Climate Change and Ethnobiology

Abstract

The literature on climate change has grown immensely during the last several decades, ranging from physical science to social science and the arts and humanities (e.g., see the journal Climate Change and recent special issues of the journals Anthropocene and Ecology and Society). It is unequivocal among scholars from many backgrounds that anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems contribute to global warming and climate change (IPCC 2013). The effects of changing climate are now experienced by people across cultures, worldwide. The impacts of environmental change on culture are most transparent at local scales, and ethnobiologists, as students of human-biota interactions at various times and in many places, are well positioned (and perhaps obliged) to compile, record, interpret, and share vignettes about these interactions during this period of accelerated global environmental change. In this context, a special issue on climate change and ethnobiology is timely and socially relevant. An ethnobiological perspective is holistic, combining biology, anthropology, geography, and ecology, intermingling with local and traditional knowledge within and across cultures (Albuquerque and Medeiros 2012, 2013; Anderson 2010; Wolverton et al. 2014). Unlike the pure social scientist, the solitary poet, the experimental physical scientist, or the historian, the ethnobiologist blends perspectives from many seemingly disparate scholarly and cultural backgrounds (Nabhan 2013; Nabhan et al. 2011; Saslis-Lagoudakis and Clarke 2013; Wolverton 2013). Ethnobiologists share a deep and abiding concern for nature, outdoor places, and living things—such as people, plants, animals, and fungi. However, the ethnobiological perspective is more far-ranging than the natural sciences because although there are vertical warps and horizontal wefts of time and space in biota, culture is recognized as cross-woven through the tapestry of life. Thus, this special issue is not simply a compilation of anthropological studies of climate change impacts. Nor is any study presented here purely an ecological assessment of shifts in biotic composition and patterns in biogeography. Some of the studies lean towards biology, others lean toward ethnoecology, and some are inherently geographic; but each study also engages local people in places where they experience environmental change. In addition, this collection of articles represents, to various degrees, collaborations that engage members of local