Nicky thanked LightShare Digest No. 5, for carrying with his permission, his piece on the “Butterfly Effect on Societal Transformation.” This article of his on Indigenous Knowledge Systems appeared as a “guest chapter” in The White Man’s Burden: From Call of Duty to Sense of Shame by LD editor Ed Aurelio Reyes (published in 1996).

TRIBAL communities are the cultural bearers of what has come to be increasingly known and respected in the academic and development communities as Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS).¹ The tremendous scope of their tacit science and knowledge can be seen in the following examples.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is hard pressed to create a cropping system where five economic species are growing at the same time. The Hanunoos of Mindoro, however, are acquainted with 430 crops and think nothing of multiple cropping as many as 40 species at the same area throughout the year.²
Their multi-storied cropping system is so finely attuned to ecological factors that some consider this complex farming system as one of the modern wonders of the world. In Palawan the indigenous farming practices of the Palawanon, recently unearthed by meticulous anthropological investigations, exhibit an exact and wonderful astronomical knowledge reminiscent of the ancient stellar wisdom of the Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Egyptians.

Planting of agricultural crops was carefully timed with events in the constellations of the cosmos. A computer check revealed that the Palawanon had accurately mapped the sky. In the uplands of the Cordilleras, there are also reports of rice fields reaching over 100 cavans per hectare without the use of expensive and toxic chemicals.
 

Anthropologists have also been amazed at the depth of the basic and applied knowledge that the indigenous people have of their forest.

“A !Ko bushman informant was able to identify by name 206 out of 211 varieties collected, and could draw finer distinctions between different types of plants than the professional taxonomist for whom she was working. Conklin’s research among the Hanunoo …revealed that an average adult can identify a staggering 1,500 different species which was some 400 more than had previously been recorded.

“Hand in hand with this highly developed ability to identify plant life goes a detailed knowledge of medicinal and other uses of plants and the conceptual wherewithal to deal in a sophisticated manner with relations between vegetation and the rest of the ecosystem.”

This again is clear in the case of the Hanunoo who used four different terms for describing the firmness of soil, nine color categories to reflect its properties, 10 basic and 30 subtypes of rocks, five different topographical types, three different ways of categorizing slopes, and six major and 10 minor types of vegetation grouping. Drawing on a similarly detailed framework, the !Ko are able to locate quickly individual plants of particular species through their intimate understanding of principles governing the co-location of different plants according to soil conditions.

These cases suggest that the perceptions of indigenous observers are not only superior to those of the scientists as far as the identification of individual species is concerned, but that this superiority also extends to the empirical understanding of localized ecosystems as a whole.³

It is therefore not surprising that this in-depth indigenous knowledge has been harnessed by indigenous peoples to show a powerful alternative use for irreplaceable and valuable virgin forests. This is an issue of utmost importance because the sustain-ability of Ifugao agriculture is being threatened by massive deforestation inspired by people from the lowlands.
 

The 29 June 1989 issue of the Washington Post reports on an extraordinary study published in Nature magazine.⁴ A team of scientists and economists has discovered that “the net revenues generated by long-term harvesting of non-timber products are two to three times greater than logging the commercial timber or clearing the forest for cattle pasture.” Even more important, the non-logging revenues do not require the destruction of the virgin forests of the Amazon.

This example shows how IKS can harvest alternative forest products and generate livelihood and income on a sustained basis. Ultimately, a much larger pool of income can be gained while at the same time leaving much of the virgin forest intact.

This alternative scenario is being increasingly implemented in different parts around the world. India, for example, presents a vision of the tremendous value of the “minor forest products” discussed above.

In the early 1980s, India’s “minor forest products” yielded some $200 million worth of value. This amount is 49.7% of all income derived from forests which reached $402 million. In other words, India derived almost equal value from its “minor forest products” as from all its lumber products! And equally as important, these alternative forest products did not require the destruction of virgin forests!

