‘We live and die in chestnut’: remaining and adapting in the face of pest and disease outbreak in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Concern is growing worldwide over the negative outcomes of rural abandonment. Yet, problematisation of this phenomenon remains limited by insufficient explanatory frameworks and lack of empirical evidence from the conditions which precede, underlie and succeed it. Accordingly, this paper presents a case from Turkey, where significant rural abandonment is locally attributed to the ravages of multiple introduced pathogens in European chestnut (Castanea sativa) populations, and where our previous investigation has verified that traditional livelihood practices mitigate damage severity at the levels of trees, plots and landscapes. In order to better understand individual stakeholder motivations for remaining acting members of chestnut landscapes in the face of such serious challenges, we conducted 142 extended ethnographic and narrative interviews with chestnut-utilising participants across Turkey’s highly diverse human and physical geography. Our results show how the struggle to remain as acting landscape members requires community livelihood adaptation, drawing on institutional memory, innovative learning and social connectedness.

KEYWORDS:

• Castanea sativa
• community adaptation
• cultural resilience
• rural abandonment
• traditional livelihood practices

Acknowledgments

The authors are highly indebted to the Turkish National General Directorate of Forestry, especially their offices and personnel in Borçka, Bursa, Çanakkale, Rize, Şile, Sinop, Trabzon and Zonguldak, for their invaluable advice and support. We are also very thankful for the administration of Istanbul University Faculty of Forestry for facilitating our research efforts. We are thankful to Yılmaz Erdal, chair of the Anthropology Department at Hacettepe University for his invaluable advising. We sincerely thank The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), American Research Institute in Turkey, the U.S. Borlaug Fellows in Global Food Security Program and the Turkish Fulbright Commission for their generous support of this research.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, the American Research Institute in Turkey, the Turkish Fulbright Commission, and the U.S. Borlaug Fellows Graduate Research Grant under grant [8000075690];

Notes on contributors

Jeffrey Robert Wall

Jeffrey Wall is a postdoctoral associate at University of Guelph’s Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics. His research interests include cultural dimensions of biological conservation, ethnobiology and anthropological concepts of value.

Nesibe Köse

Nesibe Köse is a professor at the Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Faculty of Forestry in the Department of Forest Botany. Her interests focus on dendroclimatological reconstructions and dendroecological, dendroarcheological and dendrogeomorphological research using tree rings.

Elif Başak Aksoy

Elif Aksoy is a lecturer at the Hacettepe University Department of Anthropology. Her interests include gender studies and cultural differentiation.

Coşkun Köse

Coşkun Köse is a professor at the Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Faculty of Forestry in the Department of Forest Biology and Wood Protection Technology. His interests include wood microbiology, conservation of wood artefacts, and non-wood forest products industry.

Taner Okan

Taner Okan is an associate professor at the Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Faculty of Forestry in the Department of Forestry Economics. His research interests include non-timber forest product development, value chains, and forestry conflict resolution.

Shorna Allred

Shorna Allred is an associate professor at Cornell University’s Department of Natural Resources. Her research has focused on the decision-making and motivations behind individual biological conservation.