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Human-environmental relations, planning and conservation. “Doing nothing” and “doing something” in the protection of local knowledge

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Abstract

The protection of human-environmental relations is a subject that involves different kind of legal frameworks that crosses the field of environmental management. This work discusses the incidence of global logics of private property protection behind a project of technological innovation with a group of artisan families who make food products derived from palms in south-eastern Uruguay. The innovation project is part of an attempt to conserve specific ecosystems configured by these palms. This paper analyses the expectations, demands and conflicts regarding the protection of the local knowledge and suggests that environmental management must carefully consider to what extent they interfere in everyday life.

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Fig. 1

Source: the author

Fig. 2

Source: a retrieved from Rivas and Barbieri (2014: 21). b retrieved from http://turismorocha.gub.uy/ (25/07/2020)

Fig. 3

Source: the author

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Notes

  1. See http://www.unesco.org/mabdb/br/brdir/directory/biores.asp?code=URU+01&mode=all. Accessed on 07/04/2019.

  2. The number of families varies, as a lot of families of the last generation of residents either migrate to or from the city, building their houses next to their parents’ or living in the same house.

  3. The main protection categories within the intellectual property system are patents, trademarks, geographical indications, copyrights and industrial designs. Patents are an exclusive right that is granted over an invention. Trademarks are signs that differentiate the products or services of one company from those of others. A copyright is the right of a creator over their literary and artistic works. Industrial designs (drawings or industrial models) constitute the ornamental or aesthetic aspect of a particular article.

  4. See: https://www.latu.org.uy/en/institutional/about. Accessed on 07/07/2020.

  5. The names are alias.

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  1. Centro Universitario Regional del Este, Universidad de la República, Rocha, Uruguay

    Juan Martin Dabezies

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Correspondence to Juan Martin Dabezies.

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Dabezies, J.M. Human-environmental relations, planning and conservation. “Doing nothing” and “doing something” in the protection of local knowledge. GeoJournal 87, 1873–1886 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-020-10348-4

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