The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

Local expressions of indigenous knowledge
5.4.4 Rethinking scientific assumptions
[I]f you want to understand what a science is, you should look in the first instance not at its theories or its
findings, and certainly not at what its apologists say about it; you should look at what the practitioners of
it do. (Geertz 1975: 5)
In their recent article entitled Understanding Ecological Knowledge, Menzies and Butler
(2006) argue that despite the growing awareness of the importance of indigenous
knowledge for natural resource management, the current regulations and practices in
many regimes still do not provide effective formal mechanisms for the integration of
such knowledge into active management. Equally, scientific investigation is often carried
out by outsiders for other outsiders, with the result that the outcomes most often
are inaccessible to the local communities from which data have originally been obtained.
However, a significant rethinking has taken place within the global environmental
discourse, leading to a conservational philosophy that includes social and cultural values
alongside ecological and economic ones. It may even seem that a general cognition
has evolved in political and scientific discourse, that »reason and intelligence alone
are the source of our understanding is sheer illusion« (Goldsmith 1993: 79). Notwithstanding,
the process of incorporating indigenous perspectives and the application of
local knowledge into conservation and development programmes remains a complex
and difficult task. Although perceptions of nature and their rhetorical representations
within the larger public and scientific discourse have changed in the last years, unresolved
questions remain with regard to resource ›managerialism‹. In order to avoid
anthropocentrism and ethnocentrism in favour of an »ontological equality«, Posey
(2003: 136) argues that this requires shifting priorities from instrumental values (i.e. how
is biodiversity useful to humans) to intrinsic values that imply the understanding that all
life is valuable whether it might be of use to humans or not. This is not an easy task
within a world dominated by economics and global trade.
Within the realm of academic discourse, this claim for ›ontological equality‹ finds
an analogue in the call for interdisciplinarity, which has almost become ›a mantra‹, as
formulated by Sillitoe (2002a). The continuously expressed demand of inter-, multi-,
or transdisciplinary approaches reflects the need to evolve a research methodology
that contextualises narrow scientific enquiries within a broader perspective. In striving
to meet this challenge, Stedman Edwards reminds to consider that:
Changes in policies on valuation of resources and increased scientific research do not constitute a fundamental
rethinking of our development path. Measures of development are still largely based on indicators
of economic growth, income, and consumption. In other words, the standard of development remains
increased resource use. Sustained growth, rather than sustainable development, is the basis of
the reigning development model. Economic expansion based on resource throughput had been central
to development achievements to date. But development achievements have been insufficient, and further
progress through expansion of resource use jeopardize biodiversity. The problems inherent in the current
model include increasing inequity and reinforcement of the political and economic structures that
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