INAUGURAL ARTICLE | ANTHROPOLOGY ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Biocultural vulnerability exposes threats of culturally important species Victoria Reyes-Garcíaa,b,c,1 , Rodrigo Cámara-Leretd , Benjamin S. Halperne,f, Casey O’Harae , Delphine Renardg, Noelia Zafra-Calvoh, and Sandra Díazi This contribution is part of the special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected in 2021. Contributed by Victoria Reyes-Garcia, received October 14, 2022; accepted November 22, 2022; reviewed by Eleanor Sterling and David S. Wilkie There are growing calls for conservation frameworks that, rather than breaking the rela- tions between people and other parts of nature, capture place-based relationships that Significance have supported social–ecological systems over the long term. Biocultural approaches pro- pose actions based on biological conservation priorities and cultural values aligned with Recognizing the connections local priorities, but mechanisms that allow their global uptake are missing. We propose between people and other parts a framework to globally assess the biocultural status of specific components of nature of nature and incorporating them that matter to people and apply it to culturally important species (CIS). Drawing on a into decision-making will enable literature review and a survey, we identified 385 wild species, mostly plants, which are to operationalize actions culturally important. CIS predominate among Indigenous peoples (57%) and ethnic simultaneously based on groups (21%). CIS have a larger proportion of Data-Deficient species (41%) than the biological conservation priorities full set of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) species (12%), and cultural values. Our underscoring the disregard of cultural considerations in biological research. Combining biocultural framework and metric information on CIS biological conservation status (IUCN threatened status) and cul- tural status (language vitality), we found that more CIS are culturally Vulnerable or show that high levels of cultural Endangered than they are biologically and that there is a higher share of bioculturally loss, particularly among Endangered or Vulnerable CIS than of either biologically or culturally Endangered Indigenous peoples, swamp the CIS measured separately. Bioculturally Endangered or Vulnerable CIS are particularly influence of biological status on predominant among Indigenous peoples, arguably because of the high levels of cultural assessing biocultural status. loss among them. The deliberate connection between biological and cultural values, To sustain culturally important as developed in our “biocultural status” metric, provides an actionable way to guide Downloaded from https://www.pnas.org by 83.42.104.116 on January 3, 2023 from IP address 83.42.104.116. species, we need a more decisions and operationalize global actions oriented to enhance place-based practices complete list of species that are with demonstrated long-term sustainability. culturally important for different biocultural diversity | conservation planning | cultural keystone species | Indigenous languages groups and of their status, as well as larger support to the cultures that value them. Biocultural Approaches to Conservation At a time of global decline in nature, there are growing efforts to conserve the world’s biodiversity both for nature’s sake and for its contributions to humankind (1). In these efforts, conservation policies based mostly on biological criteria miss the social, cultural, and livelihood needs and aspirations held by local communities (2). They thus risk per- petuating existing inequalities in the distribution of social and ecological burdens and benefits of conservation (3, 4). For example, conservation proposals to safeguard 30% (5, 6) or 50% (7) of the planet face opposition on the grounds that they might increase the negative social impacts of conservation actions and pose immediate risks for people whose livelihoods directly depend on nature, in particular Indigenous peoples and local com- munities (8, 9). To help address these potential conflicts, researchers and practitioners increasingly emphasize the need for different conservation frameworks that, rather than Author contributions: V.R.-G., R.C.-L., B.S.H., D.R., N.Z.-C., and S.D. designed research; V.R.-G., R.C.-L., D.R., and focusing on breaking the relations between people and other parts of nature, include a N.Z.-C. performed research; V.R.-G., R.C.-L., C.O., D.R., broader range of worldviews, knowledge, and values and that capture place-based rela- and N.Z.-C. analyzed data; and V.R.-G., R.C.-L., B.S.H., C.O., D.R., N.Z.-C., and S.D. wrote the paper. tionships that have supported social–ecological systems over the long term (10–13). Reviewers: E.S., University of Hawai’i Manoa Hawaii Biocultural approaches can widen existing conservation frameworks by recognizing and Institute of Marine Biology; and D.S.W., Wildlife honoring the relationships between people and other parts of nature, proposing actions Conservation Society. based on conservation priorities and cultural values aligned with local priorities (3, 14, 15). The authors declare no competing interest. Examples of biocultural approaches to conservation include initiatives that recognize the Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This article is distributed under Creative Commons spiritual significance of landscapes as manifested in sacred sites (16, 17), the importance Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 of social norms, such as taboos or customary rules in wildlife management (18, 19), or (CC BY-NC-ND). the cultural significance of some species, including them in management strategies (20, 21) 1 To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: victoria.reyes@uab.cat. or in conservation planning in the face of climate change (22). Despite recent applications This article contains supporting information online at of biocultural approaches in specific case studies, we lack mechanisms that allow a global https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.