Eco-sustainability awareness, intellectual capital and education in the Moroccan Oases

This study apprehends awareness of eco-sustainability and environmental protection as influenced by intellectual capital in drylands. We focus on the case of Moroccan Oases. The intellectual capital components are changing. They differently affect sustainability and local development. The study identified these deep changes and their spatiality in oases. Challenges and suggested perspectives are discussed. The adopted methodology in the study focuses on fieldwork, interviews (2017-2024) and analyzing data of the official Moroccan census of population and habitat (2014; 2024). Semi-structured interviews were adopted in data collection. In each oasis and selected rural communes, several variables were considered to apprehend the intellectual capital based on the cultural, economic, social and environmental mutations. The findings underline a decrease of the local knowledge and traditional practices in specific sites, while the oases’ modernity and new business practices increase in others. Their impact on natural resources and environment are risky. The spatially contrasted cultural and economic changes appear comparing the traditional sectors of oases and the developed modern irrigated farms recently created. These are exuberantly water consuming and often located downstream. The intellectual capital characteristics are impacting the environmental equilibrium as traditional sectors are generally conservative, and modern areas abuse in resources consuming. A huge need for sensitive education and further consideration of the cumulative Intellectual Capital including its traditional and selected modern components, is important to re-orient action to sustainable entrepreneurship and environment protection. It is a priority to re-consider education and intellectual capital to develop the population’s environmental conservatory