Katherine L. Turner

“Where our women used to get the food”: cumulative effects and loss of ethnobotanical knowledge and practice; case study from coastal British ColumbiaThis paper was submitted for the Special Issue on Ethnobotany, inspired by the Ethnobotany Symposium organized by Alain Cuerrier, Montreal Botanical Garden, and held in Montreal at the 2006 annual meeting of the Canadian Botanical Association.

Knowledge and practices of indigenous peoples relating to local plants used for food, medicine, materials, and other purposes are threatened in many parts of the world. The reasons for declining knowledge and use of traditional resources are complex and multifaceted. We review a series of case examples of culturally valued food plants in British Columbia and identify a suite of interacting social and environmental factors that have resulted in decreased use of and dwindling cultural knowledge about these plants over the past 150 years. Reasons for this loss include compounding influences of changing knowledge systems owing to religious conversion and residential schools, loss of indigenous languages, loss of time and opportunity for traditional practices owing to participation in the wage economy, increasing urbanization of indigenous populations, loss of access to traditional resources, restriction of management practices for sustaining these resources, and most recently, forces of globalization and industrialization. Efforts to renew and restore traditional practices and relationships with plants and environments must recognize the cumulative effects of these factors and find ways to retain and reinforce the knowledge and practices still held by individuals and communities, to reverse some of the negative influences on cultural retention, and to develop new, relevant, and effective ways to revitalize languages, cultures, and ethnobotanical knowledge within contemporary contexts.

Building communities of learning: indigenous ways of knowing in contemporary natural resources and environmental management

In this paper, we explore the emergence of what we term ‘communities of learning’ within the context of natural resources and environmental management (NREM). These communi-ties reflect new forms of interaction and cooperation between NREM decision makers that bring together the unique contributions of indigenous ways of knowing alongside academic and scientific approaches. Here, ‘indigenous ways of knowing’ refer to how indigenous and local peoples cultivate knowledge in the context of NREM (Berkes 2009 this issue). This is a ‘place-based’ process that embodies knowledge of species, livelihood practices and cultural beliefs, values and norms. In NREM, as in other fields, indigenous cultures have often been viewed through a binary lens, either as an impediment to socioeconomic progress, or as static packages of knowledge, belief and practice that must therefore be preserved from homogenising pressures, such as globalisation (Marglin 1990; Arce & Long 2000; Sen 2004). Rarely have indigenous ways of knowing been recognised as adaptive, dynamic assets for building diverse development trajectories that reflect local needs and aspirations. Where this has occurred, however, the shift in thinking has enabled researchers to explore knowledge as an adaptive cultural ele-ment, as well as encourage a much more practical engagement between indigenous groups, researchers and policy makers/managers. In doing so, it allows for place-based alternatives for both research and management policies in contemporary cross-cultural settings (Sillitoe 2006; Davidson-Hunt & O’Flaherty 2007). In this instance, indigenous groups are our focus. However, communities of learning may organise around other resource-dependent groups for the construction of ‘place-based’ knowledge. In a management context, the ability of different actors to meaningfully contribute to creat-ing solutions shifts in relation to the authority they are able to claim against competing world views and fields of action. ‘Communities of learning’ result from the recognition that each community possesses unique knowledge and resources that can contribute to management decisions. Figure 1 illustrates the potential convergence of these dominant players to form communities of learning.

Tensions and synergies in the Central Valley of Tarija, Bolivia: commercial viticulture and agrobiodiversity in smallholder farming systems

ABSTRACT New policy directions supporting small-scale, ecologically diverse agriculture often remain un-reconciled with decades of modernist agricultural development. We examine the case of campesino grape producers in the Central Valley of Tarija, Bolivia, and how and why they combine commercial grape production with species-level agrobiodiversity. High production costs and ecological and economic risks of viticulture, alongside other species’ sociocultural and economic values, are factors informing campesino production strategies. The importance of agrobiodiversity for campesino viticulturalists, however, is underrecognized by rural development authorities and we discuss opportunities to narrow the persisting gaps between rural development theory and practice in the Central Valley.

Wine, cheese and building a gourmet territory: biocultural resource-based development strategies in Bolivia

ABSTRACT Products based on local biological and cultural diversity are sometimes seen as a sustainable development pathway. Questions persist, however, surrounding how mobilising collective biocultural heritage as resources to meet certain development objectives may shape regimes of resource use, access, benefit and social inclusion within a territory. We examine these questions through a case of gourmet product development analysed from ecological, economic and sociocultural perspectives. We conclude by identifying five biocultural design coordinates, or points of reflection, that may support communities, organisations and governments seeking to use biocultural resources while minimising risks of environmental harm, elite capture and exclusion.