The Rio Grande Valley (RGV) is situated between the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park, which spans over 41,000 hectares of forested land. The Rio Grande river system is one of the largest on the island. An estimated 25,000 inhabitants occupy the RGV (Statistical Institute of Jamaica, 2011). The watersheds of upper sections of the Rio Grande comprise one of the last remaining undisturbed stretches of tropical broad-leafed montane rainforest in Jamaica. The river separates the contrasting geologies of the two sides of the river which have resulted in a mosaic of complex of soil types. To the west are the steeply rising Cretaceous slopes of the spurs and ridges of the Blue Mountains, while to the east are the slopes of the Palaeocene limestone escarpment of the John Crow Mountains. The mountainous, deeply dissected topography of the upper Rio Grande is dominated by steep slopes, many of which exceed 30 degrees and are prone to erosion and mass wasting. The local environment is prone to multiple hazards including erosion, mass wasting, flooding and landslides from torrential rainfall. The Upper watershed region accounts for 40% of this population with the highest concentration in the Moore Town—considered to be the capital of the Windward Maroons. The Millbank community is situated on the edge of the forests within the buffer zone of the BJCMNP conservation area (Figure 1). The Upper RGV is exposed to hazards such as landslides and flooding that are accentuated by storm events. Livelihood systems in the area are primarily centered on agriculture. The natural and social history of the Blue and John Crow Mountains position the region as an important site for the examination of how global changes are manifest in rural agrarian societies and are mediated by traditional knowledge systems.

Of the farmers surveyed, 77% indicated that a member of their household harvests food. Similar to some regions in Africa, the most commonly harvested wild foods in the study area include fruits, roots and tubers and animal products (Hickey et al., 2016). Yam (Dioscorea spp.) is the most frequently harvested food, followed by banana and plantain, respectively, (Musa acuminata Colla and Musa balbisiana Colla), fruits, and hunting wild pigs, respectively. Of significance to the Millbank area is the yampie (Dioscorea trifida L.f.) crop which, unlike all other species of yam which were introduced into the region from Africa, is native to the Caribbean and Central and South America. Yampie was introduced to Jamaica by the Taino (Rashford, 1991) and was still being harvested by farmers at the time of this study. Our findings reaffirm the importance of yam to local and national food security (Beckford et al., 2011). While farmers mainly collect yam, banana, fruits, and hunt wild pigs from the forest, key informant interviews revealed a much wider range of food collected (Table 1) and ecosystem services provided by the forest (Figure 2). Using the Plants of the World Online database (POWO, 2019), a list of the wild foods (and common use) mentioned by farmers during the interview are presented in Table 1. These wild food sources most likely are harvested from land which was formerly cultivated but has since been abandoned and reverted to forest land.

Based on the main types of food harvested from the forest (and for analytical convenience), farmers can be described as either specialized or multiple food collectors. Specialized collectors are farmers who typically harvest one type of food from the forest, while multiple food collectors target more than one food type. Approximately 47% of the sample are multiple food collectors, 30% are specialized, and 23% are non-collectors. The median age of farmers (55 years) is used to separate farmers into younger and older age groups. Younger farmers account for 65 and 60% of the multiple food and non-collector groups, respectively, while older farmer represents 69% in the specialized category. The fact that farmers who collect multiple foods and non-collectors are predominantly younger farmers, and specialized collectors are mostly older farmers implies that age is an important consideration when characterizing use of wild food in the study area. The fact that older farmers are more specialized is unsurprising. One possible explanation is that older farmers might find it more physically challenging to traverse multiple (and distant) areas of the forest and may choose to focus on a specific area and crop.

Farmers reported that a concerning trend in the Millbank community is the declining number of women in the community. These demographic changes are known to impact farmers field decisions (Ji et al., 2017), and can shape patterns of wild food harvest. Women play a critical role in the preservation and transmission of culture in the RGV. One farmer explained that in the Millbank community, women are the chief custodians of traditional knowledge of medicinal plants, herbs and spices that are used for food and spiritual ceremonies. This is especially true as it relates to the preparation of authentic Jamaican food. As Picking et al., 2019 observed, it is the way foods (and drinks) are “prepared or combined…that distinguish[ies] them as uniquely Jamaican” (p. 104).

