Forest Management Practices in the Bayano Region of Panama: Cultural Variations

This paper examines the relationship between cultural variation and forest management practices in the New World tropics by presenting results from a survey conducted in indigenous and colonist communities in a settlement frontier of Panama. Statistical analyses, focused specifically on differences between the economic base, forest use, and management practices of indigenous and colonist households, are presented. The findings reveal that there are no significant differences between the indigenous and colonist households in this respect; furthermore, differences that exist among the sample households appear to be linked to access to market and not to cultural variations.