Shaping the Landscape, Preserving the Knowledge

Abstract

Abstract Terraces stand out of the landscape in mountain environments throughout the world. Built over centuries, agricultural terraces have evolved to accommodate human needs, including food security for millions living in a subsistence economy and in changing climatic conditions. Much research on terraces has been conducted, scrutinizing the factors pertaining to soil properties for implementing various conservation and management programs, the value of intercrop planting, the cultural maintenance of terrace structures, and social cohesion that sustains the effective functioning and conservation of terraces, as well as the factors that contribute to terrace abandonment. However, fewer studies have looked at the role of terraces as a vector for the retention of traditional ecological knowledge. This chapter illustrates how traditional ecological knowledge shapes and maintains the terraced landscape in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. It describes the traditional skills employed for the management of terraces and water, the cultivated crops that sustain the communities, and other activities like the collection of medicinal plants during gardening activities, which facilitates and maintains the traditional ethnobotanical knowledge and its transmission to younger generations. It also argues that not only terraces are important to maintain the livelihood of local communities, but in addition, they contribute to the retention of traditional ecological knowledge.