Presentation short abstract

Ethnobotanical research in Catalan territories reveals how human-plant relationships capture evidence of socioecological conflicts and threatened biocultural heritage, and how these relationships might inspire sustainable transformations.

Presentation long abstract

Biocultural diversity—understood as the intertwined diversity of biological, cultural, and linguistic life—is being threatened worldwide. Human-plant relationships well illustrate the ongoing socioecological pressures and political struggles. Local ethnobotanical knowledge holders, guardians of biocultural heritage, are deeply affected by past and present conflicts over land, resources, and identity. Through their perspectives, plants and human-plant relationships emerge as entangled in disputes over access, regulation, cultural belonging, and ecological futures.

In this work, we explore how ethnobotanical research contributes to revealing local socioecological conflicts and to documenting the biocultural heritage at stake—including both plants species and the related knowledge. We focus on Catalan-speaking territories, where decades of ethnobotanical fieldwork have generated rich extensive databases on human-plant interactions, compiling 294,497 reports of names and uses for 2,027 plant taxa, shared by 3,857 informants. From the mountainous Upper Ter River Basin to the low-altitude peri-urban landscapes of Collserola, this research demonstrates how ethnobotanical studies—even those not explicitly designed to examine political dynamics—capture evidence of struggles over resources, governance, and landscape management. They also reveal how certain plants crystallize socioecological tensions across generations and among diverse local actors. By systematically documenting plant species and their uses, our ethnobotanical approaches contribute to empower local knowledge holders and maintain biocultural diversity. Finally, we argue that the richness of human-plant relationships, when analysed through a holistic lens encompassing cognitive, affective, and sensory dimensions, provides a fertile foundation for fostering more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable socioecological transformations.