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There are many different ways of looking at environments and the interrelationships between humans and their social and biophysical surroundings. The perspective of the Western (or Northern) world is often the dominant one in education. The purpose of this module is to encourage an appreciation of other experiences of environments and human environment relationships through valuing the indigenous knowledge and practices found in our region, and to utilise this awareness to develop strategies for "rewriting" Western worldviews within environmental education
Indigenous knowledge is the local knowledge that is unique to a culture or society. Indigenous knowledge is also known as local knowledge, folk knowledge, people's knowledge, traditional wisdom or traditional science. This knowledge is passed from generation to generation, usually by word of mouth and cultural rituals, and has been the basis for agriculture, food preparation, health care, education, conservation and the wide range of other activities that sustain a society and its environment in many parts of the world for many centuries.
Indigenous people have a wide knowledge of the ecosystems in which they live and of ways of using natural resources sustainably. However, colonial education systems replaced the practical everyday life aspects of indigenous knowledge and ways of learning with Western notions of abstract knowledge and academic ways of learning. Today, there is a grave risk that much indigenous knowledge is being lost and, along with it, valuable knowledge about ways of living sustainably both ecologically and socially.
This module illustrates ways that indigenous knowledge may be integrated into environmental education and, thereby, bring the benefits of: helping to 'save' indigenous knowledge; encouraging teachers and students to gain enhanced respect for local culture, its wisdom and its environmental ethics; providing alternative ways of teaching and learning locally relevant knowledge and skills; and beginning the process of 'rewriting' Western perspective in education.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this workshop are:
- to appreciate indigenous perspectives on aspects of people-environment
relationships;
- to appreciate the role of indigenous knowledge and traditional ways
of learning in maintaining the sustainability of indigenous communities;
- to understand the role of modern education and science in undermining
indigenous knowledge and ways of teaching and learning; and
- to identify opportunities for integrating relevant aspects of indigenous knowledge and approaches to teaching and learning into the formal education curriculum.
WORKSHOP OUTLINE
1. Introduction: Cultural Perspectives
on Time
Varying cultural perspectives about time are used to illustrate the
centrality of culture and environment in frameworks of knowledge.
2. Why is Indigenous Knowledge Important?
This activity is in two parts. The first outlines the benefits to indigenous
people, cultural majorities and the planet of respecting indigenous
knowledge. The second activity relates these ideas to the four principles
of living in a sustainable environment introduced in Module 1.
3. Types and Uses of Indigenous
Knowledge
This activity uses brief case studies of the use of cultural practices
in various parts of the Asia-Pacific region to identify the place of
indigenous environment-al knowledge is health, agriculture, resource
management and social relationships.
4. Indigenous Environmental Knowledge
and Environmental Education
This activity involves researching examples of local indigenous knowledge
of the environment and how it is/was transmitted together with an assessment
of how it may be integrated into formal education. Local indigenous
people may be invited to be guest teachers for this activity.
5. Conclusion
A concluding reading is used to illustrate key principle of integrating
indigenous knowledge into education about, in and for
the environment.
NOTES FOR FACILITATORS
- Indigenous knowledge and practices vary greatly between countries
and regions.
Therefore, the activities and resources provided here need to be supplemented with local ideas and materials. Facilitators may find it useful to approach local indigenous groups, libraries and interested colleagues to arrange suitable examples and support materials on local indigenous perspectives on the environment. Indeed, facilitators should analyse all resources and activities for educational and cultural relevance, and adapt and/or replace any ideas in this module with local examples.
- Facilitators should also review their national and local curriculum
guidelines to identify the place of teaching indigenous knowledge
in them.
- Storytelling is a common way through which indigenous knowledge
is transmitted. Module 4 on 'Storytelling for the Environment' contains
an activity on using indigenous stories. This activity (No. 4) may
be integrated into this module, as appropriate.
- The degree of curriculum choice and flexibility for teachers can
be very high in certain education systems and countries. However,
syllabus and examination requirements can exert a strong influence
in other education systems, especially for secondary schools. Workshop
facilitators will need to adapt activities and emphasise different
aspects on the workshop according to the curriculum contexts and needs
of participants.
- The depth of treatment and amount of time allocated to each activity will vary according to the background experiences of participants in classroom teaching and in environmental education. The activities may need to be adjusted according to whether participants are experienced environmental educators seeking to update their appreciation of environmental education, experienced teachers who are relatively new to environmental education , or pre-service trainees relatively inexperienced in teaching and environmental education.
MATERIALS REQUIRED
A. Provided
Overhead Transparencies
OHT 1 Time and Culture
OHT 2 What is Indigenous Knowledge?
OHT 3 Objectives of the Workshop
OHT 4 Overview of the Workshop
OHT 5 The Four Systems of the Environment
OHT 6 The Values Underlying a Sustainable Environment
OHT 7 Uses of Indigenous Environment Knowledge.
Resources
Resource 1 Who Are Indigenous People?
Resource 2 Editing an Essay: The Importance of Indigenous
Knowledge
Resource 3 Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainable
Living: Two Case Studies from Brunei
Resource 4 Living Sustainably and Indigenous Knowledge
Resource 5 Using Indigenous Knowledge to Live Sustainably
Resource 6 Analysing the Uses, Types and Values
Bases of Indigenous Knowledge
Resource 7A 'Environmental Hygiene' Worksheet
Resource 7B 'Health and Medicines' Worksheet
Resource 7C 'Resource Management' Worksheet
Resource 7D 'Agriculture' Worksheet
Resource 8 Indigenous and Contemporary Ways of Science
Resource 9 Comparison Between Indigenous and 'Scientific'
Knowledge
Resource 10 Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into
Formal Education
Resource 11 Indigenous Environmental Knowledge
about, in and for the Environment
Reading
Reading 1 Indigenous Knowledge
B. To be Obtained
Activity 2A The nine boxes on Resource
2 should be copied onto card and cut up into sets and placed in
an envelope. You will need one set for every group of 3-4 participants.
Activity 3 An OHT or A3 enlarged version of OHT
8 for each group; pens.
Activity 4 Invite at least four members of local
indigenous groups to act as guest teachers for this activity. The Notes
to Facilitators in Activity 4 provide details of
appropriate protocols and briefings.
Members of each group (or co-facilitators) should be briefed in advance
about their duties as group chairpersons.
An OHT or A3 enlarged version of Resources 7A-7D
for each group as appropriate; pens.
Alan, R. Emery and Associates (1997) Guidelines for Environmental Assessments and Traditional Know-ledge. A Report from the Centre for Traditional Knowledge of the World Council of Indigenous People (draft), Ottawa.
Burger, J. (1990) The Gaia Atlas of First Peoples: A Future for the Indigenous World, Penguin Books, Ringwood.
Johannes, R.E., ed. (1989) Traditional Ecological Knowledge: A Collection of Essays, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Gland.
Kundtson, P. and Suzuki, D. (1992) Wisdom of the Elders, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.
Rohana Ulluwishewa (1993) Indigenous Knowledge, National IK Resource Centres and Sustainable Development, Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, 1(3), 11-13.
Shiva, Vandana (1989) Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, Zed Books, London.
Warren, D.M., Brokensha, D. and Slikkenveer, L.J., eds. (1992) Indigenous Knowledge Systems: The Cultural Dimensions of Development, Kegan Paul International, London.
__Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainable Development, Sri Lanka Centre for Indigenous Knowledge, University of Sri Jayewardenapura, 1996, p. vii-viii.
