Conferences

COMING

2nd Australasia Pacific Extension Conference
Albury (Australia)
18-21 November 1997
The Australasia Pacific Extension Network (APEN) is holding a conference on the theme 'Managing Change: building knowledge and skills'. APEN is an organization representing extension professionals. The network has over 400 members across Australia, Asia, the Pacific and New Zealand. APEN provides a forum for exchanging ideas, offers education and training opportunities, produces a newsletter, and promotes extension as a profession.
The conference is aimed at all professionals who work in and for rural communities and wish to improve their ability to manage change: extension practitioners, community development workers, educators and policy-makers.
Indigenous knowledge systems, which play a vital role in programmes of rural development and extension, will be spotlighted in conference papers, as will partnerships between educators, government, and the residents of rural areas. Examples and case studies will be drawn from Indonesia, Fiji, Kenya, South Africa, South Pacific, Bangladesh, California, New Zealand and remote areas of Australia. Overseas speakers include rural development workers, extension managers, researchers, and policy advisors.
The keynote speakers include: Dr Jules Pretty, visiting professor at the University of Essex, past director of the sustainable-agriculture programme at IIED (London), and author of Regenerating agriculture; Dr Morgan Williams, New Zealand's parliamentary commissioner for the environment; and Dr Diana Day, a consultant specializing in environmental policy and planning. Ms Day will speak on the role of extension in the management of human and natural resources.
Over 200 papers have been accepted so far. Papers will be presented in concurrent sessions under themes such as:
· understanding people;
· developing partnerships;
· extension methods;
· institutions and policy;
· information technology;
· future directions in extension.

Details of the conference programme and social activities can be found on the APEN homepage at http://life.csu.edu.au/apen/
For more information, contact: APEN '97 conference, Conference Design, P.O. Box 342, Sandy Bay, Tasmania 7006, Australia.
E-mail: conf.design@hba.trumpet.com.au
Tel.: +61 362243773.
Fax: +61 362243774.

Medicinal plants for survival
Bangalore (India)
16-20 February 1998
The Indian National Institute of Advanced Studies is organizing an international conference on medicinal plants and their conservation and utilization. Issues related to trade in these products and to intellectual and cultural property rights will also be discussed. The conference is being hosted by the Foundation for the Revalidation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT), which is engaged in one of India's most comprehensive efforts to conserve medicinal plants in their natural habitats.
The international coordinating committee includes representatives from the Global Initative for Traditional Systems (GIFTS) of Health, Oxford (United Kingdom); the Oxford Forestry Institute; IUFRO; WWF; and IUCN.
Participants are expected to include researchers and scientists from conservation organizations, botanical gardens, and centres that maintain databases of medicinal plants. But they will also include traditional medicine practitioners, representatives of environmental and agricultural NGOs, national and international policy-makers in the field of medicinal plants and agriculture, and representatives of industries based on medicinal plants and traditional medicinal products.
The provisional agenda has eight items. Readers of the Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor may be particularly interested in items 7 and 8, which are called 'Contributions of indigenous knowledge systems' and 'Traditional knowledge and resource rights'.
The hosting organization has a homepage at http://ece.iisc.ernet.in/ernet-members/frlht.html.
To receive copies of future announcements, please write to: FRLHT, No.50, 2nd stage, MSH Layout, Anandanagar, Bangalore - 560 024 India.
E-mail: root@frlht.ernet.in.
Tel.: +91 80 333 6909.
Fax: +91 80 333 4167.

PAST

The community as classroom: Local knowledge, natural resources and ecology
University Park, Pennsylvania (USA)
18-19 April 1997
More than 40 elementary and secondary school teachers, extension agents, youth leaders, students and community leaders gathered at the Penn State University campus to attend the second annual Indigenous Knowledge Conference. Under the theme 'Community as classroom', the participants met to take part in hands-on workshops which explored the ways of knowing that exist in the communities of Central Pennsylvania.
Conference participants formed four teams to collect field data on local knowledge and to interview people who live in the community. The teams focused on four areas: forest resources, water quality, land-use planning and local food systems.
Part of the second day of the conference was devoted to analyzing and interpreting data collected in the field. Participants again worked in groups, and explored the following topics: 'Tools for gathering local knowledge'; 'Making scientific observations under field conditions' and 'Creating an action agenda'. The keynote speaker, Dr William Coperthwaite, a lecturer from Machiasport, Maine (USA), was exhilarating. His talk was entitled: 'Helping youth learn the value of different ways of knowing'. Coperthwaite is also an expert on yurts, which are native homes built out of natural materials by the Mongols of Central Asia. The dome-like structures are an example of how indigenous cultures use materials within their environments to create useful products for their everyday lives. He illustrated the diverse ways of knowing about the environment that can be found among indigenous populations around the world.
The main focus of the conference was to demonstrate how the university and the community can collaborate to advance the university's outreach mission. In addition, it provided an opportunity to demonstrate how educators and young people can learn to value the different ways of knowing that are present at the local level. As is common everywhere, the only knowledge that universities tend to value is that which is derived through the scientific process. This conference, however, helped to dispel this myth and showed that communities also build their own stores of valuable local knowledge.
Sponsored by the Colleges of Education and the Agricultural Sciences, the Inter-institutional Consortium on Indigenous Knowledge, (ICIK) and Penn State's Society for International Development, the conference was a major success. Evaluations of the conference indicate that participants found the workshops useful and found it beneficial to learn how local knowledge and scientific knowledge can be used together for decision-making regarding the environment and the use of natural resources.
(Ladi Semali)
For further information, please contact: Judy Nastase, Staff Assistant ICIK (MAIL-TO-Centres).
Tel.: +1 814 865-2161.
Fax: +1 814 863-7602.


