Ethnobiology and research on Global Environmental Change: what distinctive contribution can we make?

LADIO A H

Ethnobiology and Conservation

Ethnobiology and Conservation

Lugar: Recife; Año: 2017 vol. 6

2238-4782

Several reports have shown that communities of small farmers are the most vulnerable toglobal environmental change (GEC). Others have revealed that societies which can count on arich body of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) are more resilient in facing this challenge,since their behaviour is already adaptive in character. Within this scenario, the IPCCestablishes the need for ?cross fertilisation? between TEK and scientific knowledge (SK). Buthow can we arrive at interpretative agreements when these two knowledge systems are sodifferent? In this review I analyse the substantial role ethnobiology can play in providingempirical evidence on this subject in Latin America. The characteristics of our discipline offerdifferential advantages: 1) because we are actually there, our interpretation of vulnerability andadaptation arise from experiences shared with people who have a long term interconnectionwith their environment, and not from abstract indices created in offices; 2) because we work ona community scale, at a local level, and the most appropriate approach in search of solutionsshould be bottomupand not topdown;3) because we are academically trained asinterlocutors, and 4) because our approach is rooted in a vision of the landscape as a culturalconstruction. Ethnobiologists must come to operational agreements on how to deal with GEC,and set down guidelines for a reconciliatory dialogue between SK and TEK, a process whichshould not be considered something easy or quick, but a longtermprocess which is just in itsinfancy.