{"id":155,"date":"2018-08-09T12:05:39","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T11:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/upgrade-cbcd\/?p=155"},"modified":"2020-11-18T08:32:38","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T08:32:38","slug":"environmental-and-socioecological-transformations-in-morocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/2018\/08\/09\/environmental-and-socioecological-transformations-in-morocco\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental and Socioecological Transformations in Morocco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pablo Dominguez, PhD (UAB), Research Fellow CBCD (2012-2014)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h3>\n

Scholars from several disciplines have stressed the importance of locally evolved and culturally specific collective management systems of natural resources for the well-being of local communities and for the\u00a0conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Environmental history and Landscape ecology have\u00a0highlighted the role of specific practices of resource management in the configuration of heterogeneous\u00a0landscapes at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and across many different taxa and ecosystems of the\u00a0Earth (Balee 1994; Benton et al. 2003; Turner 2005). Ethnoecologists have shown that\u00a0these management practices, performed by indigenous and rural groups, are embedded in particular\u00a0belief and knowledge systems. They increasingly are investigating the acquisition,\u00a0transmission and loss of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in relation to factors such as age,\u00a0formal education, and integration to market economies, and how knowledge loss affects the sustainability of socio-ecosystems (Toledo 1992; Reyes-Garc\u00eda 2009). In fact, these management systems, usually\u00a0performed by resource-poor farmers, have been proven to contribute to the conservation of\u00a0biodiversity through the use of more varieties, species, and landscape patches than do most of the\u00a0modern agricultural and food production systems, and to increase the capacity of the socioecological\u00a0systems to adjust to an increasingly changing environment (Berkes and Turner 2006; Berkes et al. 2000;\u00a0Ostrom et al. 1999; Dietz et al. 2003; Altieri 2002). Similarly, the science of ecology and its various\u00a0applied fields have experienced a conceptual shift towards the understanding of ecosystems as complex\u00a0systems in which humans are an integral part (Berkes 2004; Gomez 2010). Others have supported the\u00a0idea that biodiversity conservation and human well-being are very often complementary goals that\u00a0should be tackled together from the ground up (Berkes 2007; West et al. 2006; Adams et al. 2004).<\/p>\n

However, despite the increasing scientific recognition of local management systems and at least two\u00a0decades of increasing awareness by civil society and policy-makers (Reyes-Garc\u00eda 2008), the harsh\u00a0reality is that they are being rapidly eroded in the course of the progressive interconnection of people\u00a0and ecosystems under the rules and forces of global markets (Sutherland 2003; Maffi 2005). Given\u00a0such failure, there is clearly a misunderstanding of the science-policy interface. This is the reason why\u00a0scientific research and the training of young scholars in action-research is needed.
\n
Endeavours to halt the erosion of local management systems and the linked loss of bio-cultural\u00a0diversity largely depend on alternative and critical inquiries driven from within the community\u2019s\u00a0perception and aimed at gaining a profound understanding of the socioecological transformations being\u00a0experienced by these systems under current global change. From a reflexive anthropological standpoint\u00a0on the transgressions that development projects can perpetrate, scientists\u00a0must adopt a highly critical assessment of North-South cooperation actions. What is seen frequently as an\u00a0act of \u201cgoodness\u201d \u2013 such as co-development and cultural hybridization between the \u201cdevelopers\u201d and\u00a0the \u201cdeveloped\u201d (Mart\u00ednez & Larrea 2010) \u2013 may be just a new type of cultural colonisation. \u00a0Only when both categories reach a certain level,of awareness\u00a0of their actions that we try to put in place, will it be possible to really advance into co-development.\u00a0These epistemological difficulties must be absolutely taken in account when choosing the\u00a0analytical and educational tools of action-research. This is observed to occur even in the newest\u00a0programs of Community-Based Conservation (CBC) which, masked under the false label of\u00a0\u00abparticipative\u00bb processes, many times still perpetuate the imposition of external top-down approaches\u00a0based on expert knowledge and rational planning of resource use to sort out the environmental\u00a0degradation caused by what in fact is still implicitly thought to be ignorant peasants (Mansuri and Rao\u00a02004; Ulloa 2002).<\/p>\n

Objectives and Methods<\/h3>\n

We showed the empirical relevance and practical potential of such a theoretical approach through\u00a0research aimed at studying collective management system of natural resources and their potential.\u00a0These are widely spread and especially alive in \u00a0the Berber agdals of Morocco. These systems of\u00a0environmental management consist of a temporary prohibition of access to common pastures, forests\u00a0and other natural resources in order to secure their renewal, and can be even considered as a common\u00a0Maghrebian heritage resulting from several millennia of socioecological convergence. In the case of the\u00a0Maghreb, agdal systems have secured the long-term survival of local communities thanks to successful\u00a0management of common-pool resources, and still do. This is why we concentrate a great part of our\u00a0research efforts in the Maghreb, where we are able to find unique\u00a0case studies, as they are some of the few examples still alive in the western Mediterranean.

