Abstract:

For the purpose of this guidebook, indigenous knowledge (IK) refers to the unique, traditional, local knowledge existing within and developed around the specific conditions of women and men indigenous to a particular geographic area. (It is acknowledged that non indigenous people, in particular people living off the land, have their own indigenous or local knowledge, but this topic is not addressed here.) The development of IK systems, covering all aspects of life, including management of the natural environment, has been a matter of survival to the peoples who generated these systems. Such knowledge systems are cumulative, representing generations of experiences, careful observations, and trial-and-error experiments.