The Early Lobster Fishery in Beàrnaraigh na Hearadh, 1850–1930

The Sendai and Hyogo Frameworks emphasize integrating modern science with Indigenous knowledge, a bottom-up community-based disaster management approach. However, a top-down disaster management mechanism and a lack of awareness about Indigenous knowledge are part of the current reality in Taiwan. This study chose the great Cinsbu, an Atayal community in Taiwan, as a case study area, using interviews to explore traditional ecological knowledge in Indigenous people’s daily lives. The study also applies a bottom-up, community-based approach through workshops. This study’s goals are to apply Indigenous knowledge to improve community disaster planning and to work with communities to assist them in utilizing their (Indigenous) knowledge and resources. As a key to achieving disaster resilience, the study highlights three approaches based on traditional ecological knowledge: the natural environment, agriculture production, and social capital. The natural environment approach integrates modern science and traditional ecological knowledge through community risk mapping. The agriculture production approach conserves seeds and stores food using traditional methods, such as pickling and storing in traditional barns. The social capital approach establishes a disaster management organization based on social networking. Finally, the community develops hazard preparedness and disaster response measures based on traditional ecological knowledge. These measures can be integrated with existing disaster management to form a specific mechanism for Indigenous communities.

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is intrinsically linked with traditional local communities and their ways and conditions of living. The social learning dimension offered by TEK seems to be largely overlooked. TEK places climate action in context and makes it more tangible for the general public. Building on synergies between traditional ecological and hydro meteorological scientific knowledge contributes to building capacity and improving adaptive coping strategies at the local level. This can make a valuable contribution to enhancing robustness of adaptation efforts, devising collaborative and resilient management, and enabling reduction of vulnerability in the Arctic and beyond.

<p>Rainfall-induced floods and landslides have occurred and caused devastating impacts in recent years in Japan, and adaptation to natural disaster risks is a key to the sustainability of local communities. Traditional ecological knowledge in Japanese communities exists abundantly, such as those in disaster risk reduction and natural resource use, and it has been passed down from generation to generation. These traditional knowledge and skills have been used to benefit from nature’s gifts or ecosystem services as well as to avoid devastating impacts from natural disasters. Collaboration and cooperation by diverse stakeholders are crucial for recognizing and utilizing traditional ecological knowledge in actual solutions and actions. In this presentation, I introduce how traditional ecological knowledge has been used in disaster risk reduction in Mikatagoko Lakes area located in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. Rainfall-induced floods occur frequently in this area, but traditional land use helps to reduce inundation damage of houses and conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services including local food culture. Embankment built around the lakes has been renovated not only for flood risk reduction but also for biodiversity conservation, also supported by traditional ecological knowledge in this area. The Mikatagoko nature restoration committee, in which diverse local stakeholders participate and collaborate, has played a significant role in these actions and solutions. Our experiences suggest that transdisciplinary ecosystem-based approaches contribute to the sustainability of local communities and the collaborative platform among local stakeholders is important in taking advantage of traditional ecological knowledge in actual solutions and actions.</p>

Scientific ecological knowledge (SEK) is a powerful discipline for diagnosing and analyzing environmental degradation, but has been far less successful in devising sustainable solutions which lie at the intersection of nature and culture. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of indigenous and local peoples is rich in prescriptions for the philosophy and practice of reciprocal, mutualistic relationships with the earth. Scientists and policy makers all over the world are calling for incorporation of the wisdom of TEK into natural resource planning and environmental policy. TEK has a legitimate place in the education of the next generation of environmental scientists, yet this body of knowledge and the process by which it is generated are virtually absent from the environmental science classroom. Integrating TEK and SEK holds a great promise for broadening and deepening the teaching of environmental science, yet the challenges to such integration are significant in the mainstream classroom. I have found that key elements of this integration include fostering intellectual pluralism in a student population largely unaware of other epistemologies by: (1) clear and disciplined analysis of how TEK and SEK are grounded in different worldviews. Mutually respectful evaluation of the divergences and convergences of these epistemologies creates the foundation for critical examination of how synergy might be created between them; (2) engagement of the indigenous pedagogy of direct, experiential learning in which the land and its inhabitants are recognized as primary knowledge sources; (3) holistic engagement of multiple elements of human capacity: mind, body, emotion, and spirit, not just the intellect which is exclusively privileged in conventional environmental science education; (4) recognition that in indigenous approaches, knowledge and responsibility are inextricably linked, so the course content and approach simultaneously cultivate the responsibility that accompanies knowledge acquisition, including protection and appropriate use of cultural knowledge; and (5) recognition that the mutually exclusive duality between matter and spirit which is essential to the scientific worldview is bridged in TEK where material and spiritual explanations, the secular and the sacred, may simultaneously coexist.

