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The biomass sector in Ghana is very important for supplying essential food and non-food biomass-based resources to many people for a wide range of uses. There is, however, limited deliberation on these culturally important biomass-based resources at a community level in the country. The aims of this study are three-fold, namely to (i) document various kinds of biomass-based resources and their cultural importance to local actors, (ii) examine socio-demographic factors influencing local actors' knowledge base on biomass-based resources, and (iii) identify value webs, challenges, and future actions for sustainable use of biomass-based resources. Individual interviews were thus performed using structured questionnaires to cover 180 local actors (consisting of 120 smallholder farmers and 60 local commercial intermediaries) across six rural communities in the Northern and Upper East regions of Ghana. Cereals, e.g., maize (Zea mays), Guinea corn (Sorghum bicolor), rice (Oryza sativa), millet (Pennisetum glaucum), and legumes, e.g., groundnuts (Arachis hypogaea) are cultivated as major crops in the study areas and also considered by local actors as the most culturally important food crop species, as well as minor crops like tubers and vegetables. Ethnicity and residential status of local actors were found to significantly influence local knowledge on biomass-based resources. The value webs of selected food biomass-based resources are not elaborately developed and still remained simple and traditional in nature, since no cascading uses of by-products were identified. Several challenges and the future actions for managing locally produced biomass-based resources are addressed. The sustainable utilization of these biomass-based resources and value addition to their products are required to help increase family incomes and improve their livelihoods.

Use of wild tree species by smallholder farmers for various purposes is crucially important for their daily livelihoods. However, the growing demand for these natural resources could lead to their overexploitation and environmental change. The aims of this ethnobotanical research in the Wechiau Community-based Hippopotamus Sanctuary (WCHS) were to i) document wild tree species, uses and analyze their cultural importance, ii) investigate socio-demographic variables of smallholder farmers influencing their traditional knowledge on wild tree species and uses, and iii) examine smallholder farmers' perceptions about the establishment of the WCHS. To attain the above-stated aims, 135 smallholder farmers were interviewed in nine villages belonging to the Waala and Birfor ethnic groups. The primary data were subjected to rigorous statistical analysis (using Cognitive Salience index reflecting cultural importance, univariate and use value analysis). Given the results of this study, the WCHS is enriched with 43 ethnoecologically important wild tree species belonging to 22 families and 41 genera. This study showed that eight topmost wild tree species in descending order of cultural importance included Vitellaria paradoxa, Burkea Africans, Diospyrous mespiliformis, Bombax costatum, Parkia biglobosa, Pterocarpus erinaceus, Tenninalia avicennioides and Acacia gourmaensis. It is also established in this paper that the family cultural importance for Fabaceae and Sapotaceae is predominantly high as reflected in the frequency and ranking of citations of wild tree species under these families by local informants. The 43 wild tree species cited by local informants were categorized into nine different uses including food (9 species), forage (30), firewood (40), medicine (6), construction (9), soil Improvement (3), social use (2), gardening (5) and fiber/ropes (2). Among these use categories, firewood, forage, food and construction topped the list as the most culturally important to the

BackgroundThis paper provides an insightful quantitative ethnoecological analysis and affirms that agro-pastoralists have a multiplicity of criteria for valuating their natural forage resources. Rural households in West Africa are not only confronted with water resource scarcity but also have to cope with limited forage resources to feed livestock in both wet and dry seasons based on local knowledge. Local agro-pastoral social-ecological systems (SESs) in the study areas stem from the daily utilization of available forage resources by dominant domestic livestock (cattle, goats, and sheep) over the years. However, there is very little systematic knowledge documentation on forage-related valuation criteria in this part of the world. Hence, this study aimed at examining (1) forage resources used for different seasons and livestock types, (2) explicit forage-related valuation criteria and associated salience, and (3) effects of socio-demographic and climatic aridity on local valuation criteria.MethodsTo address these aims, a total of 526 individual ethnoecological interviews (encompassing Dagbani, Gurunsi, and Mossi ethnic groups) were conducted in 16 villages coupled with vegetation sampling of 144 plots in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Rigorous model selection, generalized linear mixed-effects models, cognitive salience indices, and descriptive statistics were applied.ResultsThe results revealed that majority (73%) of the agro-pastoralists regarded herbaceous forage plants to be very palatable for livestock consumption in the rainy season and for cattle while woody vegetation and crop-related forage plants were rather perceived to be more important in the dry season and for goats and sheep. The findings also indicated that climatic aridity significantly influenced the number of forage-related valuation criteria cited by agro-pastoralists for different seasonal and livestock types (p<0.001). It was also found out that agro-pastoralists did not only judge forage plants based

Recording local ecological knowledge (LEK) is a useful approach to understanding interactions of the complex social-ecological systems. In spite of the recent growing interest in LEK studies on the effects of climate and land use changes, livestock mobility decisions and other aspects of agro-pastoral systems, LEK on forage plants has still been vastly under-documented in the West African savannas. Using a study area ranging from northern Ghana to central Burkina Faso, we thus aimed at exploring how aridity and socio-demographic factors drive the distributional patterns of forage-related LEK among its holders. With stratified random sampling, we elicited LEK among 450 informants in 15 villages (seven in Ghana and eight in Burkina Faso) via free list tasks coupled with ethnobotanical walks and direct field observations. We performed generalized linear mixed-effects models (aridity- and ethnicity-based models) and robust model selection procedures. Our findings revealed that LEK for woody and herbaceous forage plants was strongly influenced by the ethnicity-based model, while aridity-based model performed better for LEK on overall forage resources and crop-related forage plants. We also found that climatic aridity had negative effect on the forage-related LEK across gender and age groups, while agro- and floristic diversity had positive effect on the body of LEK. About 135 species belonging to 95 genera and 52 families were cited. Our findings shed more light on how ethnicity and environmental harshness can markedly shape the body of LEK in the face of global climate change. Better understanding of such a place-based knowledge system is relevant for sustainable forage plants utilization and livestock production. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.