IK Monitor Editorial (8-2)

Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, July 2000

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Editorial

When you opened this issue of the Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, somewhere in Australia an athlete was carrying the Olympic flame a few steps closer to Sydney, where the Olympic Games will soon take place. It has been a long journey. Since leaving Mount Olympia in Greece on May 10th, the flame will have been carried by many thousands of bearers before it eventually lights the huge torch and opens the Games on September 15th. Some 800 torch-bearers carried the flame across Greece and some 1500 across the 13 countries of Oceania. In Australia more than 11,000 athletes, assisted by some 2500 student escort runners, will have passed the flame from hand to hand, all the time making sure that it did not go out.

The Olympic flame makes a good metaphor for indigenous knowledge. It too has been handed over to others without being extinguished. All over the world, local knowledge, technology and skills have been passed from generation to generation in a process analogous to the relay.

The Sydney Olympic torch relay-the longest relay ever-will highlight Australia's history, culture and landscape, and celebrate the rich heritage of Australia's indigenous people. Many forms of transport are being used in addition to the legs of the runners. Convoy vehicles, ships and airplanes will also carry the Olympic torch, ensuring that it can be seen even by Australians living in remote areas.

Some people have criticized the relay as exaggerated and overly commercial-too much fuss for something as simple as a flame. But they forget that the flame is a symbol. Even the organizers sometimes seem to have lost sight of this as they devised remarkable gadgets for keeping the flame burning even under water. What the relay is really all about is keeping the Olympic spirit alive, and seeing that the infectious spirit of sportsmanship touches as many people as possible. On the website for the Sydney Games, the Olympic spirit is summed up in the words 'gregarious, honest, enthusiastic, loyal and open-hearted'.

Although games and sports are of course quite different from work and the daily routine, I think the essence of sport can be useful in everyday contexts as well. In the first place, physical exercise can give a person the pleasurable feeling of being in control of one's body. A team sport gives pleasure through the feeling that a group is working well together, its members relying on each other, learning from mistakes, and learning to rise above defeat. Pleasure can also be derived from the honour of competing in the name of one's country. It is a thrill to be doing one's best for the people back home, and to feel proud of one's roots.

To conclude this brief essay on values and mentalities, let me return once more to a concrete, material object-the Olympic flag-and consider how its symbolism might apply to us. The flag features five interlocking rings of different colours against a white background. They symbolize Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe, and the unity among them. In the present issue of the Monitor, three of these continents are represented in the articles. In the order of the articles' appearance, they are Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Authors Nuwanyakpa, Toyang, Django, Ndi and Wirmum present a selection of supernatural ethnoveterinary healing practices used by Fulani pastoralists in Cameroon (Africa). Following analysis of the practices, the authors conclude that some of them might in fact work because they combine the natural with the supernatural. They plead, among other things, for a more objective scientific assessment of the practices' effectiveness (see art.)

As regards Asia, an article by Maikhuri, Nautiyal, Rao and Semwal discusses the indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants and wild edibles possessed by the Bhotiyas, who practice migratory cattle-raising and traditional agriculture in the Central Himalayan region of India. The article concludes with a plea to conserve this knowledge in light of the rapid acculturation now taking place there (see art.).

The Americas are represented in this issue by Mexico. Author Gerritsen argues that appreciation for the farmers' point of view is the best way to achieve the conservation of biodiversity in protected areas. In fact, involving the local farmers in the management of protected areas is the only approach that really works.