Indigenous knowledge as a key to sustainable development

Abstract

Indigenous knowledge is the unique knowledge confined to a particular culture or society. It is also known as local knowledge, folk knowledge, people's knowledge, traditional wisdom or traditional science. This knowledge is generated and transmitted by communities, over time, in an effort to cope with their own agro-ecological and socioeconomic environments (Fernandez, 1994). It is generated through a systematic process of observing local conditions, experimenting with solutions and readapting previously identified solutions to modified environmental, socioeconomic and technological situations (Brouwers, 1993). Indigenous knowledge is passed from generation to generation, usually by word of mouth and cultural rituals, and has been the basis for agriculture, food preparation and conservation, health care, education, and the wide range of other activities that sustain a society and its environment in many parts of the world for many centuries.