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Factors influencing local ecological knowledge maintenance in Mediterranean watersheds: Insights for environmental policies

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Abstract

Local ecological knowledge (LEK) has been found to be one of the main bridges to manage biocultural diversity. We analyzed the factors affecting LEK maintenance and transmission in a Mediterranean watershed. We used a mixed methods approach to evaluate the agricultural LEK in three different dimensions: biological, soil and water management, and forecasting. We found that the main factors for its maintenance were the respondent's time living in the area and the social relationships established among farmers, which involved partner collaboration and farmer information exchanges. Protected areas also played a key role for maintaining the LEK associated with soil and water management. Finally, we found that outmigration and mechanization were the most important indirect drivers of change underlying LEK erosion. We suggest that environmental policies should focus on promoting this experiential knowledge, considering both intergenerational renewal and the gendered aspects of this knowledge.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all the people from the Nacimiento Comarca and Cecilio Oyonarte who kindly collaborated with us during fieldwork. We thank Erik Gómez-Baggethun for his help during the early stages of the research. We also thank two anonymous reviewers, the editors and Marina García-Llorente for their inspiring comments on a previous draft. This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (project CGL2011-30266).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Social-Ecological Systems Laboratory, Department of Ecology, Edificio de Biología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, c. Darwin 2, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Irene Iniesta-Arandia, David García del Amo, Ana Paula García-Nieto, Concepción Piñeiro, Carlos Montes & Berta Martín-López

  2. Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie marine et continentale (IMBE), Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, IRD, Avignon Université, Technopôle Arbois-Méditerranée Bât. Villemin – BP 80, 13545, Aix-en-Provence Cedex 04, France

    Ana Paula García-Nieto

  3. Altekio, Initiatives for Sustainability S. Coop. Mad, c. Montera 9, 28013, Madrid, Spain

    Concepción Piñeiro

Authors
  1. Irene Iniesta-Arandia
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  2. David García del Amo
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  3. Ana Paula García-Nieto
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  4. Concepción Piñeiro
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  5. Carlos Montes
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  6. Berta Martín-López
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Correspondence to Irene Iniesta-Arandia.

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Iniesta-Arandia, I., del Amo, D.G., García-Nieto, A.P. et al. Factors influencing local ecological knowledge maintenance in Mediterranean watersheds: Insights for environmental policies. AMBIO 44, 285–296 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-014-0556-1

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