Beyond food production: Home gardens as biocultural conservation agents. A case study in Vall Fosca, Catalan Pyrenees, northeastern Spain
- Autores: Laura Calvet Mir
- Directores de la Tesis: Victòria Reyes-García (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2011
- Idioma: inglés
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Joan Vallès Xirau (presid.), Louis Lemkow Zeiterling (secret.), Christian Vogl (voc.)
- Materias:
- Enlaces
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Dialnet Métricas: 7 Citas
- Resumen
This thesis contains the results of a biocultural conservation research conducted between 2008 and 2011 in home gardens in Vall Fosca, Catalan Pyrenees, northeastern Spain. Vall Fosca is a valley where traditional agroecosystems still survive, but whose inhabitants are divided in defining the most suitable development model for the region. This dissertation examines the existence of landraces and knowledge associated with them in a rural area in an industrialized country. It shows who preserves landraces and why they do so. It also estimates the association between individual centrality in the network of seed exchange and conservation of landraces and associated knowledge. This thesis also discusses the ecosystem services provided by home gardens, as well as the differences between men and women when assessing these ecosystem services. The results establish the existence of landraces and knowledge associated with them in a rural area in an industrialized country. Specifically, my results show the existence of 39 landraces belonging to 31 species, in home gardens with a variety of 148 different species. Women, people over 65 years of age, experienced gardeners and people who grow the garden with organic techniques conserve more landraces than people without these characteristics. Also people who have a more active role in the seed exchange network and have higher levels of intermediation in the network retain more landraces and traditional knowledge than people who have a more passive role in social networks of seed exchange. Home gardens provide a wide range of services, often not very prominent in the literature on ecosystem services. Among these, cultural services are the most appreciated. In this regard, an interesting contribution of this work is that the most valued home garden ecosystem services differ significantly from the services provided by other farming systems. Another interesting contribution of this work is that women value the ecosystem services more than men. The explanation for this finding is part of the socialization theory that assigns women roles on family care and protection. My analysis provides new data that facilitate the understanding of the relationship between pro-environmental attitudes and gender socialization. This thesis has found that home gardens and landraces are symbols of cultural identity in the valley and that both permanent residents and visitors consider that home gardens are key elements in the landscape of the valley and should be preserved as part of biocultural heritage. In addition, the ecosystem services provided by the home gardens, particularly the cultural services, can help develop relations between people, relations that might contribute to strengthening cultural identity and to create bonds of respect with the environment. The results of this thesis can contribute to make biocultural diversity visible in the valley and generate endogenous rural development models based on the sustainable exploitation of ecosystem services generated by traditional agroecosystems. Key words: ecosystem services; landraces; rural development; socialization theory; Spain; traditional ecological knowledge.
