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Escalera-Reyes, J., and A. Coca-Pérez. 2025. “Men who love the oak trees”: services and care in the cork oak forests of Southern Andalusia. Ecology and Society 30(1):32.ABSTRACT
Our article is aligned with the growing interest from the sustainability science in the need to broaden our view of the connections between humans and nature for better understanding them that helps to improve environmental governance systems. Our work aims to provide evidence that helps to overcome the dualistic and utilitarian prejudices that the ecosystem services framework presents on this issue, hindering its potential, both theoretically and practically. To this end, it is essential to incorporate the affective dimension that often permeates this relationship and turns it into care. Moreover, we do this in a social-ecological context such as that of the European Mediterranean, which is different from that of the non-western indigenous populations, of which we have examples that demonstrate the proactive role that people have played and continue to play in the construction and conservation of valuable ecosystems. We take as a case study the activities carried out by the people who work in the cork oak forests of southern Andalusia for their maintenance and for the extraction of cork. Drawing on the knowledge gained from a long period of mainly ethnographic re-search, we advocate incorporating the care practices, knowledge, and feelings that permeate the relationships that these workers have with the trees and the forest into the governance spaces of these landscapes as fundamental elements to achieve the sustainable management of cork oak forests. This is particularly relevant in a context marked by the decline in the socio-environmental conditions of these agroforestry social-ecological systems due to ageing of the trees and the diseases affecting them as a result of changes in use and management, aggravated by climate change.
INTRODUCTION
The notion of the services that ecosystems (ES) provide to humans presents a new framework for understanding human-environment relationships and managing them in a more sustainable way (Costanza et al. 1997, Folke 2006a, De Groot et al. 2006, 2010, Egoh et al. 2007, Fisher et al. 2008, 2009). However, this proposal, aside from the risk of economistic reductionism (Ariely 2008, Stiglitz et al. 2010, Chan et al. 2012a, 2012b, Felipe-Lucía et al. 2014, 2015), presents from the outset a clear biophysical prejudice, focusing on the factors and elements of ecosystems that provide services to human beings, but paying little or no attention to the opposite direction, that is, to the services that humans provide, or could potentially provide, for the maintenance of core ecosystem processes.
The concept of nature’s contributions to people (NCP), incorporated in the IPBES conceptual framework, is an important step forward in this regard, recognizing the central and pervasive role that culture and local knowledge play in defining all links between people and nature (UNEP 2014, Díaz et al. 2015, Pascual et al. 2017, Díaz et al. 2018). This research is an initial attempt to overcome the ontological separation between human beings and nature, and to view such contributions as co-produced results because of the interaction between nature and humans.
The IPBES approach involves the inclusion of relational values (RV) as well as intrinsic and instrumental values in the understanding of our relationships with nature (Kellert 2002, 2006, Klain et al. 2017, Mattijssen et al. 2020, West et al. 2020, Riechers et al. 2021a, 2021b). RV are defined as, “... a normative human sense of connection or kinship with other living things, reflective and expressive of care, identity, belonging and responsibility, and congruent with notions of what it means to live a ‘good life’ ...” (West et al. 2018:30).
This pluralistic approach to knowledge and values makes it possible to incorporate a wide range of Western and non-Western ontologies, epistemologies, and axiologies of human-nature relations, as well as to consider aspects such as cultural identity, social cohesion, the symbolic dimension and moral responsibility toward nature, which are absent from the perspective based solely on intrinsic and instrumental values (Pascual et al. 2017, Chan et al. 2018, Himes and Muraca 2018, Knippenberg et al. 2018, Ross et al. 2018, Saxena et al. 2018).
At the same time, and as a consequence of the above, the IPBES approach is also a strong affirmation of the need to incorporate RV and local people’s knowledge in environmental governance and in public policies for the stewardship and conservation of nature (Pascual et al. 2017). This makes it possible to overcome, on the one hand, the paradigm of utilitarian environmentalism in which these public policies are still mostly installed, reproducing the same ontological and epistemological biases that place human beings outside and above nature (Muradian and Gómez-Baggenthun 2021), and on the other hand, the reductionism of the instrumental vision, commodification, and the logics of compensation that underpin the system of payment for services (Sommerville et al. 2009, Kosoy and Corbera 2010, Muradian et al. 2013, Pascual et al. 2014, Singh 2015).
But even so, a unidirectional conception of the relationship between nature and human beings continues to prevail, in which nature is the sole provider of these contributions and human beings, if not the sole, then the main beneficiary of them. It focuses on conceptualizing nature’s “benefits” as “contributions” and loses the focus of the direct relationship between nature and society mediated by culture and practice (Jax et al. 2018, Kenter 2018). Thus, such an approach ignores the benefits that humans provide or could potentially provide to the other bio-physical components of those ecosystems of which they are integrally part.
In line with the contribution of Comberti et al. (2015), we aim to move in this other direction, highlighting the contribution that actions carried out by humans in nature can have for the maintenance of biophysical functions, biodiversity, and services in and for the social-ecological systems (SES) of which they are part. To this end, we begin with the concept of SES to address the analysis of human relationships with nature, understanding that, like any other component of ecosystems, people interact with the other biophysical components, not only taking advantage of the benefits they provide, but also, at least potentially, providing services that contribute to the maintenance of basic ecological functions, fostering diversity, and thus helping to reinforce their resilience and health (Holling 1973, 2001, Davidson-Hunt and Berkes 2003, Turner et al. 2003, Olsson et al. 2004a, 2004b, Folke 2006b, Walker and Salt 2006, Escalera-Reyes and Ruiz-Ballesteros 2011).
