This proposal focuses on training and research on the structure and content, as well as processes, of humans' ecological knowledge, and on the relationships between this knowledge and natural resource management practices. The successful solution of environmental problems requires the identification of the psychological as well as sociocultural factors that operate within given populations, interacting with the features of local ecosystems in ensuring sustainable resource management. Under increasing global pressure over the world's ecosystems, the livelihood and nutritional and heallth status of millions of people on earch may depend on the preservation and promotion of local ecological knowledge and resource management solutions. The present research will create a bridge between the study of folkbiology and that of common-pool resource management, by concentrating on several aspects of ecological knowledge and reasoning among study populations in Guatemala, Mexico, and the US; 1) identification of the role of ecological vs morphological factors in category-based inductions on local species; 2) elicitation of classification of ecological features such as soils, waters, species subcommunities; 3) elicitation of beliefs on the ecological significance and interdependencies of local species. The resulting mental models of the environment will then be tied to agroforestry practice in the effort to establish causal links between belief and behaviors.
