Suchergebnisse

La etnoecología estudia las relaciones entre los humanos y el medioambiente en el que viven, contribuyendo a entender algunos de los problemas socio-ecológicos actuales, como la degradación ecológica o la pérdida de diversidad cultural, desde un punto de vista eminentemente local. Desde el 2006, el Laboratorio de Etnoecología de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona desarrolla proyectos de investigación dirigidos a estudiar factores y dinámicas sociales, culturales, políticas, y ecológicas que ayudan a explicar la relación de sociedades indígenas y rurales de África, Asia, Latinoamérica y Europa, con su entorno ambiental. Huyendo de la dinámica de extracción de información sin retorno a las comunidades, los proyectos del Laboratorio combinan investigación académica con acciones orientadas a la devolución de los resultados de investigación a las poblaciones con las que trabajamos, a la vez que promueven mejoras en el bienestar local y en el uso sostenible de sus recursos naturales. ; Ethnoecology studies the relations of human beings with their environment aiming at understanding several current socio-ecological problems such as ecological degradation and loss of cultural diversity, mainly from a local point of view. Since 2006, the research team of the Ethnoecology Laboratory (Autonomous University of Barcelona) is conducting research projects focused on the study of social, cultural, political, and ecological factors and dynamics influencing the relation of rural and indigenous communities in Africa, Asia, Latin- America, and Europe, with their environment. Contrary to the common practice of simply extracting information from rural communities, projects at the Ethnoecology Laboratory blend academic research and actions oriented to return findings to the populations where we work and to improve their well-being and sustainable use of natural resources.

Society's understanding of a conflict is mediated by information provided in mass media, for which researchers stress the importance of analyzing media portrays of stakeholders in a conflict. We analyze information from the Bolivian press regarding the construction of a road crossing the Isiboro-Secure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS). Using stakeholder's and social network analyses, we explore stakeholder's positions and alliances as represented in the media and contrast it with previous scholarly work. We found that some actors cited as central in scholar analyses of the conflict are largely absent in the media (e.g., private investors, conservationist sector) and that the media tend to present stakeholders as having more homogeneous positions than the academic literature does while also neglecting some important alliances in their account. The media also suggests that Indigenous communities are forging stronger alliances with urban sectors and civil society, alliances not stressed by researchers. ; Peer reviewed

Strengthening links between school and community is critical for improving people's participation in environmental issues. However, Mexican education programmes are generally unrelated to rural students' life experience and are planned without considering either teachers' or students' opinions. This paper describes the participatory construction of a preparatory school environmental education programme in Ixtlan de Juarez, a Mexican indigenous community internationally recognized for sustainable forest management. The qualitative research methods used are based on the action research methodology. Results from interviews conducted with the preparatory school's headmaster, the coordinator, and nine teachers provided the needed documentation of the school site for contextualising learning activities. Feedback during focus group with six students, three teachers, five local communal authorities, and two researchers highlighted that all participants perceived the need for creating an educational programme focused on local forest management. The contents and activities of the programme were designed by the focus group's participants. The programme has been continuously taught by teachers and forest workers since 2005 and was officially integrated with the preparatory school science curriculum in 2006. This participative educational experience has thus transformed the mandatory school curriculum in Ixtlan.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 ; In August 2017, the Bolivian government passed a contentious law downgrading the legal protection of the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS, for its Spanish acronym), the ancestral homeland of four lowland indigenous groups and one of Bolivia's most iconic protected areas. Due to its strategic position straddling the Andes and Amazonia, TIPNIS represents not only a key biodiversity hotspot in Bolivia, but one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, harboring exceptional levels of endemism and globally important populations of megafauna, as well as protecting substantial topographic complexity likely to support both wildlife migration and species range shifts in response to climate change [1]. The new law, set to authorize the construction of a deeply-contested road through the core of the park, has reopened one of the highest profile socio-environmental conflicts in Latin America. Roads in tropical forests often lead to habitat conversion, and indeed within TIPNIS more than 58% of deforestation is concentrated 5 km or less away from existing roads. It, therefore, seems very likely that the planned road will magnify the current scale and pace of deforestation in TIPNIS, underscoring the urgent need for revisiting the road plans.

14 p., tablas, mapas -- versión online previa sin paginación -- post-print del artículo publicado en Economic Botany. Versión revisada y corregida. ; [EN] Previous research has documented different trends in the consumption of wild food plants but has rarely analyzed the motivations behind their continued (or lack of) consumption. In this article, we use empirical data to explore the factors driving the consumption of a selected set of wild food plants. We start by analyzing the different trends (i.e., abandonment, maintenance, and valorization) across 21 selected species with different food uses. We then explore the reported motivations that drive such trends using data collected among 354 respondents in three Catalan-speaking rural areas. The consumption of wild food plants is decreasing in the three study areas and across the categories of food use analyzed. Respondents listed sociocultural factors, rather than environmental or economic factors, as more prominent determinants of consumption trends; taste preferences seem to be the most relevant motivation for those who continue to consume wild food plants, whereas a myriad of motivations related to changes in lifestyle were provided by those who explain the abandonment of their consumption. ; [ES] Se han documentado diferentes tendencias en el consumo de plantas silvestres comestibles, pero raramente se han analizado las razones que explican por qué algunas plantas se siguen consumiendo y otras no. En base a una selección de plantas silvestres comestibles, en este artículo exploramos los factores que explican las tendencias en el consumo de plantas silvestres. En la primera parte analizamos las tendencias de consumo (abandono, mantenimiento y valorización) de un grupo de 21 especies con diferentes usos alimentarios y en la segunda exploramos las motivaciones esgrimidas por 354 habitantes de tres áreas rurales catalanoparlantes en relación a estas tendencias. El consumo de plantas silvestres parece haber sufrido una reducción generalizada en las áreas prospectadas. Para todas las especies, los encuestados mencionaron factores socioculturales, más que ambientales o económicos, como importantes a la hora de explicar sus patrones de consumo. Específicamente, el sabor parece ser el principal argumento para aquellos que continúan consumiendo plantas silvestres mientras que una combinación de motivos relacionados con cambios en estilos de vida predomina entre las explicaciones de aquellos que han abandonado su consumo. ; The present work was conducted under the framework of the project "Sociocultural factors that explain the gathering and consumption of food wild plants and minor crops. Case studies in the Iberian peninsula and the Balearic Islands," funded by the Economy and Competitiveness Ministry (CSO2011-27565) of the Spanish government. The contribution of Generalitat de Catalunya is also acknowledged (project 2014SGR514). E.C. benefited from a predoctoral contract from the Spanish Ministry for Education. ; Peer reviewed