Biocultural vulnerability exposes threats of culturally important species

There are growing calls for conservation frameworks that, rather than breaking the relations between people and other parts of nature, capture place-based relationships that have supported social-ecological systems over the long term. Biocultural approaches propose actions based on conservation prio...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Reyes-García, V., Cámara-Leret, R., Halpern, B.S., O'Hara, C., Renard, D., Zafra-Calvo, N., Díaz, S.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositorio:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/59818
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/59818
Access Level:acceso embargado
Palabra clave:biocultural diversity
conservation planning
cultural keystone species
Indigenous languages
Descripción
Sumario:There are growing calls for conservation frameworks that, rather than breaking the relations between people and other parts of nature, capture place-based relationships that have supported social-ecological systems over the long term. Biocultural approaches propose actions based on conservation priorities and cultural values aligned with local priorities, but mechanisms that allow their global uptake are missing. We propose a framework to globally assess the biocultural status of specific components of nature that matter to people and apply it to culturally important species (CIS). Drawing on a literature review and a survey, we identified 385 wild species, mostly plants, which are culturally important. CIS predominate among Indigenous Peoples (57%) and ethnically defined groups (21%). CIS have a larger proportion of Data Deficient species (41%) than the full set of IUCN species (12%), underscoring the disregard of cultural considerations in biological research. Combining information on CIS biological conservation status (IUCN threatened status) and cultural status (language vitality), we found that more CIS are culturally vulnerable or endangered than biologically and that there is a higher share of bioculturally endangered or vulnerable CIS than of either biologically or culturally endangered CIS measured separately. Bioculturally endangered or vulnerable CIS are particularly predominant among Indigenous Peoples, arguably because of the high levels of cultural loss among them. The deliberate connection between biological and cultural values, as developed in our ‘biocultural status’ metric, provides an actionable way to guide decisions and operationalize global actions oriented to enhance place-based practices that have supported social-ecological systems over the long term.