A useful source of information on this topic is:
CIRAN: The Centre for International Research and Advisory Networks for Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainable Development.
The International IK-Network involves over 3,000 people and institutions in 130 countries working in the field of the application of local specific knowledge to development. Indigenous knowledge resource centres in 25 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America aid this work.
The Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor
CIRAN produces the Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor to serve everyone around the world who has an interest in the role that indigenous knowledge plays in participatory approaches to sustainable development. The Monitor is published three times a year and provides:
- for the exchange of information;
- a platform for debate on the concept of indigenous knowledge in
a variety of disciplines;
- an overview of activities in the field of indigenous knowledge and sustainable development.
IK Pages on the WWW
CIRAN has a home page specifically on the subject of indigenous knowledge. The aim is to further improve the International IK Network's access to information and its possibilities for communication. The IK Pages provide a coordinated point of entry to the Internet by systematically presenting the Internet's main sources of secondary information regarding indigenous knowledge. The site also indexes and provides access to primary sources of information through the use of an automatic search engine.
CIRAN/Nuffic
Centre for International Research and Advisory Networks
PO Box 29777 2502 LT The Hague
The Netherlands
Fax: +31-70-4260329
E-mail: ciran@nufficcs.nl
Homepage: http://www.nufficcs.nl/ciran/ik-pages/
ACTIVITIES
1. Introduction: Cultural Perspectives on Time
This activity explores the concept of time and the varying ways in which it is viewed in different cultures in order to help participants focus on the importance of cultural perspectives and traditions.
- Explain to participants that our understanding of everyday experiences
and concepts are often so taken-for-granted that they are sometimes
very difficult to define. Provide examples (e.g. love, air, etc.)
and ask for other examples.
- Focus on the example of 'time' - and ask participants to write a
definition of time in two minutes. Ask for examples, probing for incomplete
definitions, ambiguities and inconsistencies.
- Explain that time is central to our way of experiencing the world
(day and night; the seasons, etc. and that this has environmental
significance, examples include when animals eat and sleep, when farmers
plant and harvest, when floods may occur, and so on.
- Explain that time also has a cultural dimension in that different
cultures view time differently, and that this affects how different
cultures perceive the environment.
- Display and read the account in OHT 1 which
provides an example of this idea among Hopi native North Americans.
- Ask participants to provide any similar examples from their own
culture or other cultures they have experienced or studied.
- Display OHT 2 which is a definition of indigenous knowledge.
Note to Facilitators
The first part of Reading 1 provides a detailed definition of indigenous knowledge. It may be appropriate to introduce some of these ideas at this point depending upon the background of the group. These ideas are used later in this workshop in Activity 4.
- Distribute Resource 1 which provides two ways
of defining "indigenous people". Ask participants to read both definitions
and to answer the five questions beneath them, either individually
or in pairs.
- Ask for answers to the five questions and then use the ideas of
participants to develop a working definition of "indigenous people"
suitable for use in the workshop.
- Explain that this workshop focuses on concepts such as these and provides ideas on how indigenous knowledge may be integrated into environmental education. Display OHT 3 and OHT 4 to illustrate the objectives and overview of the workshop, respectively.
2. Why is Indigenous Knowledge Important?
This activity is in two parts. The first outlines the benefits to indigenous people as well as cultural majorities and the planet of respecting indigenous knowledge. The second activity relates these ideas to the four principles of living in a sustainable environment introduced in Module 1.
A. Editing an Essay
- Ask participants to work in groups of 3-4 members. Give each group
an envelope which contains a set of the cards cut up from Resource
2.
Explain that the cards represent parts of an essay about why indigenous knowledge is important, and that the group's task is to arrange the cards into the original order of the essay.
Note: The essay was written by Maurice Strong who was a key organiser of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janero in 1992 and now a special adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The essay was written as a foreword to The Gaia Atlas of First Peoples (Burger 1990).
- When the groups are finished, ask them to identify three reasons
why Maurice Strong believes that indigenous knowledge is important.
The three reasons should be inserted at appropriate places in the
completed essay as sub- headings
Three possible headings include:
- Benefits to indigenous people
- Benefits to cultural majorities
- Benefits to the Earth.
- The sequence of 'cards' in the original essay was D - C - H - F
- E - B - I - G - A.
Check with the groups for other possible sequences and the advantages (or otherwise) of their ideas.
B. Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainable Living
- Display OHT 5 and OHT 6
which is the model of a sustainable environment introduced in Module
1, and use them to explain: - the interdependence of the four systems
in the environment on OHT 5 (biophysical, economic,
political and social) and what each contributes to sustainability.
- the core values (OHT 6) that underline living
in a sustainable environment (conservation, appropriate development,
democratic participation, equity and peace).
- Distribute a copy of Resource 3 to the small
groups. It contains brief case studies of some of the ways two indigenous
groups in Brunei - the Penans and the Kedayans - use their indigenous
knowledge to live sustainably.
- Distribute a copy of Resource 4 and ask the groups to use the table on it to identify examples of how the Penan and Kedayan people follow thes values or principles of living sustainably (OHT 6).
Note to Facilitators
Resource 4 is similar to Resource 3 in Module 3. The latter contains a third column which asks participants to identify things that they might do to live sustainably.
A debriefing discussion might focus on what people in your society can learn from the sustainable principles and practices of the Penan and Kedayan people.
3. Types and Uses of Indigenous Knowledge.
Indigenous knowledge generally is environmental knowledge. This activity illustrates ways in which such knowledge is used in different parts of the Asia-Pacific region.
- Display OHT 7 which lists four ways in which
indigenous people in different parts of the world use their knowledge
to live sustainably. There are:
- Natural Health
- Sustainable Agriculture
- Sustainable Resource Management
- Sustainable Social Relationships.
- Distribute Resource 5 which contains several
short case studies to groups of 3-4 participants. Ask them to read
Resource 5, looking for examples of the various
uses of indigenous knowledge in the case studies.
- Allocate one of the four types or uses of knowledge to each small
group and ask them to complete the relevant parts of the table in
Resource 6 using the information in the case studies
in Resource 5.
Each group could be given an OHT or A3 enlarged copy of Resource 6 for reporting purposes.
- Hear group reports, compiling a completed class version of Resource 6 (either as an OHT or an A3 enlarged chart). 4. Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and Environmental Education
Note to Facilitators
- This activity is perhaps the most important in this workshop. It
involves participants in researching example of local indigenous knowledge
of the environment and how it is/was transmitted together with an
assessment of how it may be integrated into formal education. Local
indigenous people may be invited to be guest teachers for this activity.
- Small groups of participants are allocated one of the following
uses of indigenous environmental knowledge to investigate:
- Environmental Sanitation
- Health and Medicines
- Resource Management
- Agriculture
These topics were chosen to reflect aspects of indigenous environmental knowledge of the Penan people when this module was trailed in Brunei. Facilitators should choose a similar or different range of topics to reflect the uses of indigenous environmental knowledge in their country or region and the resource persons or other resources available at the workshop.
- Invited members of local indigenous groups are vital resource persons
for this activity. This is because, sadly, few members of majority
cultures have a wide understanding of indigenous environmental knowledge.
Lecturers in indigenous studies, cultural history and religious studies
may also be helpful as guests for this activity.
If it is not possible to have such guest teachers at the workshop, a range of suitable books and other educational resources may be appropriate - but really only as a last resort.
