# Should LEK be shared in a changing world? Evidences from an ethnobotanical survey in Morocco

Julien Blanco, Stéphanie M. Carrière

► To cite this version:

Julien Blanco, Stéphanie M. Carrière. Should LEK be shared in a changing world? Evidences from an ethnobotanical survey in Morocco. 58. Annual meeting of the Society for Economic Botany (SEB), Jun 2017, Bragança, Portugal. 14 p. hal-01604426

HAL Id: hal-01604426

https://hal.science/hal-01604426

Submitted on 5 Jun 2020

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# Should LEK be shared in a changing world?

## Evidences from an ethnobotanical survey in Morocco

Julien BLANCO<fnref n="1" />, Stephanie M. Carrière<fnref n="2" />

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Blanco, J. & Carrière, S. M. Sharing local ecological knowledge as a human adaptation strategy to arid environments: Evidence from an ethnobotany survey in Morocco. *J. Arid Environ.* **127**, 30–43 (2016).

<footnote n="1">¹Post-doc – Dynafor lab, INRA Toulouse, France
julien.blanco@inra.fr</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Researcher – GRED lab, IRD Montpellier, France
stephanie.carriere@ird.fr</footnote>
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* Very dry and hot climate (<100 mm/year)

* A very high rainfall variability and uncertainty

*How to sustain a sustainable livelihood in such uncertain environments?*
# The Ighuweln agro-pastoral landscape in Southern Morocco

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Agro-pastoralists track environmental variability

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# Farmers practice occasional and opportunistic swamp farming

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Agro-pastoral plain

Pastoral terrace

Pastoral plain

Mountain

Cultivated areas

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2013

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2014

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2015

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# Plants are a key component for local livelihoods

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* People have an opportunistic strategy for MAPs gathering

*Is there any strategy for LEK distribution to adapt to uncertainty?*

* Q1: Distribution between plant species? ecological apparenty hypothesis

• Q2: Distribution between people? *intra-cultural variations of LEK*

• Q3: Are LEK declining because of changes in the community?
# LEK assessments: free-listings and semi-structured interviews

* Interviews with 37 sedentary informants

* ✓ 19 males and 18 females

* ✓ From 21 to 90 year-old

* ✓ Former nomads and permanently settled-people

* Free-lists analyses (FLAME add-on)

* ✓ Smith salience index based on ethnospecies (Smith and Borgatti, 1997)

* Interview analyses

* ✓ Use Knowledge Index (UKI) for each informant and category of use (medicinal, technological, construction, edible)

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# Vegetation survey around the village

* Performed in 2013 (during a dry year)

* 141 square plots (50x50 m) over a radius of 10 km from the village

* All plant species recorded

* ✓ Plant species frequency

* ✓ Plant species Abundance-dominance index (Braun-Blanquet, 1964)

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# Plant cultural importance

* A total of 164 ethnospecies cited by informants

* ✓ 72% were identified at the species & 17% at the genus level

* ✓ 43 botanical families (Compositae, Leguminosae, Amaranthaceae, Brassicaceae)

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# The ecological apparenty hypothesis

* A total of 71 species were identified (6.7± 4.6 SD/plot)

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* The ecological apparenty hypothesis was verified
# LEK distribution among informants (1)

* Men cited 30.1 (±9.2 SD) and women cited 29.8 (±9.4 SD) on average

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* No influence of gender, age, marital status or occupation
LEK distribution among informants (2)

* Significant difference between former nomads and permanently-settled people

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* LEK are influenced by the connection of people with the learning environment (Ohmagari and Berkes, 1997)
# Conclusion

* LEK depends on plant availability in drylands

* ✓ But availability may vary in time

* ✓ But apparent may also depends on plant visibility

* LEK was homogeneously distributed among people

* ✓ LEK is easily shared and transmitted to people who needs it

* ✓ It could constitute an adaptation to unpredictable environments

* ✓ Transmission patterns should be better informed (through network analyses)

* LEK appears to be conditioned by people interaction with their environment

* ✓ Are nomads people more knowledgeable than sedentary ones?

* ✓ Is loss of LEK an on-going process in this region?
Thank you for your attention

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