Indigenous Knowledge and Development
Monitor, March 1999 Indigenous Knowledge and Development
Monitor, March 1999
Contents IK Monitor (7-1) | IKDM Homepage | Suggestions to: ikdm@nuffic.nl | (c) copyright Nuffic-CIRAN and contributors 1999.
Rethinking IK's role in ecological restoration and the conservation of biodiversity by Ning Wu
Dr Ning Wu: professor and head of the Center for Ecological
Restoration and Development Studies (CERDS) at the Chengdu Institute of
Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. With a research background in the
ecology of high-altitude vegetation and the geography of pastoral nomadism,
he is board member of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Research Society of
China, deputy chair of the Botany Society of Sichuan (China), deputy board
member of the Ecological Society of Sichuan, and coordinator of several
development projects.
In the summer of 1998, a series of devastating floods occurred along
the lower Yangtze river in China, causing some USD 30 billion in damage (equal
to 20% of China's GDP) and affecting the daily lives of some 230 million people.
One positive effect of the floods and their aftermath is that people in China
are finally beginning to realize the severity of the environmental degradation
and the importance of ecological conservation along the upper reaches of the Yangtze. This
region is characterized by great biological and cultural diversity. Since
the floods in the lower Yangtze, the government authorities have placed
controls on logging in this region and have announced a reforestation
campaign.
Following decades of overexploitation, the recent policy
changes in China are a promising step towards the conservation and
sustainable management of forests in the mountainous areas. The Chinese
authorities and the forestry industry welcome the public's recognition of
the crisis and its support for remedies, yet there is concern about the
problems which those remedies will cause for the people involved. In many
places local populations will lose their main source of cash income, and
local administrations as well as the forestry industry will be fully
dependent on state subsidies until logging can be resumed. Not
surprisingly, some officials have openly opposed the idea of
conservation, stating that there is no other source of income. China is
therefore witnessing a phenomenon that is common in developing
countries: conservation and development in conflict with each other.
The best approaches to ecological restoration take economic and
ecological requirements into account at the same time. The desired process
of change is possible only if the local people will benefit directly
from the activities that restore vegetation. How can this dual purpose be
achieved in a reforestation campaign? To me it is obvious. The campaign
must incorporate specific indigenous knowledge and practices, namely those
related to the sustainable utilization of biodiversity and to the
conservation of habitat. In fact, indigenous peoples, particularly in
the mountainous regions of the world, are known to possess incredible
knowledge of the properties and uses of the vegetation around them.
There is a large body of evidence from research in the upper Yangtze region
which shows that the people who live there have always successfully managed their
inhabited areas and bio-resources by using environmentally sound practices.
They knew that in many cases their survival-- especially in the
ecologically fragile areas-- depended on sustaining the ecosystems.
Analysis reveals that the traditional systems for managing forests,
rangelands and farms are multiple-use systems designed to meet the local
communities' material and cultural needs. Practices for conserving and
managing the environment are integrated into these systems. In remote
mountain regions where resources are used for multiple purposes we may
find a variety of forestry models, including various forms of agro-forestry
alongside the conservation of forests for religious and social purposes.
In fact, there is much variety in the traditional utilization of biological
resources, not only in the ways that indigenous communities use
resources but also in the ways that they ensure the sustainability of
the ecosystems on which they depend. The result is that many native
varieties and wild relatives of cash trees or medicinal plants have been
preserved and cultivated within traditional agro-ecosystems and in newly
forested areas under diversified management. This management is guided
by the indigenous knowledge of plants and their requirements.
After
rethinking ecological restoration, I believe that any campaign must be based
on the following:
- acceptance that ecological stability is the aim;
- recognition of the ecological function of indigenous forestry systems;
- assurance that lost income will be replaced by alternative forms of
income generation;
- maximum use being made of the community structure.
In order to integrate indigenous knowledge and practices into a process of ecological restoration, researchers and development agencies should seek to address the problems that the farmers themselves have identified. While treating the farmers as partners in projects, they should together adapt the farmers' practices. In rural communities affected by a logging ban and a reforestation campaign, farmers should be involved from the start. Only then can researchers and development agencies come to understand how local people conceptualize their ecosystem and then to integrate this understanding into their studies of indigenous patterns for using and managing the forest resources. This approach can sometimes reveal new knowledge--about non-timber products, for example. In any case, project planning should always take local socio-economic requirements into account. If it does not, it has failed before the project even starts.
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