Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC)1 occupy over 50% of the world’s landscapes (Pearce, 2016). IPLC have sustained their livelihoods (Reyes-García, 2015), protected carbon stocks (Rights and Resources Initiative, 2018), contributed to ecological restoration (Reyes-García et al., 2019), and conserved biodiversity (Porter-Bolland et al., 2012) while transforming their landscapes. Yet, governments generally exclude IPLC from decision-making that affects them and impose public policies that disregard IPLC lifestyles, causing damage to local health, food sovereignty and biodiversity (Apina et al., 2017; MacInnes et al., 2017; Andrianto et al., 2019). The ways IPLC transform their landscapes in South America (Viveiros de Castro, 2012; Fernández-Llamazares et al., 2020), North America (Levi-Strauss, 1983; Blaser, 2016), Africa (Forde, 1999; Murove, 2004), Europe (Elbakidze and Angelstam, 2007; Babai and Molnár, 2014), Asia (Luo et al., 2009; Anthwal et al., 2010) and Oceania (Memmott and Long, 2002; Knudsen, 2004) are guided by their sociocultures (e.g., worldviews, norms and knowledge). These transformations, in turn, have influenced ecological processes and patterns around the world (Boivin et al., 2016; Levis et al., 2017; Roberts et al., 2017). However, how IPLC sociocultures interact with ecological processes and patterns is less clear. Amid biodiversity losses (Johnson et al., 2017), ethnocide/epistemicide (Hall and Tandon, 2017) and climate crisis (Ripple et al., 2019), this understanding is important to combine scientific knowledge production, biodiversity conservation and IPLC’ well-being.

IPLC' landscape transformations depend upon local sociocultures and environments (Beltrán, 2000; Balée, 2006; Berkes, 2017). Thus, we expect that different sociocultures interact with ecological processes and patterns differently. Since historical events (e.g., wars, colonization and migrations) influence these interactions (Balée, 2009; Crumley, 2017; Walters et al., 2019), IPLC’ landscape transformations can be better understood through the historical ecology research program. Historical ecology proposes that historical events have influenced landscape transformations by influencing sociocultures, so that landscapes are legacies in constant transformation that represent diverse space-time encounters of places, humans and non-humans whose histories are imprinted in the environment (Balée, 1998, 2006).

IPLC’ landscape transformations also have been understood through the cultural niche construction perspective (Boivin et al., 2016; Albuquerque et al., 2018). Niche construction theory proposes that organisms modify environments to make available conditions/resources not previously present, thus changing local selective pressures that act on the organisms (Odling-Smee et al., 2013). Cultural niche construction proposes that humans modify environments using information that is socioculturally learned, and that future generations inherit these modified environments and are influenced by them. Cultural niche construction involves selective pressures that act not only on human biology, but also on human culture (Odling-Smee and Laland, 2011). While historical ecology emphasizes the role of historical events in sociocultural–environmental relationships, cultural niche construction emphasizes the role of sociocultural transmission in these relationships. Therefore, the cultural niche construction perspective can contribute to historical ecology to clarify how sociocultures interact with ecological processes and patterns.

Here, we present a framework for identifying and integrating sociocultural and environmental elements of IPLC’ landscape transformations. Our framework expands existing social-ecological approaches (e.g., Berkes et al., 2000; Ostrom, 2009; Díaz et al., 2015; Levis, 2018; Schlüter et al., 2019) by showing how IPLC sociocultures interact with ecological processes and patterns through cultural niche construction. We exemplify our framework by presenting cases of IPLC cultural niche construction in Amazonia, a region that harbors the greatest biodiversity of all tropical rainforests (Hansen et al., 2013) and thousands of IPLC (Adams et al., 2008; Ricardo and Ricardo, 2017). Finally, we highlight how our framework can be used by scientists, conservation practitioners and policymakers in order to generate scientific knowledge, biodiversity conservation and IPLC’ well-being.

Our framework identifies sociocultural and environmental elements involved in IPLC’ landscape transformations through anthropological and ecological concepts, and integrates them using a historical-ecological approach and a cultural niche construction perspective (Fig. 1). In our framework, socioculture includes the four components of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK)2 (Berkes et al., 2000): worldview, social institutions, management systems and local knowledge (see Table 1 for definitions). Worldviews vary among IPLC (Coscieme et al., 2020), from Native American societies whose cosmologies consider that non-humans have human-like cultures (Descola, 2005), to African societies that believe in spiritual powers emanating from ancestral spirits (Taringa, 2006), to Bangladeshian societies that comprehend their environments according to Christian doctrine (Rahmatullah et al., 2010). Social institutions are guided by worldviews and include hunting norms, such as in Native Canadian societies (Blaser, 2016), territorial divisions, such as in Amazonian societies (Wright, 1998), and food taboos, such as in Fijian societies (Henrich and Henrich, 2010). Management systems obey social institutions and range from Andean societies with irrigation systems (Trawick, 2001), to Amazonian societies practicing swidden-fallow cultivation (Denevan, 2001), to Mongolian societies managing their rangelands (Fernández-Giménez, 2000). Local knowledge underlies management and includes knowledge of animals, plants etc. Folk taxonomy of Tanzanian societies (Tibuhwa, 2012), animal behavior knowledge of Spanish pastoralists (Fernández-Giménez and Estaque, 2012) and forest succession classification of Indonesian societies (Poffenberger and McGean, 1993) are examples of local knowledge.

Fig. 1.

IPLC landscape transformation framework for identifying and integrating sociocultural and environmental components. IPLC’ landscape transformations occur through cultural niche construction and involve interactions among sociocultures and environments. Environment includes two components: ecological processes and ecological patterns. Pattern elements, such as species composition and abundance, can be generated through four ecological processes, which, in turn, are influenced by non-anthropic phenomena (e.g., windstorms, lightning and animal behaviors) and human management systems. Socioculture includes four components: worldview, social institutions, management systems and local knowledge. Management systems include human behaviors that transform landscapes via environmental manipulation that acts on ecological processes. Such management encompasses local knowledge and respects social institutions, which, in turn, are grounded in a local worldview. At the same time that socioculture transforms landscapes via environmental management, environment influences socioculture, either through ecological processes or ecological patterns, since both of them can influence all sociocultural components. These reciprocal relationships between socioculture and environment occur from generation to generation through cultural niche construction. For example, ecological patterns modified by one generation will be bequeathed by the next generation, so they represent an ecological inheritance. In addition, through orality, imitation and observation, the ways one generation thinks and acts (i.e., their worldview, social institutions, management systems and local knowledge) are transmitted to the next generation, so there is sociocultural inheritance across generations. Finally, historical events, by influencing socioculture, influence the way such reciprocal relationships between socioculture and environment occur in space-time, so that IPLC’ landscape transformations can best be understood by considering the role of history in shaping local sociocultures.

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Environment in our framework includes two components: ecological processes and patterns (Watt, 1947). Ecological processes are triggered by non-anthropic (animals, plants, wind etc.) or anthropic (management practices) phenomena and include four groups of processes, sensu Vellend (2010): selection, dispersal, ecological drift and evolutionary diversification (Table 1). Selection encompasses abiotic conditions, such as soil nutrient availability, temperature and precipitation (ter Steege et al., 2006), and biotic interactions, such as facilitation, predation and competition (Johnson et al., 2012). Management practices can act on biotic interactions or directly influence abiotic conditions. For example, consuming seeds and eliminating non-useful plants when opening swiddens (Levis, 2018) represent predation and competition, respectively, and fertilizing soils increases soil nutrient availability (Lehmann et al., 2003). Dispersal involves abiotic forces, such as wind and river movements (Umaña et al., 2011), animal behaviors, such as seed-defecation (Willson and Traveset, 2000), and management practices, such as transportation of plants and animals (Boivin et al., 2016). Ecological drift can be influenced by non-anthropic phenomena (e.g., hurricanes and windstorms) and management practices (e.g., clearings in forests/rangelands and exotic species introduction), both of which can reduce population sizes (Vellend, 2010; Gilbert and Levine, 2017). Evolutionary diversification results from evolutionary processes that change population genetic structure. IPLC have caused evolutionary diversification for thousands of years. For example, management practices (e.g., selecting individuals with desirable phenotypical traits) created hundreds of tree/crop varieties worldwide, including Brazil Nut (Bertholletia excelsa) and Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) (Meyer et al., 2012), as well as caused evolutionary changes in animals, such as bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) and pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) (Sullivan et al., 2017).