- Activity 3 in Module 3 provides a set of important guidelines for
respectfully involving indigenous people as guest teachers.
- It is important to check and observe local protocols for selecting
and inviting indigenous people to be guest teachers in a workshop
(or in a class). There are likely to be many issues related to who
has the right to speak, about what and to whom which may need to be
negotiated. Other issues may relate to sacred and secret knowledge
and knowledge that may be shared perhaps with people of certain ages,
or men or women, only. Participants should be briefed on such issues
to avoid insensitive questions or observations.
- The instructions which follow are based upon the assumption that
at least one indigenous guest teacher is available to assist each
working group in this activity. If a smaller number of guest teachers
is available, it may be necessary to undertake this activity as a
whole group or to allocate two or more of the topics to a group.
- Each working group may need a discussion room of their own due to
the possible noise from group discussions.
- A facilitator should be appointed as chairperson of each working group and briefed on appropriate protocols (as in Point 5 above) for discussing indigenous knowledge.
A. Interviewing Guest Teachers
- Divide participants into four groups and allocate one of the topics
to each group and the appropriate worksheet from Resource
7. Introduce the chairperson of each group and the indigenous
guest teacher who will be a resource person for each group.
- Ask each group to discuss the issues on their worksheet with their indigenous guest teacher. This may take 45-60 minutes. Each group could be given on OHT or A3 enlarged copy of its Resource 7 Worksheet for reporting purposes.
B. Group Reports
- Reconvene as a whole group to hear reports from the working groups.
Ask for reports on Column 1 of Resource 7 only
at this stage:
- Traditional practices
- Resources used
- Contemporary status.
- In debriefing, focus particularly on the contemporary status of the use of the particular aspects of indigenous knowledge and the social and ecological 'costs' of the contemporary equivalent.
C. The Effects of Modern Education
- Explain that modern education systems and the ways they value "scientific"
knowledge are among the major reasons for the decline of indigenous
knowledge.
Distribute a copy of Resource 8 to each person. (It explains many characteristics of indigenous knowledge and how it was transmitted in contrast to the characteristics of "scientific" knowledge and how it is most often transmitted (or 'taught').
Resource 9 adapted from Reading 1 summarises these differences.
Note to facilitators
- The indigenous guest teachers may be willing to provide a short
talk which contrasts traditional methods of transmitting environmental
knowledge with their experiences of schooling.
- If time is available, a worksheet based on the first column of Resource 9 could be prepared as the basis of an interesting activity in which participants complete the other two columns (of Resource 9) using information from Resource 8 and/or Reading 1.
D. Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Formal Education
- Ask participants to rejoin their groups and to review their previous
discussion of ways that indigenous knowledge of their topic could
be integrated into formal education (Column 4).
- Give each group a copy of Resource 10 to summarise
their ideas by identifying:
- syllabus subjects and topics into which teaching about traditional practices and resource uses can be integrated;
- teaching methods they could use that are based upon or similar to traditional approaches;
- any barriers they might face; and
- how these might be overcome.
- Resource 11 provides an account of the use
of indigenous knowledge in the three approaches to environmental education
introduce in Module 7 - education about, in and for
the environment. It also identifies four teaching principles for effective
environmental education:
- Work from the known to the unknown;
- Learning from the community;
- Intergovernmental flow of information, culture and influence; and
- Student participation.
- Distribute a copy of Resource 11 to participants, and ask them to identify how these principles might be reflected through integrating indigenous environment-al knowledge into the curriculum.
OHT 1
Time and Culture
Source: Adapted from White, R.T. (1988) Learning Science, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. x-xi.
In most cultures, time is viewed as a regular continuous progression in one direction along one dimension. It is represented mathematically that way in our science; and most of us are so used to this view that it is hard to appreciate that there are other ways of looking at time.
However, culture is important. For example, Hopi North Americans experience time just as we do, of course, but think and speak about it in a very different way. The Hopi believe that time varies with each observer and has zero dimensions; i.e. it cannot be given a number greater than one. The Hopi do not say, "I stayed five days". Instead, they say, " I left on the fifth day". Thus, the Hopi could be said to have a timeless language. This zero-dimensional view of time means that Hopi do not share the concepts of velocity and acceleration. They are not wrong in their view, nor are we; it is just that our cultural understandings of time are different.
OHT 2
What is Indigenous Knowledge?
Source: Adapted from Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainable Development, Sri Lanka Centre for Indigenous Knowledge, University of Sri Jayewardenapura, 1996, p. vii-viii.
- Indigenous knowledge is the local knowledge that
is unique to a given culture or society. It is the basis for agriculture,
health care, food preparation, education, environmental conservation,
and a host of other activities.
- Much of such knowledge is passed down from generation
to generation, usually by word of mouth.
- Indigenous people have a wide knowledge of the ecosystem
they live in and ways to ensure that natural resources are used sustainably.
Therefore, indigenous knowledge which has been accumulated over centuries
has potential value for sustainable development.
- It can also help other people learn how to live in harmony with nature and the environment in a sustainable fashion.
OHT 3
Objectives of the Workshop
- To appreciate indigenous perspectives on aspects
of people-environment relationships.
- To appreciate the role of indigenous knowledge and
traditional ways of learning in maintaining the sustainability of
indigenous communities.
- To understand the role of modern education and science
in undermining indigenous knowledge and ways of teaching and learning.
- To identify opportunities for integrating relevant aspects of indigenous knowledge and approaches to teaching and learning into the formal education curriculum.
OHT 4
Overview of the Workshop
- Introduction: Cultural Perspectives on Time
- Why is Indigenous Knowledge Important?
- Types and Uses of Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and Environmental
Education
- Conclusion
OHT 5
The Four Systems of the Environment
Source: R. O'Donogue, Natal Parks Board, South Africa.
OHT 6
The Values Underlying a Sustainable Environment
Source: R. O'Donogue, Natal Parks Board, South Africa.
Uses of Indigenous Environmental Knowledge
- Environmental Sanitation
- Health and Medicine
- Resource Management
- Agriculture
Resource 1
Who Are Indigenous People?
Source: Adapted from Alan R. Emery and Associates (1997) Guidelines for Environmental Assessments and Traditional Knowledge. A report from the Centre for Traditional Knowledge to the World Council of Traditional People, (draft), Ottawa, p.2; and Burger, J. (1990) Gaia Atlas of First Peoples: A Future for the Indigenous World, Penguin Books, Ringwood, p. 15.
Definition 1
According to the International Labour Organization, there are about 5,000 different indigenous or tribal people living in seventy countries. The total world population is estimated at about 300 million, mostly in Asia.
All definitions of the concept of "indigenous" regard self-identification as a fundamental criterion for determining the groups to which the term indigenous should be applied. Within the UN family, the ILO (ILO Convention 169) defines Indigenous and Tribal people as follows:
- tribal people in independent countries whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community, and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations;
- people in independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, or geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonization or the establishment of present state boundaries and who irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions.
Alan R. Emery and Associates (1997)
Definition 2
Indigenous people are strikingly diverse in their culture, religion, and social and economic organization. Yet, today as in the past they are prey to stereotyping by the outside world. By some they are idealized as the embodiment of spiritual values; by others they are denigrated as an obstacle to economic progress. However, they are neither: they are people who cherish their own distinct cultures, are the victims of past and present-day colonialism, and are determined to survive. Some live according to their traditions; some receive welfare; others work in factories, offices or the professions. As well as their diversity, there are some shared values and experiences among indigenous cultures. Where they have maintained a close living relationship to the land, there exists a cooperative attitude of give and take, a respect for the Earth and the life it supports, and a perception that humanity is but one of many species.
