IK Monitor Networks (7-3)

Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, November 1999

Contents IK Monitor (7-3) | IKDM Homepage | Suggestions to: ikdm@nuffic.nl | © copyright Nuffic-CIRAN and contributors 1999.

Networks, international organizations

International Network on Ethnoforestry (INEF)
The International Network on Ethnoforestry was established on 4 January 1999 at the Indian Institute of Forest Management in India. INEF is a group of concerned foresters, scientists, international agencies and NGOs working to document and disseminate indigenous knowledge on forest management and to integrate it with formal forestry. Their work concerns cultures and indigenous peoples across the globe. INEF is supported by the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) at Bhopal (India), which provides a headquarters for INEF. The network is coordinated by Deep N. Pandey and assisted by 30 faculty members at IIFM. INEF is also supported by the Asia Forest Network of the University of California (USA). At present, INEF has 255 members (from 77 countries) interested in sharing and applying indigenous knowledge on forest management in order to gain recognition for that knowledge, to help secure the livelihoods of indigenous peoples, and to achieve sustainable forest management around the world. INEF members understand that ethnoforestry has to be understood in the wider context of traditional ecological knowledge. The philosophy of sustainability is implicit in indigenous knowledge systems. All over the globe, context-specific knowledge of forestry can be integrated into the formal science of forestry. This will help to effectively address the problems of forest depletion and to lift current threats to the livelihoods of local communities. INEF’s current activities include the compilation of an annotated bibliography indicating the global status of ethnoforestry, a research project on ethnoforestry in India, and the training of stakeholders. But the most dynamic activity of the network is the ongoing electronic discussion taking place through the INEF mailing list (see mailing lists). Envisaged new activities include the publication of a research journal, to be called Ethnoforestry. INEF has no source of funding as yet, and hopes readers of the Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor will come forward with ideas.

For more information please contact:

Professor Deep N. Pandey,
Coordinator, Indian Forest Service,
INEF, Indian Institute of Forest Management,
P.O. Box No 357,
Nehru Nagar, Bhopal-462003, India.
Tel.: +91-755-775 716.
Fax: +91-755-772 878.
E-mail: dnpandey@vsnl.com and: deep@iifm.org
Home page of INEF: http://www.egroups.com/group/inef
Home page of INEF Coordinator: http://education.vsnl.com/deep/index.html

Traditions for Tomorrow
Traditions for Tomorrow / Traditions pour Demain / Tradiciones para el Mañana is an organization that since its establishment in 1986 has been helping indigenous communities in the South to preserve and strengthen their cultural identity. TfT is active in 13 Latin American countries. Rural Indian communities may submit project proposals to TfT, for which the organization then tries to find funds—either from among its own members, or from government agencies, non-government organizations, private companies or foundations. TfT acts as a partner to these communities by encouraging participatory cultural and educational projects that strengthen the communities’ social organization, thus making them better able to take responsibility for their own development. TfT is officially affiliated to UNESCO. In 1996, on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, TfT and the Swiss foundation Charles Léopold Mayer pour le Progrès de l’Homme jointly published a book * in French that presents 11 of the projects. In the book, the people themselves talk about their own projects. We read, for example, how radio broadcasts in the Bolivian highlands are able to connect local people scattered over long distances, how the Sumu of Nicaragua achieved the publication of the first schoolbooks in their own language, and how young Kunas of Panama built a cultural community house where they can meet to discover their own history, beliefs and knowledge. One of the most interesting projects, however, resulted in the publication in 1994 of a 20-volume encyclopedia of local, rural knowledge. This is the Biblioteca campesina - Tradición oral Cajamarquina. Between 1987 and 1994, farmers in several hundred communities in the Peruvian department Cajamarca c ontributed their knowledge, most of which had existed only as oral tradition and had never been published. The titles of the various volumes are quite poetic and evocative: for example, ‘Braided shadows’ (the manufacture of hats), ‘Blessed mud’ (ceramics), and ‘We shall awake when we dance’ (dances and festivals). The initiative to assemble the encyclopedia was taken by La Red de Bibliotecas Rurales de Cajamarca (the network of rural libraries of Cajamarca). This network defines itself as an institution and at the same time an educational and cultural movement, sustained and led by the campesinos themselves. Producing the encyclopedia was the network’s way of empowering the individual campesino and revitalizing community culture. While working on the encyclopedia, the network of libraries grew so that now it is present in all 13 provinces of the Cajamarca, linking 600 communities. The encyclopedia not only has found its way to all the libraries and households in the Cajamarca, but many orders for it have been placed from outside Latin America as well. TfT funded the project from 1988 to 1994 and is now considering funding a revision of the 20 volumes. Villagers in the area from which the local knowledge was drawn have formed a cultural organization to ensure that the new spirit does not fade away. Their assocation is called ‘Acku Quinde’ in the local language (Quecha) after the humming bird, a bird that can fly while apparently motionless and move forward while looking back.

For more information please contact:

Traditions for Tomorrow,
12, Promenade John Berney,
1180 Rolle, Switzerland.
Tel.: +41-21-825 2331.
Fax: +41-21-825 2362.
E-mail: gradis@fgc.ch

* Amérindiens: des traditions pour demain. Onze actions de peuples autochtones d’Amérique latine pour valoriser leur identité culturelle. Sous la direction de Geneviève Herold. Paris: Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer pour le progrès de l’homme and Traditions pour Demain 1996, 224 pp. (Back)