VII. Conservation Ethnobiology: People and Places

This paper examines the relationship between identity in the agricultural Altiplano of South America and the global quinoa market. Commodification of the pseudo-cereal results in further marginalization of Andean peoples by racializing and exotifying both plant and curator, threatening existing practices and genomes, and undermining regional food sovereignty. Capitalizing on the intellectual and genetic property of Altiplano peoples serves neocolonial powers and their corporate economies, often producing meager to no return for the rightful owners. I will discuss the language surrounding this global market by presenting and evaluating discourse involving various interested parties; I’ll go on to offer methods of follow up through allyship for anthropologists working with at risk communities.

In Liangshan Prefecture of Sichuan, Southwest China, the Yi ethnic group have cultivated Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) (TB) for a thousand years. They have maintained a traditional seed management system. To understand the practices of on-farm conservation and TB seed circulation, we conducted an informal case study of a seed system in Liangshan. Field work and society network analytical tools were used to analyze seed sources, and to draw a network map. Farm-saved, exchanging with neighbors and relatives and purchasing from market were the main means to save and exchange in all villages of the villages in this study. The flow of seed within villages was dominant. Wedding dowry was an important pathway for seed flow among all villages. Among 13 TB landraces, 4 landraces were exchanged frequently. These findings highlight that nodal households play an important role in the conservation and on-farm management of TB landraces.

From the summits of Yulong Mountain, in Southwest China, elevation drops almost 3000m to Lijiang Valley in <20km. The diverse habitats along this gradient support superlative plant richness and define the heartland of the indigenous Naxi people. Plant culture has long been a center of Naxi domestic life, as families cultivate a microcosm of the area’s floral diversity in lush courtyard gardens.

We documented the identity, origins, nomenclature and uses of Naxi courtyard garden plants in 60 households along an elevational gradient to address how indigenous plants, uses, and names are interwoven, whether wild collection drives use patterns, and how urbanization affects botanical and ethnobotanical composition.

Our results show that while historical events and new plants and practices have driven changes, Naxi gardens remain repositories of the unique local flora. These patterns of use inform theories about how ethnobotanical knowledge is generated, conserved and transmitted across the Himalayan region.

Local ecological knowledge (LEK) is a key factor in sustainability and conservation of biodiversity and is differentiated from formal, classroom-based education (and Western science) by its interactive, hands-on, field-based learning process.  Urban community and home garden programs, grounded in LEK, have sprung up across the United States to encourage better nutrition, sustainable agriculture, greater equity in food security, and conservation (such as increased plants for pollinators).  This project combined autoethnography and grounded theory analysis of 40 urban farm interns’ blogs, located at a single bioregenerative farm internship program that ran for three years in the Greater Los Angeles area, California.  Full immersion of the researcher into the urban farmer training program combined with studying the reflections of other urban farm interns, in their own words, illuminated the ways in which intensive experiential learning in the garden shifted individual participants’ motivation, cultural models of food and nature, and their skills. 

From June 2017 to September 2018, a pilot study was conducted in which cannabis industry employees in state-legal facilities in Colorado were interviewed regarding cannabis strain preferences. The data from these interviews suggests that participants often favor strains with high THCA content, as THCA results in the production of large crystals or ‘diamonds’ within cannabis concentrates. ‘Dabbing diamonds’ was felt by participants to represent an individual's ‘fit’ in cannabis culture, as it indicated the ability to consume large amounts of THC. As the over-consumption of THC is a performance of masculinity (Dahl and Sandberg 2014), this study suggests that there is a distinct masculinization of cannabis culture occurring within the Colorado cannabis industry and that this may be leading to the over-selection of THCA-rich strains by cannabis growers, resulting in potential losses to cannabis biodiversity.

Within Aotearoa/New Zealand biosecurity risk and threats are becoming common and the role of indigenous (Maori) knowledge in mitigating these threats needs support. The recent Myrtle Rust (Austropuccinia psidii) incursion presents an enormous risk to the biodiversity of culturally important plants and native Myrtaceae species and Myrtaceae dominated ecosystems. The relationship between ethnobiology and traditional knowledge (TK) is critical in the area of indigenous biosecurity across Polynesia. Indigenous knowledge in the South Pacific exists within a holistic environment that conceptualizes two worldviews and, in the New Zealand context, emphasizes the importance of matauranga (Maori knowledge retained orally and through cultural practices), tikanga (customs, traditions and protocols), whakapapa (species assemblages within a paradigm relative to human beings) and the practice of kaitiaki (the act of guardianship and protector of flora and fauna) to ethnobiology and the development of indigenous biosecurity measures to protect culturally important plant species.

