Traditional Land Use Practices, Biodiversity and Community Wellbeing in a Mediterranean Cultural Landscape
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Traditional land use practices, biodiversity and community wellbeing in a Mediterranean cultural landscape A case study of the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco Moroccan Biodiversity and Livelihoods Association & Global Diversity Foundation February 2020 1 Contents CONTENTS ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................................... 4 ACRONYMS AND NOTES ON TRANSCRIPTION .................................................................................................. 5 LIST OF FIGURES AND MAPS ............................................................................................................................ 6 LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................................................ 7 LIST OF BOXES .................................................................................................................................................. 7 I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 8 I.1 HIGH ATLAS CULTURAL LANDSCAPES PROGRAMME ................................................................................................... 9 I.2 STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT ................................................................................................................................ 12 II. TRADITIONAL LAND USE PRACTICES IN MEDITERRANEAN CULTURAL LANDSCAPES: LITERATURE REVIEW 13 III. THE MOROCCAN HIGH ATLAS AS A CASE STUDY ....................................................................................... 15 III.1 THE HIGH ATLAS OF MOROCCO ........................................................................................................................ 15 III.2 CASE STUDY SITES ........................................................................................................................................... 18 IV. METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................ 27 IV.1 RESEARCH ETHICS AND FREE, PRIOR AND INFORMED CONSENT (FPIC) ..................................................................... 27 IV.2 RESEARCH STAGES .......................................................................................................................................... 29 IV.3 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS METHODS ........................................................................................................ 31 V. AN INTRICATE TAPESTRY: TRADITIONAL LAND USE PRACTICES AND BIODIVERSITY IN THE HIGH ATLAS ... 35 V.1 TRADITIONAL LAND USE AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN THE HIGH ATLAS ................................................. 35 V.2 HIGH ATLAS CULTURAL LANDSCAPES AS COMPLEX SOCIOECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS ............................................................ 59 V.3 HIGH ATLAS BIODIVERSITY: IMPORTANCE, STATUS AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH TRADITIONAL PRACTICES ............................. 62 V.4 THREE BEST PRACTICE TRADITIONAL LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: AGDALS, TERRACED AGROECOSYSTEMS AND SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND HARVEST OF PLANTS.................................................................................................... 70 BEST PRACTICE CASE STUDY 1: HIGH ATLAS TERRACED AGROECOSYSTEMS ............................................... 70 BEST PRACTICE CASE STUDY 2: THE PASTORAL AGDAL OF IGOURDANE ..................................................... 75 BEST PRACTICE CASE STUDY: SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND HARVEST OF PLANTS ............................... 80 VI. DYNAMISM AND TRANSFORMATION: CHANGES TO TRADITIONAL PRACTICES, THEIR DRIVERS AND THEIR (POTENTIAL) CONSEQUENCES ........................................................................................................................ 81 VII. COMMUNITY-BASED RECOMMENDATIONS, ACTION PLANS AND IMPLEMENTATION GUIDANCE ......... 102 VII.1 COMMUNITY-BASED RECOMMENDATIONS ........................................................................................................ 102 VII.2 HACL PROGRAMME ACTIVITIES AND COMMUNITY ACTION PLANS ........................................................................ 110 VII.3 LESSONS LEARNED: TRANSFORMING CHALLENGES INTO OPPORTUNITIES ................................................................. 119 VII.4 IMPLEMENTATION GUIDANCE: KEYS TO SUCCESS IN MAINTAINING, RESTORING AND PROMOTING MEDITERRANEAN CULTURAL LANDSCAPES ....................................................................................................................................................... 122 VIII. BALANCING TRADITION AND INNOVATION: HOW TO SUPPORT AND PROMOTE BEST PRACTICES FOR MAINTAINING HIGH ATLAS CULTURAL LANDSCAPES ................................................................................... 124 VIII.1 AGDALS .................................................................................................................................................... 124 VIII.2 TERRACED AGROECOSYSTEMS ....................................................................................................................... 125 VIII.3 SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND HARVEST OF PLANTS ........................................................................................ 126 IX. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 128 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................. 129 2 APPENDIX: EXTENDED AMAZIGH-ARABIC-ENGLISH GLOSSARY OF TERMS RELATED WITH CPCS IN AIT M’HAMED, IMEGDAL AND OUKAÏMEDEN .................................................................................................... 136 ANNEX LIST .................................................................................................................................................. 147 3 Acknowledgements We would like to first of all thank all the community members and authorities of the communes of Ait M’hamed, Imegdal and Oukaïmeden for sharing their knowledge and perspectives with us and participating so actively in the research presented in this report. We also thank all of our local partners and the Department of Water and Forests, who supported and enabled this research. We also thank all of the MSc students whose theses contributed to this report, in particular Louisa Aarrass. Finally, we would like to thank MAVA Foundation and Open Society Foundations for so generously supporting the implementation of this research, and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund for their support in bringing it together in this report. This report is the result of the work carried out by all members of the Moroccan Biodiversity and Livelihoods Association - Global Diversity Foundation team between 2016 and 2019: Abdellah Aghraz Rachid Ait Babahmad Hamid Ait Baskad Mohamed Ait Boujamaa Fadma Ait Iligh Touda Atyah Ahmed Bendella Emily Caruso Fatima Chaari Ugo D’Ambrosio Pommelien da Silva Cosme Pablo Dominguez Abdeddaim El Hajjam Mohamed El Haouzi Gary Martin Adel Merzoug Soufiane M’Sou Sifedine Ouahdani Hassan Ouchaha Mohamed Ouknine Said Ourhzif Hassan Rankou Omar Saadani Hassani Hajar Salamat Inanc Tekguc Irene Teixidor-Toneu Youssef Yakoubi 4 Acronyms and notes on transcription AMH Rural commune of Ait M’hamed, Azilal province CAP Community Action Plan CPC Cultural Practices of Conservation (another term for Traditional Land Use Practices) DEAFAL European Delegation for Family Farming in Africa, Asia and Latin America DREF Département des Eaux et Forets GDF Global Diversity Foundation ICARDA International Centre for Agriculture in the Dry Areas IMG Rural commune of Imegdal, Al Haouz Province INRA National Agricultural Research Institute IUCN International Union for Nature Conservation MBLA Moroccan Biodiversity and Livelihoods Association ORMVAH Office Régionale de la Mise en Valeur de Al Haouz OUK Rural commune of Oukaïmeden, Al Haouz province Note on transcription: Some Amazigh/Arabic phonemes do not have a counterpart in Latin alphabets, thus additional characters are used to describe them. Especially for the Amazigh letter ⵄ (yaɛ), followed by ع /ayn or ɛayn), we have used Â/â and Ä/ä to designate ⵄ') ع corresponding to the Arabic .followed by a consonant ع /a vowel while Ê/ê is used to designate ⵄ 5 List of figures and maps Figure 1: Moroccan High Atlas, Middle Atlas, Anti Atlas, Rif Mountains and Arganeraie region ........... 8 Figure 2: The four principal sites of the High Atlas Cultural Landscapes Programme: Imegdal, Ourika, Oukaïmeden and Ait M’hamed, represented relative to the city of Marrakech. ................................. 10 Figure 3: Moroccan High Atlas landscapes (A: Agdal, B: Mounatin, C: Agroecosystem) ...................... 16 Figure 4: Distribution map of Amazigh languages in Morocco ............................................................. 17 Figure 5: Territory, road, waterways and villages of Imegdal commune. The douars where in-depth research was carried out are highlighted in yellow: Warti, Aguerd and Ameslane ............................. 19 Figure 6: Landscape of Ighrm douar in Imegdal...................................................................................