Socio-spatial characteristics of wild food harvest are also reflected in the distance traveled by farmers to collect food. On average, most of the farmers (37%) journey more than 3 miles into the forest for food. A slightly lower proportion (33%) indicated that they do not go beyond a mile in the forest for food. Approximately 81% of the specialized collectors operate within 3 miles of the forest, while 50% of the multiple food collector group typically traverse more than 3 miles into the forest (Table 2). In terms of the foods harvested, majority (63%) of the older farmers indicated yam, followed by banana and plantain (25%), fruits (8%), and wild pig (4%). Most farmers in the younger cohort also collect yam (42%) followed by banana and plantain (24%), fruits (18%), and wild pig (16%).

According to one of the farmers interviewed, the number of cultivated plots has declined over the years, but the use of the forest has increased—primarily as more farmers access wild food (which is defined by residents as food harvested from the forest which they have not specifically planted, but which have resulted from previous cultivation). Frequency of wild food harvest varies across the sample. Approximately 30% of the sample indicated that they rarely collect wild food from the forest, while 37% indicated that they collect wild food frequently or very frequently. Majority of the specialized collectors indicated that they visit the forest for food frequently (61%). Half of the farmers who collect multiple foods indicated that they rarely use the forest. In the Millbank area, farming and wild food harvest are mutually reinforcing activities. Replanting after harvesting wild food is an established rule among farmers, and it is not uncommon for farmers to take advantage of the rich forest soils to cultivate other crops.

In terms of seasonality, 53% of the sample indicated that they typically collect wild food between November and April. A few (10%) farmers also indicated the months of June and July which overlaps with the dry season and mid-summer dry spell, respectively (Curtis and Gamble, 2007). This is understandable since Millbank is one of the wettest areas on the island and traversing the forest during the rainy season could be challenging. Projected impacts of climate change on seasonality could disrupt patterns of wild food collection. Across the Caribbean, additional warming by 0.2–1.0°C, could lead to a predominantly drier region (5–15% less than present-day), and a greater occurrence of droughts (Taylor et al., 2018) along with associated impacts agricultural production and yield in the region (Gamble et al., 2017; Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2019). These changes could undermine the climate-sensitive livelihood of wild food collectors and exacerbate food insecurity challenges (Campbell ea al., 2010; Gamble et al., 2017; McCubbin et al., 2017).

Most of the respondents (51%) indicated that wild foods account for <50% of their household income. A further 30% of that total stated that wild food contributed to <25% of their household income. Only 6% of the sample depend on wild food for >75% of their household income. Similar results were observed by Hickey et al. (2016) who conducted a global assessment of the economic contribution of wild food to rural livelihoods and found that while majority of the sampled households (77%) were involved in wild food collection, it only contributed 4% (average) of overall household income. Most of the wild food is consumed at the household level (42%). Eighteen percent of the sample indicated that they harvest wild food for commercial purposes, while the remaining farmers indicated that they use wild food for both commercial and subsistence purposes. Fifty-four percent of the sample indicated that their household income is completely dependent on farming. Of this total, 85% depend on the forest for food. Regardless of specialization, most farmers (70%) indicated that wild food is very important to their survival. Multiple food collectors use a greater proportion of wild food for household consumption compared to specialized collectors. Of the total number of farmers who indicated household consumption as the main purpose for collecting wild food, 79% are multiple food collectors. Conversely, 67% of those who indicated sale as their main purpose are specialized collectors.

Collection of wild foods also cut across educational divides. All four of the farmers with post-secondary level schooling indicated that they collect food from the forest. Most of the farmers indicated that they have been collecting wild food from the forest for more than 15 years. While age did not emerge a good explanatory factor for wild food harvest, there is a slightly higher proportion (80%) of older farmers (defined as above the median age) compared to younger farmers (below the median age) 74%. Similarly, access to land does not seem to be an influential factor to the use of wild foods. Of the farmers who collect wild food, 52% have secure land tenure arrangements (owned, family land, and maroon property) while the others have insecure land tenure arrangements (capture/settled, rent-free, and leased). Only 12% of the sample indicated that they own the land on which they do most of their farming. Most of the farmers (37%) operate on family land (tenure system based on kinship ties), while the others operate on capture/settled (24%), leased (15%), rent-free (9%), and communal/Maroon land (3%). Forty-two percent of the sample indicated that they are cultivating more farmland compared to when they started farming. This could be related to increased land availability and improved marketing conditions.

