Pyrenean Pastoralists’ Ecological Knowledge: Documentation and Application to Natural Resource Management and Adaptation María E. Fernández-Giménez & Federico Fillat Estaque Published online: 23 March 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 Abstract Pastoral production systems in the Spanish Pyr- enees have changed dramatically in recent decades, leading to the loss of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). We documented TEK of pastoralists from two valleys in the western Central Pyrenees of Aragón and explored its poten- tial applications to resource management and adaptation. Pyrenean pastoralists possess extensive knowledge of rela- tionships between terrain, climate, vegetation and animal nutrition and behavior. TEK could contribute to sustainable stewardship and facilitate adaptation by informing pasture monitoring; providing traditional practices to manage mountain vegetation; and preserving knowledge of exten- sive livestock production strategies, such as transhumance. Institutional barriers to applying TEK include weak eco- nomic cooperation among stockmen, their dependence on EU subsidies, and lack of voice in regional government decisions about local resources. A more collaborative, place-based stewardship of the Central Pyrenees might be- gin with direct involvement of pastoralists in designing monitoring of pasture conditions and vegetation type changes. Keywords Transhumance . Adaptive capacity . Indigenous knowledge . Local knowledge . Pyrenees . Spain . Monitoring . Indicators . Resilience Introduction Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is the dynamic and continuously evolving knowledge of organisms, their inter- actions, and their relationship to the environment and peo- ple. It is culturally embedded and transmitted among members of a geographically- and socially-defined commu- nity. TEK constitutes an essential part of the social and ecological memory of a system that can be drawn upon for innovation and adaptation (Berkes et al. 2003). TEK is a “memory bank” containing a community’ s ecological and management knowledge that can be a source of experience, observation and adaptive practices when the community is faced with a novel disturbance. TEK is recognized as pro- viding valuable knowledge that complements scientific studies to improve understanding and stewardship of eco- systems (Huntington 2000; Knapp and Fernandez-Gimenez 2009). A major benefit of local participation in natural resource decision-making is the TEK that participants con- tribute (Berkes et al. 2003; Innes and Booher 2010). Unfortunately, due to social, economic and cultural changes, in many communities TEK is no longer being ac- tively accumulated, used, modified, and transmitted to youn- ger generations. In these settings, formal documentation of TEK may help to slow this loss, by both recording and publishing this knowledge and accounts of how it is used. Although some TEK documentation studies have been criti- cized for isolating ecological knowledge from its cultural context (Cruikshank 1989), such studies also can catalyze a community’ s interest in sustaining its knowledge base and promote more active roles in sharing knowledge with scien- tists and decision-makers (Salomon et al. 2011). In this article we present the results of a TEK documentation study of Pyrenean pastoralists, a group whose livelihoods have under- gone dramatic changes since the mid-twentieth century. M. E. Fernández-Giménez (*) Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1472, USA e-mail: maria.fernandez-gimenez@colostate.edu F. Fillat Estaque Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (CSIC), Jaca, Spain Hum Ecol (2012) 40:287–300 DOI 10.1007/s10745-012-9463-x