Synergy Between Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Conservation Science Supports Forest Preservation in Ecuador
By C. D. Becker, K. Ghimire. 2003
209 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Meeting the desires of individuals while sustaining ecological "public goods" is a central challenge in natural resources conservation. Indigenous communities routinely make common property decisions balancing benefits to individuals with benefits to their communities. Such traditional knowledge offers insight for conservation. Using surveys and field observations, this case study examines aspects of indigenous institutions and ecological knowledge used by rural Ecuadorians to manage a forest commons before and after interacting with two U.S.-based conservation NGOs: Earthwatch Institute and People Allied for Nature. The rural farming community of Loma Alta has legal property rights to a 6842-ha watershed in western Ecuador. This self- governing community curtailed destruction of their moist forest commons, but not without the influence of modern scientific ecological knowledge. When Earthwatch Institute scientists provided evidence that forest clearing would reduce water supply to the community, villagers quickly modified land allocation patterns and set rules of use in the forest establishing the first community-owned forest reserve in western Ecuador. This case demonstrates that synergy between traditional knowledge and western knowledge can result in sustaining both ecosystem services and biodiversity in a forest commons.
Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Horticulture
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/86428906c4c9caf0c33f6181906ecbdbfded2021
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Citations in the corpus
- Integrating local and scientific knowledge for environmental management. (2010, background): “These range from those of a more personal nature, such as personal, lay, tacit or implicit knowledge (Polanyi, 1958, 1997; Fazey et al., 2005, 2006a, b), to those that are embedded in and interact with traditional cultural rules and norms (Berkes, 1993; Healey, 1993; Becker and Ghimire, 2003).”
- WHAT you know is WHO you know? Communication patterns among resource users as a prerequisite for co-management (2006, background): “…of resource users possess intricate knowledge of their local resource base (Johannes 1981, Hunn et al. 2003, Ghimire et al. 2004), and that such local ecological knowledge (LEK) can provide a valuable base for resource management (Johannes 1998, Becker and Ghimire 2003, Moller et al. 2004).”