The results of the FIES show that majority of the sample (47%) is moderately food insecure, 44% is either mildly insecure (25%) or food secure (19%), and 10% is severely food insecure. There is strong evidence of a relationship between wild food and food insecurity (p < 0.001). Most of the farmers (60%) who harvest wild food are either moderately (54%) or severely (6%) food insecure. This finding reaffirms the importance of wild foods to the food security of farmers in Millbank, but is incongruent with other observations (Hickey et al., 2016) on the connections between wild food extraction and self-stated food insecurity.

Analysis of the dimensions of the FIES and categories of wild food harvest reveal considerable variability across specialization (Figure 3). Of the eight questions, specialized collectors account for the highest proportion in three: farmers who were worried they would run out of food because of a lack of money or other resources (54%); those who were unable to eat healthy and nutritious food because of a lack of money or other resources (62%), and households that ran out of food because of a lack of money or other resources (43%). Multiple food collectors also accounted for the highest proportion of affirmations in three of the eight questions: those who ate only a few kinds of foods because of a lack of money or other resources (56%), those who ate less than they thought they should because of a lack of money or other resources (48%) and, those who were hungry but did not eat because there was not enough money or other resources for food (100%). Non-collectors, account for the highest proportion of respondents who went without eating for a whole day because of a lack of money or other resources (61%) as well as those who are food secure (75%).

Most (84%) of the specialized collectors and 60% of the non-collectors are either moderately insecure or food secure. Conversely, 80% of the multiple food collectors experience moderate to severe food insecurity. This finding reaffirms diversification as a risk-spreading strategy to cope with uncertainty. There was no statistically significant relationship between the frequency of wild food harvest and food insecurity. Likewise, the percentage contribution of wild food to household income is not a good indicator of food insecurity. Regardless of income contribution, 63% of farmers in the severely food insecure category indicated that wild food harvest is very important to their family—compared to 15% of those who are food secure. In terms of the use, 57% of those who are severely food insecure indicated they use wild food for both sale and household consumption. Of the farmers who are food secure, 67% indicated that they primarily use wild food for household consumption.

Farmers who are more food insecure tend to go further in the forest for wild food. More specifically, 83% of the farmers who travel more than three miles in the forest are either moderately or severely food insecure. Combined, there is a higher proportion of female farmers in the mildly insecure and food secure categories (55%) compared to male farmers (40%). None of the female farmers were found to be severely food insecure. Younger farmers (below the median age 55) are generally more food insecure than older farmers (above the median age 55). Of the total number of farmers in the severely insecure category, 75% are in the younger cohort. The opposite is the case for the food secure category with 75% falling in the older cohort.

Prior to the survey, semi-structured and informal interviews were conducted with farmers in the community to determine what is most important to their livelihood. The qualitative data from the surveys is reported elsewhere. We note this aspect of our data collection here to provide context of our broader research approach. Eight factors emerged from the discussion: (1) overall income from farming, (2) soil quality, (3) water availability, (4) ability to manage hazards (erosion, landslide, flooding and pest and diseases), (5) extension support received, (6) market for produce, (7) types of crops cultivated and; (8) ability to support family from farming. From these factors, a livelihood satisfaction scale (LSS) was developed to determine how farmers feel about these aspects of their livelihood. Farmers indicated their level of satisfaction (2 = satisfied, 1 = neutral and 0 = dissatisfied), which were then combined into a composite variable to reflect overall livelihood satisfaction. The scores were normalized, and the median score was used to define high (above median) and low (below median) livelihood satisfaction. A slightly higher (54%) proportion of the farmers have low livelihood satisfaction compared to those in the high category (Table 3). There is no statistically significant association between wild food harvest and livelihood satisfaction. In part, this implies that the factors influencing wild food harvest extend beyond the livelihood domain to include intangible cultural attributes/values.

The importance of the forest to the well-being of the farmers in Millbank is reflected in the community rules and norms related to the use of forest resources. Seventy-five percent of the farmers acknowledge awareness of rules among community members regarding the use of the forest. The most common rules identified are related to the removal of trees and the use of agrochemicals. It is customary for farmers to replant food crops after harvest and to limit the use of agrochemicals. The predominant sentiment among the farmers is that farming activities have declined over the past two decades resulting in fewer, older, male farmers involved in small-scale shifting cultivation primarily for subsistence. Just over half (51%) of the respondents indicated that they practice agroforestry. Agroforestry is widely promoted across Jamaica as an ecosystem-based adaptation practice with sound conservation value and economic potential for small farmers (Davis et al., 2017).

