Reinterpreting change in traditional ecological knowledge.

Much research on traditional ecological knowledge (hereafter TEK) has centred in 1) documenting fading knowledge (e.g., Ferguson and Messier 1997; Pieroni et al. 2004), 2) understanding the parallel changes in biological and cultural diversity (Maffi 2005; Harmon and Loh 2010), and 3) assessing the processes and drivers of change that lead to the loss of TEK (Benz et al. 2000; Kingsbury 2001; Godoy et al. 2005; Gray et al. 2008; Turner and Turner 2008; Gómez-Baggethun 2009). The general argumentative thrust is to lament the loss of TEK among indigenous peoples and rural communities. For example, in the last decade a growing number of studies have reported changes and losses in the medicinal (Begossi et al. 2002; Case et al. 2005; Lozada et al. 2006; Monteiro et al. 2006), nutritional (Turner and Turner 2008), and agricultural (Benz et al. 2007; Stone 2007; Gómez-Baggethun et al. 2010) knowledge of small-scale societies as they become more integrated in national societies and the market economy. The idea that TEK systems are capable of adapting both to external changes and internal pressures has been a mainstay of human ecology for some time (e.g., Berkes et al. 2000). Yet by analyzing change primarily in terms of lost knowledge the usual research perspective tends to downplay the dynamic nature of TEK systems, and little emphasis is put in understanding particular changes in TEK as an adaptive response to new environmental, social, or economic conditions. Likewise, few researchers have examined how the causes of the loss of TEK (i.e., modernization, technology, schooling, or integration into the market economy to name the most commonly mentioned factors) actually affect the mechanisms that allow societies to generate, regenerate, transmit, and apply knowledge. Consequently our understanding of how these processes affect the resilience of TEK systems and their capacity to evolve and adapt is still limited. In this paper we analyze some factors and conditions that maintain or undermine people’s ability to adapt and regenerate TEK in the face of changing environmental and socioeconomic conditions. We attempt to thereby understand the factors underlying the loss of TEK and the mechanisms used by societies to regenerate and transmit such knowledge in the face of environmental change.