Now socio-economic pressures are forcing the Tawahka to defend their lands' by seeking protected reserve status. Comparative analysis of the Tawahka's farm management and coping strategies features in a recent Overseas Development Institute report on studies by a University of Reading ethnobotanist. Investigations among Tawahka communities in the remote Rio Patuca region of Honduras have yielded insights into innovative shifting cultivation and multiple-use techniques. Some 76 useful plant species and more than 90 varieties of edible produce are grown in an almost continuous cycle. The report examines in detail the Tawahka's agricultural management practices in this assortment of agricultural niches.
Home gardens are exclusively the domain of women, and are of great importance to households.
The highly seasonal riverside gardens provide extra cash income, fresh produce for family use, or both. The report traces similarities between Tawahka agriculture and that of other groups indigenous to Mexico and the Peruvian Amazon. They favour intensive monocropping or cattle ranching over crop diversity or low-density market gardening and tend to hold indigenous knowledge in low regard. With support from Unesco, the Tawahka are taking steps to safeguard their environment and traditional way of life. A draft resolution to gazette an exclusive Tawahka 'conservation region' is presently before the Honduran Congress, while the Federacion Indigena Tawahka de Honduras is coordinating efforts to designate the Rio Patuca basin a protected reserve.