XVI International Botanical Congess

We investigated rubber tapper house construction in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in Acre, Brazil and hypothesized that socio-economic improvements change the spectrum of forest resources used in house construction. We compared house architecture and quantified species used for the different house elements, densities and volume of the species used and social preferences of plant species and housing style. We found that the traditional housing style with palms trunks, palm thatching and secondary hard wood species is being replaced by the newer construction style with sawed timber species and wood or aluminum roofs. This shift in resource use increases the need for careful management of subsistence timber extraction.