Agrobiodiversity provides multiple co-benefits to food security in rural farming communities (Hickey et al., 2016; Asprilla-Perea and Diaz-Puente, 2018). In SIDS, biodiversity loss from traditional agroecosystems has been identified as one of the most serious threats to food and livelihoods security (Balzan et al., 2018). Agroecological approaches that included community planning, indigenous knowledge, attention to inequalities and a range of practices such as agroforestry, kitchen gardens, cover crops, polycultures, and forest conservation have been found to provide multiple co-benefits to food security, biodiversity conservation, improved well-being, and climate adaptation (Davis et al., 2017; Buckwell, 2019). Davis et al. (2017) found that the food security challenges facing Jamaican farmers can be alleviated by improved marketing of fruit tree products—which also provide multiple benefits to watershed management. Agrobiodiversity is one of the most important resources farmers have to combat climate change and food insecurity challenges.

All of the farmers who experience severe food insecurity exhibit low livelihood satisfaction. For farmers who are food secure or mildly food insecure, the difference in livelihood satisfaction is marginal (when the two categories are combined). Sixty percent of the farmers who are moderately and severely food insecure exhibited low livelihood satisfaction. There was no significant relationship between livelihood satisfaction and collection of wild foods. This implies that how farmers feel about their livelihood is independent of decisions to collect wild foods.

The survey results revealed strong evidence of an association between market diversity and crop diversity (x² = 0.042, p < 0.001) (Figure 4). During the qualitative interviews, one farmer noted that cultivating a wide range of crops is an important strategy to reduce risks associated with market failures—from a commercial standpoint. The main cash crops cultivated by farmers in the study area are dasheen (72%), banana and plantain (23%), and yam (5%). Farmers indicated that private exporters have established a relatively stable market for dasheen in the past 5 years or so. As such, most farmers in the area have increased production of the crop. The United States and Canada account for 98% of all dasheen exports from Jamaica. A small volume (2%) is processed locally for the production of chips (MICAF, 2020). Farmers in Millbank are primarily dependent on “higglers” (market purveyors) to sell their produce. Farmers often credit their produce to higglers, who are notoriously unreliable (deceptive in many cases) with payment. Diversifying crop production systems is therefore, an important risk minimization practice among farmers in Millbank. Farmers in Millbank still practice barter, and wild foods are often traded for food items such as rice, flour, sugar, and tin fish. This barter system exemplifies the degree of trust within the community—an invaluable resource to cope with hardship and uncertainty.

As a satellite community of Moore Town, populated by residents with Maroon ancestry, the patterns of wild food harvest are inseparable from a Maroon ecology, the distinctive subsistence practices that are anchored in ancestral connections to the Blue and John Crow Mountains as lands bequeathed to present day Maroons for their use and protection (Favini, 2018; Connell, 2020; Castellano, 2021). Indeed, the Maroon communities of the Blue Mountains were given land grants in the mid-eighteenth century as part of treaties that the British signed with the Maroons to end an internecine period that had threated total ruin of the island's plantation economy. Given that Maroon communities came out of defiance to the system of slavery and were accorded territorial recognition by the British, we argue that the patterns of wild food harvesting serve as performative claims-making that asserts Maroon autonomy. Our reading here is supported by the key informant interviews we conducted and by a broader body of scholarship (Barker and Spence, 1988; Otuokon et al., 2012; Malm, 2018; Connell, 2020) including by Maroon scholars from the Upper Rio Grande Valley (Carey, 1997; John et al., 2010). This literature describes how African diaspora communities in the Americas see their provisions grounds and traditional haunts as Black commons that are symbolically and materially important to their sovereignty (Roane, 2018; Castellano, 2021; Williams et al., 2021). The “Black commons represents the elaborated sense of place outside mastery expressed through human-to-human connection within the delicate ecologies of the wider biosphere.” (Roane, 2018, p. 244). The continued imagining and use of the forests as a Black commons extend the Maroon provisioning into the present and necessarily challenges the symbolic enclosure of the Blue and John Crow Mountains as National Park and World Heritage Site.