In the current stage of development of the ecosystem services framework, this dialectical and multidirectional nature of the relationship between the different components of ecosystem services has not been sufficiently considered, with notable exceptions (Spangenberg et al. 2014, Cundill et al. 2017). This implies not only maintaining the biophysical bias referred to above, but also falling into an anti-systemic approach, only considering the polarized and one-way relationship between nature and human beings, presuming the latter to be only the beneficiaries of the services provided by the former.
To overcome this shortcoming, we need more in-depth knowledge of the cultural elements through which the utilization/service provision relationships that occur between human beings and the other components of SES develop. We must, therefore, pay attention to essentially human attributes such as creativity, feelings, and affections as fundamental aspects that guide action and support the services that human beings provide in the social-ecological contexts of which they are part (Mayer and Frantz 2004, Nisbet et al. 2009, Perkins 2010, Escalera-Reyes 2013).
This leads us to consider the value of the notion of care for the correct understanding of this cognitive, sentimental, and affective dimension, and its applicability for a more sustainable management of SES. Here, care is understood as unpaid work performed to meet the needs of other beings, be they individuals (an organism) or ecosystems as a whole (a forest), implemented through the application of culturally specific norms, knowledge, and practices, at the same time based on and expressed through values that are neither chrematistic nor mercantile, but on feelings, affection, or love toward others, be they human or non-human. (Federici 2012, Escalera-Reyes 2013). Thus, as Jax et al. point out, it “... shifts the focus of practical measures from the quality of the ecosystem to the quality of the interaction” (2018:25).
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
From ecosystem services to services in/to social-ecological systems
Despite the shortcomings and biases pointed out previously, we understand that the ES framework maintains a notable interest as a tool for thinking in a substantive way about the relationship between humans and the other living beings with which they share their existence (Polanyi 2003, Huerta 2016). However, to do so, it is necessary to theoretically expand its limits and correct the aforementioned biases and prejudices that hinder the analytical potential and application of the concept (Felipe-Lucia et al. 2014, 2015, Moreno et al. 2014).
To this end, according to Comberti et al. (2015), we assume the following premises: (a) all components of SES are, at least potentially, both beneficiaries and providers of services to the rest; (b) human beings are not only always and necessarily selfish destroyers of nature and rapacious consumers of its services, but also, at least potentially (if the logic of the economic-political system allows it) agents that maintain the basic functions that make life and biodiversity possible in the SES to which they belong, providing services.
In this sense, we consider it is essential to take into account and value the importance of “human capital,” which is not only knowledge and know-how (Altieri 1999, Berkes 1999, Berkes et al. 2000, Ingold 2000, Toledo 2005, Toledo and Barrera-Bassol 2008), but also the feelings of the people who live in the spaces they inhabit toward the constituent elements of those spaces. Feelings that, beyond the material and utilitarian relationship, are interwoven into people’s interactions with these spaces in general and with some of their components in particular, on more occasions than one might suppose. These feelings are based on affective and cognitive factors, such as attachment and rootedness (Low and Altman 1992, Hidalgo and Hernández 2001), which induce in individuals the experience and knowledge of the milieu (Chakroun and Droz 2020) where they live and of which they are a part.
In this affective sphere, place attachment and sense of belonging are of particular importance (Cohen 1982, Masterson et al. 2017, West et al. 2018, Riechers et al. 2021c). These in turn are nourished and strengthened by the collective identification of the people who form part of the SES, making them feel, beyond their individual circumstances and interests, that they possess a shared identity (Cohen 1985) and that they belong to the same group and are connected to the space in which they live (Escalera-Reyes 2020).
In this respect, the notion of dwelling proposed by Tim Ingold (2000, 2004, 2005, 2011) is particularly useful as a perspective for overcoming the separation between people and the environment of which they are a part, pointing to the inextricable connection between their practices (taskscape), the mind, and the meanings embodied in their relationship with biophysical co-components in the configuration and co-evolution of landscapes (Davidson-Hunt and Berkes 2003, Cooke et al. 2016).
Expanding the notion of care: from personal to environmental
The idea of care is not new in the framework of environmental stewardship. Various scholars have argued the need to incorporate care as a core value of “land ethic” (Leopold 1949), “deep ecology” (Sessions 1995), “environmental virtue ethics” (Cafaro and Sandler 2005) or “caring for nature” (Rolston 2006), and as a powerful driver of people’s pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors (Nassauer 1988, 2011).
Although some authors, beyond environmental stewardship (Chapin et al. 2010), have conceived stewardship as the broader set of human relationships with nature and as a morally grounded attitude and practice of care (Rozzi 2015), it is only more recently that some groups of scholars have begun to incorporate the idea of care strongly as a fundamental dimension of the connection between people and nature and the RV that guide them (Jax et al. 2013, 2018, Chan et al. 2016, Enqvist et al. 2018, Himes and Muraca 2018, West et al. 2018). In this sense, care can be understood as: “... the desire to ‘look after’ something informed by ... values, meanings, emotions, preferences, and senses of attachment, connection or responsibility” (West et al. 2018: 31).
In the face of the limitations of the ES framework, it is argued that the meaning of well-being cannot be reduced to profit-making but, on the contrary, much of that profit derives from positive human action on nature itself. From a relational perspective it is understood that nature is neither a means to human ends nor an end in itself, but that there is an intimate web of wider and richer relationships of humans with nature that transcend the distinction between instrumental and intrinsic values (Jax et al. 2018). RV express relationships that are constitutive of a good life, a life worthy of a human being, in which one can not only survive, but flourish in connection with all beings sharing their lives on earth, what in southern epistemologies have been conceptualized as buen vivir (good living; Gudynas 2019).
