- Title
- The trade in and household use of Phoenix reclinata palm frond hand brushes on the Wild Coast, South Africa: Effects on soil nutrients
- Creator
- Mjoli, Nwabisa, Shackleton, Charlie M
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date
- 2015
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/180800
- Identifier
- vital:43647
- Identifier
- xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-015-9316-9"
- Description
- The Trade in and Household Use of Phoenix reclinata Palm Frond Hand Brushes on the Wild Coast, South Africa. This paper reports on an investigation of the harvesting, trade, and use of hand brushes made from fronds of the wild palm, Phoenix reclinata. We considered both the abundance of the resource as well as the demand. Within the harvesting areas, there were approximately 141 palm plants per hectare, of which almost two-thirds showed no signs of frond harvesting. During harvesting, most fronds (82%) were left on the plant, 16% were removed to make brushes, and 2% were cut and discarded. Although the number of harvesters had increased during the last decade, most felt that the number of palm plants had remained stable or even increased over the same period. There was strong consensus that cut fronds were replaced within two months, after which a particular stem could be harvested again. Harvesting and trade were practiced largely by middle-aged to elderly women, who had limited formal education, skills, and employment prospects. Most had entered the trade because of cash income poverty. The main markets for selling the palm brushes were in nearby urban areas. The income earned from the trade was modest, but still rated highly by the traders, for most of whom it was the second most-important source of cash income. For many users, the palm brushes was found to be the only type of brush suitable for cleaning mud and cow-dung flooring and, most importantly for many, their use forms part of a long household use history and culture.
- Format
- computer, online resource, application/pdf, 1 online resource (12 pages), pdf
- Publisher
- Springer Link
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Economic Botany, Mjoli, N. and Shackleton, C.M., 2015. The trade in and household use of Phoenix reclinata palm frond hand brushes on the Wild Coast, South Africa. Economic Botany, 69(3), pp.218-229, Economic Botany volume 69 number 3 p. 218 2017 1874-9364
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the SpringerLink Terms of Use Statement ( https://link.springer.com/termsandconditions)
- Rights
- Open Access
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Collections
RU Department of Environmental Science
RU DST/NRF SARChI for Interdisciplinary Science in Land and Natural Resource Use for Sustainable Livelihoods
Shackleton, Charles Michael (Distinguished Prof)
SDG 05. Gender Equality
SDG 01. No Poverty
SDG 08. Decent Work and Economic Growth
SDG 15. Life On Land
SDG 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | The trade in and household use of Phoenix reclinata palm frond hand brushes on the Wild Coast, South Africa (1).pdf | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |