Advancing towards an understanding of the relationship between culture and agrobiodiversity. A case study in Mapuche territory, southern Chile

ABSTRACT

Biocultural diversity embraces the dynamic, place-based and complex relationship between biological and cultural diversity. Several studies describe a direct, positive relationship between biological and cultural diversity; however, this relationship is usually entwined within a particular socio-ecological context. We explored the relationship between cultural diversity and agrobiodiversity in smallholder farming systems in a rural landscape in south-central Chile considered as Indigenous Mapuche ancestral territory. We hypothesized a positive correlation between cultural diversity and agrobiodiversity in this context. We estimated three levels of agrobiodiversity: (i) subsystems (vegetable garden, orchard, chacra, annual crops and natural places), (ii) plant species and (iii) plant landraces. In our study area, smallholders form three distinctive groups based on their cultural origin: (i) Indigenous Mapuche, (ii) Chileans and (iii) foreigners. Using diversity indices, we explored patterns across 15 focal landscapes (3.14 km2). Contrary to our hypothesis, we found a negative correlation between cultural diversity and agrobiodiversity, as while Mapuche farms presented the highest agrobiodiversity and were dominant in most focal landscapes, Chilean and foreign-owned farms were mostly dominated by monocultures. This negative link highlights the need to further study this relationship considering different socio-ecological aspects from a historical perspective, as well as from a socio-political point of view. Understanding the complex interactions between culture and biodiversity could help us in facing current challenges such as biodiversity loss, cultural homogenization and reducing conventional agriculture impacts.

KEYWORD:

• Araucanía region
• biocultural diversity
• indigenous
• small-farming systems

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all the farmers that collaborated by giving us information and access to their farms. Many thanks to Bárbara Herrera Tamaya and the people that collaborated in the field sampling.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

The study protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Universidad de La Frontera.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/27685241.2022.2083987.

Notes

1. Chacra is a term originally from Quechua language and refers to an area that is intensively managed to produce several annual crop species such as potato, corn, quinoa, faba bean, among others, with the purpose of producing food for family consumption.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID), grants Fondecyt-ANID Regular N° 1141249 and Fondecyt-ANID Iniciación N° 1171144.