Long-Term Nature Reserve Human Interaction

在世界各地，国家公园经常被描述为人类未曾接触过的“原始自然”。因此，保护计划试图通过土地管理计划和重新安置那些将国家公园称为家的人，将人类对景观的影响降至最低。其中一个这样的国家公园位于地球上生物多样性最丰富的地区之一。由于相信人类可能会对这种生物多样性产生负面影响，长期居民的生计已被显著改变。他们不被鼓励从事农业、放牧、拾柴生火或建造房屋，也不再被允许狩猎。作为国家保护计划的一部分，他们曾经居住的梯田正在积极重新造林。此外，他们传统聚居地的位置正从高海拔梯田转移到谷底：这一过程可能会使公园居民面临山体滑坡等地貌灾害。然而，考古证据表明，人们对环境造成负面影响的担忧可能是错误的，并表明人们占领这片土地已有数千年之久。一个跨学科的团队在一个关键地点进行挖掘，并利用考古植物学、动物考古学、地貌学和同位素证据来回答人类是如何管理森林、种植农作物、管理动物和管理深层侵蚀过程的。随着山谷中原有的社区成员被重新安置，与景观、植物和动物如何管理有关的传统知识正在被侵蚀。然而，这些社区资源对当地的认同感至关重要。在实地工作中，与该地区土生土长的项目人员合作，共同产生成果，并以当地语言记录关键动植物和技术的术语和使用；为语言保护和主权做出贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Around the world, National Parks have often been characterized as "pristine nature" that has been untouched by humans. As a result, conservation programs have sought to minimize human impact on the landscape through land management programs and resettlement of people who called national parks home. One such national park is located in one of the most biodiverse regions on earth. In the belief that humans may be negatively impacting this biodiversity, the livelihoods of long-term residents have been significantly altered. They have been discouraged from carrying out farming, herding animals, gathering wood for fire or building houses and are also no longer allowed to hunt. The terraces on which they once lived are being actively reforested as part of a national conservation program. In addition, the location of their traditional settlements are being shifted from high altitude terraces to valley bottoms: a process that may expose the parks inhabitants to geomorphological hazards such as landslides. However, archaeological evidence suggests that the concern that people are negatively impacting the environment may be misplaced and shows that people have occupied this landscape for thousands of years. An interdisciplinary team conducts excavations and employs archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, geomorphological and isotopic evidence at a key site to answer how humans managed forests, planted crops, managed their animals and managed erosional processes over deep time. As the original community members of the valley are being resettled, traditional knowledge associated with how landscapes, plants and animals were managed is being eroded. These community resources are, however, critically important to local identity. Project personnel who are native to the region are being partnered with during fieldwork to co-produce results and to record terms and uses of key plants/animals and technologies in local languages; contributing to language preservation and sovereignty.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.