Biocultural Approaches to Pluralized Bird Conservation in Globally Important Social-ecological Wetland Systems
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2024
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Abstract
To be pluralising and just, conservation science and practice must embrace diverse worldviews. Wetlands are intricate repositories of knowledge where biophysical, social, and spiritual dimensions are profoundly intertwined. Birds connect people to wetlands, foster a sense of rootedness, and emotionally link individuals to their places. This thesis examined how situated human-bird interactions -manifested in knowledges, practices, and beliefs- of local wetland inhabitants in the Río Cruces wetland, are composed and being transformed by social-ecological processes, and how we can use this to move towards more effective and just biocultural conservation. The Río Cruces wetland, in Chile's Valdivian Hotspot, is the country's first Ramsar site and has faced significant socio-environmental transfor-mations. Surveys were conducted in 2021 with 41 participants in 8 localities around the Río Cruces wetland. We used interview kits as cultural probes for individual mapping and “memory walks”. The first chapter highlighted the need for targeted research on biocultural approaches to wetland birds. Secondly, wetland birds in Río Cruces played a significant role in biocultural knowledge containment, highlighting the importance of wetlands in memory storage. Finally, I reaffirm the crucial role of sense of place and identity in foster-ing the engagement needed to achieve conservation objectives.
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Tesis (Doctor en Ciencias de la Agricultura)--Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2024