Looking at birds to make sense of climate change and of other changes too...?

Abstract

Rural and periurban areas of the European temperate countries are affected by climate changes that are not always perceived by communities. We focus here on how local discourses on biodiversity can give insights of what people see as changing in their environment. We conducted ethnography including freelists in South-Western France - within a comparative program on perceptions of environmental changes. We demonstrate that birds migratory but also domestic and invasive are relevant indicators of seasonal variations which are not linked to global climate change. Instead variations can’t be understood without linking them to major social changes (rural exodus and urbanisation).