Local ecological knowledge also ’comes from books’: Cultural change, landscape transformation and conservation of biodiversity in two protected areas in Portugal

Abstract

The study of social and economic change and the consequent landscape transformation in Parque Natural de Montesinho and Parque Natural de Douro Internacional (in the northeast of Portugal) allows us to discuss the ambivalent relation between the political aims of biodiversity preservation and the social reality in protected rural areas. Ethnographic research on plant use and nature discourses, together with an analysis of social differentiation (in terms of age, gender and schooling) of ethnobotanical knowledge show us how local people dynamically combine traditional and orally-transmitted knowledge with popular or then scientific exogenous ecological knowledge, especially that learned from the media and books. This data also makes possible a reflection on what way local culture is transformed into heritage within the context of protected areas.