Indigenous Ecological Knowledge Research Articles

Culturally significant fisheries: keystones for management of freshwater social-ecological systems

Indigenous peoples of North America, Australia, and New Zealand have a long tradition of harvesting freshwater animals. Over generations of reliance and subsistence harvesting, Indigenous peoples have acquired a profound understanding of these freshwater animals and ecosystems that have become embedded within their cultural identity. We have identified trans-Pacific parallels in the cultural significance of several freshwater animal groups, such as eels, other finfish, bivalves, and crayfish, to Indigenous peoples and their understanding and respect for the freshwater ecosystems on which their community survival depends. In recognizing such cultural connections, we found that non-Indigenous peoples can appreciate the deep significance of freshwater animals to Indigenous peoples and integrate Indigenous stewardship and Indigenous ecological knowledge into effective comanagement strategies for sustainable freshwater fisheries, such as Indigenous rangers, research partnerships, and Indigenous Protected Areas. Given that many of these culturally significant freshwater species also play key ecological roles in freshwater ecosystems, their recognition and prioritization in management and monitoring approaches should help sustain the health and well-being of both the social and ecological components of freshwater ecosystems.

Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and Pastoralist Perception on Rangeland Management and Degradation in Guji Zone of South Ethiopia

The study was conducted to explore range management practices, and pastoralists' views on degradation and its impact on local livelihood in south Ethiopia. The data was gathered from three pastoral and agro-pastoral districts of the Guji zone using structure questionnaires, key respondents and direct observation. The study shows the use of enclosure and herd mobility in basic traditional practice as well as the effectiveness of community indigenous knowledge in assessing and monitoring rangeland degradation. Communities used numerous indicators to explain local level degradation, finding drought to be a primary cause of the decline in household livestock assets, the expansion of aridity, and as a rising threat to food security. The study shows an alarming increase in degradation and the urgency of measures to halt this trend.�

The Natural History of Colonial Science: Joseph-François Lafitau's Discovery of Ginseng and Its Afterlives

The Jesuit Joseph-Francois Lafitau announced his 1716 discovery of ginseng outside Montreal as the product of his encounter with Mohawk women. While Lafitau’s efforts to foreground the participation of indigenous peoples have often been lauded, the manner in which he laid claim to the discovery was integral to the subsequent rise of an ecologically unsustainable and culturally disruptive trade in ginseng. When Parisian naturalists argued that he had found an unrelated plant, Lafitau produced a detailed examination of indigenous ecological and medical knowledge. His insistence on the existence of an Asian plant in North America emerged from his larger ambitions to demonstrate the Old World origins of indigenous peoples. While he succeeded in winning over his detractors, he disseminated a body of knowledge about indigenous plant collection that most actively interested merchants. These merchants translated Lafitau’s insights regarding indigenous cultures into a global trade that was economically profitable but locally devastating. The consequences of Lafitau’s discovery therefore suggest a need for both attention to the material impacts of intellectual endeavors and caution as today’s Native Americans are again being asked to collaborate with academics to better know and protect American environments.

Review of an Integrated Strategy of Climate Change Adaptation Using Tidal River Management

Climate change and its variation have significant impact on coastal areas of Bangladesh. It’s a region predicted by experts to be one of the hardest hit by climate change induced sea level rise. Tidal River Management (TRM), a unique indigenous ecological knowledge of river management, was found to be an effective tool to combat climate change induced issues at some zones and is used by reputable organizations like Bangladesh Water Development Board and Asian Development Bank. In this study, the benefits of TRM were investigated and analysed using secondary resources from research literature and field investigations. This review furnishes the evidence of the outcomes of TRM to successfully manage coastal areas, which are at risk of water logging and sea level rise.

Challenges of preserving indigenous ecological knowledge through intergenerational transfer to youth

Challenges of preserving indigenous ecological knowledge through intergenerational transfer to youth

Challenges of preserving indigenous ecological knowledge through intergenerational transfer to youth

Indigenous communities have acquired significant ecological knowledge which is now gaining global recognition. This makes its preservation for the benefit of society essential. Preservation of indigenous knowledge has been pursued through cultural transmission processes which resulted in intergenerational knowledge transfer to youth. Using data from research conducted in two indigenous communities in Ghana, this paper examines key cultural transmission processes including socio-cultural functions that enabled young persons to interact with and thereby acquire ecological knowledge from elders and other knowledgeable persons. It identifies constraining variables such as limited youth focus on, and inadequate hands-on involvement in, traditional aspects of these functions as critical factors that might negatively affect long-term, sustainable use of acquired knowledge. The paper then examines possibilities of using prominent community members as role models for young persons and other measures for strengthening community interactive processes through which intergenerational knowledge transfer could be sustained.

