Introduction

In this essay I wish to discuss the ways in which food systems can be a valuable tool to think about biodiversity as inherently interconnected with our human worlds, in practices that look towards the sustainability of ecosystems, rather than based in the logic of extracting resources without caring for the degradation of landscapes. I argue that through an ethnographic looking glass, attuned to the complex relationships that abound from inhabiting an ecosystem on planet Earth, with regards to specific food systems based in local ecological knowledge and practice, like the extensive agro-pastoralist systems in mountain areas, we can understand the ways in which certain food production systems can in fact help us think and act on the current socio- ecological crisis. For this discussion, I draw on my own fieldwork among agro-pastoralists in the northeastern region of Portugal, done during September 2023, and January 2024, in the context of the research project PASTOpraxis (FCT MTS/CAC/0028/2020). Based on a mix methods approach, my fieldwork’s main method was walking with shepherds of indigenous sheep and goat’s species along their daily grazing paths, allowing informal conversations to happen based in an ethnographic inquiry into the human-environmental relations. In anthropology, my research field, we call this type of method participant-observation, i.e. a way to learn about people’s lives aiming at a deep look into the way they think, act and deal with the world around them. The perspectives brought form this experience are of enormous value as they point to possible avenues for change in face of land degradation, biodiversity loss and the impacts of climate change.

Anthropocene

Growing environmental degradation, provoked by climate change and specific human activities, is impacting communities everywhere in the world, and it becomes increasingly relevant to understand the social and ecological dynamics behind such processes. In the academic debates on this topic, some authors argued that a new term is even needed for the current geological epoch of human domination and impact in the earth systems. The term, brought to the academic discourse by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stroemer in the year 2000, is the ‘Anthropocene’ and, as you might have heard, it aims at drawing attention to the impact of humanity in the ecosystems around us, explaining the actual footprint that our species has left in this planet. However, a few problems arise when facing this concept in its original sense. In one way, the idea that humans are inherently bad in their actions towards the world results in confusion and a certain degree of apathy that affects us all, especially when we face the amount of degradation of natural habitats, species extinctions, wildfires, chemical infiltration on soil and water, and so many other effects that we have become increasingly aware in the last decades. In another line of though, thinking that this is a problem inherent to some type of universal ‘human nature’ that depends on an extractivist look towards the ecosystems leaves out a huge amount of social systems and practices – like traditional pastoralist societies – that are based in a sustainable resource management perspective. The northeastern region of Portugal, besides having faced considerable changes in the last century, still reflects the

traditional ecological knowledge of pastoralists, as it happens in other mountain regions in the world. Faced with several socio-ecological challenges that affect their livelihoods and ecosystems, their lives and perspectives are of great importance and should not be overlooked.

Although different views on the current ecological impact on earth are in debate, the main argument lies in the fact that the habitability of several ecosystems are at serious risk. The term Anthropocene tries to show that by representing, as Steffen (2011) has said, the “quantitative shift in the relations between humans and the global environment” (843). This shift, some authors argue, was brought about by specific factors in parallel with the great capital accumulation projects (see Moore et al. 2016). Behind this perspective, emerges the understanding that the current hegemonic ways of dealing with natural ecosystems cannot continue. We need to look towards the natural cycles around us and find ways to interact with such cycles that allow for the continuation of the relationships that let us to live on this planet. Agricultural and pastoral practices are a perfect way to think about it. The idea of ‘earthly relationships’, enunciated by the anthropologist Amelia Moore, can be helpful to understand that behind landscapes, in this case agrarian and pastoral ones, lie different interconnections between animals, microscopic organisms and humans in ways that allow for life to continue.

Fieldwork

The agro-pastorlist systems in the northeastern region of Portugal integrates indigenous vegetation and agrarian landscapes, in practices that maintain a connection with immemorial times. Lameiros, a specific type of pastures that lay besides little creeks in the mountains, surrounded by trees, are a perfect example of this integration. They represent a mixture of autochthonous vegetation, indigenous to the region, with different strains of seeded plants that have become naturalized in this pastures. Lameiros allow the production of hay for the herd’s winter fodder, and are also used as good quality pasture during different parts of the year. During my own fieldwork in this region, I noticed shepherds looked at some of this fields as changed landscapes, somewhat abandoned. This meant, they explained, that fields are abandoned by pastoralists that used to bring their animals here and then other type of vegetation, like bushes, suppress the inhabiting plants and invade the pastures. This in turn raises the risk of wild fires as the vegetation is not eaten by ruminant animals. Another interesting thing happens in the process. This type of pastures are home to different indigenous plants that now run the risk of extinction (see Carapeto 2020). This made me think about the ways certain plants and ecosystems actually depend on the human practices that, in turn, depend on them. An example can be explained using three such species. By reading the Red List of Vernacular Flora in Continental Portugal, one finds that a lot of species of plants, unique to this territories, run the risk of extinction. Rumex longifolius, also known as Labaça- comprida, is a plant indigenous to the north of the Iberia Peninsula. It faces the risk of extinction precisely, as the Red List says, because of the abandonment of traditional pastoral practices in the region, which has been facing mass depopulation since the 1960’s. Another plant, Viola bubanni, faces the same danger, mainly influenced by the loss of habitats maintained by traditional pastoral practices, like lameiros. In the case of chestnut groves, called soutos– one of the main agricultural incomes that people in this region depend on, and also an important pasture resource for the pastoralists – there is a plant that grows in it that also faces extinction. Its name is Cephalanthera rubra, also known as Heleborina-rosada, and its main challenges are the mobilization of soils by tractors and the use of pesticides in chestnut groves. In fact, this is also an obstacle for pastoralists as pesticide are dangerous for the animals that feed on the plants sprayed by it. Besides, tractors in this process came to substitute ruminants in the management of vegetation that grows between the trees. In light of this examples, we already see how the intensification of agriculture practices, coupled with the abandonment of rural areas, exacerbates the problems of extinction and affects the continuation of traditional practices that are based in sustainable resource management. The abandonment of such areas, then, can be the engine for the extinction of many plant species that rely on the practices of humans and animals that share those same landscapes. It also allows us to think about how our food is produced, in what conditions, and based with what type of practices and human- environmental relations. We should, I argue, be aware of the effects that different food production systems have on the natural cycles and species around them. The problem, in turn, is not what we eat, but how it grows, in what conditions, and what are the effects and relations it sustains.