​ uptake of a biocultural framework (but a proposal is provided in ref. 23). This gap most 2217303120/-/DCSupplemental. likely exists because many of the interactions that mediate the relationships between people Published January 3, 2023. PNAS 2023 Vol. 120 No. 2 e2217303120 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217303120 1 of 6 and nonhuman nature are context specific and difficult to artic- interpretation of which species are culturally important for a spe- ulate to outsiders (11, 24) resulting in challenges for the transfer- cific sociocultural group as the compilation was not fully informed ability, integration, and scalability of local knowledge (25). through diverse knowledge systems. However, the list represents Here, we propose a framework and implement a metric to assess the largest global compilation of wild species identified as cultur- the biocultural status of specific components of nature that matter ally important to date. Our list is largely dominated by plants to local communities. The proposed metric, “biocultural status,” (n = 241; 63%), with a surprisingly low number of mammal allows the combination of information on biological and cultural (n = 50; 13%), fish (n = 27; 7%), and bird species (n = 16; 4%) conservation status of different components of nature and is based (Fig. 1A). CIS were reported in every continent, with more reports on the logic that the disappearance of a culture entails the disap- in North America (23%) than elsewhere (Fig. 1B). Only four pearance of relations between human and nonhuman components species (all sea turtles, i.e., Caretta caretta, Chelonia mydas, of nature (2, 26, 27). Drawing on research on cultural keystone Dermochelys coriacea, and Eretmochelys imbricata) were reported species (e.g., refs. 21 and 28), we apply our framework to assess as culturally important by groups in more than one continent. the biocultural status of “culturally important species” (CIS), here Other reports were continent specific. defined as species that have a recognized role in supporting cultural Species in our list are culturally important for a variety of soci- identity, as they are generally the basis for religious, spiritual, and ocultural groups but mainly for Indigenous peoples (57%) and social cohesion and provide a common sense of place, purpose, ethnic groups (21%). Particularly, CIS are documented among belonging, or rootedness associated with the living world Indigenous peoples in the Americas, Oceania, and Asia and among (Methods). ethnic groups in Africa (Fig. 1B). Some CIS are also documented among local communities (mainly in South America) and other CIS Characterization sociocultural groups in Europe (largely referring to CIS for citizens of a given region, such as Extremadura in Spain, Provence in Combining information from previous compilations of CIS and France, or Epirus in Greece). an online survey (see Methods), we identified 385 wild species that are culturally important for at least one sociocultural group. We Biological and Cultural Status differentiated between CIS that are important for “Indigenous peoples,” “ethnic groups,” “local communities,” and “other soci- We assessed the biological conservation status of CIS (hereafter ocultural groups” (see Methods for definitions). We acknowledge biological status) using the International Union for Conservation that ours is not a comprehensive list of the total (currently of Nature Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN) (29) and the unknown) number of CIS on Earth. We also acknowledge that “cultural status” of the group(s) for which the species is culturally the inclusion of species in the list is probably biased by researchers’ important using language vitality using the Ethnologue (30). Downloaded from https://www.pnas.org by 83.42.104.116 on January 3, 2023 from IP address 83.42.104.116. Fig. 1. Taxonomic and geographical distribution of culturally important species (n = 385). (A) Taxonomic distribution of CIS. (B) Number of CIS classified by continent and sociocultural group type (i.e., Indigenous people, ethnic group, local community, and other sociocultural group). Each square represents a CIS. In (A) square, color depicts taxonomic distribution and in (B) it depicts the sociocultural group who reported the CIS. 2 of 6 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217303120 pnas.org We used language vitality as a proxy for a group’s cultural status one another (χ2(df = 15, N = 382) = 14.95, P = 0.455). Overall, because language is the primary means of cultural transmission 163 (42%) of the CIS in our list are not of biological concern and (31) and the ability of cultures to name, use, and share knowledge a similar number (n = 139, 36%) are not of cultural concern. about nature might disappear when languages go extinct (27, 32). A much lower share of CIS are not of biocultural concern (n = We assigned a cultural status value to each CIS, combining infor- 62; 16%), with 110 (29%) and 152 (39%) CIS having a Vulnerable mation from the cultural status of all the groups for which the and Endangered