The Magrebi systems are experiencing dramatic transformations including\u00a0demographic growth; national and international out-migration; increasing frequency of droughts;\u00a0introduction of mass media; market integration; overgrazing, encroachment of agriculture in marginal\u00a0lands and expansion of monocultures; and loss of traditional religious beliefs in local Saints that used to\u00a0help in their regulation of resource use \u00a0(Auclair et al. 2006; Mahdi 1999; Dominguez et al. 2010). These transformations\u00a0are taking place in the course of a strong agro-technological change and a neoliberal restructuring \u2013land\u00a0privatization, agricultural intensification, privatization of the public sector and reduction of state\u00a0services\u2013 that has been partly justified by a declensionist colonial scientific narrative blaming the\u00a0\u201cnatives\u201d for deforesting and overgrazing what was claimed to have been a much more forested landscape (Davis 2006; Davis 2007). It is precisely this socioecological system, in full dynamism,\u00a0that we make comprehensible in this postdoctoral research.

Without the collaboration of local groups it would be impossible to conduct research and\u00a0education in action-research, thus it is important that Universities and research institutions of\u00a0the rich North recognize the effort that local collaboration means. Only by establishing certain\u00a0mechanisms of feedback to the local populations, such as bringing to them a certain monetary or\u00a0infrastructural income, can one do deep research on these objects and sites. For example, through providing accommodation food and transport services,\u00a0local communities gain income and thus more reason to host researchers, NGO\u2019s and companies embarked on co-development\u00a0projects. At the same time, this can also improve the results of our own studies thanks to\u00a0local acceptance and make a real step towards education on action-research with the local\u00a0communities.

Concerning the process of erosion of collective management systems of natural resources in the\u00a0Mediterranean, it is leading to a highly uneven distribution of the costs and benefits of socioecological\u00a0change among different social groups (Martinez-Alier 2002). There is the need to enhance a more\u00a0inclusive and democratic mode of socioecological transformation through an endogenous, self-organised\u00a0and adaptive political process drawing on various knowledge systems, in which new socioecological relations and institutional arrangements are to be built to lead the system to a desired\u00a0and more resilient stability. This should be achieved through the training of future local and external\u00a0agents of co-development.\u00a0Another aim of the research identified different paths of socioecological\u00a0transformation experienced by collective management systems of natural resources (CMSNR) in terms\u00a0of livelihood security, social well-being and equity, cultural identity, intensity of resource use, type of\u00a0landownership, landscape structure and functioning, use of biodiversity and resilience.\u00a0Regarding the future strategies of conservation of\u00a0CMSNR\u2019s, special attention was paid to test and develop a concept of socioecological heritage as a\u00a0distinctive set of accumulative patterns of socioecological interactions and practices that enhance local\u00a0self-determination, identity and biodiversity (Auclair, Otero 2010), as well as the role it may play in\u00a0human well-being and in the conservation of cultural landscapes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dominguez, Pablo<\/strong>. 2016. A comparative study of two Mediterranean mountain commons and the bio-cultural diversity associated to them. In, Agnoletti, M. & Emanueli, F. (eds). Biocultural diversity in Europe. Springer.<\/p>\n

Dominguez, Pablo and Benessaiah, Nejm.<\/strong> 2015. \u201cMulti-agentive transformations of rural livelihoods in Mountain ICCAs\u201d, Quaternary International, 1-11.<\/p>\n

Dominguez, Pablo.<\/strong> 2014. Current situation and future patrimonializing perspectives for the governance of agro-pastoral resources in the Ait Ikis transhumants of the High Atlas. In Herrera P.M., Davies J. & Manzano P. (coords) Global review of environmental governance in drylands and pastoral rangelands, Ed. IUCN and World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism, 126-144 pp.<\/p>\n

Pablo Dominguez, <\/strong>et al., 2012. Culturally mediated provision of ecosystem services: The agdal of Yagour. Environmental Values Journal, 21: 277-96.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pablo Dominguez, PhD (UAB), Research Fellow CBCD (2012-2014) Introduction Scholars from several disciplines have stressed the importance of locally evolved and culturally specific collective management systems of natural resources for the well-being of local communities and for the\u00a0conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Environmental history and Landscape ecology have\u00a0highlighted the role of specific practices of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":157,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[539],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-past-projects"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/cbcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}