While big cities seem to grow rampant in Latin American contexts, diverse agricultural practices persist at the rural margins populated by smallholder farming. Urbanization transforms rural lives in the peripheries of the Colombian capital, Bogotá. In particular, the diversity of cultivated plants is rapidly decreasing, according to local…
Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) is essential in addressing sustainability challenges. The scientific community now acknowledges that it has done a disservice to indigenous and local communities by neglecting the knowledge it has to offer. ILK can contribute to a better understanding of sustainability challenges and can offer…
The Bolivian Chiquitano dry forest is at serious risk of disappearing, but in the news and talks about the global environmental crisis only the destruction of the Amazon abounds. The Chiquitano dry forest is right next to the Amazon and its rapid devastation and loss of its biocultural…
The concept of biocultural diversity is still relatively new and yet there are already many different variations of the term out there (like biocultural perspective, biocultural restoration, or biocultural education, to name just a few). In fact, we had found 191 different terms that are used together with…
Life in the heart of a Chiquitano village Last year, two of our researchers were finally able to travel again and went on fieldwork for about three months. They visited four indigenous communities in the Chiquitania region in the western lowlands of Bolivia. The research focus of this…
In the last SES Global Conversation of this semester, the focus was on biocultural diversity. Jan Hanspach, Camila Benavides Frias and Stefan Ortiz Przychodzka led the session asking: What is biocultural diversity, and why should we care? The session began questioning what we associate with biocultural diversity, which…
Biocultural diversity is the focus of our research project. It is probably one of the best-known terms whenever something is labelled as ‘biocultural’. You've probably also encountered the terms biocultural heritage, biocultural memory and biocultural conservation. And, in fact, there are many, many more expressions of the term…
Biocultural diversity is the focus of our research project. It is probably one of the best-known terms whenever something is labelled as ‘biocultural’. You've probably also encountered the terms biocultural heritage, biocultural memory and biocultural conservation. And, in fact, there are many, many more expressions of the term…
Many local farmers worldwide gained their knowledge through practices in daily interaction with ecosystems and biodiversity. This knowledge can provide key ideas for transforming agriculture towards a more sustainable and resilient system (Šūmane et al. 2018). Today, I want to share an example of such knowledge that has…
English version below!In unserem Forschungsprojekt beschäftigen wir uns mit biokultureller Diversität in Agrarlandschaften des globalen Südens. Biokulturell bedeutet, die Vielfalt des Lebens in all seinen Erscheinungsformen, inklusive aller ökologischen, kulturellen und sprachlichen Ausprägungen, zu betrachten. Das Konzept wird in der Regel mit der traditionellen Art und Weise in…