This study explores how Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) affects community behavior related to environmental health and disease prevention. Traditional Ecological Knowledge, which includes customary practices, cultural beliefs, and local wisdom, plays a crucial role in how communities interact with their environment. Focusing on the relationship between Traditional Ecological Knowledge and public health, this study investigates how indigenous peoples utilize traditional ecological knowledge to maintain and maintain natural beauty, natural habitats, environmental cleanliness, utilize available facilities, infrastructure, natural potential, reduce health risks, and prevent the spread of disease. The study used qualitative methods, including interviews and field observations, to collect data from community members who actively practiced Traditional Ecological Knowledge in their daily lives. The findings suggest that TEK-based behaviors, such as natural resource management, traditional medicine use, and community-led environmental monitoring, significantly contribute to reducing the incidence of waterborne diseases, improving sanitation, and fostering overall environmental resilience. This study underscores the importance of integrating and synergizing Traditional Ecological Knowledge into modern public health frameworks, demonstrating that recognizing and preserving indigenous knowledge systems (Traditional Knowledge) can enhance community-based approaches to disease prevention and environmental sustainability. The study concludes that encouraging collaboration between traditional and modern health practices is key to developing more effective and efficient strategies for safeguarding the health of the environment and people.

Semi-natural hay meadows are among the most species-rich habitats in Norway as well as in Europe. To maintain the biodiversity of hay meadows, it is important to understand local management regimes and the land use history that has shaped them and their biodiversity. There is however a general erosion of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), related to hay meadows and other semi-natural habitats. This review aims to examine historical and written sources of land use practices related to hay meadows and to discuss the implications of a re-introduction of TEK in present and future management practices. Traditional land use practices and TEK obtained from written sources from four Norwegian regions and for the country as a whole are compared with present management practices. Written sources show that hay meadows have been managed in a complex but flexible way. Today's management regimes of hay meadows in Norway are streamlined and strongly simplified, most often involving only one late mowing and in some cases grazing. This simplification may result in loss of biodiversity. The potential to include more variety of management practices in hay meadows, by utilizing knowledge from written sources more systematically in combination with farmers’ experienced knowledge (TEK) should be better utilized. Such an approach may secure both the biodiversity in hay meadows and TEK for the future. Former and present landscape ecological contexts in the infield-outlying land system show that management should be done for larger landscapes rather than small, isolated hay meadows, to optimize biodiversity conservation. For this study, we conducted a Norwegian literature review, based on ethnographical and ethnobotanical sources, as well as historical and present agricultural statistics, historical maps, results from research projects, and other sources. Our findings are discussed with similar European studies focusing on the historical management of hay meadows.

Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination JULIE CRUIKSHANK UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA PRESS, VANCOUVER, BC, 2005 328 PP. $32.95 PAPERBACK REVIEWED BY REBECCA K. ZARGER This fascinating book weaves together a study of memory, oral history and transformations through a series of encounters between people and glaciers in the region where the Saint Elias Mountains and the Alsek River converge in the southwest Yukon Territory and Alaska. I recently selected Cruikshank's award winning book (winner of the 2006 Julian Steward Award, given by the American Anthropological Association's Anthropology and Environment section, a 2007 Clio Award from the Canadian Historical Association and the 2006 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, awarded by the Society for Humanistic Anthropology) for required reading in a graduate seminar in environmental anthropology. This review is framed within the discussion and critique that emerged from the seminar, with the aim of providing not just a synopsis of the intellectual and practical contributions of the book, but its pedagogical value as well. One compelling illustration of the impact of this book is the attention that has been paid to it across a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, history, and science and area studies. Clearly Cruikshank is speaking across chasms of inquiry as she writes about of glaciers' connections to human communities and oral traditions as local people, explorers and scientists negotiate meanings in a particular, out-of-the way cultural landscape. Another reason this book was chosen for the graduate seminar was the way the author engages with the topics of local (or traditional) environmental knowledge, environmental change, and social memory. Historical documents, carefully presented Tlingit and Athapaskan oral histories, 19th century explorer's accounts, and the current politics of conservation, identities and territories are analyzed with equal intensity. As the author links these lines of evidence together (in some chapters more seamlessly than others), bridges are created between types of inquiry, voices of local elders, the human-nature divide, and local and global histories. Do Glaciers Listen? is divided into three sections. Part one, Matters of Locality situates the reader in time and space (during the Little Ice Age) as well as within current theories of the nature of knowledge and its representations. The three chapters in the first section convey, through tales of the actions of both glaciers and humans in response to one another, the distinctions between narratives of Athapaskan/Tlingit elders and geophysical scientists. Extensive passages from stories of three women, including excerpts from thirteen different shared by Kitty Smith, Annie Ned and Angela Sidney, tell us of the dangers of falling through glaciers, traveling under glacier bridges, and the imaginative power of glaciers. The second section of the book is devoted to Practices of Exploration, where the author considers the ways scientific and territorial exploration shaped alternative narratives of the Saint Elias glaciers-stories that were told around the globe in addition to local communities. The diaries and journal accounts of La Perouse, Muir, and Glave, contextualized with local oral histories of the same events, provide the opportunity to examine what the author terms the epistemological consequences of such encounters. …

Humans who interact directly with local ecosystems possess traditional ecological knowledge that enables them to detect and predict ecosystem changes. Humans who use scientific ecological methods can use species such as mollusks that lay down annual growth rings to detect past environmental variation and use statistical models to make predictions about future change. We used traditional ecological knowledge shared by local Inupiaq, combined with growth histories of two species of mollusks, at different trophic levels, to study local change in the coastal ecosystems of Kotzebue, Alaska, an area in the Arctic without continuous scientific monitoring. For the mollusks, a combination of the Arctic Oscillation and total Arctic ice coverage, and summer air temperature and summer precipitation explained 79-80% of the interannual variability in growth of the suspension feeding Greenland cockle (Serripes groenlandicus) and the predatory whelk (Neptunea hero) respectively, indicating these mollusks seem to be impacted by local and regional environmental parameters, and should be good biomonitors for change in coastal Alaska. The change experts within the Kotzebue community were the elders and the fishers, and they observed changes in species abundance and behaviors, including benthic species, and infer that a fundamental change in the climate has taken place within the area. We conclude combining traditional and scientific ecological knowledge provides greater insight than either approach alone, and offers a powerful way to document change in an area that otherwise lacks widespread quantitative monitoring.