Implementing SDG 15: Can large‐scale public programs help deliver biodiversity conservation, restoration and management, while assisting human development?

AbstractAmong the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the proposed SDG 15 promotes activities that, inter alia, “Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems”. An important potential contribution in achieving SDG 15 is through public programmes designed to jointly promote human development through poverty alleviation and improvement of human livelihoods and biodiversity conservation/management/restoration. An analysis of twenty public programmes with such joint objectives yielded twelve lessons learned. In addition to financial commitments, government and intergovernmental agency input for such public programmes includes ensuring political will and appropriate legal frameworks. Local communities and civil society provide input through traditional and indigenous ecological knowledge and stewardship. Appropriate shared inputs in development and the implementation of such public programmes, with communication between local community, broader civil society, the scientific community and governments will result in: better use and management of biodiversity; alleviation of poverty; security of livelihoods and better governance systems. The Ecosystem Approach of the Convention on Biological Diversity provides an ideal framework when planning and implementing new programmes. Application of the lessons learned to new public programmes will ensure that the answer to the question posed in the title is an emphatic “Yes”, and assist with the achievement of SDG 15.

Ancient Shellfish Mariculture on the Northwest Coast of North America

While there is increasing recognition among archaeologists of the extent to which non-agricultural societies have managed their terrestrial ecosystems, the traditional management of marine ecosystems has largely been ignored. In this paper, we bring together Indigenous ecological knowledge, coastal geomorphological observations, and archaeological data to document how Northwest Coast First Nations cultivated clams to maintain and increase productivity. We focus on “clam gardens,” walled intertidal terraces constructed to increase bivalve habitat and productivity. Our survey and excavations of clam gardens in four locations in British Columbia provide insights into the ecological and social context, morphology, construction, and first reported ages of these features. These data demonstrate the extent of traditional maricultural systems among coastal First Nations and, coupled with previously collected information on terrestrial management, challenge us to broaden our definition of “forager” as applied to Northwest Coast peoples. This study also highlights the value of combining diverse kinds of knowledge, including archaeological data, to understand the social and ecological contexts of traditional management systems.

‘Knowledge Making’: Issues in Modelling Local and Indigenous Ecological Knowledge

Modelling, particularly computer-based modelling, is increasingly used in political, managerial, and scientific contexts to enable and justify decisions. Technocratic decision makers also aspire to understand and incorporate local knowledge, albeit at times only superficially. We analyse one consequence of this situation – ongoing attempts to formalise, synthesize and integrate local and/or indigenous knowledge into models. Field experience of knowledge projects with Indigenous Australians underpins our analysis, but we primarily discuss a priori and general issues: the political and ethical context of such projects; knowledge making as terminology; key characteristics of (scientific) models; local capacity, participation, and representation; and examples of computer-based tools for knowledge representation. Such formal abstractions will always be controversial, but demand for them seems likely to continue. To improve interdisciplinary understanding of what might be entailed by genuine attempts to meet that demand, our paper provides signposts to and analysis of important features of local ecological knowledge modelling.

Social science and indigenous ecological knowledge in Kakamega Forest, Western Kenya

There is ample evidence in literature that indigenous knowledge, practices and beliefs often contribute to conservation and in some cases enhance local biodiversity. As a result there has been renewed interest in the use of indigenous knowledge, especially in forest management and conservation. Despite the renewed interest, incorporation of indigenous ecological knowledge in natural resource planning and management remains elusive. Using focus group discussions and in-depth individual interviews, the study gives an account of the beliefs, practices and norms that have been used for conservation by the adjacent community of Kakamega Forest over the years. The study also highlights the implications of successive forest management regimes on the use of resources and indigenous ecological knowledge. Results indicate that the local community applied various beliefs, practices and norms to regulate use of Kakamega Forest. However, the advent of forest management regimes has brought resource use restrictions which often neglect indigenous ecological knowledge. This study provides key intervention strategies important for enhancing the complementary functions of indigenous ecological knowledge and forest management objectives.

Placing Indigenous Ecological Knowledge in Ecocosmopolitanism

Placing Indigenous Ecological Knowledge in Ecocosmopolitanism

Indigenous Ways of Creating Environmental Awareness

The people of Berekum Traditional Area, Brong Ahafo region, Ghana, use their religio-cultural practices to instil and impart traditional ecologi-cal knowledge to their youth. Qualitative methodology research identi?ed the main means by which indigenous ecological knowledge is transmitted to students: proverbs, myths, folktales, and rituals. There is evidence that indigenous methods of imparting ecological knowledge and thereby dealing with environmental problems are facing some chal-lenges that appear to have interfered with their effectiveness. These challenges may be attributed to a change in the people’s worldview resulting from cultural contact and modernity. The ?ndings indicate that indigenous ecological knowledge is a potential resource that can complement scienti?c means of dealing with the region’s environmental problems.