Through the lens of RV, care with and for nature cannot be defined in exclusively instrumental terms. Care is not only an attitude of concern for the well-being of the other, but also and above all a practice that seeks to meet the needs of the other (with or without self-benefit), whether human or non-human. Care is fundamental to human well-being and agency, and fosters trust, social cohesion, and responsibility (Jax et al. 2018).
This means overcoming the ontological prejudice that is still latent in the most widespread notion of stewardship, which in one way or another, implies maintaining the separation between human beings, as stewards, and nature, of which they are guardians (Bennett et al. 2018, Mathevet et al. 2018), a situation in which the predatory role of human beings is replaced by a protective one, but without implying the loss of human superiority over nature. Moving beyond this ontological prejudice opens up the possibility of recognizing the condition of care as an emerging property that often permeates the interconnections between humans and the biophysical components of SES as an “ongoing achievement” that is continuously changing in the transections of social-ecological relations (West et al. 2018:32). From the dwelling perspective, care is embodied in the practices and activities through which relations are made and transformed, as Tim Ingold proposes that the primary condition of human existence is not “knowing” the world from the outside, but rather “being-in-the-world” through embodied engagement and experience. By this he means the processes of “inter-corporal” material exchange between diverse lifeforms that share dwelling, producing landscapes (Ingold 2004). Care flows “naturally” from the emotionally charged connections that mutually connect all beings to one another, transcending human cognition.
... ‘care for nature’ is multi-faceted: it is focused on what humans do for nature (and specific natural entities) and at the same time it acknowledges that caring is rooted in the concept of a relational self and is thus a constitutive part of what it means to live a good, really human life. (Jax et al. 2018:26-27)
Although, as Jax et al. (2018) point out, consideration of care often prioritizes its practical dimension (caring for), the great importance of its affective dimension (caring about), inseparable from the former (Buch 2015), should not be overlooked in the motivation to care, shifting the focus of practical measures for environmental management from the quality of the ecosystem to the quality of interaction.
We believe that the idea of care has a strong heuristic capacity to look at the world in which we live in a different way, not only in the field of economics and the structures of inequality prevailing in human societies, but also to understand the relationships established between human beings and the milieu in which we live and of which we are part, and with the planet in general (Jackson and Palmer 2015). So, the idea of care can allow us to overcome the prejudices that draw a radical separation between the world of production and pragmatic utility and the world of relationships based on feelings, and thus to change the catastrophic visions that only see the destructive role human beings play with respect to all other living beings and the health of ecosystems, within what has been labelled the Anthropocene (Steffen et al. 2007, Simon and Maslin 2015). This change of outlook allows us to understand that, although in the present world this is the predominant situation, this should not cause us to lose sight of other types of relationships that many human beings still maintain today with the milieu in which they live and with the biophysical elements that make up that milieu alongside humans. We would argue that this reconsideration is fundamental in order to put effective actions in motion that, beyond discourse and analysis, might allow us to begin reversing the grim future toward which we are indeed headed as a species and the whole planet, if the current state of affairs is allowed to continue.
In order to incorporate the idea of care and allow it to be used as a tool for understanding the relationships that human beings establish with each other and with other living beings, capable of moving from the morality of utility to the morality of care (Muradian and Gómez-Baggethun 2021), at the same time as the paternalistic “caring for” that maintains the superiority of humans over others, we must overcome the limitation of its application to activities related to the care of personal needs within households (Carrasquer et al. 1998), its consideration from an economic perspective (Gálvez Muñoz 2016, Durán 2018), and its association with a specific gender. The feminist concept of the ethics of care allows for the moral dimension to be considered in the connections between human beings and nature, neglected by justice or utilitarian value approaches, emphasizing instead the importance of emotions and empathy in the formation of moral judgements and principles that guide action, in the context of real-life relationships (Tronto 1993, Groenhout 2004, Held 2006, Popke 2006, Jax et al. 2018).
Understanding care from the perspective of RV focuses on the principle of reciprocity that underpins the relationship between humans and non-humans as participants in the same community, endowing human agency with a fundamental mediating role in maintaining the environmental conditions that enable the maintenance of life for both humans and non-humans and the SES as a whole. Seen from a relational perspective, care ceases to be an exclusively human action and acquires a reciprocal character that connects people with other non-human beings in a bond of mutual service that emerges from the social-ecological relations they maintain in the environment of which they are a part (West et al. 2018).
Care is a situated and collective phenomenon that emerges from relationships be-tween people, and between people and environment, in specific places, which is informed by particular values and worldviews, and is articulated with diverse intentions and purposes. This makes specific and in-depth knowledge of expressions of care essential in order to recognize their values and incorporate them into environmental management.
The nascent and radical nature of this approach means that there are still few studies demonstrating the creative and proactive role played by humans on the fundamental biophysical processes, diversity, and resilience of particular SES. However, there are some examples that demonstrate this, such as herring cultivation by indigenous communities in Cascadia (Canada), and Brazil nut sowing by peoples in Amazonia (Comberti et al. 2015); the biodiversity enhancing effects of centuries of human action on groundwater in the Arizona desert for artificial upwelling (Grimm and Redman 2004); the management of meltwater since the medieval Andalusi period on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada (Granada, Andalusia), through the so- called acequias de careo (Fernández Escalante et al. 2006); or the recovery process of an overexploited aquifer led by the struggle of the social movement developed in Pegalajar (Jáen, Andalusia; Escalera-Reyes 2013).
