Agroecology and Conservation as Complementary Pathways to Sustainable Local Transformation

The world’s food, forest, and agricultural systems are under unprecedented strain. Intertwined crises including food and land tenure insecurity, biodiversity loss, and climate change are converging in ways that demand integrated, locally grounded, and culturally relevant responses. Smallholder farmers and local and Indigenous communities across the Global South and North tend to bear the costs of this environmental degradation, as well as the restrictive conservation policies imposed to attempt to mitigate these crises. Yet, these same communities are also among the most innovative actors in developing, or continuing, viable alternatives. This Special Issue was conceived as a space to document, analyze, and critically engage with those alternatives, with agroecology serving as the common theoretical and practical thread connecting diverse regions, knowledge systems, and socio-ecological contexts.

Agroecology has a long history, particularly in Latin America and across the Global South, but has gained increasing institutional recognition in recent years through organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, and the Committee on World Food Security. Its emphasis on knowledge-intensive rather than input-intensive practices, farmer-led innovation, biodiversity, and socio-ecological resilience positions it as a compelling framework that enables the integration of food production with conservation. At the same time, agroecology is not a singular model but a plural set of practices, principles, and movements, shaped by local histories, cultures, and ecological conditions. The contributions to this Special Issue reflect that diversity while collectively demonstrating how agroecology can serve as a bridge between conservation and sustainable livelihoods.

Across these contributions, a set of cross-cutting themes emerge that speak to the potential and challenges of aligning agroecology and conservation as complementary pathways toward sustainable local transformation.

• Knowledge as a tool for conservation

One theme that is consistent across the collection is the central role of Indigenous, traditional, and locally embedded knowledge systems as the foundation of both agroecological practice and bio-cultural diversity conservation. In southern Brazil, Lacerda [1] develops a systematic management framework for shade-grown erva-mate (Ilex paraguariensis, yerba mate in Spanish) agroforestry, drawing on long-term forest monitoring and generations of farming knowledge. Rather than replacing local practices or imposing technified solutions, the framework translates them into a form that can support both conservation planning and smallholder decision-making. Complementing this work, Parron et al. [2] provide empirical evidence that traditional erva-mate agroforestry systems in the Araucaria Forest significantly enhance soil ecosystem services, reinforcing the ecological value of practices that have long been maintained by farming communities. Together, these studies demonstrate how agroecological systems are not only culturally embedded but also biophysically effective.

The importance of knowledge systems is further underscored in very different ecological and cultural contexts. In the pre-Saharan oases of Morocco, El Mahroussi et al. [3] document the conservation of agrobiodiversity through traditional management of fruit tree species, including locally significant varieties of pomegranate. Their findings highlight the critical role of intergenerational knowledge transmission in maintaining biodiversity, particularly in conditions of climatic and socio-economic vulnerability. In northern Canada, Spring et al. [4] extend agroecological thinking beyond its agrarian roots by proposing the concept of an agroecological fishery grounded in the practices of the Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation. Here, Indigenous knowledge systems provide not only ecological insight but also an alternative governance paradigm, emphasizing relationality, stewardship, and long-term sustainability. Across these diverse cases, the principles of agroecology emerge as potential frameworks that can recognize, legitimize, and mobilize knowledge systems that have historically been marginalized within conventional conservation and agronomic science.

• The centrality of community and participation

Closely linked to the emphasis on knowledge is the need to support community leadership and participatory processes to achieve meaningful and lasting conservation outcomes. All contributions demonstrate that conservation initiatives are most effective when they are rooted in local participation and co-ownership. In their review of community-based conservation initiatives in the Pedra Talhada region of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, Studer et al. [5] show how decades of sustained engagement, including environmental education, tree nursery development, and restoration efforts, have enabled the protection of a primary forest remnant that is a biodiversity hotspot. The scale and longevity of these efforts illustrate the importance of community commitment in sustaining conservation gains over time.

Participation is also central to the collaborative knowledge network described by Nimmo et al. [6]. Spanning Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, and Canada’s Northwest Territories, the FEAST (Fostering Effective Agroecology for Sustainable Transformation) network brings together farmers, Indigenous communities, researchers, and practitioners. The authors highlight the possibilities and challenges of such efforts, emphasizing that participatory approaches require time, trust-building, and a willingness to navigate differences in perspective and power. Similarly, Hanisch and Pinotti [7], in their study of traditional silvopastoral caíva systems in southern Brazil, foreground processes of co-creation between farmers and researchers. Their work demonstrates how the management of native trees within productive landscapes can be supported through collaborative strategies that integrate local knowledge and ecological innovation. Even in contexts that may be considered more technical, such as the implementation of agroforestry systems in degraded areas of Brazil’s semi-arid region [8], the success of restoration efforts is closely tied to local engagement and adaptation to site-specific conditions. These contributions reinforce that integrating agroecology with conservation requires more than the implementation of a set of practices, but the development of social processes grounded in participation, collaboration, and long-term relationships.