The challenges of maintaining indigenous ecological knowledge

Increased interest in indigenous ecological knowledge (IEK) has led to concern that it is vulnerable amidst social and ecological change. In response, multiple authors have recommended the establishment of programs for the maintenance and revitalization of IEK systems. However, few studies have analyzed the methods, opportunities, and challenges of these programs. This is a critical gap, as IEK maintenance is challenging and will require layered and evidence-based solutions. We seek to build a foundation for future approaches to IEK maintenance. First, we present a systematic literature review of IEK maintenance programs (n = 39) and discuss the opportunities and challenges inherent in five broad groups of published approaches. Second, we use two case studies from the Republic of Vanuatu to illustrate these challenges in more depth. The first case study takes a community-based approach, which has inherent strengths (e.g., localized organization). It has, however, faced practical (e.g., funding) and epistemological (changing modes of knowledge transmission) challenges. The second case study seeks to facilitate IEK transmission within the formal school system. Although this model has potential, it has faced significant challenges (e.g., lack of institutional linkages). We conclude that supporting and strengthening IEK is important but that serious attention is needed to account for the social, situated, and dynamic nature of IEK. In closing, we use the review and case studies to propose four principles that may guide adaptive and flexible approaches for the future maintenance of IEK systems.

Quantitative, qualitative, and collaborative methods: approaching indigenous ecological knowledge heterogeneity

I discuss the use of quantitative, qualitative, and collaborative methods to document and operationalize Indigenous ecological knowledge, using case studies from the Nepalese Himalaya and Great Basin. Both case studies applied results to natural and cultural resource management and interpretation for the public. These approaches attempt to reposition the interview subjects to serve as active contributors to the research and its outcomes. I argue that the study of any body of Indigenous knowledge requires a contextspecific methodology and mutually agreed upon processes and outcomes. In the Nepalese Himalaya, I utilized linked quantitative and qualitative methods to understand how tourism influenced Sherpa place-based spiritual concepts, species, and landscape knowledge inside Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) National Park and Buffer Zone. In this method, Sherpa collaborated in the development of the research questions, the design, and in the review of results. The research in the Great Basin employed collaborative qualitative methods to document Numic (Southern Paiute and Western Shoshone) ecological knowledge of federal lands within their ancestral territory and attempted to piece together fragmented and contested histories of place. In this method, Numic peoples collaborated on the development of research questions and design; however they also conducted most of the interviews. In both cases, I selected particular suites of methods depending on the context and created forums for the translation of this information to applied outcomes. The methods were also improved and innovated through praxis.

“We Like to Listen to Stories about Fish”: Integrating Indigenous Ecological and Scientific Knowledge to Inform Environmental Flow Assessments

Studies that apply indigenous ecological knowledge to contemporary resource management problems are increasing globally; however, few of these studies have contributed to environmental water management. We interviewed three indigenous landowning groups in a tropical Australian catchment subject to increasing water resource development pressure and trialed tools to integrate indigenous and scientific knowledge of the biology and ecology of freshwater fish to assess their water requirements. The differences, similarities, and complementarities between the knowledge of fish held by indigenous people and scientists are discussed in the context of the changing socioeconomic circumstances experienced by indigenous communities of north Australia. In addition to eliciting indigenous knowledge that confirmed field fish survey results, the approach generated knowledge that was new to both science and indigenous participants, respectively. Indigenous knowledge influenced (1) the conceptual models developed by scientists to understand the flow ecology and (2) the structure of risk assessment tools designed to understand the vulnerability of particular fish to low-flow scenarios.

Location and Roles of Deep Pools in Likangala River during 2012 Recession Period of Lake Chilwa Basin

The ecological study focusing on Likangala River was conducted during the recent (2012) Lake Chilwa recession and aimed at identifying the important pools and the impact of indigenous ecological knowledge on the use and management of the aquatic biodiversity in the pools. An extensive georeferencing of the pools, field observations, and measurement of the pool depths was conducted to locate and map the deep pools along the river. Garmin Etrex Venture HC, GPS, and georeferencing were used to obtain the points and locate the place. Oral interviews with local leaders were conducted to understand the use and management of the pools by communities. The study showed that Likangala River has 17 pools with depths ranging from 1.85 m to 3.6 m. The pools act as habitats and feeding and spawning ground for various aquatic biodiversity. The study further found that some important deep pools have apparently become shallower during the past few years due to increased silt deposition from the upper part of the catchment. The study shows that deep pools are very important during Lake Chilwa recession and recommends the participatory fisheries management as the best way of sustaining the aquatic biodiversity and endangered species in Lake Chilwa basin.