Taking as an example the forestry management required for the extraction of cork, such a masculinized task (still today only men do this work) and ostensibly so aggressive toward the trees, we reflect on the need to take account of local practices and knowledge to expand the analytical utility of the ES notion, and to interconnect them with the concept of care, evidencing how, in certain cases, these activities involve specialized local workers “caring for” and “about” trees and forests. Analyzing the data obtained through a long process of ethnographic research, we argue the need to incorporate the practices, knowledge, and feelings of this group of forest workers into spaces of governance as fundamental elements to achieve the sustainable management of cork oak forests in particular and of Mediterranean SES in general (Fig. 1). To do this, we take as a case study one of the most valuable spaces in terms of conserving ecosystems and Mediterranean biodiversity: the cork oak forests of southern Andalusia (Spain), declared a Natural Park and integrated into the Intercontinental Biosphere Reserve of Andalusia (Spain)-Morocco (Molina Vázquez and Villa Díaz 2008). The territory occupied by Los Alcornocales Natural Park (Fig. 2) is mainly made up of large private estates of between 500 and 2000 ha, although publicly managed estates (municipal, state, and regionally owned) occupy a third of the more than 300,000 ha of the area currently covered by the park (Consejería de Medioambiente 2001).
The ethnographic case study presented here highlights the usefulness of the idea of care to help us understand a very important dimension in the relationship between a group of men and a specific species of tree, the cork oak (Quercus suber), and a very special ecosystem, cork oak forests, built to a large extent as a result of the action of this collective over several generations, and in whose description the importance of feelings and affections in the way the men treat these trees cannot be ignored. This affective bond transcends the economic and productive character that occupies the foreground of this relationship and turns it into a relationship of care and service, not only with and for the cork oak trees, but with the forest and the human beings themselves who participate in it.
METHOD
This paper is based on the results of a study carried out over the last two decades in Mediterranean cork oak forests and more specifically in Los Alcornocales Natural Park. The methodology used is mainly qualitative. Most of the data was obtained through ethnographic work based on participatory observation of practices and the discourse of informants (Guber 2001). The longitudinal nature of this research and fieldwork carried out at different times and years has provided us with a diachronic overview of the lives and activities of the social agents involved. Conversations, interviews, participatory observation, in other words coexistence with the people, has allowed us to gain more in-depth knowledge of intangible aspects such as perceptions, feelings, and meanings that are difficult to apprehend otherwise.
The last phase of the research, mainly devoted to analyzing the relationships between workers, trees, animals, and all the elements that make up the cork oak forest SES, from the perspective of services and care, was carried out between 2018 and 2021. During this time and based on the information obtained throughout the aforementioned extended periods of coexistence with the agents involved, the researchers participated in 38 cork collections (cork stripping).
During this stage of the fieldwork, participant observation and interviews (individual or group) were carried out with the specific aim of identifying and characterizing human-environmental relations. For these interviews, what Beltrán and Contreras (2021) have called a “technological survey” was used to guide the collection of ethnographic information on the specialized uses of cork oak. Thirty-two open interviews were conducted with male cork specialists and 10 women involved in different cork-related activities (weighing, muleteering, and clearing). The topics covered in the interviews were divided into three main areas: (1) analysis of the structure and composition of the domestic groups; (2) socio-occupational history and description of specialized practices; (3) perceptual and evaluative aspects of human-environmental relations.
The testimonies mentioned in the text are taken from these interviews and are included in Appendix 1 for ease of reading. On the contrary, they condense the way of being and understanding the environment and the relationships between the beings that make up said environment: humans, plants, and animals.
CORK OAK FORESTS OF SOUTHERN ANDALUSIA: A CASE OF CARE, SENSITIVITY, AND RESPECT
Mediterranean cork oak forests (Fig.1) belong to SES that can only be understood through the relationship between the cultural and the natural. They are the consequence of the reciprocal and inseparable bonds established between the different peoples who have existed in the Mediterranean and the eco-physical environment in which they live (Campos 1991, Valladares et al. 2014). Specifically, until well into the 20th century, the SES located in southern Andalusia had been shaped by a combination of agricultural, forestry, and livestock practices, giving rise to a strongly anthropized type of landscape known as dehesa, very typical of the Iberian Peninsula, composed of a mixture of pastures and forests (Acosta 2002, Pereira and Pires da Fonseca 2003, Coelho and Fonseca 2013, Plieninger et al. 2021, Lopes-Fernandes et al. 2024) in which the aforementioned uses complemented each other (Fig. 3).
In the 19th century, driven by demand for closures for bottled wine production in France and other European countries, the bark of most cork oak trees growing in the Iberian Peninsula began to be systematically stripped to obtain cork, which had previously only been used as an auxiliary material for domestic or agricultural purposes by local populations (containers, protection, hives, etc.). Since then, these southern Andalusian trees have sustained a large part of the cork industry, incorporating these territories into the world economy as producers of what is known as “brown gold” and at the service of the oligopolistic logic of the cork industry (Guerra 2015:59).
The quality of forestry practices required for cork extraction is of concern to owners, forest authorities, industry and traders, as well as local populations, chiefly because of the effects they have on the life of the tree and the quality of cork. The cuts or tears made in it cause not only the future non-regeneration of suberized cells, and thus the limitation of cork production in subsequent harvests, but also the possibility of infection of the tree by pathogens (fungi, coleoptera, etc.), which can severely harm the life of each tree and even cause its death.