• Gender, justice, and conservation

A third theme that runs through the collection is the importance of recognizing gendered dimensions of agroecological practice and the often-invisible gendered labor that underpins biodiversity conservation. Kempf et al. [9] provide a detailed account of agroforestry knowledge and practices among peasant and quilombola women in Brazil, showing how everyday activities such as seed exchange, mutual aid, and diversified cultivation function as ecological stewardship and forms of resistance to dominant monoculture farming systems. Their work challenges conventional understandings of conservation by foregrounding care, relationality, and social reproduction as central components of sustainable land management. This perspective is echoed in the Moroccan case study by El Mahroussi et al. [3], where women play a key role in maintaining agrobiodiversity and sustaining local food systems under challenging environmental conditions. By bringing these dynamics to the fore, this Special Issue contributes to a growing body of scholarship that recognizes the importance of gender, equity, and social justice in discussions of food systems, agroecology, and conservation.

• South–North and South–South knowledge exchange

A fourth theme concerns the value of horizontal knowledge exchange across diverse geographical and socio-ecological contexts. The contributions span Latin America, North Africa, and northern Canada, illustrating not only the diversity of agroecological systems, but also the common challenges faced by communities working to sustain them. The FEAST network [6] explicitly facilitates such exchanges, enabling dialog and collaboration across regions that are often treated as distinct within academic and policy frameworks. The case of the Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation fishery further demonstrates that communities in the Global North, particularly Indigenous communities, face governance challenges and pressures on knowledge systems that are structurally similar to those experienced by smallholder farmers in the Global South. At the same time, studies of agroforestry and conservation in Brazil [1,2,5,7] offer insights that resonate beyond their immediate contexts. Together, these contributions point to the importance of disrupting the unidirectional models of knowledge transfer that are often the norm in conservation and agronomic outreach and extension programs, and argue for more equitable, dialogical forms of exchange grounded in mutual learning and respect.

While many of the contributions emphasize local, community-based initiatives, Castro-Bello et al. [10] focus on Mexico’s Sembrando Vida program, a large-scale government initiative aimed at promoting agroforestry and rural development. Their analysis highlights the potential of such programs to support smallholder livelihoods and ecological restoration, but also considers the challenges associated with implementation, including equity and alignment with local realities. This contribution underscores that agroecology does not operate in isolation from broader policy frameworks. Rather, its outcomes are shaped by interactions between local practices and national or regional governance structures. Therefore, integrating agroecology and conservation requires us to pay attention to community-level dynamics while also critically engaging with institutional and policy contexts.

• Agroecology as a response to polycrisis

Finally, the contributions collectively position agroecology as a practical and adaptive response to a range of crises, including climate change, loss of bio-cultural diversity, and socio-economic instability. Across diverse ecosystems, from the sub-tropical and semi-arid forests of Brazil to Moroccan oases and northern freshwater fisheries, the cases presented in this Special Issue demonstrate that agroecological practices can enhance biodiversity, restore degraded environments, and strengthen livelihood resilience. Importantly, these outcomes are not achieved through standardized, top-down solutions, but through context-specific practices that integrate ecological principles with local knowledge and social organization. In this context, agroecology offers a flexible framework that can be used to navigate uncertainty and build resilience in the face of complex and interrelated challenges.

The ten papers featured in this Special Issue suggest that the integration of agroecology and conservation is not simply a technical or managerial task, but a fundamentally social, political, and epistemological project. It requires rethinking whose knowledge counts, how decisions are made, and how benefits and responsibilities are distributed. It also requires bridging the dichotomies that have long shaped environmental governance, between production and conservation, science and traditional knowledge, and local practices and global policy frameworks.

We are grateful to all contributing authors for their thoughtful and rigorous work, and to the reviewers whose suggestions strengthened each paper in this collection. We also thank the editorial team at Conservation for their support throughout the process. We hope that this collection will inspire further efforts to build more just, resilient, and sustainable socio-ecological systems.