Abstract
Amid climate change, biodiversity loss and food insecurity, there is the growing need to draw synergies between micro-scale environmental processes and practices, and macro-level ecosystem dynamics to facilitate conservation decision-making. Adopting this synergistic approach can improve crop yields and profitability more sustainably, enhance livelihoods and mitigate climate change. Using spatially explicit data generated through a public participatory geographic information system methodology (n = 37), complemented by spatial analysis, interviews (n = 68) and focus group discussions (n = 4), we explored the synergies between participatory farmer-to-farmer agroecology knowledge sharing, farm-level decisions and their links with macro-level prioritization of conservation strategies. We mapped farm conditions and ecosystem services (ES) of two village areas with varying knowledge systems about farming. Results of the farm-level analysis revealed variations in spatial perception among farmers, differences in understanding the dynamics of crop growth and varying priorities for extension services based on agroecological knowledge. The ES use pattern analysis revealed hotspots in the mapped ES indicators with similarities in both village areas. Despite the similarities in ES use, priorities for biodiversity conservation align with farmers’ understanding of farm processes and practices. Farmers with training in agroecology prioritized strategies that are ecologically friendly while farmers with no agroecology training prioritized the use of strict regulations. Importantly, the results show that agroecology can potentially contribute to biodiversity conservation and food security, with climate change mitigation co-benefits. The findings generally contribute to debates on land sparing and land sharing conservation strategies and advance social learning theory as it pertains to acquiring agroecological knowledge for improved yield and a sustainable environment.
Highlights
Climate change, food insecurity and biodiversity loss have all being on the rise in the last decade [1,2]
traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), alternatively referred to as indigenous knowledge (IK), local knowledge (LK), and traditional knowledge (TK), from the socioecological systems perspective, is conceived as an evolving body of knowledge, practices and beliefs that develop over time from long-term observation and monitoring of the system functioning [11,12]
Individual and local perceptions can be represented on maps that can more channel the local understanding to external decision-makers, which exemplifies the bottom-up approaches to decision-making
Summary
Food insecurity and biodiversity loss have all being on the rise in the last decade [1,2] Addressing these threats requires the active engagement of local communities to incorporate their views [3]. Rapid changes to socio-economic and ecological systems require the incorporation of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) into resource governance to enable local farmers to adapt and become more resilient [10]. Most ES mapping studies [7,14,15] do not always link farmers’ TEK and understanding of farm-level processes and practices with ES-use mapping, especially in resource-poor rural contexts They have generally not focused on smallholder agroecology farmers in the Global South. Are there synergies between access to TEK/agroecological knowledge, farm-level practices and process and prioritization of biodiversity conservation in smallholder contexts?
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