The Role of Local Perceptions in Environmental Diagnosis

Abstract

Humans modify landscapes according to their biological, economic, and/or cultural needs, thus establishing direct contact with the environment. Thus, these relationships suggest that human populations have perceptions and a vast traditional ecological knowledge about the historically used resources, which is evidence that human groups may be important allies in studies of nature conservation and environmental diagnoses. In studies of environmental change, it is important to understand how human groups involved in such changes perceive them, since they are part of ecosystems and also responsible for their changes to conservation strategies. Thus this chapter aims, through the literature review and case studies, to discuss the efficacy of the local perception in environmental diagnoses, in the context of modified landscapes, climatic changes, and variation in the abundance of useful vegetable resources for these populations, as well as highlighting some aspects of conceptual and methodological approaches that permeate these studies.