Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation And Development In A ...

prospects are a matter of the gravest concern to many among them. This situation is
similar to that faced by a number of marginal societies throughout the world, and is
also of great importance to those concerned with the applied aspects of research in
cultural ecology. The prospect that indigenous and other traditional systems of
resource management, and the knowledge systems associated with them, might be
of practical value in addressing the environmental problems arising from the changing
human relationship with ecological systems on both global and local scales, has
therefore been a major preoccupation of researchers.
Two distinct orientations evident in this field appear to reflect different political
positions. One essentially assumes, whether for reasons of ideology or pragmatism,
the persistence of existing social and economic structures. Indigenous knowledge is
seen as a tool for the greening of a global society which would continue to operate
according to the economic principles already employed as the major basis of decision-
making (Escobar 1995: 192-211; Stirrat 1998). This forms the basis of the
treatment of indigenous knowledge in international agreements such as the
Convention on Biological Diversity (Posey 1998: 114-115), and is an unchallenged
assumption that pervades much of the literature on extractivism (Assies 1997: 75-
6). Acknowledging that there is an undeniable pragmatic value in this, I discuss some
of the relevant literature shortly. First I will consider the other, more radical of the
orientations I have identified. Largely arising from the systems approach, this
explicitly incorporates the critique of western cultural hegemony that Purcell (1998)
considers characteristic of anthropological interest in indigenous knowledge. Study of
the traditional knowledge of non-western populations is considered an approach which
can provide the basis for fundamentally different ways to organise the social and
ecological relations of human societies (Berkes 1999).
The greater part of the research effort devoted to the applications of traditional
knowledge has focused, sensibly enough, on agriculture. Alcorn (1995) provides a
general summary of the diverse contributions that ethnobotanical knowledge can
make to agricultural development. A growing number of studies are concerned with
investigating such potential in other areas of subsistence. Among pastoralists in
various parts of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, management of grazing lands is
strongly dependent on local knowledge of water cycles and pasture growth, and
regulated via traditional systems of ownership of and access to water sources and
grazing lands (Niamir 1995). Over the time scale encompassed by their written
history, resource use practices among the Cree appear to have evolved so as to
incorporate systems for the sustainable exploitation of lake fisheries and wild