By influencing ecological processes, IPLC management indirectly affects ecological patterns, such as species phenology, composition, abundance, structure and diversity (Table 1). For example, in the southwestern United States, shrublands are burned to induce resprouting and flowering (Kimmerer and Lake, 2001); in Brazilian Amazonia, soil management influences soil bacterial community composition (Taketani et al., 2013); in India, fishing in wetlands increases bird species abundances (Aarif et al., 2017); in Canada, intertidal resource management modified forest structure (Trant et al., 2016); in Africa, savannah management increased faunal diversity (Marshall et al., 2018). Worldwide, most ecological patterns are niches culturally constructed by IPLC and represent ecological inheritances (see below) for current/future generations (Clement et al., 2020).

Our framework shows that management systems influence ecological processes that, in turn, engender ecological patterns, and both processes and patterns influence sociocultural components. These sociocultural–environmental feedbacks occur from generation to generation and involve sociocultural and ecological inheritances (Odling-Smee and Laland, 2011). If one generation thinks and acts in a certain way, the next generation will think and act in a similar way, except for some losses and innovations (sociocultural inheritance). Likewise, if people in one generation modify their environments, the next generation will inherit these modified environments, be influenced by them, and modify them again (ecological inheritance).

In our framework, sociocultural–environmental feedbacks are contingent upon history as historical events cause changes in sociocultures influencing their interactions with environments. In Tanzania, local policies forced changes in Maasai management systems. Hence, Maasai men usurped women's roles as traders of livestock products and started selling them, which changed local management and gender relations by dispossessing women’s rights over livestock products (Hodgson, 1999). In India, incorporation of Hinduism into traditional community beliefs caused changes in local worldviews, so that traditional management based on sacred tree groves has been replaced by the construction of temples within the forest (Chandran and Hughes, 1997). Worldwide, changes in IPLC’ religions because of colonialism, Jesuit missions or cultural transformation have resulted in changes in all sociocultural components (Brock, 2005).

We present Amazonian IPLC examples that show how sociocultural–environmental interactions have influenced landscape transformations. The examples do not show all possible interactions among sociocultural and environmental elements, since there are no Amazonian studies that encompass all these interactions. Rather, they identify relations among some sociocultural and environmental elements to show how these elements can influence others. Below, elements are in italics and their components are in parentheses.

In our examples, we have shown that cosmologies, religions and belief systems (worldviews) ground hunting norms, social relationships and territorial rules (social institutions). Social institutions, in turn, guide fish management, swidden-fallow cultivation and the choice of trees to be cut (management systems). Management systems include information about animal behavior and species identification, distribution and diversity (local knowledge), and are responsible for selecting game and trees, and dispersing seeds (ecological processes). These processes, in turn, modify species composition, abundance and diversity (ecological patterns). Our examples also show that abiotic conditions and animal behaviors (ecological processes) influence cosmologies (worldview) and management practices (management systems). Moreover, floristic diversity and temporal patterns of fruiting/flowering (ecological patterns) influence species identification (local knowledge) and hunting/fishing practices (management systems). We urge scientists, conservation practitioners and policymakers to consider these sociocultural–environmental feedbacks in their research, conservation strategies and public policy planning involving IPLC. Below, we highlight how our framework can be useful in these cases (Appendix A lists guiding questions that can be asked when using our framework).

First, our framework can be useful for scientists. Scientists without training in anthropology often neglect IPLC sociocultures in environmental assessments because they consider that IPLC TEK is spiritual knowledge (Albuquerque et al., 2020). We highlight the importance of considering IPLC sociocultural elements, such as worldviews and social institutions, in environmental assessments, and our framework can help scientists to identify these elements and understand how they influence management systems (see questions 1–8 in Appendix A). The framework shows that management systems, in turn, modify ecological patterns through four groups of ecological processes, so that efforts can be made to identify such processes and to investigate how they influence patterns (see questions 9–12 in Appendix A). The framework also can be useful to investigate how ecological processes and patterns have influenced IPLC sociocultures, as well as which sociocultural elements have been influenced by historical events (see questions 13–16 in Appendix A). In this sense, when using our framework, collaborations with IPLC, as well as between social and natural scientists, can identify information that is not normally detectable to people who neglect IPLC perspectives. In Australia (Austin et al., 2019) and Brazil (Pimenta et al., 2018), such collaborations have identified sociocultural–environmental feedbacks through partnerships that involve mutually beneficial goals, methods and interpretation of results. Finally, our framework highlights the importance of scientists accounting for the historical events responsible for modifying interactions between IPLC sociocultures and their environments. Such accounting can increase our understanding about landscape environmental changes, as well as offering a historical reference to assess modern ecological processes and patterns (Balée, 2006; Swetnam et al., 1999).

