Dear Colleagues,

Since the 1970s, global biodiversity on Earth has decreased by around 70%, mainly because of human activities directly impacting nature, with obvious implications on how nature itself is now perceived. Habitat loss, deforestation, extinctions and extirpations, and natural and cultural homogenization reflect centuries of unregulated and uninformed over-exploitation of non-human species by some—but not all—human societies. Thus, current concerns about unsustainable use of land, oceans, and water resources, about invasive species, pollution, environmental degradation, and climate change should be discussed in a more global context that requires rethinking the human–nature relationship.

Recognizing the importance of such a debate and the role the humanities can play in it, this Special Issue on “Local and Global Perceptions and Uses of Biodiversity” aims to promote a multidisciplinary exchange and discussion about this relationship. Topics such as the Anthropocene (as a geological epoch and as a conceptual approach); changes in climate, ecosystems, and biodiversity; local, traditional, and indigenous worldviews and uses; and the past of natural environments are welcome to be debated here.

Focusing on biodiversity, we expect to address ecocultural systems, or integrated 'natureculture' views, while considering that all species, human or non-human, should be discussed as agents in the co-construction of historical and current narratives. On the other hand, we also hope that by proposing this type of approach, it will be possible to distance ourselves from more traditional visions, centered on westernizing perspectives of analysis, encompassing other ways of seeing and perceiving human–non-human relationships. Therefore, we welcome works from scholars, researchers, artists, as well as from people from outside academia, in areas that may focus on the plurality of ecosystems and species, and the richness of the natural world, while addressing cultural and social diversities in their multiple entanglements with nature.

This is a call for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work that seeks to reach out to the wider scientific communities and society at large, and to involve various disciplinary approaches across the humanities and social and natural sciences.

Dr. Cristina Brito
Dr. Ana Cristina Roque
Dr. Cecilia Veracini
Dr. Nina Vieira
Dr. Joana Gaspar de Freitas
Guest Editors

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• biodiversity and conservation
• blue and green humanities
• environmental art
• environmental education and outreach
• ethics and policy
• “natureculture” systems and anthromes
• past and present ecosystems
• tales of/for the anthropocene