Folk Biological Value and Chestnut Conservation in Turkey. An ethnobotany dedicated to biocultural survival must advance research methods that perceive and support the biological basis of cultural survival in tandem with the cultural basis of biodiversity maintenance. To help address this challenge, we introduce the concept of “folk biological value”—the value of the more-than-human living world to cultural cohesion and survival—as well as a method to investigate and apply it to an ongoing biological conservation endeavor. In Turkey, the sweet chestnut tree population (Castanea sativa Mill.) is threatened by multiple exotic pathogens. In order to engage and study the collective value motivating continued chestnut presence and association, we sampled communities along the legible value structure of the value chain. We conducted 162 group interviews with 12 chestnut value chain groups across Turkey. Our results show how botanical knowledge of the tree transforms significantly in correspondence to the flow of the value chain. Further, we demonstrate that while the Black Sea region and western Turkey represent distinct human geographic zones of chestnut engagement, the most substantial countervailing forces defining nationwide conservation priorities are commercial and local maintenance value. This research furthers understanding of and capacity to engage community value during urgent local transitions from ecological protection to prioritization.

土耳其的民间生物学价值和栗子保护。致力于生物文化生存的民族植物学必须与维持生物多样性的文化基础一道，推进感知和支持文化生存的生物学基础的研究方法。为了帮助应对这一挑战，我们引入了“民间生物价值”的概念（超越人类的生活世界对文化凝聚力和生存的价值），以及一种研究方法并将其应用于正在进行的生物保护工作中。在土耳其，欧洲栗木种群（Castanea sativa米尔。）受到多种外来病原体的威胁。为了参与和研究促使栗子持续存在和建立联系的集体价值，我们沿价值链的清晰价值结构对社区进行了抽样。我们对整个土耳其的12个栗子价值链小组进行了162次小组采访。我们的结果表明，树的植物学知识如何与价值链的流程相对应地发生显着变化。此外，我们证明，尽管黑海地区和土耳其西部代表着人类从事栗树活动的不同地理区域，但定义全国范围内优先保护的最重要的反作用力量却是商业和地方维护价值。