Second, our framework can be useful for conservation practitioners. Some conservation practitioners have suggested that nature should be as isolated as possible from humans for better conservation (see Cafaro et al., 2017; Kopnina et al., 2018; Pimm et al., 2018). They disregard the fact that most landscapes targeted by conservation efforts are inhabited by IPLC (Maffi and Woodley, 2012; Pearce, 2016; Clement et al., 2020), and that more effective and ethical outcomes can be achieved through biocultural conservation, which is conservation of biodiversity and sociocultural diversity (Maffi and Woodley, 2012; Gavin et al., 2015). Our framework can help to identify sociocultural–environmental interactions that can contribute to biocultural conservation (see questions 17–20 in Appendix A). For this, it is essential that conservation strategies consider the sociocultural and environmental inheritances associated with these interactions, focusing not only on ecological processes and patterns, but also on how local worldviews, social institutions, management systems and local knowledge are associated with such processes and patterns. This requires the participation of IPLC in conservation strategy planning, so that species, communities and landscape conservation occur in accordance with local socioculture demands (Kohler and Brondizio, 2017). In Ghana, for example, conservationists have suggested that the Kumawu cosmology can be synergized with scientific conservation practices to protect landscapes of the Bomfobiri Protected Area (Adom, 2018). When IPLC and conservation practitioners disagree about conservation strategies (see, for example, Kopnina, 2020; but also see Suter, 2020), understanding how local sociocultural–environmental interactions occur can help in planning strategies with mutual agreement.

Third, our framework can be useful for policymakers. Policymakers often formulate public policies that disregard the ways IPLC interact with their environments. For example, in Borneo, policymakers forced the Dayak to live in a narrow part of their original territory, which led to land use intensification that compromised the resilience of Dayak swidden-fallow systems (Setyawan, 2010). To avoid sociocultural injustice and environmental degradation, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has supported the inclusion of IPLC in public policy planning about biodiversity conservation (Díaz et al., 2018). In this context, our framework can be useful for policymakers that aim to elaborate biocultural conservation policies including IPLC stewardship and governance. For this, public policies (e.g., territorial demarcation, health care, school education and territorial/resource inspection) need to be formulated considering local worldviews and social institutions (Fernández-Llamazares and Cabeza, 2017; Albuquerque et al., 2020), as well as local landscape transformation dynamics (Armstrong and Veteto, 2015; Swetnam et al., 1999). Our framework can help to identify sociocultural–environmental interactions involved in such dynamics (see questions 21–25 in Appendix A). Our framework also highlights the importance of considering local historical events when identifying these interactions. Understanding the historical background of IPLC’ landscape transformations is crucial to comprehend current sociocultural–environmental interactions that favor biocultural conservation.

We argue that understanding IPLC’ landscape transformations can help scientists, conservation practitioners and policymakers to generate scientific knowledge, biodiversity conservation and IPLC’ well-being. For this, the first step is to ensure IPLC’ rights, thus generating biocultural conservation through IPLC stewardship and governance. In Brazilian Amazonia, for example, indigenous peoples (Article 231 of the 1988 Constitution) and local communities (Decree 6.040 of 2007) have rights to live in their traditional territories and practice their livelihoods (but see Fraser, 2018). Ensuring these rights requires respecting local sociocultural–environmental interactions, as well as the historical dynamics of landscape transformations in the region. In fact, ensuring IPLC’ rights protect not only IPLC but also biodiversity. For example, biodiversity on indigenous lands equals that in protected areas (Schuster et al., 2019), and indigenous lands present at least equivalent conservation results with a fraction of the budget of protected areas (Tauli-Corpuz et al., 2018). Finally, we must remember that IPLC’ land rights must be guaranteed not only because IPLC are useful to global society, but also because they, as well as all non-human beings ecologically interconnected with their sociocultures, have the right to live there.

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.