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This article advances geographic scholarship about conservation and protected areas (PAs) through a focuson biocultural geographies. Biocultural geographies derive from relationships between heterogenousIndigenous stewardship practices, biological diversity, and trans-scalar multidimensional social, political, andecological processes. The concept brings together insights from political ecology and biocultural conservationto address the interplay between environmental governance, cultural change, and biodiversity. We drawfrom collaborative, transdisciplinary research with Siona, Siekopai, and Cofan Indigenous communities inthe northern Ecuadorian Amazon, a site of global importance for its biodiversity and cultural heritage. Thisis also a region of rapid and extensive social-ecological change driven by expanding agricultural frontiers,intensifying extractive industries, and new infrastructure development for regional integration. It is from thiscontext that we call for a timely and critical conversation between human–environment geographers and thefield of biocultural conservation, two approaches that have reshaped thinking about PAs and the role ofIndigenous stewardship in an era of accelerating global challenges to social-ecological well-being. Data forour analysis derive from a multiyear study that investigates strategies used to ensure social-ecological well-being in the face of change. Our findings show that Siona, Siekopai, and Cofan stewardship sustains thebiological diversity that characterizes many Amazonian PAs through locally adapted institutions based onknowledge, innovation, and practices they collectively hold. Such stewardship advances self-determinationthat challenges conventional conservation and PA models by centering Indigenous territorial governance.
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This content will become publicly available on February 20, 2026
A biocultural hypothesis of human–environment mediations and biodiversity increase
Summary The relationship between ecosystem disturbance and biodiversity levels has been a central focus of ecological research for the past half-century. The intermediate disturbance hypothesis, which suggests that maximum biodiversity is achieved through the coexistence of early and late successional species, however, has been challenged for its lack of clarity regarding the intensity, duration and extent of disturbances. This Perspective article advocates for a broader biocultural framework to move from the notion of disturbance to an understanding of human–environment mediations. Our proposed biocultural hypothesis acknowledges that, in certain cultural contexts, interventions byHomo sapiensat different environmental scales – mainly at the landscape level – can generate peaks in beta and gamma biodiversity compared to reference ecosystems. We illustrate these human–environment mediations through studies conducted in the biocultural region of Mesoamerica and comparative research findings, particularly from the Amazon Basin and West and Central Africa. In our conclusions, we discuss the need to establish collaborative research programmes around the proposed biocultural hypothesis, addressing management and institutional actions that will strengthen the engagement of Indigenous people and rural local communities with their historical territories that we name ‘Priority Biocultural Areas’.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2024213
- PAR ID:
- 10597900
- Publisher / Repository:
- Environmental Conservation
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Environmental Conservation
- ISSN:
- 0376-8929
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 7
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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