Stewardship practices enhance nature’s contributions to people

Abstract

Humans shape landscapes through the management of organisms and ecosystems, either degrading or sustaining biodiversity. Despite their essential role in sustaining biodiversity, stewardship practices have been overlooked by conventional conservation research and action. To improve understanding of biophysical stewardship practices, we propose a classificatory framework and illustrate it by applying it to cultural keystone species (CKS), which are rich in examples due to their high value to people. We identified 19 types of biophysical stewardship practices with impacts across ecological levels. Through a review of CKS literature, we identified 343 reports of biophysical stewardship practices directed toward almost 1000 CKS and 1652 reports of nature’s contributions to people associated with these species. Integrating stewardship practices into biodiversity conservation frameworks would facilitate consideration of both biodiversity and its stewards. Strengthening Indigenous, local, and other place-based stewardship practices within scientific and policy settings could contribute to more effective and inclusive conservation.

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