Overwhelmingly, the key informants we interviewed, described the forest as having this quality of the Black commons rather than just a space to access and produce food. The forest is a spiritual ecosystem rooted in their ancestrality and embedded in their memories, emotions, and overall subjective well-being. Therefore, the forest is more than an ecosystem providing food production services to the communities; it is a metaphysical space in which farmers position themselves as Afroindigenous. Our results show strong cultural and spiritual connections to the forest, which informs community-scale institutions and value systems. This sense of Afroindigeneity underlies the conception of the forest as a commons to be kept both for posterity and as a place for the ancestors to continue to provide for the community—their actions centuries ago started the ecological process that allows wild food today. These physco-social dimensions of wild food consumption induce a distinct “affective atmosphere” (Anderson, 2009). The reciprocal relationships between farmers, and between farmers and the non-human world, are normatively orientated toward symbiotic life.

Since these understandings are social constructions of nature rooted in the symbolic interactions of the farmers with the material forest, successful protected area management is possible only if managers pay attention to the interpretative scheme of the farmers. Or else, farmers and protected area managers will be concerned with two different landscapes and realities. On the one hand, farmers will be concerned with maintaining connections to place through wild food consumption, while managers will be concerned with curtailing perceived human degradation. Ancestrality and the sense of a commons inform farmers' perception of wild food consumption and forest use and shape their temporal and spatial sense of place that conservation measures cannot ignore. Where conservation managers might be interested in ecosystem services, nutrient flows, species synergies, over long-term timescales at scale of the forest, farmers experience the forest as an expansive and constantly renewing provider on which their wild food harvesting barely registers. The farmers' temporal-spatial understandings also account for the calculative rationalities about other livelihood choices.

Beyond the social-cultural dimensions of the wild food harvesting, our findings suggest that the wild food harvests also serve a material purpose—it provides a food safety net for a poor rural community. This function also clearly also characterizes the original practices of fugitive foraging and the practice of keeping both slave and Maroon provisions grounds. Other studies have warned that broad generalizations should not be made about patterns of food (in)security between foraging/wild food harvesting communities and agriculturalists (Harris and Hillman, 1989; Benyshek and Watson, 2006; Erskine et al., 2019), our research suggests that at least in the case of Millbank, and we imagine, in the case of similar traditional Afro-Caribbean communities, levels of foraging are a meaningful indicator of food security. What our findings also suggests is that it is not potential food insecurity alone that influences wild food harvesting, the patterns of harvesting suggest that wild food harvesting is also based on anecdotal evidence (from oral histories and cultural traditions) about the nutritional potential of forage food stuff. So that even in times of nominal food security, wild food harvesting still features in the food economy because it does not only serve as a buffer against food insecurity but a de-commoditized contribution to diets. Food security and food sovereignty are, therefore, intertwined (Bunge et al., 2019). A belief that the wild food primarily harvested are of high nutritional content might also explain the spatial patterns of food harvesters. Yam, banana, plantain, and wild pigs require high energy and time input to gather and prepare relative to cultivating crops and livestock production.

Given the location of the Millbank community on the edge of the Nation Park-World Heritage Site, accounting for both the subjective-symbolic and the functional-material purposes of wild food harvesting, will be key to successful biodiversity conservation measures and protected area management. Approaches that ignore the Maroon element of the local land-use history often will cause spatial injustices that undermine food and livelihood security, as well as cultural heritage.

Recent environmental and technological transformations have reshaped global food systems resulting in novel health, food, and nutrition security challenges (FAO, 2019; IFPRI, 2020), which threatens aspirations for a world without food insecurity, malnutrition, and hunger (FAO, 2019) under the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development. The Caribbean is now one of the world's most import-dependent regions (Weis, 2007). This is fuelled by a pervasive lack of consciousness about food—“a separation between the head and the belly of this society” (Lamming, 1996, p. 26). The prevalence of undernourishment and severe food insecurity are the main indicators used to monitor progress toward eradicating hunger (SDG indicator 2.1.1). The “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” reports for 2018 and 2019 incorporated the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) as a core indicator for monitoring SDG Target 2.1.2: the Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity (FAO, 2019). However, in both reports data were lacking for the Caribbean in all dimensions of the measure.

In most cases, the Caribbean region is grouped with Latin America, which decreases the “resolution” of the data—thereby masking country-specific conditions. The FIES, along with livelihood satisfaction and subjective well-being measures, are promising tools that can be leveraged to fill this research gap. The emergence of these tools reflects the increased recognition of identity, geography, and socio-cultural relationships in shaping food security outcomes. This study represents an initial step toward filling this research gap by utilizing the FIES and measures of livelihood satisfaction.

