Cultural Keystone Species as a tool to co-design biocultural stewardship for biodiversity conservation

KEYSTONES aims to explore the concept of “cultural keystone species” -species of exceptional cultural significance to a specific sociocultural group- as a global biocultural tool to inform biodiversity conservation. Biodiversity conservation initiatives often neglect Indigenous Peoples and local communities' environmental stewardship, and thus to undesirable ecosystem shifts and biodiversity loss. To limit the biodiversity crisis, novel approaches propose expanding conservation initiatives beyond mere biological diversity, implementing actions that consider local values, culture, knowledge, and beliefs. The concept of “cultural keystone species” has the potential to inform and shape local biocultural conservation initiatives, although its use in conservation is still limited. Therefore, KEYSTONES will explore the operationalization of this concept through an interdisciplinary and intersectoral project articulated in four work packages (research, training, communication and management), that will consolidate my leadership in ethnobiology for conservation. The work package “research” is twofold with the “knowledge” part exploring key aspects of the “cultural keystone species” that can inform biodiversity conservation and the “action” part translating the produced knowledge into practices to be applied in conservation initiatives. KEYSTONES is based at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona under the supervision of the leading scientist Prof. Reyes-Garcia and will be conducted in collaboration with Miawpukek Mi'kmaq First Nation (Canada) and Huancavilcas and Montubios People (Ecuador). This global fellowship with the outgoing phase at the University of Guelph (Canada) and a secondment at the Pontificia Universidad Catòlica de Ecuador, will allow me to grow as an independent researcher thanks to interdisciplinary training placing me at the forefront of the research on biocultural approaches to address pressing global challenges such as biodiversity loss.