Cultural importance of palms for Quilombolas in the Amazon, Brazil

This research was conducted with Quilombolas communities in the Amazon region, biological boundary between Amazon rainforest and Cerrado, Mato Grosso, Brazil. We interviewed 32 residents, in three communities, to verify the species of palm known and used by them. We calculated the Cultural Significance Index (CSI), the Shannon Diversity (H') and Equitability. The Quilombolas know 18 palm species and use 17 of them. The palm with highest values of CSI were: babaçu, 256; açai, 144 and Buriti, 96. The babaçu achieved first place for having the largest number of uses (16) to 3 parts of the plant; açai had 5 uses to 4 parts and Buriti 5 uses to 3 parts of the palm. The H' was 2.61, and the equitability 0.90. The results indicate the importance of these cultural palm trees in the communities, due to the everyday uses of some of them, in food, medicine, ornamentation and craftsmanship.