About Services and Care in the Agroforestry Socio-ecosystems of the Cork Oaks in Southern Andalusia

The objective of our paper is to put in evidence, through a case study of the cork oak forests of southern Andalusia, the relevance of the quality of the relationships between human beings and the environment—considered as a socio-ecosystem—in which they live and of which they are a part, as a key factor to promote and manage its conservation in a sustainable way. To deepen this issue we take the case of the forestry works related to the extraction of the cork, activities that are strongly masculinized and apparently aggressive with the trees. This circumstance leads us to reflect on the importance of analysing local practices and knowledge for the expansion and theoretical interconnection between the concept of ecosystem services and that of care, discovering how, in certain contexts, places, and activities, these practices involve services of care that local operators provide to the trees and the forest. On the empirical materials obtained through a long process of ethnographic fieldwork carried out since the early 2000s, we argue on the need to incorporate these actors, their practices and knowledge about the trees and their feelings with respect to them as fundamental keys to achieving sustainable management of Mediterranean cork oak forests in general and of southern Andalusia in particular, and for a Socioecological Governance of the Conservation of these socio-ecosystems.