Indigenous knowledge for the conservation and management of biodiversity
Cebu City (Philippines)
4-6 March 1998

This workshop on biodiversity is being organized by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Research and Development. On 1 October 1997 the organizing committee decided to postpone the workshop from 26-28 November 1997 to the above-mentioned dates in March in order to ensure that the papers are of good quality. More time was also needed to find funding.

There is now global recognition for the role that indigenous knowledge systems and practices can play in development. Since UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, June 1992), sustainability ranks high on the agenda of the international development enterprise. While there has been much preoccupation with modern science and technology over the last couple of years, the exclusive application of formal scientific concepts and methods is not enough for the complex task of achieving sustainable development against a background of ecological and cultural diversity. Indigenous knowledge and practices hold a crucial key to sustainable development. With its culturally diverse population, the Philippines is especially rich in these resources. The country still has over 110 indigenous cultural communities that have successfully struggled to keep their identity.

Philippine knowledge systems and practices have been documented, but there is an acute need to promote efforts along this line so as to enhance the role they can play in national development. There is also a need to learn from the experiences of other countries regarding the application and protection of indigenous knowledge and practices.

The workshop in March will address five themes:

1. Biodiversity conservation—including a paper on an indigenous fallow system that helps to sustain crop productivity;
2. The value of biodiversity;
3. Tools, methods, and procedures for managing biodiversity—including a paper by Dr Jan Brouwer, director of CARIKS, Saraswatipuram (India);
4. Intellectual property rights;
5. Bio-prospecting and national sovereignty.

Ethnomedicine: therapeutic concepts in transcultural comparison
Munich (Germany)
6-8 March 1998

The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ethnomedizin (AGEM: Society for Ethnomedicine) will hold its 13^th international conference at Ludwig Maximilians University, in Munich. This two-and-a-half-day conference offers an interdisciplinary scientific forum for discussion and the exchange of information.

Prior to the official opening, participants may join one of two parallel workshops on the Friday afternoon. One will be led by Dr Norbert Kohnen, of Dusseldorf University (Germany), who will examine the methods of research and statistical analysis used in ethnomedicine. The other, to be led by Professor Renaud van Quekelberghe, of University Koblenz-Landau (Germany), will deal with the revival of traditional healing practices.

The conference itself starts at 5 pm on 6 March 1998, with a session chaired by Dr Christian Rätsch. The session will feature contributions by Dr Manfred Kremser on "cyber-healing", by AGEM president Dr Gerhard Heller on traditional trance therapies, and by Ms Elisabeth Waas on the comparative use of humour and personal warmth in therapy.

The second day will be devoted to healing in Africa, with contributions by—among others--Edmund J. Kayombo, of the University of Dar-es Salaam (Tanzania); by Dr K. Afework, a physician working in the AIDS programme of the Ethiopian Ministry of Health; and by Ms Ruth Kutalek, assistant in the Department of Ethnomedicine, Institute for the History of Medicine, Vienna (Austria).

On Sunday, 8 March 1998, three sessions are envisaged. They will feature, among other things, a contribution by Associate Professor Othman Yatim, director of the Museum of Art, University of Malaya (Malaysia), who will talk about ethnomedicine among the Asli of Malaysia.

Most presentations will be in German.

Rural livelihoods, empowerment and the environment: going beyond the farm boundary
Pretoria (South Africa)
29 November - 4 December 1998

This 15th international symposium of the Association for Farming Systems Research-Extension (AFSR-E) will be hosted by the South African Association for Farming Systems Research.

As to the theme, 'environment' is interpreted very broadly to include the physical, biological, social, economic, and institutional dimensions within which a farming community lives and operates. This calls for process-based research on sustainable agricultural development, and the integration of social, economic, and ecological perspectives. The theme addresses such fundamental questions as: How do concepts such as sustainable development, participation, empowerment, accountability, indigenous knowledge, and environmental conservation affect the farming systems approach of practitioners and the global farming community at large? To what extent does the farming systems approach make it easier to realize some of these ideas? To what extent can some of these concepts guide the farming systems approach?