Integrating indigenous ecological and scientific hydro-geological knowledge using a Bayesian Network in the context of water resource development

Summary The contributions indigenous ecological knowledge can make to better inform water management decisions are currently undervalued leading to an underrepresentation of indigenous values in water planning and policy. This paper outlines a novel approach in which indigenous ecological knowledge informs cause and effect relationships between species and aquatic habitats to promote broader ecosystem understanding. A Bayesian Network was developed to synthesise the seasonal aquatic knowledge of a group of Gooniyandi Aboriginal language speakers, including fish species’ availability, condition and required habitat, and integrate it with hydrogeological understanding obtained from research undertaken in a stretch of the Fitzroy River, Western Australia. This river system, like most in northern Australia, is highly seasonal and entirely dependent upon groundwater for maintaining flow during prolonged dry seasons. We found that potential changes in river flow rates caused by future water resource development, such as groundwater extraction and surface water diversion, may have detrimental effects on the ability to catch the high value aquatic food species such as Barramundi and Sawfish, but also that species such as Black Bream may benefit. These findings result from changes in availability of habitats at times when Gooniyandi understanding shows they are important for providing aquatic resources in good condition. This study raises awareness of the potential outcomes of future water management and stimulates communication between indigenous people, the scientific community and water managers by developing a model of indigenous understanding from which to predict eco-hydrological change.

Law for Country: the Structure of Warlpiri Ecological Knowledge and Its Application to Natural Resource Management and Ecosystem Stewardship

Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK) is deeply encoded in social processes. Our research shows that from an Indigenous perspective, IEK is a way of living whose core aim is to sustain the healthy functioning of people and country through relationships of reciprocity. However, IEK is often portrayed more prosaically as a body of knowledge about the environment. We introduce a framework, called ngurra-kurlu, that enables appreciation of indigenous perspectives on IEK. The framework was identified from the collaborative work of the authors with Warlpiri aboriginal elders in the Tanami Desert region of central Australia. Ngurra-kurlu facilitates cross-cultural understanding by distilling, from a complex cultural system, the five distinct conceptual categories that comprise IEK: law, skin, ceremony, language, and country. The framework enables engagement with nuanced environmental knowledge because it synthesizes, for cross-cultural audiences, all the key areas of knowledge and practice in which IEK is located. In particular, the framework highlights how social systems mediate the transmission, deployment, and regulation of environmental knowledge in on-ground situations, including collaborative natural resource management. Although the framework was generated in relation to one indigenous group, the epistemological structure of Warlpiri IEK is relevant throughout Australia, and the framework can be applied internationally to the emerging interest in fostering ecosystem stewardship in which the cultural connections between people and place are an integral part of ecosystems management.

Anpernirrentye: a Framework for Enhanced Application of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge in Natural Resource Management

Robust approaches to natural resource management (NRM) in indigenous cross-cultural contexts require coherent understandings of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK) systems. We synthesize a framework to represent the traditionally derived worldview of Arrernte Aboriginal people within which IEK is embedded. This is an ecology-focused worldview with three interrelated domains of knowledge that are intricately linked, comprising many complex dynamic elements that interact with each other. This worldview is from desert Australia but is relevant to those working in complex cross-cultural environments across Australia and internationally. The visual framework presented fills an important conceptual gap in IEK documentation being positioned at a mesoconceptual scale. Comparisons between this knowledge framework and social–ecological systems theory indicate similarities in systems thinking, in explicit links between people and ecology, and in the emphasis on processes and relationships through causal loops and feedbacks. Important differences lie in the inextricable integration of economic and spiritual domains in the Arrernte worldview. In Arrernte eyes, interrelationships between people, resource species, land, and spiritual domains are central to NRM. Scientific approaches commonly overlook or segregate elements of indigenous knowledge. The multiple values indigenous people attribute to species are often ignored or overridden, which contributes to decoupling within their knowledge system. Western scientists and natural resource managers are looking for better understandings of indigenous knowledge systems. The framework offers a tool that can be applied to both cross-cultural and intergenerational learning to improve NRM and people’s well-being and sense of self.

The Role of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge in Managing Rangelands Sustainably in Northern Iran

Ghorbani, M., H. Azarnivand, A. Mehrabi, M. Jafari, H. Nayebi, and K. Seeland. 2013. The role of indigenous ecological knowledge in managing rangelands sustainably in northern Iran. Ecology and Society 18(2): 15. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05414-180215