J. Burger (1990).
Questions
- Which definition do you prefer? Why?
- Why are "legal" ideas in Definition 1 important?
- Which groups of people in your country could be classed as "indigenous"
according to this definition?
- Why are the "subjective" ideas in Definition 2 important?
- Write your own working definition of "indigenous people".
Resource 2
Editing an Essay: the Importance of Indigenous Knowledge
Source: Adapted from Strong, M. (1990) Foreword, in J. Burger, The Gaia Atlas of First Peoples: A Future for the Indigenous World, Penguin Books, Ringwood, p. 6.
C. Our material progress is achieved at the cost of passing on a wasteland to our grandchildren. As this turbulent century closes, we must alter radically our ways of life, patterns of consumption, systems of values, even the manner in which we organize our societies, if we are to ensure survival of the Earth, and ourselves.
G. What modern civilization has gained in knowledge, it has perhaps lost in wisdom. The indigenous peoples of the world retain our collective evolutionary experience and insights which have slipped our grasp.
I. While no-one would suggest that the remainder of the more then 5 billion people on our planet would live at the level of indigenous societies, it is equally clear that we cannot pursue our present course of development. Nor can we rely on technology to provide an easy answer.
B. They have protested and resisted. Their call is for control over their own lives, the space to live and the freedom to live in their own ways. And it is a call not merely to save their own territories, but the Earth itself.
A. Yet these hold critical lessons for our future. Indigenous peoples are thus indispensable partners as we try to make a successful transition to a more secure and sustainable future on our precious planet.
F. Indigenous peoples have evolved over many centuries a judicious balance between their needs and those of nature. The notion of sustainability, now recognized as the framework for our future development, is an integral part of most indigenous cultures.
D. Our Earth is a vulnerable, abused place. Its opulent forests are rapaciously felled, its rivers and oceans polluted, its already degraded soils worked lifeless, its delicate envelope of atmosphere the very basis for life on this planet is contaminated. In bending nature to our implacable will, we are also destroying her.
H. As we reawaken our consciousness that humankind and the rest of nature are inseparably liked, we will need to look to the world's more than 250 million indigenous peoples. They are the guardians of the extensive and fragile ecosystems that are vital to the wellbeing of the planet.
E. In the last decades, indigenous peoples have suffered from the consequences of some of the most destructive aspects of our development. They have been separated from their traditional lands, and ways of life, deprived of their means of livelihood, and forced to fit into societies in which they feel like aliens.
Resource 3
Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainable Living: Two Case Studies from Brunei
Source: Rohana Ulluwishewa, Adbul Aziz Kaloko and Dyhairuni Hj Mohammed Morican (1997) Indigenous Knowledge and Environmental Education. Paper presented at Environmental Education Workshop, University of Brunei Darussalam, pp. 3-4.
Knowledge about the environment had been central to human survival throughout history. Survival was virtually impossible in hunting and gathering societies without a good knowledge about forest and wildlife - plant and animal species, their growth environments and habitats, growth cycles, behaviour of animals in relation to their environment, specific characteristics of plant and animal species and their uses. In the same way, in farming societies depended upon a keep understanding of the local natural environment and ecological processes leading to the regeneration of environmental resources, e.g. soil fertility and water. By interacting with their immediate environment over centuries, local people have gained an enormous volume of knowledge about their environment. Their knowledge involves not only environmental resources available within the locality but also how to manage these resources sustainably.
The Penan
The Penan of rural Brunei have great regard for the forest. This is manifested in their perceptions of their forest environment, especially their prevailing Molong concept of natural resource conservation. Molong gives the Penan a sense of caring and stewardship over their forest resources. This involves responsible and moderate use of forests, so that they will continue to be sustaining for future generations. Greed has no place among the Penans. In practice, this means that when they harvest a clump of sago or rattan, they use only the mature stems, and leave the young shoots for harvesting in a few years' time.
Penans also greatly respect and protect the diptercorp trees which produce the seeds that the wild boar eat. They do not pollute the rivers because they also know that wild boars eat the plants that grow by the river banks. They also let the boar get their share of the sago trees and protect the acorn-producing trees which the boars also love. The Penans have a great fear of tree-fellers who cut the tree indiscriminately in their jungle because they are afraid that the disturbance will decrease their food supply. The forest seems to be everything to the Penans. They feel an affinity with it and are thankful for its supply of staple foods, building materials, medicines and raw materials for their handicraft. The forest is their world and they live in harmony with it and so guard it jealously.
The Kedayan
Until the last few decades, the Kedayans, another rural people of Brunei have survived by carefully utilising forest, land and wildlife for their livelihood. Through their day-to-day activities of agriculture and hunting, they utilized and extracted forest resources to produce food and manufacture materials for their consumption and tools for their survival activities, respectively. They have been practising this way of life through many generations, using a complex and highly adaptive system, such as cultivation of hill and swamp rice. To cultivate their staple food, rice, they used different agricultural techniques, both shifting and permanent, depending on the different types of pdi (such as, tugal, paya, hambur, tanam) they were growing. Well into the twentieth century, the Kedayans were traditionally shifting agriculturists, felling, burning and planting hill padi in successive hillsides in succeeding years. An example of areas subjected to this method of rice cultivation is the very rural parts of Temburong, such as Kampong Piasaw-Piasaw. Today, a large part of Temburong is still covered with forest - evidence that the Kedayans have not over-exploited or misused their forest environments. In short, it has been their harmonizing and systematic methodologies of using their environments (particularly land and forests) that have enabled them to practice similar economic activities through many generations to produce food and manufacture materials, not only for themselves but also to sell the surplus to non-agricultural people in the country.
Resource 4
Living Sustainably and Indigenous Knowledge
Instructions
Use the information in the case studies in Resource 5 to identify ways in which the Penan and Kadayan people use their knowledge to live sustainably.
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Conservation |
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Appropriate Development |
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Democratic Participation |
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Equity |
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Peace |
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Resource 5
Using Traditional Knowledge to Live Sustainably
Source: Adapted from Burger, J. (1990) The Gaia Atlas of First Peoples: A Future for the Indigenous World, Penguin Books, Ringwood, pp. 20-62.
1. Relationship to the Land
For indigenous people, the land is the source of life a gift from the creator that nourishes, supports and teaches. Although indigenous peoples vary widely in their customs, culture, and impact on the land, all consider the Earth like a parent and revere it accordingly. "Mother Earth" is the centre of the universe, the core of their culture, the origin of their identity as a people. She connects them with their past (as the home of the ancestors), with the present (as provider of their material needs), and with the future (as the legacy they hold in trust for their children and grandchildren). In this way, indigenousness carries with it a sense of belonging to a place.
At the heart of this deep bond is a perception, an awareness, that all of life mountains, rivers, skies, animals, plants, insects, rocks, people are inseparably interconnected. Material and spiritual worlds are woven together in one complex web, all living things imbued with a sacred meaning. This living sense of connectedness that grounds indigenous peoples in the soil has all but disappeared among city dwellers the cause of much modern alienation and despair.
The idea that the land can be owned, that it can belong to someone even when left unused, uncared for, or uninhabited is foreign to indigenous peoples. In the so-called developed world, land is in the hands of private individuals, corporate investors, or the state and can be sold at the will of the owner. For indigenous peoples land is held collectively for the community (though competition between communities, and with outsiders, for rights of use, has sometimes lead to conflict). According to indigenous law, humankind can never be more than a trustee of the land, with a collective responsibility to preserve it.