This theme will be divided into five sub-themes (see also the notice under Calls), two of which are the following.

Reciprocity and exchange: farmers responses and initiatives within the exchange relationship.

Heterogeneity and multiple realities of rural livelihood strategies and farming practice.

Building on local rural knowledge. Indigenous technical knowledge relevant and useful for agricultural practices has been recognized for some time and extensively catalogued. A sub-category of this knowledge consists of farmers' adaptations of, and additions to, the technologies developed by researchers.

Working with farmer groups--experiences, benefits, problems. As participation with farmers in agricultural research development becomes more collaborative, researchers are increasingly working with groups. These groups may be initially established by other facilitators, by the members themselves, or even by the practitioners of farming systems research and extension.

Cost effectiveness of the farming systems approach to research and development. This approach was developed to improve the impact of research on small-scale farm households. Some argue that it is costly. Increased client-orientation and improved research planning can improve its cost effectiveness.

The production of knowledge. How and in what context is knowledge produced, and through which channels and social relationships is knowledge exchanged? This provides an opportunity to open up the black box of knowledge and relate it to power relations in communities, and within the context of farming systems research and extension, to the meeting ground of practitioners and farmers. It may also open up the door to understanding local knowledge and evaluation, and how this can best be incorporated into research and development.

Violence and human coexistence
Dublin (Ireland)
17-21 August 1997

The Center For World Indigenous Studies (CWIS), an American Indian-controlled non-profit research and education center, collaborated with the National Committee of Development Education and Departments of the University College Dublin (Ireland) to convene this world congress, held at University College, in Dublin. Irish president Mary Robinson officially opened the first plenary session on Sunday, 17 August 1997.

During the five-day meeting, more than 350 delegates heard scholars, political activists, and victims of violence present papers on the causes, the character, and the social, political and economic impact of violence, as well as proposals for reducing violence in human society.

A delegation of eight people from CWIS gave presentations on a variety of topics and issues concerning Fourth World peoples. In attendance were chairman Dr Rudolph Ryser (Cowlitz) of CWIS, who chaired a session on Africa during which Dr Richard Griggs, a political geographer and principal investigator of the Fourth World Mapping Project at CWIS and director of Research at Independent Research Trust in Durban (South Africa), presented his research on Fourth World conflicts in South Africa and the role of rigid, state-controlled boundaries as the cause of violence between peoples.

Russell Jim (Yakama), CWIS board member and director of the Nuclear Waste and Restoration Management programme for the Yakama Nation, and Barbara Jim (Wenatchee) each presented papers in the session entitled 'Victims of violence'. They described the effects of nuclear experimentation, testing and waste disposal on Yakama Indians living next to the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington State (USA), and told about the class-action law suit that has been filed on the Indians' behalf.

Dr Leslie Korn, director of research at CWIS and clinical director of the Center for Traditional Medicine, chaired a session entitled 'Community and women: damage and recovery', in which she gave a talk comparing the invasion of land for purposes of developing and extracting resources to an invasion of interpersonal space. Both precipitate trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. She discussed the effects of development on indigenous peoples, and told how development that is not self-determined destroys or damages their culture, including the traditional methods by which people are healed.

During the closing plenary session, Dr Ryser addressed 'The political future of nations'. Widely regarded as the principal architect of Fourth World geopolitical theory, Dr Ryser suggested new models of conflict resolution now that more and more state governments are collapsing. Under these circumstances, nations must play an equal role in conflict resolution. He described several current global conflicts in which states are on the verge of collapse or have already collapsed, and told of the various roles that nations can play to mitigate against war when this occurs.
(Leslie Korn)

The text of the papers can be accessed at the CWIS website: http://www.halcyon.com/FWDP/cwisinfo.html

Agricultural extension for sustainable development
Holguín (Cuba)
7-10 October 1997

This French-Cuban international conference was organized by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture, and the Center for Regional Agricultural Research of Holguín (Cuba). The purpose of the conference was to review the main methods used in agricultural extension throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, since the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture is planning to establish a new National Agricultural Extension Service in Cuba.