Culture, communication and power
New Delhi (India)
21-23 April 1997
This three-day seminar was organized by the French Embassy's Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH) in collaboration with the Pune Centre for Cooperative Research in Social Sciences (CCRSS). It took place in the Convention Hall, Jamia Millia University, Hamdardnagar, New Delhi. The seminar was an attempt to bridge the gap between the academic world and that of social actors concerned with structural change. It was thus attended not only by social scientists (anthropology, development studies, history, sociology, women's studies), but also by communication specialists (video and film makers), representatives of NGOs, and social activists.
Over 40 papers were presented, centered around three themes:
· The role of communication in development programmes.
· Communication technology.
· Gesture, speech, and image.

Each theme was introduced with a lecture. The first theme was introduced by Professor Dipankar Gupta, who focused on the relationship between state and society, and the role of civil society in the development process. In a refreshing opening paper, Ricardo Gomez emphasized the need for two-way communication in development programmes, and for taking indigenous knowledge, culture and perceptions into account. Dr Jan Brouwer, Director of CARIKS, then proposed the 'five knowledge' model as offering a new vista for development workers and social scientists in India. People's participation is the 'first knowledge'. It begins with a phase of informal and formal meetings of target groups, and culminates in the formation of an association in which the needs of the group are matched with the possibilities of the project. Knowledge of local conditions is the second, and this takes into account the potential beneficiaries' health, self-confidence, social and economic background, local history and sociology. The 'third knowledge' is the formal development strategy which identifies the points where there is a match between the strategies' tactical possibilities the target group's susceptibility for intervention. The fourth is scientific knowledge: quantitative and qualitative baseline surveys combined with relevance to the project's particular aim. And fifth is indigenous knowledge (IK). Brouwer discussed various case studies related to the state-sponsored development projects in South India from which the model was derived. In particular, he demonstrated how the IK component can help to improve the success rate of interventions.
In the evenings the seminar featured several visual sessions. One outstanding contribution was the documentary 'Wait until death' by the young Indian filmmaker Supriya Sen. The film deals with the tragedy of Chinchurgheria (Midnapur District, West Bengal). Here a stone-crushing site was established in 1986. Many villagers started to work there, happy to have a job in an area that offered few other opportunities. But within two years of the site's opening, the first victim fell to silicosis, a deadly disease that eventually claimed 22 lives. The film shows Chinchurgheria waiting for the 23rd victim to die. This excellent film, which eventually improved the victims' situation, deserves both national and international attention, if not an award for social achievement.
(Dr Jan Brouwer)
The proceedings of the seminar will be published by CSH, New Delhi, in early 1998. Please contact: Dr Bernard Bel or Dr Bruno Dorin, CSH, 2 Aurangazeb Road, New Delhi 110 - 011, India.
For information about the documentary, contact: Perspective Audio Visuals, att. Mr Supriya Sen, 11/44 Nagendra Nath Road, Calcutta 700 - 028, India.


Indigenous Peoples and Environmental Assessment
New Orleans, Louisiana (USA)
28-31 May 1997
This conference was organized by the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA), which at the same time held its 17th annual meeting. Ever since 1994, when several IAIA members initiated a programme under the title 'Indigenous peoples and the effectiveness of environmental assessment', this topic has been a focus of attention. At IAIA '95 in Durban (South Africa), a session on the subject was conducted in the indaba format traditionally used in many African tribal communities. At IAIA '96 in Lisbon (Portugal), Mr Terry Williams of the Tulalip Tribes of the northwest United States spoke about his efforts to involve First Nation communities in the environmental assessment (EA) process. At that meeting, preliminary plans were made to hold another session on indigenous peoples and EA during IAIA '97 in New Orleans.
IAIA '97 brought together over 70 delegates, who devoted three full days to discussion, presentations and working sessions on:
· improving the practice of EA in situations where indigenous peoples are involved in, or affected by, development activities;
· creating a network of EA practitioners that will continue to explore and share the tools, techniques and lessons learned throughout the year;
· increasing the involvement of indigenous peoples and their representatives in the IAIA.
·
This international forum will be used to help indigenous communities, government, academic institutions, non-government organizations, and industry to cope with the challenges of EA.