The predominant Western world view is that nature must be studied, dissected, and mastered and progress measured by the ability to extract secrets and wealth from the Earth. Indigenous people do not consider the land as merely an economic resource. Their ancestral lands are literally the source of life, and their distinct ways of life are developed and defined in relationship to the environment around them. Indigenous people are people of the land. This difference has often lead to misunderstandings. Many have assumed that indigenous people have no sense of territory because they do not necessarily physically demarcate their lands. However, indigenous people know the extent of their lands, and they know how the land, water, and other resources need to be shared. They understand only too well that to harm the land is to destroy ourselves, since we are part of the same organism.
2. Nature's Pharmacy
In many parts of the world, indigenous societies classify soils, climate, plant and animal species and recognize their special characteristics. Indigenous people have words for plants and insects that have not yet been identified by the world's botanists and entomologist. The Hanunoo people of the Philippines, for example, distinguish 1600 plant species in their forest, 400 more than scientists working in the same area. Of the estimated 250,000 to 500,000 plant species in the world, more than 85 percent are in environments that are the traditional homes of indigenous people. Nearly 75 percent of 121 plant-derived prescription drugs used worldwide were discovered following leads from indigenous medicine. Globally, indigenous peoples use 3,000 different species of plant to control fertility alone. The Kallaywayas, wandering healers of Bolivia, make use of 600 medicinal herbs; traditional healers in Southeast Asia may employ as many as 6,500 plants for drugs. Almost all trees and many plants have a place in medicinal lore.
Some scientists now believe that indigenous knowledge may help them to discover important new cures for diseases such as AIDS and cancer. Many developed countries realize the potential for indigenous medicine. It is locally available, culturally acceptable, and cheaper than imported drugs.
Knowledge of Nature Medicinal Plants in India Indigenous people work on body and mind together to help cure illness. Medicinal plants are used to treat the spiritual origins of disease as well as the physical symptoms. The vast knowledge of such plants is now beginning to be acknowledged by the rest of the world. So is the role played by indigenous people as custodians of the world's genetic heritage. A botanical survey of India reveal that tribal peoples of the northeast use plant drugs to cure fevers, bronchitis, blood and skin diseases, eye infections, ling and spleen ulcers, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Knowledge of their use is passed on by the "vaiyas", Indian herbal medicine doctors. In a single area of 277 sq km (107 sq miles) 210 types of medicinal plants have been found. The Kameng and Lohit peoples in Arunachal Pradesh, crush a bulb of Fritillaria cirrhosa to a paste to relieve muscle pains. Society research has now confirmed the presence of a chemical similar to cocaine in a related Fritillaria plant that brings relief to muscular pain. Growing evidence of plant-based contraception is available among many tribal peoples. Worldwide, over 3000 plants are employed for contraceptive use. In the Karjat tribal area of Maharashtra, near the west coast of India, a native herb taken twice a year is said to be effective. The Karjat study concludes that traditional health practices can provide up to half the local primary health needs. Enlightened health-care workers are beginning to reintroduce traditional plant remedies where allopathic drugs have become commonplace. Properly studied and recorded, this traditional knowledge could revolutionize the world of medicine.
3. Resource Management
The industrial world is facing an ecological crisis. Yet few industrial economists would admit they could learn from indigenous people. Their economies are often called 'primitive', their technology dismissed as 'Stone Age', and most governments assume they can benefit only from salaried employment.
Yet these traditional ways of life have proved highly durable. Hunting and fishing have allowed the Inuit to survive in the Arctic; nomadic pastoralism provides a livelihood for people in the arid Sahelian region of Africa; shifting cultivation has sustained hundreds of distinct cultures in the fragile ecosystem in the Amazon and the forests of Southeast Asia. Non-indigenous people have not been able to survive in these extreme conditions without destroying the balance of the ecosystem.
The key to this success is sustainability. Indigenous people today use the resources available without depleting them. They use their intimate knowledge of plants, soils, animals, climate, and seasons, not to exploit nature but to co-exist alongside it. This involves careful management, control of population, the use of small quantities but a wide diversity of plants and animals, small surpluses, and minimum wastage. Plants provide food, medicines, pesticides, poisons, building materials; animals provide meat, clothes, string, implements, oil.
Indigenous knowledge of nature has ensured the survival of many people in fragile habitats. But it is a knowledge centred not on exploitation but on the harmony of the natural world. All flora and fauna have a place in an ordered universe made up of humankind, nature, and spirits. And indigenous cultures help to protect the natural world from destruction through religion and rituals. Animals are commonly held in respect and their numbers maintained, often through careful management. Those following the Bishnoi religion in India, for example, have survived many droughts because they will not kill and animal or a tree. They breed cattle selectively, monitor the feeding of their camels, and live on milk, yogurt, and a few cultivated crops. Many people have developed a detailed understanding of animal behaviour. Those living in tropical forests, for example, recognize that where two different ecological zones meet, the hunting is more productive. Many even grow crops or trees to attract certain animals and increase their numbers.
Sustainable Cultivation The Karen of Thailand
Shifting cultivation, swidden (sometimes called "slash and burn"), is a sustainable economic system that need not harm the environment. It is the most commonly practised system among indigenous people of Asia and lowland Latin America, and provides them with a high degree of economic independence and cultural integrity. Given sufficient land and low population density, it is a highly successful way of using the forest. The Karen of Thailand practise this system. The economy of the largely uncontacted Karen people is based almost exclusively on subsistence dry rice production. An area is cleared of trees, undergrowth is burned, rice planted and later harvested. Each year a new site is chosen and the cycle takes seven years to return to the site first cleared. The system permits regeneration of the forest and thin tropical soils, and does not expose the steep slopes to heavy rains, which would eventually wash away the soil in a fixed-field system. Money has virtually no place in a Karen community. If a village has enough food it is prosperous. When villagers say "we have enough rice", it means not simply that they will survive, but that they have everything they need. If, however, shifting cultivation is unable to provide for the entire needs of a village, the people grow chilli or bamboo shoots, or they may collect and sell honey or other forest produce. Nearly all the income raised is used to buy rice.
4. Social Relationships
Social cohesion has been the key to survival for many indigenous cultures. Food gathering and hunting depend on mutual support and cooperation, and disharmony within a part of the groups is dangerous to the whole. In many cultures men and women have developed complementary, if not equal, roles; political decisions are arrived at by consensus in many cultures, and other social arrangements that benefit the entire community have often been incorporated into indigenous cultural traditions.
Marriage, for example, is an integral part of the social system political, economic, and spiritual in many indigenous societies. For example, in Thailand, a Hmong groom must pay a high dowry but, in return, the wife becomes a member of the husband's clan under the direct authority of the household. Marriage can also ensure political stability for the community (by regulating exchange between groups), and continuing harmony with the spirit world. For essentially religious reasons, marriage may be prohibited between a man and woman of the same kin group; in other societies it can only take place within the kin group. The notion of marriage as a relationship founded only on the bond of romantic love is rarely, if ever, seen in traditional societies.
The nuclear family, too, is a rare concept. A complex interweaving of lineage, clan, and family connections means that most individuals are related to each other tradition that fosters the sense of belonging to the group, and of the need to share.