It was a very interesting event. There were 47 papers presented by professionals from 11 countries: Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, France, Ecuador, Guadalupe, Mexico, Spain, Peru and Venezuela.

At the end of the conference, awards were given for the best presentations. Ten prizes were awarded to the best Cuban papers, and four to the best international ones. The coordinator of VERSIK, Dr Consuelo Quiroz, is proud to say that three of the four international prizes were given to Venezuelan professional women who attended the event (including herself). Dr Quiroz's paper was entitled 'Participatory rural extension and local knowledge systems. Case: pilot in-service training course for technician/researchers from the National Agricultural Research Foundation (FONAIAP), Trujillo State, Venezuela'.

The other two Venezuelan prize-winners are both agronomists. Angela Bolivar won for her paper 'Participatory research. Case: agricultural community Las Cocuizas de Monay, Trujillo State, Venezuela'. Ms Bolivar, a former student of Dr Quiroz, works for FONAIAP, Maracay, Estado Aragua (Venezuela). Agronomist Maria Elena Morros won a prize for 'Participatory evaluation of advanced genetic materials of potatoes and black beans. Experiences from an integrated project'. Ms Morros works for FONAIAP, Lara State (Venezuela).

The fourth prize was won by a Mexican agronomist, Mr Hermilio Navarro, for the paper 'Regional integration and management of resources: participatory approach for a micro-watershed area'. Mr Navarro works for the Post-graduate College, in Texcoco (Mexico).

Employment and income for indigenous and tribal peoples: lessons learned in Asia
New Delhi (India)
4-8 November 1997

This workshop was organized by the International Labour Organization's (ILO) INDISCO programme for indigenous and tribal peoples. INDISCO is aimed at helping indigenous and tribal peoples, through cooperatives and other self-help organizations at the grassroots level, to acquire the capacity for self-reliance. The programme has been working with various indigenous and tribal groups in India and the Philippines since 1994. At present 12 projects in these countries are being carried out by local organizations under the guidance of INDISCO.

The purpose of the workshop was to share with experts and the donor community the three years of experience gained in Asia, and to discuss how the conclusions and practical recommendations could be applied to future planning in Asia and other parts of the world.

Five themes were addressed during the workshop:

1. Employment generation through natural resource management: lessons learned and future prospects.
2. The role of indigenous and tribal cooperatives in promoting employment.
3. Indigenous knowledge: how to preserve and promote traditional jobs.
4. Indigenous and tribal women: women entrepreneurs.
5. Support services for promoting employment.

The third theme was particularly relevant for Monitor readers. Dr D.M. Warren, director of CIKARD, opened the session with a broad introduction to various forms of indigenous knowledge, and made a strong statement regarding the contribution of indigenous knowledge to participatory and sustainable approaches to development.

Mr G.W. von Liebenstein, director of CIRAN, told of the growing tendency, even in major development organizations, to incorporate indigenous knowledge into development planning. The ILO-INDISCO programme is a clear example of this new approach, said Mr Von Liebenstein, who stressed the need for building resource banks around the world for indigenous knowledge which could complement mainstream development knowledge.

The session was followed by a panel discussion on how to strengthen inter-agency collaboration in order to promote the use of indigenous knowledge for creating employment and protecting the environment.

On the closing day, an open forum was held to discuss the conclusions and recommendations of five working groups that had examined: 'Environmental and natural resources management'; 'Structural reform for indigenous and tribal peoples' cooperatives'; 'Integration of indigenous knowledge into project activities'; 'Empowering indigenous and tribal women'; and 'Improvement of support services'.

The conclusions and recommendations are currently under study by the managers of the ILO-INDISCO programme, who expect to derive suggestions for follow-up action and future planning.

For more information, please contact: Ms Zothanpari H. Tuli, INDISCO National Project Coordinator, ILO, India Habitat Centre, East Court, 3^rd Floor, Lodi Road, New Delhi 110 - 003.
Tel.: +91-11-4602 101-03.
Fax: +91-11-4602 111.