Abstract
Our review highlights how traditional ecological knowledge influences people's adaptive capacity to social- ecological change and identifies a set of mechanisms that contribute to such capacity in the context of community-based biodiversity conservation initiatives. Twenty-three publications, including twenty-nine case studies, were reviewed with the aim of investigating how local knowledge, community-based conservation, and resilience interrelate in social-ecological systems. We highlight that such relationships have not been systematically addressed in regions where a great number of community conservation initiatives are found; and we identify a set of factors that foster people's adaptive capacity to social-ecological change and a number of social processes that, in contrast, undermine such capacity and the overall resilience of the social- ecological system. We suggest that there is a need to further investigate how climate variability and other events affect the joint evolution of conservation outcomes and traditional ecological knowledge, and there is a need to expand the current focus on social factors to explain changes in traditional ecological knowledge and adaptive capacity towards a broader approach that pays attention to ecosystem dynamics and environmental change.
Highlights
Researchers argue that the resilience of social-ecological systems is desirable for facilitating the sustainability of natural resources and ecosystem services and to ensure a stable environment for human life and well-being (Adger 2006, 2007)
We highlight that such relationships have not been systematically addressed in regions where a great number of community conservation initiatives are found; and we identify a set of factors that foster people's adaptive capacity to social-ecological change and a number of social processes that, in contrast, undermine such capacity and the overall resilience of the socialecological system
We suggest that there is a need to further investigate how climate variability and other events affect the joint evolution of conservation outcomes and traditional ecological knowledge, and there is a need to expand the current focus on social factors to explain changes in traditional ecological knowledge and adaptive capacity towards a broader approach that pays attention to ecosystem dynamics and environmental change
Summary
Researchers argue that the resilience of social-ecological systems is desirable for facilitating the sustainability of natural resources and ecosystem services and to ensure a stable environment for human life and well-being (Adger 2006, 2007). In this review we adopt the widespread used term traditional ecological knowledge to refer to people’s cumulative body of nonscientific knowledge, beliefs, and practice about local ecosystems and their management that evolves through social learning and adaptive processes, and which is supported by customary institutions and handed down through generations by cultural transmission (Ostrom 1990, Berkes 1993, Berkes et al 2000)
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