “fibers in technology”, as well as other categories composed mainly of trees and shrubs; such as: “civil construction”.

Additionally, considering that each point on the graph (Fig. 5) represents a local expert, there is a wide variation in knowledge among individuals within each community. This is illustrated by the presence of four canoe builders in the QC still working in that craft, while in the QF canoes are no longer made; that is, the knowledge in the QC is more diverse because it features a greater number of species and their citations. Some of the species cited for “fibers in technology” in both quilombos include Astrocaryum aculeatissimum (Schott) Burret, Cedrela fissilis Vell. and Ficus adhatodifolia Schott, used to build furniture and boats and to wash clothes, respectively. Cedrela fissilis Vell. occurs in almost all Brazilian territory, and its wood has also been extensively explored over the years due to its high commercial value, which is also observed in the communities; this contributes to the consequent decrease in the population of this species, leaving it at risk of extinction (Ruschel et al., 2003; Martinelli & Moraes, 2013; Flora do Brasil, 2020).

For the category of “civil construction”, there were differences in the composition of known species between local experts (R² = 0.15 F = 1.25 p = 0.016). In addition, there were differences in the multivariate dispersion regarding the knowledge of quilombo local experts (F = 9.38 p = 0.026). Thus, there are species used for construction that are typical of each quilombo. In addition, the knowledge of the individuals in the QF was more homogeneous, while there was a marked variation in knowledge among the individuals in the QC. Some of the shared species used for construction, mentioned in both quilombos, included Aniba sp., Hyeronima alchorneoides Allemão and Mabea piriri Aubl.

Although we have not compared the repertoire of plants known for “combustion” between the quilombos, only two species were mentioned in both, Pera glabrata (Schott) Poepp. ex Baill. and Swartzia simplex var. grandiflora (Raddi) R.S.Cowan. The low value of coincidences in this category may be associated with the reduced number of trees indicated by the members of each quilombo: 6 in QF and 18 in QC. Still, the low number of plants indicated in this category is probably related to the restriction imposed by the Park on residents regarding the extraction of trees (Fig. 6).

In quantitative terms, there are few species that are known in both quilombos, with the following proportions for each of the categories of use: “food/spices” (19,16%), “technology” (16,27%), “combustion” (4,34%) and “civil construction” (16,41%) (Fig. 7).

The findings in the present study demonstrate that there are no differences in the proportion of native species between traditional communities with different social and environmental backgrounds. With respect the categories “fibers in technology”, “civil construction” and “combustion”, the ethnobotanical literature demonstrates that the selection of introduced species may be associated with the decline of native tree populations that have high quality wood (Nascimento et al., 2009; Medeiros et al., 2011; De Santana, Voeks & Funch, 2016). For example, Medeiros et al. (2011) observed a high frequency of chairs made from wood of introduced species (including coconut and jackfruit) in rural communities that reside in a highly fragmented Atlantic Forest landscape. In a community in the Brazilian semiarid region, Nascimento et al. (2009) noted that mesquite (Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) DC.) is one of the most used species for building fences. In general terms, these timber uses demand a large biomass of plant resources, so that the choice of species introduced for these uses can be affected by ecological characteristics of the species, such as high local availability, rapid growth and high capacity for resprouting.

The “food/spices” category, in turn, may have completely different entry dynamics for introduced species. It is possible that the Italian influence on the formation of the QF did not determine a greater proportion of introduced species than in the QC, since the entry of most cosmopolitan food species in Brazil occurred a long time ago. Nevertheless, in the 16th century, the first Brazilian settlers made great efforts to introduce and acclimatize food plants known from the Old World (De Santana, Voeks & Funch, 2016). The colonists were quickly successful in acclimating many species. In 1587, the chronicler Gabriel Soares de Sousa described a wide variety of European and Asian food plants already cultivated in the state of Bahia, such as orange, lemon, fig, palms, pomegranate, coconut and vines (Sousa, 1587). In his study of the history of food in Brazil, Cascudo (2014) argues that many of Brazil’s native fruits were little appreciated by Portuguese colonists (although some were consumed in the form of sweets), whereas fruits already known to Europeans (before the conquest of South American) were considered sophisticated and were frequent in the colonists’ meals.

