Biocultural Diversity Conservation

Maffi, Luisa; Woodley, Ellen

doi:10.4324/9781849774697

Cited by 155 publications

(168 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

135

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Insights have emerged in recent decades that highlight the role of site-specific experiences and cultural knowledge, and their storage and transmission, for stewardship of ecosystems (Altieri et al, 1987;Dahlberg, 1993;Nazarea, 1998;Jarvis and Hodgin, 1999;Almekinders and Elings, 2001;Berkes et al, 2003;Maffi and Woodley, 2010;Barthel et al, 2010;Siebert, 2011). We cannot know exactly when and how memories of past environmental changes survive, or how experiences of responses to crises from the deep past have survived.…”

Section: Collective Memories and Practical Stewardship Of Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bio-cultural refugia—Safeguarding diversity of practices for food security and biodiversity

Barthel

Crumley

Svedin

2013

Global Environmental Change

160

106

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Food security for a growing world population is high on the list of grand sustainability challenges, as is reducing the pace of biodiversity loss in landscapes of food production. Here we shed new insights on areas that harbor place specific social memories related to food security and stewardship of biodiversity. We call them Bio-cultural refugia. Our goals are to illuminate how bio-cultural refugia store, revive and transmit memory of agricultural biodiversity and ecosystem services, and how such social memories are carried forward between people and across cohorts. We discuss the functions of such refugia for addressing the twin goals of food security and biodiversity conservation in landscapes of food production.The methodological approach is first of its kind in combining the discourses on food security, social memory and biodiversity management. We find that the rich biodiversity of many regionally distinct cultural landscapes has been maintained through a mosaic of management practices that have co-evolved in relation to local environmental fluctuations, and that such practices are carried forward by both biophysical and social features in bio-cultural refugia including; genotypes, artifacts, written accounts, as well as embodied rituals, art, oral traditions and self-organized systems of rules. Combined these structure a diverse portfolio of practices that result in genetic reservoirs -source areas -for the wide array of species, which in interplay produce vital ecosystem services, needed for future food security related to environmental uncertainties, volatile financial markets and large scale conflicts. In Europe, processes related to the large-scale industrialization of agriculture threaten such bio-cultural refugia. The paper highlights that the dual goals to reduce pressures from modern agriculture on biodiversity, while maintaining food security, entails more extensive collaboration with farmers oriented toward ecologically sound practices.

show abstract

Section: Collective Memories and Practical Stewardship Of Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bio-cultural refugia—Safeguarding diversity of practices for food security and biodiversity

Barthel

Crumley

Svedin

2013

Global Environmental Change

160

106

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Its diverse socioecological systems and traditions of plant use have provided a wealth of ethnobotanical knowledge [2]. From empirical practice to evolution of modern scientific discipline, Mexico's ethnobotany has influenced theories and methods of this science around the world [3]. It is estimated that the Mexican medicinal biota contains approximately 3,000-5,000 plant species with therapeutic potential, and only approximately 1,000 species have been thoroughly studied [4,5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An ethnobotanical study of medicinal plants used in Zacatecas state, Mexico

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite the fact that Mexico has vast biocultural biodiversity, there are numerous regions where the traditional medicinal use of plants has not yet been studied. We aimed to document, analyze quantitatively, and preserve medicinal plant knowledge among local people living in over 40 communities in the state of Zacatecas. Ethnobotanical information was collected by semistructured interviews with 132 informants. Data were analyzed using standard quantitative indices such as relative frequency of citation, family importance value, cultural importance index, and informant consensus factor. We recorded 168 medicinal plant taxa belonging to 151 genera and 69 botanical families and used to treat 99 health disorders. The most medicinally important plant families were Asteraceae (20 species), followed by Fabaceae and Lamiaceae (12 species) and Cactaceae (five species). The most culturally important species was Matricaria chamomilla L., mentioned 140 times, followed by Arnica montana L. (62 times) and Artemisia ludoviciana Nutt (48 times). The highest consensus for use was for diseases of the reproductive system. The type of disorder for which there was the highest number of references for use (389; 25% of all uses) and plant species (67) were diseases of the digestive and gastrointestinal system. The present study represents the first quantitative medical-ethnobotanical documentation and analysis of the traditional use of medicinal plants in Zacatecas state. Despite the semiarid climate, this region is botanically highly diverse, and its flora have versatile medicinal uses.

show abstract

“…Several authors have also noted the importance of securing the rights of indigenous and local people and a focus on social justice [18,19,21]. The study of biocultural diversity has led to the call for the development of approaches that seek to maintain and revitalize biocultural heritage [19,22,23]. We argue that biocultural approaches to conservation can achieve this goal.…”

Section: Transcending Conservation Debatesmentioning

confidence: 96%