Even decisions about having a child are, in some societies, controlled by laws, helping to keep the population stable. In Melanesia, children are sometimes adopted to rebalance the size of families.
The physical architecture of a village frequently reflects the social architecture of the people. In other communities, for example, among the highlanders of West Papua (Irian Jaya), the chief's home is separated from the other houses to emphasize the social hierarchy. By contrast the Karen of Thailand, who have a high degree of household autonomy and social equality, have no village centre and all live in similar houses.
Invisible Rules Maori Justice The Maori of Aotearoa (New Zealand) established a system of justice with a highly developed oratory, but no codified set of laws, courts, and judges. When the British imposed their own legal system on New Zealand, the rules took no account of Maori culture. Traditional Maori justice was based both on the material and the spiritual worlds; redress for minor offences was determined by the community, more serious ones by the elders or chiefs. Punishment would be exacted by a transfer of goods known as utu, or satisfaction, to the injured party. Persistent theft or murder, however, was punishable by muru, or plunder, but only after full and formal discussion with reference to the true, or customary principles. Other offenders might receive a beating, the withdrawal of community assistance, or, worst of all banishment. In some respects there are similarities between traditional Maori law and that imported by the British. But the similarities ended with matters of the spirit world. Chiefs with spiritual power could use it to conserve parts of the land for a feast. Access to the land was prohibited and violation would anger the spirits. Strangers unwittingly entering such areas would force the community to exact compensation, or even kill the intruder, in order to avoid being punished themselves by the spirits. Respect for the spirit world was fundamental to Maori society, but fell outside the comprehension of the British legal system.
Papua New Guinea
World wars have torn societies apart, but not all societies are so destroyed by conflict. Within some indigenous communities, conflict is regulated by customary law. Rather than starting a war aggression is normally channelled into a ritualized process of war-making and long-term destruction is minimal. In Papua New Guinea hostilities between groups are a part of the cycle of events encompassing long periods of peace and enmity. War is just one aspect of cultural life. The idea of annihilating the other group is absent; indeed, the Tsembaga and Mae Enga are known as the peoples who marry their enemies. War is a means by which the individual and the group find their identity, and is largely ceremonial. War may be precipitated by theft, poaching, or - most serious - the killing of someone else's pig; or long-standing enmities over territory and resources may create permanent hostilities. The Big Man, the non-hereditary chief, may try to avoid war by negotiating compensation or an exchange of gifts, but he cannot impose a decision. Equally, individuals do not take justice into their own hands as an unresolved dispute entails obligations for the whole group. But even on the point of war there is always a ritual means of stepping back from open confrontation. Anger can be channelled into a "nothing fight", a competition of insults and shouting; or else it may lead to a real fight, with blows exchanged and sometimes even serious casualties. After a war a lengthy process of peace-making begins. Gifts, ceremonies, and marriages establish links and obligations between the parties.
Resource 6
Analysing the Use, Type and Value Bases of Indigenous Knowledge
1. Introduction
Using the information in Resource 5:
- Identify a case study example of the use of indigenous knowledge
allocated to your group (Column 2).
- Provide examples of how this knowledge is used (Column 3).
- Identify the sustainable environmental values (OHT 6) that underlie the use of this knowledge.
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Natural Health
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Sustainable Agriculture
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Sustainable Resource Management
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Sustainable Social Relationships
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Resource 7A
'Environmental Sanitation' Worksheet
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1. Garbage Disposal
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2. Personal Hygiene
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3. Purifying Water
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Resource 7B
'Health and Medicines' Worksheet
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1. Cures for Various Illnesses or Wounds
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2. Preventative Measures Against Insect Pests, (e.g. flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, etc.)
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Resource 7C
'Resource Management' Worksheet
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1. Taboos Against Certain Animals and Plants
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2. Preservation of Forests
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3. Encouragement to Plant Trees
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Resource 7D
'Agriculture' Worksheet Activity Possible Place in formal Education
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1. Management of Soil Fertility
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2. Preservation of Seeds/Crops
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3. Control of Pest, Insects and Diseases
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4. Animal Care
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Resource 8
Indigenous and Contemporary Ways of Science and Learning
Source: Adapted from Rohana Ulluwishewa, Adbul Aziz Kaloko and Dyhairuni Hj Mohammed Morican (1997) Indigenous Knowledge and Environmental Education. Paper presented at Environmental Education Workshop, University of Brunei Darussalam, pp. 1-3.
In the past, hunting and gathering communities were heavily depended on their immediate environment to meet most of their basic needs. Therefore, they closely interacted with their local environment and, thereby, gained a sound knowledge and understanding about the environment and its underlying ecological processes. Survival was virtually impossible because they heavily depended on the local resource base for their basic needs. It was the indigenous knowledge of environment that formed the foundation for decision making in most day-to-day activities and livelihood strategies. This knowledge was passed down from generation to generation through various informal methods of traditional education until traditional education was replaced by contemporary modern education.
The indigenous environmental knowledge developed by local people has passed down from generation to generation throughout human civilizations. The avenue through which indigenous knowledge is passed from one generation to other is known as traditional education. Traditional education is the process by which a society gradually socializes its youths into its norms, religious beliefs and moral values as well as collective opinions of the whole society. Both adults and children are involved informally in the traditional learning process through ceremonies, rituals, imitation, recitation and demonstration. It is a method of informal education which is based on a wide range of cultural items such as folklore, folk drama, folk story, songs, village meetings, taboos and superstitions, etc. All these are parts of indigenous knowledge, and people learn them, practice them, and teach them to the next generation. Thus, indigenous knowledge is passed down from generation to generation.
Modern education, was introduced during the colonial period to many developing countries with the objective of producing administrators, clerks, teachers, and interpreters, etc. This type of education was based on alien knowledge systems - scientific knowledge - which evolved and developed in the western industrialised world. Modern education systems have had no place for either indigenous knowledge or indigenous methods of education. It was assumed that indigenous knowledge was irrelevant, unscientific and outdated and, therefore, no attempts were made to integrate indigenous knowledge into the modern educational system. In other words, indigenous knowledge was rejected without anyone making any attempt to test its validity and potential value in solving contemporary problems.
Indigenous Knowledge and Science
Thus the environment lost its priority in education when traditional informal education was replaced by modern formal education during the colonial period. This is because environmental education was seen as less important to the prime objectives of the colonial education: to produce administrators, clerks, teachers etc. Furthermore, the formal school education which is often confined to classrooms resulted in the separation of children from their environment. The teacher-centred nature of the formal education also separates children from parents and, consequently, parents become unable to pass their knowledge about environment they developed and inherited to their children. Local people's knowledge is not often taken into account when curriculum is prepared.
Indigenous knowledge is best understood by establishing the difference between it and non-indigenous knowledge - scientific knowledge which most of us are familiar with. Firstly, scientific knowledge is generated by professional scientists through systematic scientific research and experiments, whereas indigenous knowledge is generated by local people through their day-to-day experiences in facing challenges of nature and society. Local people also undertake research and experiments, but in contrast to professional scientists, they do research as part of their daily struggle to survive while working to earn their living. Scientists, on the other hand, undertake research in laboratories or experimental farms on artificially created conditions whereas, local people conduct research under natural conditions in farms or other places where they usually work.