By the 1950s, agricultural and livestock uses had virtually disappeared, and many forestry practices were abandoned, changing the composition of the dehesa lands (Bignal et al. 1996, Ojeda and Silva 1997, Schröder 2005). The practice of charcoal-making ceased, cork trees were no longer pruned, and logging came to an end. In the 1960s, African swine fever decimated the pig herd forever. Agriculture was abandoned, and livestock was replaced by animals used in large game hunting (mainly deer, but also fallow deer, mouflon, etc.). As a result, other practices and customs have disappeared or have been greatly reduced to the point of being marginalized today, and the areas of monte (forest) in southern Andalusia are largely made up of scrubland with little pasture. The production of cork is one of the few profitable uses from a commercial point of view. But, nevertheless, beyond certain minor transformations, it remains a territory in which specialist techniques are deployed, characterized by their quality and meticulous precision in the task of cork stripping, compared to other Mediterranean regions (Fig. 3).
What we prefer to call “local knowledge,” as a broader and more dynamic concept than “traditional ecological knowledge” (TEK; Altieri 1999, Berkes 1999, Berkes et al. 2000, Ingold 2000, Folke 2004, Toledo and Barrera-Bassol 2008) encompasses ideas, activities, and beliefs of a fundamentally practical nature, located spatially and temporarily and passed down from one generation to the next. This knowledge is acquired as a result of experience and interactive attention between members of certain local groups and the milieu itself (Berkes et al. 2000, Ingold 2000, Reyes-García 2008). This knowledge and these practices are constantly being combined and perfected in creative ways (Iturra 1993, Sillitoe 1998, Sennett 2009). Knowledge that in the case of cork trees is meticulously perfected and becomes an artisanal activity, in the sense that Sennett (2009) uses the term, requires transmission through a complex and personalized instruction process, sparking imaginative reflection within the artisan to achieve specialized skills (Mauss 1979, Sennett 2009).
This knowledge ultimately explains the existence of these biodiverse but deeply humanized SES whose people identify with the territories in which they develop their existence and in which they activate practices that, particularly when it comes to cork stripping, require care, sensitivity, and affection. Correspondingly, the collectives in charge of managing these SES maintain cultural codes based on cooperation and care among their members and toward the eco-physical environment that are essential for such management to be carried out properly and fulfil its function of maintaining the conditions and attributes that make such SES so special. This affective framework of cooperation and reciprocal care is the basis for the way in which productive work is organized and the knowledge for the careful treatment of the cork oak grove is transmitted, as well as for the production of narratives that extol the links between the elements, human, animal, and plant, that make up the SES unit.
In the case examined here, we find a collective of Andalusian day laborers with a high degree of specialization that is linked to removing the bark from trees, employing practices that will ensure the survival of trees on which the livelihood and existence of these men and their families depend. It is here that this mutual relationship of affect resides: a systemic relationship that, in order for it to have a resilient effect, must be based on loving care.
In southern Andalusia, to carry out their work, cork specialists are organized into cuadrillas (crews or teams) and are subdivided into smaller production units: colleras (couples). The task of cork stripping is divided between those who specialize and are more skilled in the upper parts of the trees and those who specialize in the base of the tree (Fig. 4).
At the tops of the trees are the maestros, cork workers who master the greatest number of techniques, because this area of the tree tends to present greater difficulties. This internal distinction between each of the units of work and the precise coordination required between the members of each unit means that partnerships in these colleras tend to remain the same over time. Such accuracy and acquisition of skills is in turn guaranteed by very careful learning processes, the customization of very precise tools and the construction of a cooperative context.
To become a good cork worker, a maestro, takes a great deal of time and requires extensive learning. The first notions about the use of tools are usually acquired at a very young age, observing and practicing in the intervals between the tasks assigned to other non-specialist occupational categories. In fact, those responsible for piling up the cork sheets (corchas) once they have been stripped from the tree (arrecogeores) tend to borrow an axe from the specialists during their breaks, testing out their first attempts at cutting. If the conditions and their skill level are right, it is possible to occupy the position of apprentice (novicio) in future operations. This is when they will learn from a maestro and receive the training they need to become a corchero (cork worker) in the future. The duration of this learning period depends on many circumstances, but it usually lasts between two and three seasons, where the notions of care, judgement, and skill in practice are developed. The learning process, despite the hierarchy that marks the experience and knowledge of the maestro, takes place in a climate of camaraderie, respect, and reciprocal care between teacher and apprentice, which, on the other hand, gives continuity to the family or friendship relations existing between them outside of work.
It is a difficult practice, which requires acceptable execution rates to achieve adequate instruction. The complexity of this task implies training the senses such as hearing or sight, gaining absolute control of a very sharp and dangerous tool, and above all, the combination of these and other variables to achieve the immense precision required in cork stripping (Fig. 5).
But the process does not end with the removal of the bark from the trees. Once this task has been completed, the pieces of cork have to be taken from the forest to the places where they are weighed and loaded onto trucks to be transported to the places where they are processed. This task is particularly difficult because of the rugged terrain of the cork oak forests in this region of southern Andalusia, which makes it impossible to use mechanical means, as in most other cork-producing areas of the Iberian Peninsula. This necessitates the intervention of other specialists, the muleteers, whose highly specialized knowledge and close relationship with the mules have made them an indispensable component of the forestry works in this region.
Finally, the context in which the necessary skills required in cork extraction are conveyed is fundamental. This context makes this relationship of care between the expert and the tree feasible. As explained in relation to the learning context, the application of sophisticated work techniques requires environmental conditions in which feelings of camaraderie, reciprocal care, trust, and respect for colleagues, the tree, and the mules can be expressed.
