Ethnoveterinary medicine is vastly under-documented, especially in North Africa, where livestock care is increasingly medicalised. Despite evidence of the interdependence of ethnoveterinary practices and ethnomedicine for human care, the overlap between these two systems and the possible drivers of similarity are rarely addressed in ethnopharmacological literature. Here, we present the first quantitative comparison of remedies used to treat human and animal health among a pastoral society. This study aims to document the plants and other materials used in ethnoveterinary medicine among nomadic herders in the Algerian steppe. We calculate the overlap with remedies used for human health and evaluate some of the possible drivers of similarities between the two interlinked medical systems. The field study was conducted in spring 2018 with 201 local knowledge holders in five provinces in the central part of the Algerian steppe. Forty-six camps and ten weekly animal markets were visited. After obtaining prior informed consent, data was collected through structured interviews. Anonymous sociodemographic information was collected along with veterinary use data. Plant specimens were acquired, identified and deposited in the Botanical Laboratory Herbarium of the University of Tiaret. Ethnobotanical information was structured in use reports and therapeutic applications organised into 13 simple categories. Plants used in ethnoveterinary medicine were compared to those used in human health care using a Chi square test, and ethnoveterinary use was predicted using a generalised linear model with use for human care and plant family as predictive variables. Logistic regressions were also used to test if any specific medicinal application predicts shared use in human and veterinary medicine. Sixty-six plant species from 32 botanical families and ten non-vegetable remedies were documented. Plants from the Lamiaceae, Asteraceae, Fabaceae and Apiaceae families were most commonly used. The plants most often cited by interviewees are all harvested from the wild (Echinops spinosissimus Turra, Atriplex halimus L., Artemisia campestris L., Juniperus phoenicea L. and Peganum harmala L.). Leaves are the most commonly used plant part and decoction is the most common preparation method. There are important similarities between remedies used to treat humans and other animals: two thirds of the remedies used in ethnoveterinary medicine are also used in human health care, and these represent half of the human health treatments. Use for human health and plant family both predict the use of a medicinal plant in veterinary medicine, but no correlation is found regarding specific therapeutic applications. Traditional veterinary knowledge is still key to sheep and goat herders in the Algerian steppe, but a knowledge transmission gap seems to exist between older and younger generations, and ethnoveterinary practices may disappear in the near future. Treatments for human and animal care overlap to a large extent, and a causal relationship possibly exists for, at least, some of them. However, overall a smaller number of remedies are used to treat animals than humans and for less therapeutic applications. This difference in the diversity of therapeutic applications and remedies should be the object of future research.

In the context of climate change, biodiversity decline and social injustice, reciprocity emerges as a way of living and being in this world that holds transformative potential. Concepts of reciprocity vary and are enacted in specific cultural practices grounded in Indigenous and local knowledge systems. This editorial synthesises first‐hand evidence of how practising reciprocity can result in positive reciprocal contributions between people and nature. It also offers a theoretical justification of why considering reciprocity can lead to more equitable, inclusive and effective conservation and sustainability policy and practices, contributing to curving the colonial baggage of academic inquiry and development action. Nurturing reciprocal relations between people, especially between academics and Indigenous Peoples and local communities, is a necessary first step to identifying pathways whereby living in harmony with nature can be achieved.

Foodscapes are commonly embedded in spiritual landscapes, making the spiritual dimension of local and indigenous food systems an important element of food sovereignty. However, this dimension is often overlooked in food systems research and policy making. Based on ethnobiological fieldwork conducted in the Kailash Sacred Landscape of far western Nepal, we show how religious festivals and rituals reenact the covenant between people and the land through the numinous intercession of Hindu gods and landscape deities. To demonstrate this, we present the local calendar of the agricultural and ritual year based on data collected through household surveys and participation in festivals and agricultural activities. The complex fabric of the local agri-food system is revealed as articulated in the warp and weft of interwoven agricultural and spiritual cycles. These cycles contribute to respectful and sustainable landscape management practices by shaping the relationship people have with the land. In the annual women's festival of Gaura, the fertility and well-being of people and land is affirmed through the offering of locally produced pulses and grains. Furthermore, local gastronomic identity is enriched by the incentive to cultivate heirloom varieties of crops that are prescribed in rituals performed during Gaura and other major festivals. We conclude that spiritual practices should be considered key elements of biocultural diversity, and recommend that they receive more attention in the implementation of sustainable development that aims to embody the principles of food sovereignty.

Faith and conservation are deeply entangled in the Himalayas. Focusing on a single Hindu community in Darchula, Nepal, we investigate the forms of governance used to manage an extensive sacred forest on a nearby mountain and five smaller community forests at its base. To understand the effects of these different models of governance, we use a mixed method approach to examine two indicators of biocultural diversity: forest resource use and spiritual practices. These data reveal a concentrated human impact on the community forests through the harvesting of plant resources, while the sacred forest receives a far smaller impact from these activities. The community considers the sacred forest and mountain to be the home of a local god, who is worshiped in annual pilgrimages attended by people throughout the region. Spiritual practices in the community forests are more localized, small-scale, and associated with women’s traditions. From a biodiversity perspective, the sacred forest appears useful for conservation because of its large size and the spiritual governance that protects it from most human impacts. In terms of biocultural diversity, however, the two forest types play complementary roles in supporting biocultural heritage: the community forests provide the resources required for daily life, while the sacred forest nourishes identity, embodies communal history, and upholds the fertility of the land. The two forest types ultimately blend together in the ways that they are valued and used by people, showing that only a landscape-level perspective can provide a full understanding of the links between forest and community.

Around 1,000 Hmong refugees arrived in French Guiana in the late 1970s to found two agricultural communities. They were members of an emerging global diaspora of survivors fleeing the violence of the Laotian Civil War. From the perspective of the French government, the relocation became linked with the contemporaneous “Plan Vert” to develop the agricultural potential of the overseas territories. At that time, a significant percentage of the produce consumed in French Guiana was imported from Suriname. Within a few decades, government support helped the Hmong communities of Cacao and Javouhey to develop into critically important agricultural producers. Today they supply more than half of French Guiana’s produce, which has helped to eliminate dependence on imports from Suriname. In the early 2010s, the Surinamese government collaborated with Hmong leaders from French Guiana to bring a new wave of Hmong immigrants from Laos to Suriname. Their project, mirroring that of the French government nearly 40 years before, was to reinvigorate the agricultural sector by reclaiming land abandoned during the Surinamese Interior War of 1986–92. These waves of Hmong agricultural immigration are part of a long and ongoing history of displacements and mobilizations of groups of people by colonial and postcolonial governments in the Guianas. At the same time, the ongoing success of Hmong communities in the Guianas cannot be wholly attributed to government support: it is as much due to the dynamism and initiative of the Hmong themselves.