This chapter looks at the interrelation between Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), language, and historical events within the context of the Nahuat-Pipil language of El Salvador. It deals with what some refer to as Indigenous Knowledge (IK), Traditional Knowledge (TK), or Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), domains that position knowledge within broader contexts and social systems. The approaches and theories applied in this chapter are based on interactions with Indigenous people in western El Salvador from the towns of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, Nahuizalco, and Cuisnahuat where Nahuat-Pipil is most widely spoken. The research questions are a response to their specific request to conduct research on TEK, as ‘We are losing this knowledge, and without it we cannot call ourselves Indigenous’ (T. Pedro, personal communication, July 2012). Having established a baseline for understanding the motivations behind Indigenous interest in TEK, it is possible to then focus on the Nahuat-Pipil linguistic repertoire and how TEK is encoded within it. Thus, the investigation turns to the question of the ethnobiological categorization and classification of plants, how this is achieved by speakers of Nahuat-Pipil, and whether cognitive categorization strategies are reflected in the language itself. The investigation then examines folk nomenclature of plants by presenting their internal linguistic composition. The investigation of plant names is used to further inform the documentation efforts of Nahuat-Pipil by adding new focalized materials to the existing range of resources. The theoretical framework and methods employed to collect data for this body of research are interdisciplinary and draw largely upon ethnobotany, anthropology, the collection of oral histories, and sociolinguistics, in addition to my core background as a linguist and language documenter. By seeking to listen to and understand the requests of the language and speech community, this chapter thus aims to investigate how TEK informs the construction of sociocultural identity through language use, and how TEK itself is cognitively, culturally, and linguistically encoded in Nahuat-Pipil.

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is directly linked to lands, animals, ecology, and natural resources. It is an ancient practice that continued through generations over generations linked to spirituality and sustainability. Often referred to as indigenous knowledge, TEK represents a collective understanding attained over time of the relationship between traditional communities and the earth. TEK is preserved primarily as an oral tradition and is passed from generation to generation through storytelling, ceremonies, arts, crafts, and songs, media that provide rich context and can flexibly evolve to incorporate new observations and understandings. In this background, this paper highlights the significance and challenges of recognizing TEK in ensuring sustainable development. Central to this understanding is how the TEK is related to the right to development among indigenous communities. The extent that the TEK can contribute to mitigating global challenges shall also be discussed in this article.

Recent conceptual shifts in ecology towards integration of humans into ecosystems requires all possible sources of ecological knowledge available (Berkes 2004, 2009 this issue). Māori traditional ecological knowledge of natural systems (TEK) can add valuable ecological data to more conventional scientific studies as the former tends to be diachronic, based on a cummulative system of understanding the environment founded on observations and experience (Gadgil et al. 1993; Berkes 2008), while the latter is frequently synchronic, with experiments that may explore causal effects in ecological patterns (Newman & Moller 2005; Moller et al. 2009a). However accessing TEK can be both difficult and time-consuming, as demonstrated by the 14-year research project Kia Mau Te Tītī Mo Ake Tonu Atu (the ‘Keep the Tītī Forever’ research project; Moller et al. 2009a). We argue that oral traditions offer a wealth of information that is frequently overlooked, in part because of a lack of knowledge of te reo Māori (the Māori language) and, further, a lack of recognition of the inextricable link between biological and cultural diversity (Maffi 2005). Māori rarely express concepts and ideas directly, rather tending to use imagery in order to understand and convey history (Tau & Anderson 2008). Thus, whakataukī (ancestral sayings), pūrākau and kōrero (myths and stories), karakia (prayer), and waiata (song) are enduring and relevant as “records of tribal memory” (Kawharu 2008). Such cultural knowledge is not always easily accessible, and may require extensive contextualisation to make sense. Many of the above vehicles for TEK are embedded in idiom, dialect, and tribal identity markers, and are dependent on the structure, meaning and function of their context. That is, they are rarely transparent at face value (Steiner 1998). Posey (1996) argues that taxonomic systems, emic perceptions, and codified knowledge of overt and covert categories depend on language as a major vehicle for cultural transmission. Māori structured taxonomies differ from Linnaean taxonomy, for example, as whakapapa (genealogy) expresses relationships between ecosystem components, human beings, and their relationship with the environment (Roberts et al. 2004). Additionally, each name has its own whakapapa, imbued with information about the process of naming. Thus, names may reference tribal markers, for instance, and in doing so create a knowledge system for future generations to follow. Unfortunately, traditional knowledge of names, classifications and taxonomies has been eroded over generations (Tipa & Nelson 2007). However, current work on  

