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NATURE CONSERVATION AND TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE 139
plough-fields (Agnoletti 2007; M. Biró et al. 2013; Forejt et al. 2017). Partly owing
to the abandonment of traditional land use, Western Europe has areas whence
traditional ecological knowledge has practically completely disappeared (Rotherham
2007: 100; É.Biró et al. 2014). It can also be stated in general that, based on their
long-term cooperation, the relationship between human beings and the landscape
is gradually changing, getting weaker and weaker even in rural settlements
throughout the world (Buijs et al. 2006). The latter situation is particularly perilous
because it leads to the dissipation of the sense of responsibility even among those
who live with natural values (Anderson 2005; Ewaso Lions, http 2).
Research of traditional ecological knowledge
and its application in nature conservation
In the past decades, a new possibility and a new challenge have emerged worldwide
to enhance the efficiency of the management of nature conservation: taking into
consideration the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of the biosphere and the
ecological processes, and applying it in both strategic and practical decisions, as
this knowledge also constitutes part of natural and cultural diversity (Berkes et al.
2000:1251; Hernändez-Morcillo et al. 2014; Sutherland et al. 2014; Schmeller
— Bridgewater 2016). Traditional ecological knowledge forms part of traditional
knowledge of nature, as defined by Hungarian ethnographic literature (Hoppäl
1982: 271). Its most widely accepted definition is that of Fikret Berkes (Berkes
2008: 3): “It is knowledge, practical experience, and a set of beliefs about the
relationships among living beings (including humans), and between beings and their
environment, which emerges in processes of adaptation and is transmitted through
generations as part of their culture.”
Zs. Molnar et al. (2008: 14-27) added the following to this definition:
“In Hungary, in the middle of Europe, where science and urban knowledge have long
been influencing the knowledge and value system of the peasantry, we use the following
definition: it is personal knowledge, experience, beliefs about the surrounding natural¬
agrarian landscape, its flora and fauna and about the influence of human activity on
the landscape and its biome; it is based on several decades of personal natural, agricultural
experiences but also incorporates collective elements of centuries-old knowledge; it is
basically independent of science and is also connected to the rites of social life.”
It is an important feature of TEK that certain of its elements (its beliefs and
worldview) remain almost unchanged, while several components of practical
knowledge change dynamically with the incessant change of the environment,
being enlarged with newer and newer elements of knowledge (Menzier — Butler
2006: 1-17).
TEK basically consists of four organically related parts:
— general knowledge (facts and knowledge of the animate and inanimate natural
environment),
— practical experience (of landscape use, agricultural practice and experience),
— beliefs (worldview and value system),