From the sources of knowledge
to the medicines of the future
Metz (France)
11-13 May 2000

The Société Française d’Ethnopharmacologie is organizing this 4th European colloquium on ethnopharmacology in cooperation with the Institut Européen d’Ecologie and the European Society of Ethnopharmacology. The international congress will have three themes: ‘Origins of traditional pharmacopoeias’, ‘Elaboration of pharmacopoeias’ and ‘Medicines of the 21st century’. Monitor readers will be particularly interested in the second and third days. On Friday, 12 May, there will be introductory lectures on pharmacopoeia in traditional Chinese medicine (by Professor Ke-ji Chen) and on traditional veterinary medicine (by Professor Michel Ansay and Dr Jean Lehmann). In the afternoon there are two forum discussions. The first one has as title ‘Folk and scholarly knowledge: the source of knowledges’ and the second one ‘From laboratory to field-integrated development and public health’. The latter includes a presentation by Dr Jean-Pierre Nicolas: ‘Combining traditional and scientific knowledge in Central America’. The third day offers, among other things, the following lectures: ‘Clinical evaluation: the efficiency and efficacy of phyto-anti-inflammatory drugs’ (by Dr Sigrun Chrubasik), and ‘Desiging an anti-malaria medicine on the basis of traditional knowledge of plants’ (by Professor Guy Balansard). In the afternoon an international panel will discuss the rules and regulations of plants-based medicine in France and China.
For more information, contact: Société Française d’Ethnopharmacologie, 1, rue des Récollets, 57000 Metz, France.
Tel. / fax: +33-387-74-88 89.
E-mail: sfe-ee@wanadoo.fr
See also the website at: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sfe-see

Native solutions - IK and today’s fire management
Hobart (Australia)
6-8 July 2000
Tasmania’s Parks and Wildlife Service and the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council invite managers, researchers and indigenous communities to participate in an inter-disciplinary forum which will consider the role of indigenous knowledge, technologies and peoples in contemporary fire management.
The symposium will explore the issue’s enormous implications for social and economic risk management, concepts of biodiversity, and the place of people in the natural world. The event is intended to provide an international platform for people involved in land management, including local communities and researchers. Together they will explore the diverse array of issues relating to fire management—with a focus on the knowledge and participation of indigenous peoples.
In recent years there has been growing appreciation for the traditional practices of indigenous peoples pertaining to fire ecology. In Tasmania, tentative steps are now being taken to evaluate and experimentally re-introduce practices which parallel the burning regimes maintained by Aboriginal people over several thousand years. But exclusion has been a key management principle in recent decades. For this reason, any proposal for the active reintroduction of fire into an area will require careful planning and considerable consultation. The risks to public safety and assets, the threat to fire-sensitive vegetation, and the implications for biodiversity conservation are all important issues for debate. At a more fundamental level, questions are being raised about the ethics of active landscape manipulation, the objectives of biodiversity management, and the value that should be assigned to the wilderness landscape.
The symposium will have an interdisciplinary character. It will therefore appeal to a wide range of researchers and practitioners in such fields as land management, fire and vegetation ecology, and environmental values. It is expected that significant contributions will be made by representatives of indigenous communities and others who have an interest in the management of natural and cultural resources.
Reviewed papers and the proceedings of the symposium will be published as a record of the symposium’s outcomes.
For early registration and more information, please contact: Greg Lehman, Project Manager, Aboriginal Partnerships World Heritage Area, Policy & Planning Section, Parks & Wildlife Service, Department of Primary Industries, Water & Environment, GPO Box 44A, Hobart, Tasmania, 7001 Australia.
Tel.: +61-362-33 2109.
Fax: +61-362-33 3477.
E-mail: glehman@dpiwe.tas.gov.au
See also the website at: http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/manage/manage.html