cultural status, respectively. Overall, then, more species is documented as culturally important (Methods). CIS in our list are culturally Vulnerable or Endangered than they The distribution of IUCN categories within our list of CIS are biologically Vulnerable or Endangered. Bootstrapped 95% generally aligns well with the general distribution of the IUCN confidence intervals show that the proportion of bioculturally Red List species [χ2(df = 4, N = 32,713) = 3.23, P = 0.520] except Endangered and Vulnerable CIS is significantly greater than the for Data-Deficient species. Our list of CIS has a much higher proportion of Not Threatened and Data-Deficient CIS. proportion of Data-Deficient species (41%) than the full set of Many CIS with a biological status other than Data-Deficient IUCN species (12%). The high share of Data-Deficient species are Least Concern or Near Threatened (n = 163, 42%) but span in our list might result in an underestimation of the biological the range of cultural status (Fig. 2). Over one third of the species threat of some CIS as species categorized as Data-Deficient by in the Least Concern and Near-Threatened categories (n = 62; the IUCN seem to be more threatened than data-sufficient species 16% of all CIS) are culturally Not Threatened. Examples of spe- (33). The disproportionally high amount of missing data on the cies in this category are Ciconia ciconia (white stork), considered biological status of CIS also aligns with reports of mismatches in a “national bird” by the Polish (37), Macleania rupestris (uva metrics externally defined and those locally considered important camarona), whose fruit is widely consumed by high mountain (e.g., ref. 34). Importantly, the data gap underscores that cultural peasants in Colombia (38), and Ptaeroxylon obliquum (sneeze- considerations remain disregarded in much current biological wood tree), whose durable wood is used by the Xhosa in West research (3, 4). Africa to construct ceremonial houses and represents allegiance CIS in our list are homogeneously distributed across the selected to the ancestors (39). cultural status categories, with roughly one third of the species A similar number of species (n = 58; 15% of all CIS) are bio- falling in the Not Threatened (36%), Vulnerable (28%), and logically Least Concern or Near Threatened but are important to Endangered (34%) categories. Only six CIS have a Data-Deficient culturally Endangered groups. Examples of species in this category cultural status. include the venomous Naja haje (Egyptian cobra) of North Africa that is sacred to the Ikoma in Tanzania (40) and Echyridella Biocultural Status ­menziesii (New Zealand freshwater mussel), a New Zealand endemic that is culturally keystone to the Maori (41). We combined information on the CIS biological and cultural Very few CIS are both biologically and culturally Endangered status to create categories for a new metric of biocultural status or Critically Endangered (n = 13; 3% of all CIS; Fig. 2). Species Downloaded from https://www.pnas.org by 83.42.104.116 on January 3, 2023 from IP address 83.42.104.116. (Fig. 2). We acknowledge that there are biases in the datasets used in this category include the Endangered Fraxinus nigra (black ash), to infer CIS biological (35) and cultural status (36), which pre- which plays a central role in the spiritual and material culture (i.e., clude the precise assessment of biocultural status. However, using basketry) of different Native Americans and First Nations people a Pearson’s chi-square test of independence, we found that biolog- in the Wabanaki Confederacy (42), the Critically Endangered ical and cultural status of CIS in our sample are independent of crayfish Cherax tenuimanus in southwestern Australia, culturally Fig. 2. Biological and cultural status of 385 culturally important species with representative examples. Biological status was assessed from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (28), and cultural status was derived from language vitality status from the Ethnologue (29). Colors depict biocultural status, and circle size indicates the number of CIS in each cell. A full list is provided in the SI Appendix. PNAS 2023 Vol. 120 No. 2 e2217303120 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217303120 3 of 6 important to the Endangered Indigenous Nations in the Murray- America, and parts of South America (46), which also display high Darling River Basin (43), and the Endangered tree Araucaria cultural diversity and presence of Indigenous populations (45). araucana (pehuén), which plays a key role in the identity and That is, the high extinction risk of Indigenous languages may concept of territoriality of the also Endangered Mapuche- swamp the influence of biological status on biocultural status. Pehuenche people (44). Our approach allows exploration of the biocultural status of CIS in our list are not homogenously distributed across conti- species across continents and sociocultural groups, but it does not nents and sociocultural groups (SI Appendix, Table S1), probably allow establishment of causal links between biological and cultural following patterns of the global distribution of these groups, but threats. One of the predominant conservation approaches is based potentially obscuring patterns for underrepresented cultural groups on the idea of the need to protect a pristine “wilderness” free from in a continent (e.g., Indigenous peoples in Europe). An analysis the damaging role of humans. According to this approach, sepa- of the geographical distribution of biological, cultural, and bio- rating humans from other parts