Working conditions must allow for the development of these craft techniques. But this is not helped when the intensification of work takes place through a mode of extraction known as a destajo (piecework, paid by the job), which has become widespread in recent decades. This mode is based on the amount of cork extracted, to the detriment of the a jornal (day’s wage) mode, according to the time taken to carry out the work required, which seeks to reconcile the worker’s effort with the quality of the result of their work, rather than the amount of cork obtained.
This intensification results in the use of certain techniques and the execution of tasks in an improper manner. On the one hand, a faster pace of work means that novicios no longer find moments and spaces to learn, sacrificed in the name of greater productivity or effective working time; but it also means that tasks cannot be carried out with all due attention. This not only damages the tree, but also the workers as well, physically (injuries, accidents).
At present, forestry companies are becoming involved in cork stripping operations, taking over the task of putting together crews, previously the remit of the capataz or foreman. At the same time, the piecework mode known as destajo is being imposed, and the consequences on the efficiency of the techniques on the cork are noticeable in the operations: the bark is stripped more forcefully, creating more wounds in the mother layer.
Despite the reduction in working hours, the physical fatigue caused by the intensity of this working approach is directly linked to the negligence that occurs in the grove. Andrés, corchero, summed up this circumstance, highlighting the negative impact that occurs not only for the tree and the mules, but also for the health of the corchero himself (Appendix 1: Testimony 1). The awareness and bidirectionality of affect between the body of the corchero and the tree is manifested in this discourse.
Furthermore, together with adequate working conditions, a cooperative context in which interpersonal relationships between the members of the crew are satisfactory also aids the development of these skills. Most corcheros feel that cork stripping is one of the most satisfactory jobs they do throughout the year. The adjectives they use to define their work are: “nice,” “lovely,” “distracted,” “hard, it takes skill,” etc. Undoubtedly, creativity and the possibility of choosing different techniques to solve specific problems is responsible for this satisfaction they feel in practices that allow for the craftsmen to develop their personal skills (with the related social dimension and prestige), which sets this apart from other repetitive mechanical work (Arendt 1993, Sennet 2009).
Yet another element that they stress is that the crew is “in step” and “get along well,” that there is cordiality, “good vibes” Being “in step” refers to adequate rhythms and friendly relations, which is only possible in a context that allows for the conjunction of personalities, avoids confrontation as much as possible, and facilitates horizontal relations between the different occupational categories contained in the crew. This is helped by mutual knowledge, so most of its members are from the same village, many of them are friends or even related. The disappearance of differences in wages between the different occupational categories also helps.
The capataz who has the responsibility of coordinating the various colleras (couples), must know how to put together a crew. And although today the duties of the capataz are often diminished through reliance on the recruitment of workers by other productive agents (forestry companies), one of their best valued qualities, when this is possible, is the ability to bring together 10 or 12 people to form a solid team.
The sensitive links between corchero and tree, and between muleteer and mule are intense. Antonio, corchero, spoke about this communication with the tree in our conversation (Appendix 1: Testimony 2). And also with regard to the relationship with the mules, Francisco and Jesús, muleteers, express their care and respect for the animals they consider to be their companions (Appendix 1: Testimonies 3–6). Robles (1933) highlights the sense of sight, touch, having the knack, controlling how far you drive the tool in, as being the most important qualities of these specialists. Attention and caution are important, the concentration that transfers the sensitivity of the corchero to the edge of the tool, and from the tool to the tree bark (Appendix 1: Testimony 7). And when a corchero unintentionally tears the bark through a poorly placed axe blow, his face becomes a picture of disgust (Appendix 1: Testimony 8). At other times, having carried out their task optimally, a corchero’s rough, callused hand gently caresses the bark as a thank you and farewell (Figs. 6 and 7).
It is that communication, that different, intense relationship that affectively, carefully bonds this group of men to their trees, to their surroundings, to their environment. Beyond relationships of property and ownership, of possession over the tree, there is a bond of affect and affection, which defines the existence of a shared subjectivity (Hardt and Negri 2009) between the living elements that interact: person/tree.
These are manifestations of the care these people take of the cork oak groves, of the monte scrubland, established through specific knowledge of those who feel they are custodians of it. In their own perceptions and narratives, there is an awareness that their knowledge is crucial to manage the area properly, which sets them against those who actually manage it, whose knowledge comes “from books and not from experience” (Berkes 2000; Appendix 1: Testimony 9).
The cork workers and muleteers understand the limited power they wield in this context of large estates when it comes to using their judgement to manage these forests more carefully. They are aware of the marginal role they play in the face of the knowledge of scientists and technicians who, “although they don’t know” still impose models and forms of management. The knowledge of the camperos (peasants) is situated in the sphere of what Friket Berkes calls “popular” (Berkes 1999). It is here that we have to link these relationships with other aspects of identity that characterize, even today, these Andalusian artisans. Their knowledge is based on the concrete, on handling tools with skill and care, on the direct link, “skin to skin,” with the environment, which is what empowers them as possessors of practical and effective knowledge, as opposed to those who “only know about books” (Appendix 1: Testimony 9).
These words reveal the persistence of dichotomies that some authors (Martínez Alier 1968, Díaz del Moral 1984, Cazorla Pérez 1990, 1999, Coca 2008) have identified as common historical characteristics of Andalusian jornaleros (day laborers), who set themselves up as knowledgeable experts against others: “We know” versus those who have power but “know nothing.” “We are indispensable for the preservation of these environments, as long as we are allowed to exercise our knowledge and expertise.” They practice their knowledge by exposing their bodies, their hands, their sweat, in the instability of working in the treetop, in the harshness of the monte scrublands (Appendix 1: Testimony 10).