Scientific knowledge that is generated by professional scientists if often documented but indigenous knowledge mostly remains undocumented. Besides, local knowledge is embedded in culture in various forms such as cultural practices, customs, traditions, religious and spiritual beliefs, rituals, ceremonies, folk stories, folk songs, legends and proverbs. Unlike scientific knowledge, indigenous knowledge is implicit and cannot be understood by outsiders; unlike science, indigenous knowledge is not standardised. While science is standardized and expressed in global terms, indigenous knowledge is non standardised and expressed in local terms. In this regard, indigenous knowledge, in general, does not move out of its location of origin whereas science moves out and spreads globally. Therefore, science claims to be a system of global knowledge whereas indigenous knowledge is location-specific and is considered to be less applicable outside its original locality.
Indigenous knowledge is knowledge of subsistence whereas science is the knowledge of market economies. Indigenous knowledge based technologies were designed for small scale production to meet family needs. However, science based technologies were designed for mass production to cater national and global markets. People in subsistence economies produce to meet their family needs without attempting to dominate nature or exploit it excessively. They developed technologies which act in harmony with nature.
Scientists explore nature and societies in order to identify laws which describe relationships between various phenomena and seek explanations for the identified relationships. Subsequently, they build theories which are then used for making predictions and designing technologies - the practical applications of knowledge. Local people too, similar to scientists, explore nature and societies within the geographical boundaries of their communities, but, unlike scientists, they do not search for detailed explanations. Therefore, the identified relationships mostly remain as beliefs. As long as the beliefs perform to the level of their expectations, it is not necessary for them to seek rational explanations. Hence, unlike science, indigenous knowledge is full of beliefs which have not been explained in rational terms. Indigenous knowledge is irrational and descriptive whereas science is rational and analytical.
Indigenous Knowledge and Environmental Education
Indigenous knowledge is now gradually disappearing and remains only in the memory of some old-age people who live in remote rural areas. When these old people pass away, indigenous knowledge may be lost forever. However, there is now a growing recognition of the potential of indigenous knowledge and its consequent value in environmental management and sustainable development. It would therefore be wise to take some immediate steps to collect and document the remaining indigenous knowledge in traditional communities and integrate it into modern education. By so doing we would ensure the continuity of remaining indigenous knowledge for the benefit of future generations especially by integrating indigenous knowledge about environment into environmental education.
Resource 9
Comparison Between Indigenous and 'Scientific' Knowledge
Source: Adapted from Alan, R. Emery and Associates (1997) Guidelines for Environmental Assessments and Traditional Knowledge. A Report from the Centre for Traditional Knowledge of the World Council of Indigenous People (draft), Ottawa, pp. 4-5.
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1. Scope |
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2. Truth Status |
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3. Purpose |
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4. Methods of Teaching and Learning |
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Resource 10
Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Formal Education
Topic: ________________________________________________________
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1. List syllabus subjects and relevant topics into which the study of traditional practices and resources uses can be integrated
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2. List teaching methods based upon or similar to traditional ways of transmitting knowledge that could be used for these topics.
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3. List any possible barriers to integrating indigenous knowledge and traditional teaching methods into your teaching.
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4. How might these barriers be overcome? Who can assist you to achieve this?
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Resource 11
Indigenous environmental Knowledge About, In and For the Environment
Source: Adapted from Rohana Ulluwishewa, Adbul Aziz Kaloko and Dyhairuni Hj Mohammed Morican (1997) Indigenous Knowledge and Environmental Education. Paper presented at Environmental Education Workshop, University of Brunei Darussalam, pp. 6-8.
Environmental education involves education about the environment, education in the environment and education for the environment. Education about the environment is concerned with environmental knowledge and understanding. Education in the environment is concerned with using it as a resource for inquiry, the development of skills, and direct experience. Education for the environment is concerned with the development of values and attitudes so that direct and positive action, based on a broad, balanced and informed concern, may be taken. Indigenous knowledge has the potential to contribute to these three aspects of environmental education.
The philosophy of 'from the known to the unknown' should be adopted if education is to be effective. In the case of education about the environment, therefore, it is wise to start with the knowledge about the local environment which pupils are familiar with, and then gradually move to the knowledge about regional, national and global environments. Indigenous knowledge can play a significant role in education about the local environment. In most societies local people have developed enormous volumes of knowledge about their local environments over the centuries by directly interacting with the environment: knowledge about the soil, climate, water, forest, wildlife, minerals etc. in the locality. This ready-made knowledge system could easily be used in education about the local environment if appropriate measures are taken to tap the indigenous knowledge which remains in the memory of local elderly people.
Indigenous knowledge is stored in culture in various forms, such as traditions, customs, folk stories, folk songs, folk dramas, legends, proverbs, myths, etc. Use of these cultural items in schools as resources or tools for environmental education can be very effective in bringing the environment alive for the pupils. It would allow pupils to conceptualise about places and issues not only in the local environment but also beyond their immediate experience. Pupils are already familiar with their culture and, therefore, they would find it interesting to learn about environment through these cultural forms. It would enable the teachers to get the pupils' active participation in teaching about environment as teachers could ask pupils to collect folk stories, folk songs, legends, proverbs, etc. existing in the community which have potential value for environmental education.
With regard to the education in the environment, pupils can be taken to the local environment so that they could learn about the environment through direct observations and investigations. However, education in the environment calls for some prior knowledge and understanding about the local environment. For instance, to be able to understand the plants-soil relationship in the environment, pupils need to identify the plants and soil types in the local environment. One way to get a preliminary knowledge about plants and soil types in the local environment is to consult local people. In order to be able to learn from the local people, pupils have to talk to them and learn their local environmental knowledge. Thus, education in the environment can provide an understanding of indigenous knowledge about the local environment.
Local people in traditional communities have lived in harmony with environment, and they have used environmental resources without impairing nature's capacity to regenerate them. There actions were not unsustainable. It is indigenous knowledge what shaped the local people's values and attitudes towards environment, and it is these values and attitudes which have guided their environmental actions and made them environmental friendly. Therefore, environmental education through indigenous knowledge can help to develop sensitive environmental ethics, values and attitudes among pupils, and thereby promote the quality of environment in the future. This is education for the environment.
In view of its potential value for sustainable development it is necessary to preserve the indigenous knowledge for the benefit of future generations. Perhaps, the best way to preserve indigenous knowledge would be the integration of indigenous knowledge into formal education. This would reactivate inter-generational learning. If indigenous knowledge is given a place in the school curriculum, it would encourage pupils to learn from their parents, grand-parents and other adults in the community, and to appreciate and respect their knowledge. Such a relationship between young and older generations could help to mitigate the generation gap and help develop inter-generational harmony. Local people, for the first time would, perhaps, also get an opportunity to participate in curriculum development. The integration of indigenous knowledge into school curriculum would thus enable schools to act as agencies for transferring the culture of the society from one generation to the next.
While the integration of indigenous knowledge into environmental education offers many advantages, attempts to do so may encounter difficulties. Since indigenous knowledge is not documented, it is not readily available for teachers. Indigenous knowledge is also increasingly disappearing with the death of older people who are the bearers of indigenous knowledge. Therefore, at first, measures should be adopted for collection and documentation of indigenous knowledge. Then, the collected and documented indigenous knowledge may be appropriately integrated into environmental education.
Reading 1
Indigenous Knowledge
Source: Adapted from Alan, R. Emery and Associates (1997) Guidelines for Environmental Assessments and Traditional Knowledge. A Report from the Centre for Traditional Knowledge of the World Council of Indigenous People (draft), Ottawa, pp. 3-5.