of nature (which can happen by cultural status of CIS (Fig. 3A) shows that North America and multiple factors including the loss of cultural identity and tradi- Oceania have very high proportions of bioculturally Endangered tional livelihoods, migration, or displacement) would lead to the CIS (71% and 67% of CIS listed in these continents), which is recovery of wild species (47). Even if that is the case (48), breaking driven almost entirely by Endangered cultural status. Conversely, the relation between people and other components of nature most species listed in Europe (68%) are not bioculturally threat- might eventually lead to the decline of collective attention and ened. Most of the Data-Deficient biocultural status is driven by memory to a species, or to the “societal extinction of species,” with lack of data on biological status, particularly prominent in Asia potential implications for global conservation efforts (26). By and South America (i.e., Data-Deficient Red List assessments). contrast, the biocultural approach argues that the removal of the Across sociocultural group types, the share of bioculturally relations between humans and other parts of nature could lead to Endangered (57%) and Vulnerable (33%) CIS is highest among declines both on the status of nature and on people’s quality of Indigenous people (Fig 3B). Conversely, the share of bioculturally life and ultimately to local extinction of species or habitat loss Not Threatened CIS is highest among other sociocultural groups (2, 49). In part, this might occur because cultural decline entails (60%). Because Indigenous peoples’ lands show lower declines in a loss of culturally unique knowledge and behavior, including nature than other lands (45), the high share of bioculturally forms of nature care and management, which might negatively Endangered and Vulnerable CIS among Indigenous peoples prob- affect nonhuman parts of nature (27). While further research is ably derives from high levels of cultural endangerment of needed to understand the causal effects of changing the relations Indigenous peoples (as measured by language endangerment). In between humans and other parts of nature, particularly in areas fact, a recent global analysis of language endangerment shows that where such relations have supported social–ecological systems over areas with the highest proportion of endangered languages include the long term, the deliberate connection between cultural and Australia, North China, Siberia, North Africa and Arabia, North biological values, as developed in our biocultural status metric for Downloaded from https://www.pnas.org by 83.42.104.116 on January 3, 2023 from IP address 83.42.104.116. Fig. 3. Biological, cultural, and biocultural status of 385 culturally important species. (A) Distribution across continents; (B) Distribution across sociocultural group type. Colors depict status. 4 of 6 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217303120 pnas.org CIS, offers a tangible means to advance conservation that meets the survey included 503 entries of CIS. Most respondents only entered information needs of both people and nature. Importantly, while the focus of on one CIS/group, although some informants entered as much as 10 CIS/group this work has been on CIS, the framework is transferable to species (average = 1.2). We eliminated incomplete records and records where the species that are valued for their material contributions (e.g., food and reg- could not be identified by the scientific name. We merged information from the ulation of freshwater) or even to other components of nature (e.g., literature and the survey to create our list of CIS (SI Appendix). Because our focus domesticated species and culturally important sites or is on wild biodiversity, we excluded 23 domesticated species (i.e., crops or pets) ecosystems). from the analysis. As part of the conservation community increasingly seeks to Plant taxonomic names were standardized using the Plants of the World include diverse worldviews, knowledge, and values in nature man- Online (http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org, accessed 1 January 2022), and animal names were standardized following the IUCN Red List of Threatened agement and restoration, the framework and metric proposed here Species (2020). Names of cultural groups were recorded at the most specific offer a concrete mechanism that combines local perspectives on level possible (e.g., Cree vs. First Nations), although in reports retrieved from which species are culturally important with scientific assessments the literature some authors provided only general names (e.g., Aboriginals and of the biological and cultural status of these species. Thus, the Indigenous communities). Cultural groups with internal divisions (i.e., the Cree framework and metric provide an actionable way to guide decisions people are formed by numerous subgroups, such as the Plains Cree, Woods Cree, and operationalize global actions oriented to enhance place-based and James Bay Cree) were aggregated in the denominator that best captures the practices that have supported the conservation of social–ecological identification used by the group based on language (e.g., Plains Cree or Oji-Cree). systems over the long term (e.g., Indigenous people practices). In that sense, our results for a subset of the global CIS identify how Assessing Species’ Biological, Cultural, and Biocultural Status. We assessed and where global and local conservation priorities intersect and the biological and the cultural status of all the wild species in our list. We equated