The specific topics discussed in the sessions included:
· strategies to incorporate the views and needs of indigenous peoples into planning, environmental assessment and decision-making;
· capacity-building among all parties engaged in environmental assessment;
· movement away from the approach of conflict and litigation and towards an alternative form of confict resolution in this area;
· ways to effectively incorporate indigenous or traditional knowledge into a more holistic approach to EA.

Participants were encouraged by the openness of the discussion and by the success stories that were presented for consideration and analysis. Recent initiatives considered by the delegates include prototype Guidelines for Environmental Assessments and Traditional Knowledge (Canadian International Development Agency), a Maori Resource Management Law reform (New Zealand), and cooperative resource management regimes established by the Inuvialuit and Gwich'in peoples in Canada's western Arctic region.
Organizers and participants have pledged to organize another session on the subject, at IAIA '98 in Christchurch (New Zealand), 19-24 April 1998.
(Gary Wagner)
For more information, contact: Gary Wagner, Secretary, Indigenous Peoples Program Committee, Wagner & Associates, 509 Westvale Drive, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2T 2E4.
E-mail: gwwagner@golden.net
Tel.: +1-519-579-9032.
Fax: +1-519-579-0926.

Global knowledge '97:
knowledge for development in the information age
Toronto (Canada)
22-25 June 1997
The Government of Canada and the World Bank hosted this four-day conference, which was attended by some 2,000 participants from 124 different countries. The main topic of the conference was 'Turning the information revolution into a force for economic development, social cohesion and poverty alleviation in the 21st century'. The topic was operationalized in three themes:
(1) Understanding the role of knowledge and information in economic and social development.
(2) Sharing strategies for harnessing knowledge.
(3) Building partnerships to empower the poor and foster international dialogues around development.

These themes were addressed in eight plenary sessions and some 110 working sessions grouped around seven conference tracks.
The conference was preceded by an international electronic debate (mailing list) launched in March 1997. Thanks to the large-scale and active participation of several key figures in the field of indigenous knowledge, this debate resulted in the adoption of a working session especially devoted to traditional knowledge. This session, 'Traditional knowledge in the information age', was held on Wednesday 25 June, from 11:00-12:30, under conference track 1, 'Empowering the poor with information and knowledge'. In addition, participants in many plenary and/or working sessions explicitly drew attention to the issue of local knowledge. In the working session of 24 June, for instance, on the use of communication technology by grassroots women, participants discussed the need to document women's indigenous knowledge. And in the working session 'Electronic media: reflecting diversity' (also on 24 June), participants stressed that, at an unprecedented moment in history when all cultures in contact with one another, cultural diversity is as important as biodiversity.
The conference and the preceding electronic discussion resulted in recommendations and cases for each of the seven conference tracks. The fourth of the five recommendations for track 1 has direct relevance to indigenous knowledge and development:
'Establish a communications network that connects indigenous populations and promotes the use of local knowledge in sustainable development planning; develop a database of indigenous knowledge.
However, it is important to note that not all indigenous knowledge contributes to sustainable development; some local beliefs may conflict with knowledge necessary to improve conditions. Thus, a two-way dialogue between parties can sift through local knowledge to determine what will support and what will obstruct development.'

The cases corresponding to this recommendation make mention of the Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor.
Conference reports were available via the mailing list immediately after the sessions were over. The report on the list will be written in September and be made available to the public after approval by UNDP.
For the GKD97 mailing list, send an E-mail to: majordomo@mail.edc.org
Your message should contain only the following: SUBSCRIBE GKD97.
All information can be found on the Global Knowledge homepage at http://www.community.web.net/gk97

Internet via E-mail
If you have E-mail facilities, but no on line connection to the Internet, you could try typing the following in the body of your E-mail message: send http://www.globalknowledge.org/text/index.html
and sending it to:
agora@dna.affrc.go.jp
or: agora@kamakura.mss.co.jp
or: agora@www.eng.dmu.ac.uk
You will get a help file together with a WWW welcome page.
You can find more information on the Internet via E-mail at ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email
You can find Dr. Bob's Homepage at http://www1.mhv.net/~bobrankin/
(Copyright (c) 1994-97, 'Doctor Bob' Rankin)

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