Furthermore, the “minor forest products” sector of the economy employs 70% of the 2.3 million man-years required in all forest activities. In addition, the “minor forest products” are growing at a rate faster than the timber sector.⁵

Recognizing these innate talents, development anthropologists in Latin America have started consulting with indigenous tribes as to the best ways to regenerate forest ecosystems. The indigenous peoples act as on-site ecologists, guiding development workers on the intricacies of ecosystems regeneration.⁶

Businesses have also long ago discovered that indigenous knowledge systems translate into attractive financial returns. Pharmaceutical companies, for example, scout the world to locate new medicinal products on the bases of experiences of indigenous peoples.

Yearly, the value of medicinal products derived from indigenous knowledge is estimated at US$43 billion. In addition, the international seed industry alone markets US$15 billion worth of generic materials derived from crop varieties selected and improved by Third World farmers.

There are hundreds of examples of scientific innovation and inventiveness that lies hidden in indigenous peoples. A final example, from the discipline of Mathematic, will cement the case for the necessity of developing a new respect for indigenous knowledge and culture.

“Children’s games among the Bushoong in Zaire, for instance, include the basics of graph theory known as the Eulerian path. Sand figures, not with the Eulerian’s standard seven edges, with tens of lines that cross, make hundreds of connected squares. Not far away in central Africa, Tshokwe have a proud history of even more complex mathematical models used in storytelling and hunting strategies. In Vanuatu, in the Pacific, still more complex graph theory material is commonplace. Researcher Maria Ascher says that the so-called ‘tribal peoples’ found the Eulerian idea sufficiently intriguing to elaborate.⁷

The reality, reliability and remarkable usefulness of indigenous knowledge has generated international concern over the ongoing commercial exploitation of the “intellectual property rights’ of native peoples. Thus, in its first international congress in Belem, Brazil on July 1988, the International Society of Ethnobiology produced a declaration advocating for equitable compensation and legal defense of intellectual rights of native peoples.

Since this declaration of scientists in 1988, there is now global consensus about the reality and value of indigenous knowledge. One major expression of this consensus is found in the results of the Keystone Dialogue on plant genetic resources. During the past three years, very candid and elaborate discussions were held between transnational corporations, NGOs, United Nations agencies including FAO, governments and the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), brain and funding trust of Green Revolution agriculture. CGIAR is the mother of the IRRI and other international research institutes.

The Keystone official “consensus” report contained the following statement referring to the previously unacknowledged reality of “informal innovation” done by indigenous peoples: “It also was fully agreed that the current patent system applied to genetic resources does not recognize the important role that farmers had, and continue to have, in the development and maintenance of germplasm.⁸

The Belem Declararation and the Keystone Dialogue demonstrate the global usefulness of the ethnoscience of native peoples as well as the need to safeguard this knowledge when it is relied upon to further national and international development.

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¹Brokensha, D. et al (1980) Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Development (Lanham: Maryland University Press of America.

²Conclin, H.C.. (1957), Hanunoo Agriculture: A Report on an Integral System of Shifting Cultivation in the Philippines, FAO Forestry Development Paper No. 12, Rome: FAO.

³Brokensha et al, op cit., p. 343.

⁴According to the studies by the Institute for Scientific Information based in Pennsylvania, Nature magazine is the second most widely read scientific journal in the world.

⁵Ibid.

⁶Personal Interview by Perlas, N. with Dr. Leslie Brownrigg, anthropologist with AMARU IV, a Washington DC-based consultancy group.

⁷Mooney, P. (1991) Genius and the Next (Truly) Green Revolution, Paper presented at an international conference on biotechnology held on August 17-23 in Bangkok, Thailand. See also Ascher, M. (1991). Ethno Mathematics: A Multicultural View of the Mathematical Ideas (Pacific Grove: California Books/Cole Publishing Company).

⁸Keystone International Dialogue Series on Plant Genetic Resources, “Final Resources Report, Global Initiative for the Security and Sustainable Use of Plant Genetic Resources, Oslo Plenary Session,” Keystone, Colorado, the Keystone Center, June 21, 1991, p. 30.