highlight the predominant biocultural vulnerability of CIS species biological status with species’ conservation assessments from the IUCN Red List from loss of culture. We derive two specific recommendations from of species (2020), which includes categories of Least Concern, Near Threatened, these main results. First, there is a need for a larger focus to 1) Vulnerable, Endangered, and Critically Endangered. We generally defined a cul- assess a representative list of species with cultural significant rela- tural group as a community of practice who share a core set of beliefs, patterns tions informed by the concerned communities themselves using of behavior, and values. We identified four types of sociocultural groups: 1) culturally appropriated methods and 2) accelerate evaluations on Indigenous peoples, those who belonging to specific nations or ethnic groups, the biological status of CIS as there is a disproportionately high self-identify as “Indigenous” or “Aboriginal” and live in nation-states acknowledg- number of CIS with Data-Deficient biological status. Such focus ing Indigenous peoples’ rights; 2) ethnic groups, ethnically distinctive groups, would allow for the planning of actions simultaneously based on who do not self-identify as Indigenous or who live in nation-states that do not conservation priorities and cultural values aligned with local pri- acknowledge their specific rights as Indigenous peoplesIndigenous people’s rights; 3) local communities, such as caboclo or mestizo riverine dwellers, and orities. Second, as cultural endangerment drives the high levels of forest extractive communities who have long-term relations with the territory); biocultural endangerment of CIS, there is a need to increase the and 4) other sociocultural groups, including citizens of regions in nation-states support to maintaining thriving cultural diversity. In that sense, who are identified by their language and ways of thinking and behaving, includ- Downloaded from https://www.pnas.org by 83.42.104.116 on January 3, 2023 from IP address 83.42.104.116. there are growing calls for the conservation community to actively ing religion (e.g., Catalans in Spain or Epirus in Greece). To assess the cultural engage with and support Indigenous rights to land, resources, status of the group reporting the species, we used language vitality as a proxy diverse livelihoods, and lifeways, and particularly claims of as language is the primary means of cultural transmission (31, 32). Specifically, Indigenous peoples and local communities for autonomous terri- for each cultural group in our database, we collected information on language torial management (13, 50, 51). By recognizing the connections vitality from the Ethnologue, the most comprehensive and updated inventory of between people and other parts of nature and directly incorporat- the status of languages in the world (https://www.ethnologue.com/about). While ing them into decision-making, we hope our approach enables language is not a direct indicator of cultural vitality, it remains an approximate more effective action to reach the 2050 Convention of Biological indicator, and a good one especially for aspects related to cultural transmission Diversity goal of “living in harmony with nature.” of knowledge about nature (27, 32). The Ethnologue uses four categories to classify languages: Institutional, Stable, Endangered, and Extinct. In this work, Methods we used the first three categories, and when the categorization of the cultural group was too general to identify the language spoken by the group (e.g., “ethnic Defining and Identifying CIS. To connect cultural perspectives with environ- community”), we coded language vitality as “Data Deficient” except in cases for mental conservation and restoration discourses, ethnobiologists have used the which we could assume the status. For example, of the more than 250 known concept of “cultural keystone species” (e.g., refs. 28 and 42), proposing a set of Australian Indigenous languages, only about 145 are still spoken and of those criteria for identifying them (28). For the work presented here, we assembled 110 are critically endangered (46), so we assumed that the linguistic vitality of information gathered by two previous compilations of cultural keystone species any Australian Indigenous language was Endangered. and an online survey. However, since we could not verify whether all the species As some species were reported as culturally important for more than one in the list actually fit the criteria of cultural keystone species (as defined in ref. cultural group, we followed several steps to create a measure that captures a CIS 28), here we use the more lax term CIS. The two compilations used include the cultural status. First, if the species was reported as culturally important for one list available in ref. 21 and an unpublished list provided by Michael Coe elabo- group, or for groups with the same language vitality, we equated the species rated as part of his PhD dissertation and subsequent publications (52, 53). The cultural status to language vitality using the following equivalence: Institutional analysis of the species appearing in the two compilations showed a geographical language = Not Threatened, Stable language = Vulnerable, and Endangered bias for North America and a likely taxonomic bias for plant species. To enlarge language = Endangered. Second, if a species was reported as culturally important the list and potentially minimize the observed biases, we conducted an online for groups with different levels of language vitality, we considered the species