Against them are those who work in offices, those who deal with paperwork, those who would not even know how to hold the tools that link them to the forest, those who do not allow them to take care of it, to nurture it. The inhabitants of the countryside are marginalized; although city-dwellers have the power, the camperos are really indispensable in the extraction process; they value and appreciate the forest as part of “themselves” above other parameters such as property, profitability, and profit. These are aspects that, without a doubt, corroborate positions on certain biophysical elements, which manifest other non-hegemonic ways of understanding the monte (forest), these SES.
In the case of the specialist forestry workers in southern Andalusia, their sense of belonging to the group is self-defined and is identified by others because of the fact that they possess their own knowledge for executing the many and varied concrete practices involved in stripping cork oak trees. The very fact of belonging to the collective of camperos implies being part of a network of particular relationships that define the social development of individuals from childhood.
Belonging to the campero domestic group is a key factor, and it is difficult to find cork workers who, in one way or another, do not have a parental link between them. Specialist workers who, in turn, are integrated into spheres of rural sociability, where attendance at the different rites of passage (baptisms, first communions, weddings, and funerals), as well as celebrations such as the slaughter of pigs, are key moments and spaces for articulating networks and reinforcing bonds of collective identity. (Fig. 8)
From a very young age, future cork workers have a direct relationship with agroforestry activities in a specific social-ecological and relational context. Learning should be conceived as social participation, understood not only as local events of engagement in certain activities and with certain people, but also a wider process of actively participating in the practices of social communities and constructing identities in relation to these communities (Wenger 2001).
Testimonials such as the following show the importance of the shared experience of childhood and the way in which their likeness as camperos was forged at school in the 1970s (Appendix 1: Testimony 11). Their socialization in the work begins with activities in the context of the household to which they belong, where recreational activities are mixed with agroforestry practices. Collecting certain species of wild plants (asparagus, thistles, aromatic plants, mushrooms), gathering snails, cutting firewood, making charcoal, climbing trees to reach birds’ nests, inspecting the environment through hunting (birds, rabbits), clearing brushwood, building fences, or digging in the gardens, etc., become events that give them a particular relationship with the environment and train them in the use of essential tools (knives, axes, mattocks, brush cutters, saws, etc.) for their subsequent work specialization, fundamental to establishing a sense of belonging to reference groups and identity bonds (Appendix 1: Testimonies 12–13). But it is not only the material relationship with the environment that provides legitimacy in caring for the groves; having grown up in the forest, feeling part of it, it is the feeling of belonging that produces rootedness, and attachment legitimizes this knowledge (Figs. 9-10).
“Where would I have a better life than I do in Alcalá?” says Germán, a corchero, after an exhausting day’s work, claiming his small homeland as the beginning and the end of the vital space in which his life finds its meaning. Or Juan, a corchero, who verbalizes in his testimony his inseparable relationship with this environment (Appendix 1: Testimony 14).
These trees are today facing a desperate situation because of their high mortality rate as they age, aggravated by a condition known as seca, a disease caused by a combination of adverse circumstances such as the spread of oomycetes (Phytophthora sp.) and other factors such as climate change (decrease in rainfall, increase in temperatures), acid rain (caused by emissions from the petrochemical and metallurgical industries of the nearby Algeciras industrial estate), etc. According to the local rural inhabitants, one of the causes for this deforestation is the mismanagement carried out in recent decades by those responsible, those going against the advice of locals, which has led to inefficient repopulation, excessive overgrazing by hunting species (as the Director of Los Alcornocales NP reports, the current overabundance of herbivorous game is estimated at 40,000 specimens), bad practices, and the abandonment of traditional activities.
Faced with this situation, in 2017 a large group of workers (cork workers and muleteers) created the Association of Corcheros and Arrieros of Andalusia (ACOAN) and sounded the alarm about the decline facing cork oaks in southern Andalusia. They propose basing future management on their knowledge, aware that they are able to provide efficient practices that can halt and overcome the fateful decline these groves are facing. ACOAN continues to make the labor demands that in other historical contexts were raised by day laborers in this part of the world, through the assumption of practices such as the organizational horizontality of the association, the value bestowed on personalized relationships for collective commitment, and the importance given to discursive contents related to dignity, the rejection of any submissive assumption of inferiority, etc. (Coca 2008), aspects that characterize this association and that can only be understood considering the socio-cultural context in which it is embedded. In this sense, being aware of the need for alliances, their demands, far from referring exclusively to labor arrangements, make sense in the environmental field, uniting the historical demands of Andalusian day laborers with those of the ecologist and environmental movement and also with the sympathies of a significant number of non-absentee owners, and rooted in the territory (Appendix 1: Testimony 15).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Culture establishes the mediation between human beings and their biophysical environments, providing them with the forms and procedures for using the services that “nature” offers them, but also for those they may offer to other components of the SES of which they are part. It is very important and necessary to address in depth what we could call “the affective factor” within the framework of this social-ecological perspective, because the degree of involvement and commitment in the maintenance of ecosystems will depend on the breadth and intensity of awareness among local populations that are part of the same SES. The relative stability of an SES in the face of uncertainty and its capacity to react, recover, and for creative renewal when faced with internal and external changes, its social-ecological resilience, depends largely on whether the factor that has the most direct impact on it, “human capital” (social and cultural), accepts their condition as an inseparable element of the milieu in which they live, or whether, in contrast, they perceive themselves to be an external and autonomous entity to it. The sustainability of a territory and its ecosystems fundamentally depends on, among other factors, the degree of empathy felt by its resident population toward it and the services contributed by this population—beyond the utilitarian character of the relationship they may have with some of its components—in order to maintain the good health of these territories/ecosystems.
