By Jan Brouwer
The seminar was inaugurated by Mr G.B. Patnaik, Research Director, Project 'Man & Forest', Cuttack, and Prof. F. Schmithüsen, Chair of Forest Policy and Forest Economics, SFIT, Zürich.
Indigenous knowledge
The key role address presented by Dr Klaus Seeland of the SFIT, Zürich raised a
number of fundamental questions regarding: (1) the status of indigenous knowledge about
forests among the forests' inhabitants; (2) the claim to collective or individual property rights
of indigenous knowledge in forests; and (3) indigenous knowledge as an alternative to the
technologically dominated mainstream development. The paper pleaded for research into and
the propagation of indigenous knowledge as a way to contribute to a visible management of
local forests with the active participation of the local people. Stimulating local, non-
governmental organizations to integrate people's knowledge as a major component in forest
management is seen as a possible solution to the twin problems of local development and
environmental management.
The Man & Forest Project
Notable contributions to the project and to the seminar were made by a team of young
scholars: Mr M. Jena, Miss P. Pathy and Mr S. Behara. They have made intensive studies
on the Orya forests and the sacred tribal complexes, focusing on the linkages between
knowledge of the forests, world-view, and lifestyle of the tribal populations, as well as on
their technological implications for forest management.
Conclusions
The conclusion of the seminar was that development of forest management strategies and
plantation projects in a region must be elaborated starting from local, indigenous strategies
ensuring the active participation of the local people and should reinforce indigenous
knowledge rather than trying to impose new, strange (often alien) ideas that the local
population do not grasp.
The seminar also called for a clearer definition of the concept of indigenous knowledge and
emphasized the importance of indigenous languages as a vehicle to convey this knowledge,
which is mostly oral.
The project Man & Forest will now shift its focus more to the sustainable development
of both the inhabitants of the forest and the forests in which they live.
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