Sharing Traditional Ecological Knowledge (CONECT-e)

Description

The main goal of this project is to develop and validate a new methodology that will broaden the basis on which traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is documented, shared and protected while engaging citizens by:

• Developing an interactive wiki-like platform (www.conecte.es) that allows any citizen both to i) contribute their elder’s TEK –following citizen science ideas– and ii) access information provided by other citizens;
• Documenting traditional knowledge on plants, landraces, ecosystems, animals, minerals, fungus and climate change indicators;
• Implementing and testing of this innovative tool with students from agricultural technical schools in Catalonia; and
• Raising awareness regarding the importance of preserving TEK through seminars, public talks, mass and social media campaigns and a series of dissemination and scientific articles and communications. 

CONECTe holds the potential to document, share and protect TEK in an innovative way. As part of the project, we evaluate the need, impact, process and outcomes derived from the use of this tool. Results of this project may share light in the strengths and caveats of these type of methodologies (i.e. citizen science and digital commons) for complementing previous TEK conservation efforts (IECTB).

Publications