In southern Andalusia, the fall in cork production volume is a good indicator of deforestation and ageing in these groves (Andicoberry et al. 2007, Jurado Doña et al. 2018). By way of an example, one estate, which in the 1990s registered productivity levels of 16,000 quintals (737,280 kg), today has just 500 (23,040 kg.), and in another, productivity has fallen from 5400 (248,832 kg) to just 377 (17,372 kg; Coronado Verdeguer 2022).
The analysis of certain forestry practices could be a good place to delve into the importance of local knowledge as a fundamental contribution to the shaping and conservation of Mediterranean SES and glean the important relationship between local rural collectives and the biophysical elements of the milieu of which they are part. Local knowledge is claimed in this context as a major means of maintaining groves where the future is looking bleak. From the local knowledge perspective, these estates are “abandoned dehesa lands,” which, based on the management model of hunting and cork exploitation, causes ageing, woody plant encroachment, and misunderstanding on the part of public and private managers of the needs of the forest.
In the face of this, it is essential to recognize the camperos, people who have withstood the transformations brought about by the change in the productive orientation of their land in the second half of the 20th century and remained there despite being made invisible by the conservationist policies that recreated the false idea of a nature that had to be protected from its own inhabitants. They know themselves to be the shapers of the landscape, the surgeons who remove the skin from each tree, taking into account its individual variability, with the delicacy and care that each one needs. They scratch and thin the ground between the trees, they know how to sow and weed, they know how to deal with animals and pamper trees and mules, making them, as one of them says, the last gardeners of these forests.
Therefore, the existence of these artisan workers, these people who are demonstrably linked to these trees in an affective-sensitive way, offers an opportunity to tackle and subvert the problems that are afflicting an uncertain future on these groves through the deployment of the alternatives they propose based on their knowledge. They propose the facilitation of work contexts in which artisanal practices can be developed with the quality and care that trees and people require, such as the abolition of destajo (piecework) in forestry tasks; the recovery of apprenticeship processes, with the requirement to incorporate novicios and apprentices into the crews on a continuous basis, who are capable, during the cork harvesting seasons, of acquiring the practical knowledge that will enable them to graduate as expert maestros; the recovery of livestock farming in a sustainable manner; the reintroduction of grazing livestock; the recovery and promotion of other abandoned forest practices (collection of heather roots, felling of trees, etc.); a reduction in the numbers of hunting species that prevent any kind of forest regeneration; the reforestation and rejuvenation of the grove by sowing native cork oaks from their selected acorns and not with seedlings obtained from industrial nurseries (as is the practice of administrations and private owners following state and European programs), monitoring and evaluating the results. But, above all, they propose the creation of a permanent “round table” on cork oak forests that, in a horizontal and participatory way, seeks a future for these forests together with the politicians and technicians responsible for their management, in order to think in a coordinated and shared way about the future, and where their ways of thinking and understanding this place of which they are a part are taken into account by those who have the power to decide.
As in other parts of the planet, here too the environmental conflict is dominated by the sectors that intimately shape the eco-physical realities of which they are an inseparable part. Andalusian workers defend, with their intelligence and current means, a relationship with a living environment, guided by respect, dignity, care, and nurture. Actions are carried out with intelligence and creativity, where feelings and affections that guide action support the services that human beings provide to the other components of the milieu of which they are part, and in which the men care for the oak trees through their affectively charged practices, and the forest provides them with the conditions that enable them to make their livelihoods, build their lives, and shape their individual and collective identities.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper is one of the results of the project (R+D+i) “Sustainability factors of Andalusian cork oak forests in the face of climate change: experiences and efficient local knowledge” with reference UPO1381305, funded by the Andalusia ERDF Operational Programme 2014–2020, as well as the project “Anthropology of conservation. A comparative approach to the genealogies and development of natural parks in Spain” GOBERPARK. Project (PID2019-106291RB-I00/ AEI10.13039/501100011033) funded by: FEDER/Ministry of Science and Innovation - State Research Agency. The authors of this work are part of the Grupo de Investigación y Acción Participativa (GISAP), which has been involved for more than three decades in the study of human-environmental relations in different analytical fields. The collaboration in recent years of the collaboration agreement established between the Pablo de Olavide University and GISAP and the Andalusian Cork and Muleteers’ Association (ACOAN) has been fundamental for the development of the research and the results obtained.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted Tools
We declare that we have not used any Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted Tools for the development and writing of this paper.
DATA AVAILABILITY
Our data and research codes are available upon request.
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Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Distribution map of the Mediterranean cork oak forests (Quercus suber; EUFORGEN 2009).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Study area: Los Alcornocales Natural Park. (Consejería de Medioambiente 2001).
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Timeline of the history of cork oak groves in southern Andalusia (designed by the authors).
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. A colleras (couple) in action (A. Coca-Pérez).
Fig. 5
Fig. 5. A very special job in the heart of the forest (A. Coca-Pérez).
Fig. 6
Fig. 6. Body-to-body relation (A. Coca-Pérez).
Fig. 7
Fig. 7. Body-to-body relation (M. Trillo).
Fig. 8
Fig. 8. Dialogue between work colleagues (L. Vasco).
Fig. 9
Fig. 9. Building the forest within (A. Coca-Pérez).
Fig. 10
Fig. 10. Building the forest within (A. Coca-Pérez).