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A traditional ecological knowledge summit
The Global Center for Climate Change and Transboundary Waters (GCTW) cohosts a Traditional Ecological Knowledge Summit (1), as Gail Krantzberg (2), Peter Czajkowski, Dawn Martin-Hill, Rohini Patel, Hiliary Monteith, and Drew Gronewold explain. The Global Center for Climate Change and Transboundary Waters (GCTW) integrates hydroclimate modeling, water quality forecasting, and community-engaged mixed methods that harmonize and propagate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), Indigenous Knowledge (IK), and Western Science (WS) into robust 21st-century transboundary water resources governance protocols. The U.S. National Science Foundation and the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council fund the Center. It supports a multinational network of researchers that is designed to promote information sharing across borders.

Contemporary Western attitudes concerning the management of natural resources, treatment of nonhuman animals, and the natural world emerge from traditions derived from Western European philosophy, i.e., they assume that humans are autonomous from, and in control of, the natural world. A different approach is presented by Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of indigenous peoples of North America. Although spiritually oriented, TEK converges on Western scientific approaches. TEK is based on close observation of nature and natural phenomena; however, it is combined with a concept of community membership that differs from that of Western political and social thought. TEK is strongly tied to specific physical localities; therefore, all aspects of the physical space can be considered part of the community, including animals, plants, and landforms. As a consequence, native worldviews can be considered to be spatially oriented, in contrast to the temporal orientation of Western political and historical thought. TEK also emphasizes the idea that individual plants and animals exist on their own terms. This sense of place and concern for individuals leads to two basic TEK concepts: (1) all things are connected, which is conceptually related to Western community ecology, and (2) all things are related, which changes the emphasis from the human to the ecological community as the focus of theories concerning nature. Connectedness and relatedness are involved in the clan systems of many indigenous peoples, where nonhuman organisms are recognized as relatives whom the humans are obliged to treat with respect and honor. Convergence of TEK and Western science suggests that there may be areas in which TEK can contribute insights, or possibly even new concepts, to Western science. TEK is inherently multidisciplinary in that it links the human and the nonhuman, and is the basis not only for indigenous concepts of nature, but also for concepts of indigenous politics and ethics. This multidisciplinary aspect suggests that TEK may ...

This book highlights the different ways of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) practices that conserve natural resources sustainably. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), along with synonymous or closely related terms like Indigenous Knowledge and Native Science, originates in the literature on international development and adaptive management. Against the backdrop of unprecedented global degradation and reduction in ecosystem services with impacts on human well-being over the last 50 years, there is a growing interest in the role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) practices and systems of local communities in ensuring the sustainable utilization and management of resources. In this context, this book comprehensively analyzes the important aspects of natural resources in Asia. This book covers a detailed study of the different aspects of natural resources. It is divided into three sections, which deal with varying dimensions of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge of resource management in Asia. The first part reflects upon the concept of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, the second part analyzes the systematic documentation of TEK practices, and the third part deals with policy for governance. This book critically describes and explains the Indigenous Knowledge about resource management. This book is the ideal text for undergraduate, postgraduate, and research scholars in India and abroad. This book is designed in such a manner that it covers all the aspects of natural resources. It also helps the administrator and policymakers use Indigenous Knowledge in resource management.

It is now a policy requirement that "traditional ecological knowledge" (TEK) be incorporated into environmental assessment and resource management in the North. However, there is little common understanding about what TEK is, and no guidance on how to implement the policy in public arenas where knowledge claims must be tested. The problems are inconsistent and unclear definitions of TEK, and insufficient attention to appropriate methods of organizing and presenting it for assessment and management purposes. TEK can be classified as knowledge about the environment, knowledge about the use of the environment, values about the environment, and the knowledge system itself. All categories are required for environmental assessment, but each must be presented and examined differently. TEK and "Western" science provide partially different information, based on different sets of observations and procedures, and sometimes on different knowledge claims. It is important that TEK be comprehensible and testable as a knowledge claim in public reviews, and usable for ongoing public monitoring and co-management processes. To this end, certain procedures are recommended for recording, organizing, and presenting TEK, with particular emphasis on the need to differentiate between observation and inference or association. Documenting TEK as recommended usually requires trained intermediaries, but they in turn require the support and cooperation of those who have TEK. One consequence is that it is often both impractical and inappropriate to require development proponents to incorporate TEK into their environmental impact statements. However, the environmental assessment process must facilitate the use of TEK in the public review phase. ; Les politiques publiques exigent maintenant que le «savoir écologique traditionnel» (SÉT) soit inclus dans les évaluations environnementales et la gestion des ressources du Nord. On ne s'accorde toutefois pas très bien sur la nature du SÉT et il n'existe pas de principes directeurs sur la façon d'appliquer la politique dans la sphère publique où la revendication du savoir doit être mise à l'essai. Les problèmes sont dus au fait que le SÉT est défini en termes vagues et contradictoires, et que les méthodes appropriées à l'organisation et à la présentation de ce savoir à des fins de gestion ne sont pas toujours suivies. On peut placer le SÉT dans les catégories de connaissance de l'environnement, de connaissance de l'utilisation de l'environnement, de valeurs concernant l'environnement et du système de savoir lui-même. Toutes les catégories sont requises pour l'évaluation environnementale, mais chacune doit être présentée et étudiée sous un angle différent. Le SÉT et la science dite occidentale offrent des renseignements en partie divergents, qui s'appuient sur des ensembles d'observations et de procédures différents, et parfois sur des revendications du savoir différentes. Il est important que le SÉT puisse être compris et testé en tant que revendication du savoir lors des examens publics, et qu'il puisse être utilisable dans les processus permanents de contrôle public et de cogestion. À cette fin, certaines procédures sont recommandées pour consigner, organiser et présenter le SÉT, procédures qui insistent tout particulièrement sur le besoin de différencier entre l'observation et l'inférence ou l'association. La documentation du SÉT telle qu'elle est recommandée exige d'ordinaire des intermédiaires qui ont reçu une formation, mais eux-mêmes, à leur tour, ont besoin de l'appui et de la coopération des individus qui possèdent le SÉT. Une des conséquences est qu'il s'avère souvent à la fois peu pratique et inapproprié d'exiger que les adeptes de la mise en valeur intègrent le SÉT dans leurs énoncés des incidences environnementales. Le processus d'évaluation environnementale doit toutefois faciliter l'utilisation du SÉT dans la phase de l'examen public.

Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- About the Editors -- 1 Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Resource Management: A Conceptual Framework -- 1.1 Introduction -- 1.2 Understanding Knowledge -- 1.3 Concept of Traditional Ecological Knowledge -- 1.4 Linking Culture and Nature -- 1.4.1 Knowledge-Practice-Belief: A Framework for Analysis -- 1.5 Methods of Documentation of TEK -- 1.6 Conclusion -- References -- Part I Concept -- 2 Traditional Knowledge Systems and Sustainable Development -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Components of Traditional Knowledge -- 2.2.1 Role of Gender -- 2.3 Traditional Knowledge Practices -- 2.3.1 Using Crop Rotation and Crop Varieties -- 2.3.2 Crop Harvesting and Threshing -- 2.3.3 Soil Moisture Management -- 2.3.4 Biotic Stress Management -- 2.3.5 Organic Manuring, Collection, and Management -- 2.3.6 Traditional Food and Beverages -- 2.3.7 Traditional Knowledge of Medicinal Plants -- 2.4 Threats to Traditional Knowledge -- 2.5 Saving Our Traditional Knowledge -- References -- 3 Theoretical Framework and Approaches of Traditional Ecological Knowledge -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 Key Faces of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) -- 3.2.1 Factual Observations -- 3.2.2 Management Systems -- 3.2.3 Past and Current Uses of the Environment -- 3.2.4 Ethics and Values -- 3.2.5 Culture and Identity -- 3.2.6 Cosmology -- 3.3 Conceptual Framework of Traditional Ecological Knowledge -- 3.3.1 Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge -- 3.3.2 Perspectives of Traditional Ecological Knowledge -- 3.4 Approaches to Traditional Ecological Knowledge -- 3.5 Conclusion -- References -- 4 Geographies of Knowledge Synthesis and Interdisciplinarity -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 The Land-Labour Linkage -- 4.3 Rural Space as a Knowledge System -- 4.4 Geographical Space, Knowledge Transformation, and Evolving Conflict -- 4.5 Knowledge Transformations.

One of the limitations of economic development - with its emphasis on unlimited growth - is that it is pursued without any considerations as to its implications on ecosystems. The prevailing economic theories treat the economic process from a purely mechanistic standpoint. Different ways exist, however, to deal with the choices that humans have to make with respect to the allocation of resources, the distribution of its returns and the fulfilment of purposes of material progress. Indigenous, aboriginal or native ecological knowledge certainly is one of those ways, although `primitive' peoples are considered brute, ignorant, having nothing to offer modern society in terms of its achieving its economic goals. To understand how `primitive' societies solve their economic problems in a sustainable fashion is a serious challenge in this context. To that effect, the instruments of economics could should somehow be employed together with the approaches learned from economic anthropology, like those based on Mauss's gift theory. But a better grasp of this issue could possibly be accomplished with the use of what the late anthropologist Darrell Posey, with whom the author was developing the concept, called ethnoeconomics or ethnoecological economics.

This short article focusses on an exploratory enquiry into the relevance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in relationship with different cultural, social and environmental actors in the Scottish Gàidhealtachd. For many Gaels this relationship can be expressed through the indigenous cultural concept of dùthchas, representing an expanded place-based way of knowing and, potentially a 'human ecology' that is reconciled with externally determined environmental objectives. The article integrates some brief reflections from written interview discussions during the author's recent postgraduate studies, which engaged with selected communities from the Gaelic heartlands. The need for more community research exploring in-depth and contemporary articulations of these cultural and ecological relationships is emphasised.