Laboratory for the Analysis of Social-Ecological Systems in a Globalised world

The Laboratory for the Analysis of Social-Ecological Systems in a Globalised world (LASEG) is a research group at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). We aim to better understand how local and indigenous knowledge can contribute to environmental sustainability, and how to better reconcile biodiversity conservation and the provision of ecosystem services with human wellbeing.

We conduct our research in a large range of societies (i.e., indigenous peoples, urban and rural communities) and we pay attention to temporal scales (i.e. contemporary and archival work). We employ a variety of quantitative and qualitative research techniques from the social and natural sciences, and the combination of different types of data and disciplinary backgrounds enriches our work and makes it potentially more relevant to multiple disciplinary audiences.

Research areas

Indigenous and local ecological knowledge

Researching on how Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ knowledge is affected by environmental change and how such knowledge can contribute to understand environmental change impacts.

Environmental governance and conservation

Researching environmental governance processes in the areas of climate change and the conservation of biodiversity, from international to national and local levels.

Resilience and transformation

Investigating transformative pathways toward sustainability founded upon the concept of ecosystem services and nature-based solutions.

Featured Projects

01-03-2022 until 28-02-2025

This study aims to empirically test a novel model for assessing the resilience of IPLC’s health care system taking a social-ecological lens. It addresses the current need to better understand how Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities' health care systems could adapt to current and future global change.

January 2024 – December 2028

Using systematic ethnobiological place-based data collection in a unique research site in the Bolivian Amazon with an untapped wealth of baseline information, this project will rigorously assess the processes through which Indigenous knowledge systems change over time, and measure different ecological impacts associated with such changes.

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