The Director General of UNESCO, Frederico Mayor defines indigenous or traditional knowledge admirably:
The indigenous people of the world possess an immense knowledge of their environments, based on centuries of living close to nature. Living in and from the richness and variety of complex ecosystems, they have an understanding of the properties of plants and animals, the functioning of ecosystems and the techniques for using and managing them that is particular and often detailed. In rural communities in developing countries, locally occurring species are relied on for many - sometimes all - foods, medicines, fuel, building materials and other products. Equally, people's knowledge and perceptions of the environment, and their relationships with it, are often important elements of cultural identity.
Most indigenous people have traditional songs, stories, legends, dreams, methods, and practices as means of transmitting specific elements of indigenous knowledge. Sometimes it is preserved in the form of memories, ritual, initiation rites, ceremonies, or dance. Occasionally it is preserved in artefacts handed from father to son, or mother to daughter. In indigenous knowledge systems, there is usually no real separation between secular and sacred knowledge and practice - they are one and the same. In virtually all of these systems, knowledge is transmitted directly from individual to individual.
The following characteristics of indigenous knowledge were defined in a workshop on environmental assessment held in Inuvik, Canada, in November 1995. There are the words of Inuit people answering the question: What do we mean by traditional knowledge?
- It is practical common sense based on teachings and experience passed
on from generation to generation.
- It is knowing the country; it covers knowledge of the environment
and the relationship between things.
- It is holistic - it cannot be compartmentalized and cannot be separated
from the people who hold it. It is rooted in the spiritual health,
culture, and language of the people. It is a way of life.
- Traditional knowledge is an authority system. It sets out the rules
governing the use of resources - respect; an obligation to share.
It is dynamic, cumulative and stable. It is truth.
- Traditional knowledge is a way of life - wisdom is using knowledge
in good ways. It is using the heart and the head together. It comes
from the spirit in order to survive.
- It gives credibility to people.
Indigenous knowledge held by women needs special consideration for a number of reasons. Aboriginal women, as the primary harvesters of medicinal plants, seed stocks and small game, are keepers of the knowledge about significant spheres of biodiversity in their own right and, as such, they are the only ones able to identify the environmental indicators of ecological health in those spheres.
Perhaps even more central in importance is the fact that women share with men the responsibility for stewardship of values, including 'eco-values', in their societies. They feel a keen responsibility to future generations for actions undertaken today that affect nature, to ensure continuity and wholeness of their lifestyle, their culture, the natural world in which we all live, and for their descendants. It is women, in the main, who transmit to the next generation these values as part of their stewardship role.
Indigenous and "Scientific" Knowledge
The temptation to compare scientific and indigenous knowledge comes from collecting traditional knowledge without the contextual elements. For example, the Inuit people have a far richer and more subtle understanding of the characteristics of ice and snow than non-indigenous people. In fact, some Inuit classification is accessible only by virtue of its relationship to human activities and feelings. In South America, some Indian tribes have a classification system for trees that identifies many species that science does not, and appears to miss obvious species that science recognizes. Once again the classification systems have a different set of assumptions, so are not directly comparable. The species that appear to have been missed by aboriginals, turn up as recognizable in other contexts for the native people. The 'extras' from a scientific perspective are identified by indigenous people either because science simply missed them, or because ecological variants have equal importance to genetic species from a traditional standpoint. These comparisons sometimes incorrectly lead science practitioners to trivialize traditional understanding.
Whereas scientific practice generally excludes the humanistic perspective, traditional understanding assumes a holistic view including language, culture, practice, spirituality, mythology, customs, and even the social organization of the local communities. Indigenous people rarely have formal written records of their knowledge.
The definition of traditional environmental knowledge from the Dene Cultural Institute (Canada) gives some insight into the indigenous view of the comparison between scientific knowledge and indigenous knowledge about the environment:
Traditional environmental knowledge is a body of knowledge and beliefs transmitted through oral tradition and first-hand observation. It includes a system of classification, a set of empirical observations about the local environment, and a system of self-management that governs resource use. Ecological aspects are closely tied to social and spiritual aspects of the knowledge system. The quantity and quality of traditional environmental knowledge varies among community members, depending on gender, age, social status, intellectual capability, and profession (hunter, spiritual leader, healer, etc.). With its roots firmly in the past traditional environmental knowledge is both cumulative and dynamic, building upon the experience of earlier generations and adapting to the new technological and socioeconomic changes of the present.
Too often, indigenous knowledge is incorrectly made parallel only to 'science'. Science is but a small part of non-indigenous knowledge. Similarly, to suggest that indigenous traditional knowledge is only the equivalent of science is to diminish incorrectly the strength and breadth of indigenous traditional knowledge. Thus, the suggestion that traditional knowledge should be characterized as 'traditional science' diminishes its breadth and value. Nonetheless, there are categories within the traditional knowledge base that parallel science.
Classification: The understanding of specific elements of factors in the environment, such as the plants, animals, soil, water, air, weather and environmental phenomena;
Technology and Resource Management: The development and use of traditional technology for farming, hunting, forestry, fishing, trapping, and managing the resources for the use both of the current and importantly for the future generations.
Ecology, Evolution and Systematics: The understanding and awareness of the 'web of life'. This includes the concept of origins of interrelatedness of types of animals, plants, and rocks. It understand the dynamic interrelationships of current ecological members of the same areas.
While it is not appropriate to compare scientific and traditional knowledge as equivalents, the use of traditional knowledge in environmental assessments and development planning means that the two knowledge bases will be in contact with each other as practitioners attempt to weave the two together. To assist in understanding the similarities and differences in the characteristics of the two, the characteristics are listed below. Table 1 examines the styles of knowledge, and Table 2, the characteristics of the two in their use and application.
For many indigenous people today, the communication of traditional knowledge is hampered by competition from European-derived cultures that captures the imagination of the young. They are bombarded by technology that teaches them non-indigenous ways, and limits the capacity of the elders to pass on traditional knowledge to the young. As the elders die, the full richness of tradition is diminished, because some of it has not been passed on and so is lost. It is important therefore to find ways of preserving this knowledge. Around the world, there is a sense of urgency to 'collect' traditional knowledge because as the elders die, there is a danger that the knowledge will die with them because young people are not always following traditional ways.
The parts of the traditional knowledge base that are currently being collected most actively are both the classification and the technological aspects. Databases of traditional knowledge exist in many locations, mostly outside traditional communities, but there is as yet little linkage among the databases.
Indigenous knowledge has value and validity. It provided the basis for much of modern medicine; centuries of the herbalist knowledge accumulated in the early writings of travellers, clerics, and natural historians. That ecological knowledge exists in indigenous knowledge for thousands of years was first pointed out publicly in the Brundtland Commission in 1987. Very recently, the Biodiversity Convention, Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration and Forest principles provided a contemporary context for indigenous knowledge.
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Assumed to be the truth Sacred and secular together Teaching through storytelling Learning by doing and experiencing Oral or visual Integrated - based on whole systems Intuitive Holistic Subjective Experiential |
Assumed to be a best approximation Secular only Didactic Learning by formal education Written Analytical - based on subsets of the whole Model or hypothesis-based Reductionist Objective Positivist |
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Lengthy acquisition Long-term wisdom Powerful predicability in local areas Weak in predictive principles in distant areas Models based on cycles Explanations based on examples, anecdotes and parables |
Rapid acquisition Short-term prediction Powerful predicability in natural principles Weak in local areas of knowledge Linear modelling as first approximation Explanations based on hypotheses, theories, laws
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Classification systems
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Classification systems
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