Is Ethnobiologist Training at Risk? Challenges of a Brazilian Graduate Program

Resumo

The Graduate Program in Ethnobiology and Nature Conservation (PPGEtno, an acronym in Portuguese) was established in 2011 at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE, an acronym in Portuguese) in collaboration with other institutions in Northeast Brazil. PPGEtno addressed the urgent need to train professionals sensitive to biodiversity conservation issues through an interdisciplinary approach that values traditional knowledge and the relationship between people and nature. Despite its success, PPGEtno faces administrative challenges due to regulatory constraints, which restrict coordination roles only UFRPE faculty members to hold, which is currently limited to just five faculty members from the UFRPE, the program’s host institution. The lack of faculty members aligned with social-ecological thinking at UFRPE exacerbates the situation, putting the program at risk of extinction or reduction to a research line within another graduate program. PPGEtno's academic output is significant, with 96 graduates, 1,473 published articles, and important contributions to Ethnobiology and Ecology. Its publications include high-impact journals and cover a wide range of topics. The program's closure would represent an immeasurable loss for research on biodiversity and human-nature interactions. In this manuscript, we demonstrate the impacts that the absence of PPGEtno could cause, both theoretically and practically. The continuation of PPGEtno is vital for advancing Ethnobiology as a scientific discipline, serving a critical role in training ethnobiologists and fostering new knowledge on biodiversity conservation and human-nature relationships in Brazil and across Latin America.