PAST

Revitalization and conservation of traditional games as educative media
Malang (Indonesia)
28-30 August 1999
This workshop was organized by Yayasan Semesta Biru (YASERU) and the Center of Environment Education (PPLH). The World Bank’s Center of Environment Education sponsored the event.
The aim of the workshop was to gather together data on traditional games, to analyze this data, and then to develop new games that can be integrated into formal education. The main driving force behind the workshop was a widely shared concern about the way that traditional games are rapidly vanishing and being forgotten. With the disappearance of these games, indigenous knowledge and humanistic values are also disappearing, and there is a risk that they will be replaced entirely by commercial, violent games—and values.
The workshop’s organizers realized that there is a lack of knowledge about the content and potential of traditional games, and that there are many misconceptions about playing and learning. As a result of the workshop, a group was set up under the name Children’s Traditional Game Communication Forum (Forum Komunikasi Permainan Tradisional Anak). The Forum is planning various follow-up activities in 2000. These include fieldwork to collect more information about traditional games (in February-March); an analysis of the games in terms of their potential for use in schools (April-June); hands-on workshops to try out the games in cooperation with teachers, NGOs, and government agencies in the field of education (August); and finally, trials in schools in order to obtain feedback for the further development of useful, traditionally based games (September).
For the medium to long term, the Forum is planning to publish brochures, leaflets, educational comic books, and posters; to develop audio-visual aids; and to write theoretical articles. Festivals, competitions and exhibitions will be held in the various regions covered by the participating organizations.
(Ina Irawati, of Yayasan Semensta Biru)
For more information, please contact: Ina Irawati, Yayasan Semesta Biru, Perum Vila Bukit Sengkaling AJ-11 Dau - Malang Jawa Timur 65151, Indonesia.
Tel.: +62-341-461 238.
Fax : +62-341-462 190.
E-mail : yaseru@mlg.globalinfo.net

Agro-ecology and soil and crop management among indigenous cultures
Salt Lake City (USA)
1 November 1999
A symposium on indigenous knowledge of agriculture and traditional agricultural systems was held during the 1999 annual meetings of the American Society of Agronomy-Crop Science Society of America-Soil Science Society of America (ASA-CSSA-SSSA). The symposium was organized by the group of soil and crop scientists, ecologists, and anthropologists who are involved in an interdisciplinary study of runoff agriculture among the Zuni, a Native American people in the southwestern U.S. The main purpose of the symposium was to present studies that scientifically document traditional knowledge of crops, soils, and agricultural management, and to increase agricultural scientists’ awareness of the concepts and applications of indigenous knowledge. Although several past symposia at these meetings have included aspects of indigenous knowledge, this was the first symposium devoted entirely to the subject.
The symposium consisted of oral presentations followed by a session in which 27 posters were presented. The symposium was well attended, with about 65-125 people in the audience for the oral presentations. The poster session, presenting a wide range of issues and case studies, allowed participants to meet and interact in small groups.
The symposium was diverse in terms of topics, geography, and disciplines. The topics included investigations of traditional agroecosystems; past and present human-environmental relationships; conservation of natural and agricultural resources (e.g., crop genetic resources); documentation of traditional knowledge; relationships of research and researchers to indigenous peoples and their agricultures; and alternative, more sustainable approaches to development. The posters were arranged in categories: crop science, soil science, integrated agricultural systems, range management, agroforestry, and socio-economic research.
The presentations covered a wide geographic and temporal range. This was necessary in order to reflect the geographic diversity, knowledge of local environments, and long-term perspective and adaptation that are hallmarks of indigenous cultures. Studies from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific Islands were presented, concerning peoples with ancient, historic, and contemporary agricultural systems. The importance of multidisciplinary participation in traditional agriculture research was emphasized by inviting presenters from the social sciences, including anthropology, archaeology, sociology, and geography, in addition to presenters from the natural sciences and the subdisciplines of crop and soil science.
The full programme and list of presenters, along with abstracts of all papers, can be found in the programme guide and book of abstracts available from ASA. Plans to publish the symposium papers are presently under consideration. We hope that this symposium will lead to more visible recognition of indigenous knowledge and related studies at future ASA-CSSA-SSSA meetings.
(Jon Sandor, Iowa State University; Jay Norton, University of Montana; Steve Williams, University of Wyoming; Deborah Muenchrath, Iowa State University)
To obtain the programme guide and/or abstract book, please write to: American Society of Agronomy, 677 S. Segoe Road, Madison, WI 53711-1086, USA.
See also the website at: http://www.agronomy.org

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