The underdevelopment of Jamaica's domestic food system is a product of limited institutional innovation and dietary transition to unhealthy foods. From as far back as the 1930s, negative attitudes toward local food (e.g., yam, banana, plantain) were reported among Jamaican society (Bailey, 1939). Cheap imported food flooded local markets, magnifying nutrition transition, and the vulnerability of small-scale farmers. In recent times, local food production has plummeted due to complex changes in Jamaica's political economy (Gamble et al., 2010; Popke et al., 2016). Ironically, the decline in local food production has occurred alongside numerous policies geared toward “revitalizing” the agriculture sector—even though in reality, food imports have increased. One of the repeated mistakes of agriculture development policy in Jamaica is the exclusion of small farmers' voice and values. To strengthen domestic food systems in Jamaica, sensitivity to local food knowledge is an absolute imperative. Local knowledge remains one of the most important resources available to poor farmers (Beckford, 2012; de Medeiros et al., 2021). In part, this research proposes a bottom-up approach to highlight the role of local knowledge in key food production systems that contribute to food heritage and farming households' livelihood security.

Contemporary migration patterns in the Millbank community contribute minimally to food production and food sovereignty. Remittances are primarily used to purchase imported foods such as rice, canned fish, and other processed food as substitutes for traditional foods such as yam and banana. This has contributed to the emergence of a social stigma associated with collecting wild foods and an ascription of superior socioeconomic status associated with the capacity to purchase imported food items. The transboundary risks associated with overdependence on food imports have been well-documented (Weis, 2004; Campbell ea al., 2010) and have been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amartya Sen's work in the 1970s was influential in the transition from production to consumption-centered food policies. Sen's analysis of household-level food-deficit shaped the reconceptualization of food access through the lens of entitlement. For many small farmers, farming is the only domain where they enjoy freedom and control to craft possibilities for alternative futures. Yet, small farmers in Jamaica are often caught on the wrong side of a systemic pattern of exclusion (Barker, 1993). In 2015, the Blue and John Crow Mountains were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site based on its cultural and natural heritage. The management team of this National Park has already started to use this new prestigious status to boost the region's tourism appeal. New hiking trails are being developed, and the local Maroon culture is used to represent locals' lifestyle. For farmers in the Millbank area, the benefits of the new statues are less obvious. Local conservation-based economies should incorporate strategies to promote diversity of consumption possibilities to unlock multiple pathways toward zero hunger (SDG 2), good health and well-being (SDG 3), and responsible/sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12).

The possibility of wild food contributing to Jamaica's policies on food security and poverty is unexplored. This reflects the existing knowledge gap in general, and the quantification and valuation in particular. The economic, health, and biodiversity value of the services provided by Jamaican wild foods is fertile ground for future research. Valuation of wild food can put a price tag on the economic savings to governments (Hickey et al., 2016) and halt the disappearance of wild and biodiverse agricultural landscapes. Additionally, the wild food collection analysis in the Millbank area could be expanded to include freshwater wildlife and ecosystem. The river system supports a significant portion of the consumption diversity of households in the study area. In fact, in the 1780s, the Upper Rio Grande Valley communities were described as “fishing villages” (Agorsah, 1994). Based on our research and descriptions of places visited to harvest wild food crops, it seems that they are harvested from abandoned farmland rather than from isolated farm plots located and actively managed in the forest. Further research is needed to verify these impressions but, if true, the implications are that harvesting wild food is not a threat to the forest ecosystem's physical integrity, as would be the case if farmers were actively clearing patches of forest to cultivate.

Promoting inclusive conservation measures can also disrupt intergenerational poverty cycles and associated food insecurities (IFPRI, 2020) in the study region. There is a need to “foster pro-poor and inclusive structural transformation focusing on people and placing communities at the center to reduce economic vulnerabilities and set ourselves on track to ending hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition” (FAO, 2019, p. 8). Conservation measures should incorporate socioeconomic and multicentric policy responses that are congruent with local knowledge systems to drive equity and resilience. In the Millbank area, these issues take on deeper cultural and spiritual significance due to historical customary access to forest land. The forest is symbolic as much as it is a material-physical space. The wild foods of the forest, are both material resources and socio-cultural patrimony. Protected area management is seen as the imposition or encroachment of an external value system. This is a tension between conservation of biodiversity or the preservation of traditional life.