Local Ecological Knowledge on Mangroves in Mayotte Island (Indian Ocean) and Influencing Factors

International audienceThe majority of studies on local ecological knowledge (LEK) relate to communities orgroups relying on ecosystem(s) for their livelihood. In our case study, Mayotte Island, a Frenchoverseas department, very few people rely on mangrove ecosystem for natural resources but mostof them are attached to it because of leisure activities and beliefs. The questions on mangrove LEKgenerally deal with a single aspect of ecological knowledge of surveyed people and is mixed withother information such as harvesting practices, anthropogenic impacts, and management issues. Theaim of our study is to better understand the level of ecological knowledge of surveyed inhabitantsof Mayotte and to assess whether factors linked to the profile of respondents have an influenceon it. For this purpose, we carried out two main survey campaigns in three villages fringing twostable mangroves of Mayotte: the first one consisted of qualitative interviews and the second one,questionnaires lending quantitative results. Cross tabulations and Chi square tests of independencewere carried out to determine the link between LEK and influencing factors. Results show that someLEK implying localized observation, such as the identification of mangrove trees and the knowledgeof the coastal protection role of the mangrove, are well shared by surveyed people whereas others,such as the number and the name of mangrove tree species, are poorly known. The results alsohighlight the difficulty of questions implying observation at the landscape level and interpretation ofobservation. All the influencing factors selected have a significant influence on, at least, one LEKvariable. The results highlight differences in LEK of villages bordering two nearby mangroves callingfor a local management of these system