Biocultural Conservation and Local Ecological Knowledge

Local ecological knowledge (often referred to as Indigenous and local knowledge) encompasses the cumulative, place based understandings, practices, and values that Indigenous Peoples and local communities develop through long term interactions with their environments. This knowledge is dynamic and adaptive, but it is increasingly being eroded by rapid environmental change, land use transformations, cultural marginalisation, and conservation and development interventions that disrupt knowledge transmission. Because local ecological knowledge often contains fine grained, long term insights into ecosystem dynamics, its erosion has direct implications for biodiversity conservation and social–ecological resilience.

Biological and cultural diversity are closely intertwined: regions with high biodiversity are frequently also centres of cultural and knowledge diversity, reflecting long histories of coevolution between societies and ecosystems. Biocultural conservation builds on this understanding by promoting conservation approaches that acknowledge and work with local cultures that maintain strong relationships with biodiversity. In our work, biocultural conservation emphasises knowledge coproduction and integration, attention to cultural values and practices, and the revitalisation of knowledge systems disrupted by colonial histories and accelerating global change, while recognising that cultural practices and conservation goals do not always align.

Our research is grounded in ethnoecology and ethnobiology, combining ethnographic approaches (such as interviews, storytelling, and participatory mapping) with ecological surveys and monitoring. By integrating cultural and ecological evidence, we study how knowledge systems emerge, adapt, erode, and are revitalised, and how these dynamics influence conservation outcomes across terrestrial, pastoral, forest, coastal, and marine social–ecological systems.
Examples from our research

Our work includes global syntheses of the dynamics of pastoral traditional ecological knowledge, showing how governance, mobility, and environmental variability shape knowledge systems across rangelands, as well as empirical studies demonstrating how rapid ecosystem change challenges the adaptive capacity of local environmental knowledge. We examine convergences and divergences between Indigenous/local and scientific knowledge, including work on climate change observations and on carnivore ecology and conservation, highlighting how different knowledge systems detect and interpret ecological change.

We also study biocultural conflicts, such as cases where culturally significant ceremonies involve threatened carnivores, and investigate how conservation interventions that substitute culturally meaningful practices with synthetic alternatives can impact both cultural continuity and long‑term conservation goals. In coastal and marine systems, our research examines the vulnerability and resilience of Indigenous and local knowledge in relation to seagrass ecosystems, including large‑scale ethnobiological work that integrates replicated ethnographic research with macroecological data and climate projections to identify global vulnerability patterns and explore Indigenous‑imagined futures for coastal communities.

Related projects:

  • Human-Carnivore Relations in Transition: Ritual, Knowledge, and Conservation in East Africa ()
  • "Understanding Indigenous environmental knowledge changes to envision a sustainable biocultural future" ()
  • Rewilding and reintroducing wild forest reindeer to their ancestral homelands ()
People

Affiliated researchers:

Publications

Fernández-Llamazares Á et al. (2025) Indigenous Peoples and local communities report a consistent decline in the body mass of birds across three continents. Oryx.

Torrents-Ticó M et al. (2021) Convergences and divergences between scientific and Indigenous and Local Knowledge contribute to inform carnivore conservation. Ambio.

Torrents-Ticó M et al. (2023) Biocultural conflicts: understanding complex interconnections between a traditional ceremony and threatened carnivores in north Kenya. Oryx.

Fernández-Llamazares Á and Cabeza M (2018) Rediscovering the Potential of Indigenous Storytelling for Conservation Practice. Conservation Letters.

Fernández-Llamazares Á. et al. (2015) Rapid ecosystem change challenges the adaptive capacity of local environmental knowledge. Global Environmental Change.

Fernández-Llamazares Á et al. (2017) An empirically tested overlap between indigenous and scientific knowledge of a changing climate in Bolivian Amazonia. Regional Environmental Change.

Sharifian A et al. (2022) Dynamics of pastoral traditional ecological knowledge: a global state-of-the-art review. Ecology and Society.