This small difference observed may also be because the Park’s (PESM) zoning prohibits the use of exotic species in its territory, since they can disturb the Park’s ecosystem, so the management of these species is considered essential for strategies of local biodiversity conservation (São Paulo, 2006).

Regarding the differences in the composition of known species in the QF and QC, an initial observation is the high discrepancy in knowledge of among individuals within each community. These findings are probably a consequence of the intentional selection of respondents. Each of the local experts was recognized as having extensive local knowledge in different fields of knowledge, such as handicrafts or shipbuilding. Thus, this difference is a consequence of the degree of specialization of individuals in different domains.

Although members of both communities show concerns about the loss of traditional knowledge, the intentional sampling used in this study does not allow us to verify if this is happening. Despite this, the recognition of several individuals as local experts indicates that people can share notions about who is a good cultural model for learning (Henrich & Broesch, 2011). Therefore, in the scenario studied, these local experts can contribute to the restoration of practices associated with traditional knowledge.

Despite these discrepancies in knowledge among local experts, we find differences in the composition of species used for “fibers in technology” and for “construction” between communities. The selection and differential use of species for timber purposes is usually influenced by the local availability of the species (for example, the density or basal area of the species in the forest fragments near the communities), since they are uses which less restrictive selection criteria (compared to food and medicinal uses) and require a large amount of plant biomass (Gonçalves, Albuquerque & Medeiros, 2016). In addition, the greater beta diversity found for knowledge about construction in the QC than in the QF may also be a consequence of environmental factors. In environments with greater availability of forest resources, people can adopt more selective collection patterns guided by preferences (Top et al., 2004). Thus, if individuals have different preference criteria for selecting species, they may be familiar with different species. Therefore, differences in knowledge among communities can be a consequence of differences in the structure of forest communities adjacent to human settlements, what answers our hypothesis.

These differences in the structure and floristic composition between the QF and QC vegetation were demonstrated by the quantitative (phytosociological) studies carried out in sections of the forest that are frequented by quilombolas for the collection of native species for different uses; these areas were called “areas of use” (Conde et al., 2020). With equal sampling areas and inclusion criteria, that is, 0.1 ha and DBH (trunk diameter at 1.30 m of soil) equal to or greater than 4.8 cm, the results point to differences that corroborate the differences found in the analyzes carried out in this study, that is, in the QC, the area of use is richer in species, 78 species, compared to the QF, where 64 species were registered. The number of individuals sampled in each area of use reinforces the difference in the structure of the forest; in QC, the vegetation is made up of more numerous and large trees medium, while in the QF the forest is made up of larger individuals, comparatively. A total of 214 individuals were sampled in the QC and 158 individuals in the QF (Conde et al., 2020). These differences in the structure and floristic composition of forests are explained for the history of differentiated use in the areas (type, time and intensity of exploration) and for the very biodiversity present in each area, provided by the climatic and soil conditions, peculiar to each environment. The differences in the knowledge of the two quilombola communities may reflect the availability of resources (number and quantity of species and size of trees) found in the areas of use.

Previoulsy we present both challenges and opportunities of using participatory methods in ethnobotanical studies (Rodrigues et al., 2020), and at the same time we showed that it is possible to train community members who wish to document their knowledge to support the process of ensuring that local knowledge is highly regarded. It was also observed that despite both communities have a similar ancestry (quilombolas), inhabit the same biome (10 km distance only between them), and share knowledge about the use of plants among them; some of the plant species are used only by one of the quilombos (see Fig. 7).

Nowadays the residents of these two communities know each other and exchange knowledge with each other, unlike what happened years ago. Contact between these residents was facilitated with the construction of roads close to them. Today, this communication occurs not only between members of these two communities, but also through researchers and tourists visiting the sites.

In the present study, we observed that the wealth of data collected, as well as their analyzes were facilitated by the great involvement of community representatives in this process: especially in the selection of respondents who in fact accumulate a great deal of knowledge about certain uses (“handicrafts”, “civil construction”, and so on), also by the local researchers pointing out data analysis strategies during the workshops; and finally for contributing by pointing out the particular areas and phytophysiognomies involved in the areas of plant collection of their day-to-day active participation of community representatives in this project.