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) has become a focus of increasing attention by natural resource managers over the past decade, particularly in the context of the shared management authority between resource users and government agencies (co-management). Little work has been done on how TEK can be successfully integrated with science and applied in contemporary science-based resource management institutions, and the efficacy and legitimacy of co-management and associated attempts to document TEK or integrate it with science have recently been questioned. The cooperative research programme of one co-management group, the Alaska Beluga Whale Committee (ABWC), was studied to describe how TEK and science are integrated and applied in the research process, document perceptions and attitudes of native hunters and scientists towards TEK and science, and identify organizational characteristics that facilitate knowledge integration. Hunters and TEK played a variety of roles in ABWC's research programme, including hypothesis generation, sample collection and data interpretation. Hunters and scientists defined TEK similarly, but differed in their views of science, which hunters often perceived as a tool of state control. Despite political undercurrents, the ABWC displayed several indicators of successful knowledge integration. Organizational characteristics that facilitated integration included a membership structure fostering genuine power-sharing and a range of opportunities for formal and informal interactions among hunters and scientists leading to long-term relationships and an organizational culture of open communication and transparency in decision-making. Given the importance of long-term relationships between scientists and hunters for successful knowledge integration, this study raises questions about (1) the potential for meaningful integration in short-term projects such as environmental impact assessment and (2) the use of TEK documentation studies in the absence of other forms of active participation by TEK- holders.

Proverb of a community can indicate their level of knowledge on natural resource and forest management. These expressions are an effective way to learn about traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). Differences or similarities in the knowledge systems of various ethnic groups can be found by comparing their expressions. This traditional ecological knowledge is passed down from generation to generation through oral tradition. Oral traditions are not always reliable because they depend on memory and oral transmission. However, unlike proverbs, old sayings and societal rules have more validity by their nature. Proverbs and old sayings are expressions of fundamental truths or practical perceptions based on common sense or cultural experience. The Kerinci community in Kerinci Regency, Jambi Province, is known to have these expressions, but it has not been documented. Therefore the significance of this research needs to be done. The maintenance of expressions of oral tradition is a task from generation to generation simultaneously so that the collection of expressions in the form of proverbs, proverbs, and local rules from a community group becomes essential for the development of science. This study aims to document and analyze the expressions of the people of Kerinci. The research method was carried out qualitatively with library research techniques and interviews with resource persons. The results show that there are 30 expressions of the Kerinci community consisting of proverbs and old rules. These expressions show that the people of Kerinci have the knowledge they get from nature and the ecosystem in which they live.

Role of traditional ecological knowledge in shaping climate resilient villages in the Himalaya.

Indigenous populations are projected to face disproportionate impacts as a result of climate change in comparison to nonindigenous populations. For this reason, many American Indian and Alaska Native tribes are identifying and implementing culturally appropriate strategies to assess climate impacts and adapt to projected changes. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), as the indigenous knowledge system is called, has the potential to play a central role in both indigenous and nonindigenous climate change initiatives. The detection of environmental changes, the development of strategies to adapt to these changes, and the implementation of sustainable land-management principles are all important climate action items that can be informed by TEK. Although there is a significant body of literature on traditional knowledge, this synthesis examines literature that specifically explores the relationship between TEK and climate change. The synthesis describes the potential role of TEK in climate change assessment and adaptation efforts. It also identifies some of the challenges and benefits associated with merging TEK with Western science, and reviews the way in which federal policies and administrative practices facilitate or challenge the incorporation of TEK in climate change initiatives. The synthesis highlights examples of how tribes and others are including TEK into climate research, education, and resource planning and explores strategies to incorporate TEK into climate change policy, assessments, and adaptation efforts at national, regional, and local levels.