PS 25-86 - Bridging communities and ecosystems through sense of place monitoring at two distant LTSER sites: Metaphors are the link

Tuesday, August 13, 2019
Exhibit Hall, Kentucky International Convention Center
Kelli P. Moses, Sub-Antarctic Biocultural Conservation Program, Universidad de Magallanes, Omora Ethnobotanical Park, University of North Texas, Institute of Ecology & Biodiversity, Puerto Williams, Chile, Noa Avriel-Avni, Environmental Education Research and Ecology, Dead Sea & Arava Science Center (Ramon), Israel, Alan Berkowitz, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY, Christian Formoso, Universidad de Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile, Miguel Salvador Troncoso Oyarzún, Sub-Antarctic Biocultural Conservation Program, Universidad de Magallanes, Puerto Williams, Chile, Jen Holzer, Socio-Ecological Research Group, Technion - Isreal Institute of Technology, Israel, Daniela Estay, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, Ramiro Bustamante, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Instituto de Ecología y Biodiversidad (IEB) and Ricardo Rozzi, Sub-Antarctic Biocultural Conservation Program, IEB-UMAG-UNT, Denton, TX
Background/Question/Methods

Sense of Place (SOP) refers to the 'place attachment' and 'meaning' assigned to a geographical location by people or communities. SOP plays a significant role in inhabitants’ willingness to adopt responsible behaviors toward their ecosystem. To implement effective management practices that bridge communities and ecosystems, it is important to understand that the place affects essential biocultural variables across communities. However, a main limitation for international cooperation is that reliable SOP monitoring tools have not been developed for widespread use. For this reason, we sought to find out if a general model of SOP evaluation could be applied at two Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) sites on opposite sides of the globe: Omora Ethnobotanical Park LTSER site (54.9°S, 67.6°W) in subantarctic Chile, and the Negev Highlands LTSER site (30.6°N, 34.8°E) in Israel. We examined the kinds of adaptations required to effectively capture and compare the diversity of values and perspectives at these seemingly different locations. In this context, we conducted separate open-ended pilot questionnaires to characterize the spectrum of SOP values, and types of comments present in the communities. The main question is whether it is possible to create generalizations about SOP, which will allow for comparison between different socio-ecological systems.

Results/Conclusions

A noticeable finding is the value that metaphorical expressions have for understanding the SOP . An initial implication of this result is the relevance of metaphoric expressions by inhabitants to bridge not only their relationships between communities and ecosystems, but also across communities in contrasting sites. For example, people from both the Chilean and Israeli sites used the term “island” to characterize their sense of isolation at both places. This notion of island in a Mediterranean desert community represents a metaphoric expression that provides a useful concept linking this community with the SOP of an actual island community in subantarctic South America. Consequently, we are investigating the extent to which metaphors could be used to make generalizations about the content of SOP, and to make comparisons across sites. Metaphors have played an essential role in the biocultural conservation and education approaches developed at Omora Park LTSER site in Chile, and our new findings regarding SOP could have broader implications for adapting solutions for communities’ resilience to global environmental change within nuanced socio-ecological systems. Toward this aim, in the International-LTER (ILTER) network we are developing SOP monitoring protocols, taking into consideration the role of metaphors to bridge communities and ecosystems.