In light of these reflections, I don’t intend to propose a romantic view on human-animal-plant relations, or some type of naïve look towards what it means to grow food for the whole world. What I wish to underline, is the necessity to look at the relationships established in that process. The way we grow food, in an industrial complex type of system, based in the plantation model, the use of dangerous chemicals, and the exploitation of human labor, needs to be rethought. I do not, as well, want to defend a romantic view of the past when I talk about the traditional agro-pastoralist practices. Nonetheless, it is most relevant to understand the value of local ecological practices that, even if always in reconstruction and negotiation, are based in the interactions and relationships of humans and their local environments that span for generations. Life processes of different species are inherently connected with the transformations of landscapes and in turn, this is process in connected with various political, social and ecological dynamics. By looking at the relations that emerge in this processes, we can also attune our attention to the destructive formats that put at risk the continuity of the rich array of human and non-human collectives that permeate the landscape of our world. Relations between biodiversity and the inhabited places of the past, as schoolar Susana Matos Viegas has said, are important to think on the processes, world visions and practices that in turn support life on earth.

To overcome the action crisis (see Ellis 2018, 169) that currently afflicts those of us that are aware to the sustainability problems of the present, I argue on the need to look at different spatial and temporal scales, to history but also to the life beneath our feet, living in the soil, and to the relations that allow for the continuation of biodiversity and the (re)construction of habitable landscapes. Historical processes of landscape change are an interesting place to start, as they speak to the ways in which ecosystems are directly related to our daily habits, like having dinner or breakfast, or even a beer. Try to think about the next thing you eat as having its own historical life, directly connected to some specific ecosystems, and I guarantee you will find some interesting human story.

Final Thoughts:

The aim of this work was to understand and discuss the manners in which food systems can be a valuable tool to think about biodiversity, not based on the idea of resource extraction, destruction and degradation of landscapes and the environment, but considering the sustainability of the practices, creating a process that conserves and maintains ecosystems.

Anthropocene, or the “quantitative shift in the relations between humans and the global environment”, considers the fact that the habitability of several ecosystems are at serious risk. environmental destruction, degradation of ecosystems and unmitigated exploration of natural resources have impacted society and communities worldwide, shifting and transforming the social and ecological dynamics.

The focus of the northeastern region of Portugal as a case study emerges from the considerable changes the area and people have faced in the last century, as well as the traditional ecological knowledge of pastoralists, as it happens in other mountain regions in the world.

During the months of September 2023, and January 2024, and based on a mix methods approach, the main method of data gathering was walking with shepherds of indigenous sheep and goat’s species along their daily grazing paths, allowing informal conversations to happen based in an ethnographic inquiry into the human-environmental relations.

Thecapacityforethnographytofindthisstoriesisincredible,andmyownexperiencewiththe pastoralistsof theTrás-os-Montes,Portugal,wasan invaluablestep in myownquestioningof thefoodproductionsystemsthatfeedus.Iaskthatyoumakethesamequestionsinyourdaily life, and think about how we can change the ways food is grown and valued in a manner that allowforbiodiversity,andevendependingonit.ThetermAnthropoceneisdefinitelyimportant to create awareness on the current ecological crisis, although, it must not make us reproduce theidea that humanity isinherently a plague. Like theanthropologistPaulaGodinho hassaid, “the moments of rupture with the vivid reality evoke the experience to deal with the new” (Godinho2017,35).

In this sense, reflecting on our food systems can be a valuable step to think about the past as a resource for the future, and a relevant tool to act in face of massive species loss, landscape degradation and the exploitation of human lives.

Carapeto A., Francisco A., Pereira P., Porto M. eds. 2020. Lista Vermelha da Flora Vascular de Portugal Continental. Sociedade Portuguesa de Botânica, Associação Portuguesa de Ciência da Vegetação – PHYTOS e Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas (coord.). Coleção «Botânica em Português», Volume 7. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 374 pp.

Carvalho, Ana Maria Pinto. 2005. EtnobotánicadelParqueNaturaldeMontesinho:plantas, tradiciónysaberpopularenun terrritoriodelnordestedePortugal. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid: Tese de Doutoramento.

Ellis, Erle C. 2018. Anthropocene:AVeryShortIntroduction. Oxford.

Godinho, Paula. 2017. OFuturoÉparaSempre.Experiência,expectativaepráticaspossíveis.

Lisboa: Livraria Letra Livre.

Lewis, Simon, e Mark Maslin. 2018. TheHumanPlanet:HowWeCreatedtheAnthropocene. UK: Penguin Random House UK.

Matos Viegas, Susana. 2023. “Florestas biodiversas em perspetiva antropológica: ressurgências das paisagens em ruína pela monocultura do eucalipto”. Etnografica, n.^o 27(3) (outubro): 851–

73. https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.14944.

Moore, Amelia. 2016. “Anthropocene Anthropology: Reconceptualizing Contemporary Global Change”. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 22 (1): 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12332.

Moore, Jason, Elmar Altvater, e Eileen Crist. eds. 2016. AnthropoceneorCapitalocene? Nature, History and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland, EUA: PM Press