Our objective was to develop a linguistic adaptation of the conservation actions in a Protected Area (PA) from Northeast-Brazil, considering the assimilation of the technical content of management plans to permit the real participation of artisanal fishermen. Through semi-structured interviews, fishermen, chosen by the "snowball" method, collaborated with the process of linguistic correspondence. The results provided comparative elements between the terms contained in the PA documents and the understanding of the fishermen (practically illiterates). The only action taken by unanimity was the “inspection”, although the word “environmental monitoring” was also understood as a form of supervision. “Environmental education” appeared to be restricted to lectures and “relationship between institutions” were understood as talks between managers, demonstrating their sense of exclusion. The language correspondence is an urgent tool for coastal management that aims effective environmental conservation through the participation of local communities mainly in third countries.

We examined psychological factors affecting the ability of iwi (Māori tribe, New Zealand) to practice kaitiakitanga, focusing on mahinga kai (customary harvest and management of waterfowl and wetlands). 25 participants from two groups, iwi (Ngāi Tahu customary practitioners and harvesters); and land owners, were interviewed. Findings suggest that access to or through privately owned land is a major barrier to iwi practicing kaitiakitanga and customary harvest. Affect (e.g. trust; fear) plays a primary role in land owners’ willingness to grant access onto their property. Other barriers include cognitive factors (e.g. lack of knowledge of kaitiakitanga practices among land owners) and social factors (e.g. quality of social contact between land owners and iwi). The research suggests that (1) positive intergroup contact may reduce fear, increase trust and promote positive intergroup perceptions; (2) both land owners and iwi may achieve their own goals through collaboration and the adoption of a shared affiliation.

In this presentation, I briefly introduce Sámi culture(s); colonization of Sápmi (Sámi homeland) across the Fennoscandian nation-states; and effects of climate change. I then address issues facing the Sámi diaspora in North America.

Apart from its rich biodiversity, mountain regions also exhibit diversity of cultures resulting from the niche-specificity of steep mountainous topographies, their relative isolation, and necessity to maximize production while minimizing risk and conserving resources. The isolation bred by high mountain ranges has helped nurture multiplicity of tribes in the Himalayan region. Frequent waves of migration and the melding of ethnic groups has resulted in lifestyles that are at once very different and yet similar. Each tribe also has its own arts and crafts and certain invaluable traditional knowledge systems. This talk presents information on some of major Himalayan tribes and their distinctive characteristics. I explore the convergence of mountain cultural diversity with issues of sustainable and equitable development in highland areas, shedding light on the diversity of dialects and languages, the unheard stories, and the innumerable ways in which the local culture can help to implement sustainable development programmes.

Traditional wetland physical assessments do not adequately identify tribal cultural values of wetlands and thus not adequately protecting for cultural uses. The Swinomish Wetlands Cultural Assessment Project has developed a cultural module that can be incorporated into wetland assessments to better inform wetland protections. Local native knowledge was gathered about the traditional uses of 99 plant species. A cultural module was developed based on the presence of plants in several use categories including: construction, ceremonial, subsistence, medicinal, common use, plant rarity, and place of value for each wetland. The combined score of the cultural and physical modules provides an overall wetland score that relates to proscribed buffer protection widths through the Tribe’s wetland protection law. We hope this innovative method can serve as a model in combining traditional cultural values with scientific methods to help promote the breath of knowledge our ancestors possessed into modern practical environmental protection.

Bhutan is a land deeply interwoven with religious and spiritual histories, where pre-Buddhist beliefs in place-based deity “citadel(s)”, presiding over forests, marshes, rivers, and mountains, animate and mediate relationships between communities and their local environments. These lived cultural realities have significant bearing on conservation and natural resource management in the country. Habitat and protected area management for two birds of conservation concern and significant cultural reverence, the White-bellied Heron and the Black-necked Crane, are focal species of conservation initiatives within the country.  Despite community-oriented strategies, few studies explore the influence of local ontologies on protected area management and species-driven conservation in a spatial capacity. While ethnographic field data and collaborative mapping initiatives reveal salient local spatialities and socio-cultural complexities that could inform protected area planning for these species, more research is required to understand the dynamic range, extent, and scale of avian home-ranges with protected deity citadel “home-ranges”.