Beneficiaries are actors too.pdf - Southern Institute of Peace ...

must be recognised if it is to be integrated with the global
knowledge. Certain IK practices become outmoded because of
rapid changes in the environment or the socio-economic and
cultural scene. Not all IK practices are naturally in harmony with
the environment. Thus it is imperative to move away from the
misconception that all IK is good and vital for sustainable
development.
There is historical and contemporary evidence that indigenous
peoples have also committed environmental wrongs through
over-grazing, over-hunting, or over cultivation of the land and it is
misleading to think of IK as always being “good”, “right” or
“sustainable”. In particular, IK relating to cultural artefacts,
totems, rules and taboos, beliefs and prohibitions may require
critical examination. For instance, where perhaps in some distant
past there was need for people to hold that women and children
should not eat chicken or eggs, it is questionable whether that
prohibition is justified today. The same goes for the tradition,
common in many tribes, which specifies which parts of an animal
or chicken, can be eaten by men, women and children
respectively. Many of the taboos, rules and prohibition seem to
have been overtaken by time and are no longer serving a useful
purpose nor rational. However, in critically re-examining those
beliefs it is always useful to bear in mind their purpose, rather
than their grounding. For example, among the communities in
western Kenya every young boy in the village was restrained from
killing frogs by creating the fear that his mother's breasts would
disintegrate if he did so. The logic of this prohibition is faulty, but
its purpose is sound since frogs needed to be protected to avoid
extinction as they were valued by the communities for some forms
of traditional medicine. IK is dynamic and evolves all the time.
However, Thrupp (1989) has noted how sometimes IK that was
once well-adapted and effective for securing a livelihood in a
particular environment becomes inappropriate under conditions
of environmental degradation and when change is particularly
rapid or drastic, the knowledge associated with them may be
rendered unsuitable and possibly damaging in the altered
conditions.
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