Résumé
Wild plants are well-recognised sources of material and immaterial contributions to people, enhancing, among others, nutrition, human well-being, tradition, and identity. Wild plant foragers often have deep knowledge about the collected plants and their biological functions and adopt stewardship practices to maintain and support wild plant populations and the landscapes in which they grow. This session explores these biocultural relations between foragers and the wild plants and landscapes on which foraging depends and, in turn, enables. Moreover, we examine the factors that drive change in biocultural relations. These are overlooked aspects of wild plant foraging which we tackle in the range from predominantly pristine to intensively managed cultural landscapes, including urban spaces. We understand biocultural relations as the reciprocal relations between nature and people co-producing nature's contributions to people. These relations are at the root of formal and informal governance systems regulating access to and management of wild plants’ practices of care, and the resulting contributions to people. We focus the session on the Circum-Mediterranean and Europe to serve as a springboard to creating a transdisciplinary wild plant network in one of the world’s regions most deeply affected by global environmental change.We structure the session in two parts. The first part is dedicated to setting the scene with presentations by session organisers and participants. These can vary in format from storytelling to short presentations of one and more case studies. Each presentation responds to at least one of three questions: (1) What biocultural relations between foragers and wild plants and landscapes are fostered by foraging? (2) What stewardship practices and practices of care maintain and support these species and landscapes? (3) Which factors drive change in foragers’ biocultural relations with wild plants and landscapes? Presentations’ length and format is adjusted to the number of participants. The second part is organised as a workshop among researchers, NGO representatives, foragers and other practitioners for the collective reflection and synthesis of knowledge around each of the three questions preliminarily discussed by the participants in their presentations. The workshop is organised as a worldcafé in which the three questions are discussed in greater depth in rotating small groups. The moderators take note of the most important results and report to the session plenary. The workshop ends with a networking exercise based on the results of the world café.Reciprocal contributions with the tagua palm (Phytelephas aequatorialis Spruce): a cultural keystone species for an Indigenous community in Western Ecuador, Gabriela Loayza, Pontifical University Catholic of Ecuador, Ecuador.Foragers – custodians of nature, Pål Karlsen, Norwegian Association for Mycology and Foraging, Norway.From trend to threat? Wild food plant sustainable foraging in Norway, Irene Teixidor-Toneu, Mediterranean Institute of Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE), Marseille, France.Biocultural relations, stewardship practices and ecological impacts of wild food foraging in urban areas - a mixed-methods study in Vienna, Austria, Christoph Schunko, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria.Global changes contribute to the fading of foraging among the Walser People of the Alps, Giulia Mattalia, ICTA-UAB, Spain.Arnica in France : Commercial harvesting of a medicinal plant fosters multi-actor landscape management, Jonathan Locqueville, CNRS-CEFE, France.Invisible people, invisible landscapes: juniper picking at the end of the line, Ismael Vaccaro, IMF-CSIC, Spain.