survey (available in a dedicated web page between January and June 2021) and cultural status to be i) Not Threatened if the species was reported only by groups distributed it through social media and distribution lists of targeted networks with Institutional only or a combination of Institutional and Stable languages, ii) (e.g., ICCA Consortium, and the list of the Anthropology and Environment Society Vulnerable if the species was reported only by groups with Stable languages or by of the American Anthropological Association). The survey, available in English, any combination of groups with Institutional/Stable languages and Endangered/ Spanish, French, Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia, German, and Russian, asked for Extinct languages, and iii) Endangered if the species was reported only by groups information (i.e., local name(s), scientific name, and uses) about species consid- with Extinct and/or Endangered languages. If the species was reported by sev- ered culturally important for any sociocultural group and requested details on eral groups and one of the groups lacked information on language vitality, we the cultural identity of the group (i.e., group name, language, and territory). The classified its cultural status as Data Deficient. PNAS 2023 Vol. 120 No. 2 e2217303120 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217303120 5 of 6 To assess CIS biocultural status, we combined information on the species’ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This project received funding from the European biological and cultural status to create categories of biocultural status (Fig. 2). Research Council under an ERC Consolidator Grant (FP7-771056-LICCI) and Specifically, we created the categories of Data Deficient, Not Threatened (which logistical support from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. includes CIS biologically Least Concern or Near Threatened and culturally Not We thank M. Coe for graciously providing a preliminary compilation of CIS and Threatened), Vulnerable (which includes CIS biologically Vulnerable and all cate- T. Ibarra, G. Mattalia, and C. Schunko for comments to previous versions and gories of cultural status except Endangered), and Endangered (which includes CIS bibliographical leads. This research contributes to the “María de Maeztu Unit biologically Critically Endangered or Endangered and CIS culturally Endangered). of Excellence” (CEX2019-000940-M). We thank our colleagues who assisted us We provide descriptive statistics of the biological, cultural, and biocultural status of in translating the survey: Pungki Lupiyaningdyah (Bahasa Indonesia), Marilia the 385 species in our list. We compare the share of CIS (n = 385) that falls into four Palumbo Gaiarsa (Portuguese), and Michael Kessler (German). main categories (i.e., Data Deficient, Not Threatened, Vulnerable, and Endangered) according to their i) biological, ii) cultural, and iii) biocultural status, aggregated by continent (excluding four global species) (Fig. 3A) and sociocultural group category Author affiliations: aInstitució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona 08010, (excluding 13 species with insufficient data on cultural group) (Fig. 3B). To calculate Spain; bInstitut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 95% confidence intervals around species’ counts within each category, we resampled Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona 08193, Spain; cDepartament d’Antropologia Social i the dataset 1,000 times with replacement, counted the number of species in each Cultural, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona 08193, Spain; dDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, category, and identified the 2.5% and 97.5% quantiles as the CI bounds. To test CH-8057, Zurich, Switzerland; eBren School of Environmental Science and Management, for independence of values given in the biological and cultural status datasets, we University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106; fNational Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93101; gCentre d'Ecologie constructed a contingency table of species counts in each combination of biological Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, Univ. Montpellier, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, status and cultural status and then performed a chi-squared test using the chisq.test École Practique des Hautes Études, Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement, () function in R. All analyses were performed in R version 4.2.1. Montpellier 34090, France; hBasque Centre for Climate Change, Scientific Campus of the University of the Basque Country, 48940 Leioa, Spain; and iInstituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas and Facultad Data, Materials, and Software Availability. All study data are included in the de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas, y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba 5000, article and/or SI Appendix. Argentina 1. S. Díaz et al., Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative 29. IUCN, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (International Union for Conservation of Nature and change. Science 366, eaax3100 (2019). Natural Resources, Version 2021-3, 2021). 2. M. S. Fletcher, R. Hamilton, W. Dressler, L. Palmer, Indigenous knowledge and the shackles of 30. G. Simons, “Ethnologue” Ethnologue Languages of the World (2021). http://www.ethnologue.com. wilderness. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 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