The sun had not risen when Shala left her family home in the Northern Maghreb. She enjoyed the early morning walk through the fields of her family's market gardens. Now in her seventies, she could remember walking behind her grandmother just as her youngest granddaughter was doing now. Together they listened to the birds, admired the dew glistening on the rows of vegetables and discussed the fact that fewer and fewer gardens were being cultivated.

Ahead of them lay a ridge marking the boundary between the gardens and the scrub-covered rangelands that stretched away to the mountains of the south. As the sun rose and the day warmed, Shala and her granddaughter redirected the flow of water coming from springs in the base of the ridge, to their garden plots. Shala was using a water collection and distribution system designed by Roman engineers two thousand years earlier. Known as horizontal wells, the skills required for their management have been passed down by word of mouth since that time. Today, availability of labour is a limiting factor in maintaining and operating the wells.

This and other examples of indigenous knowledge were discussed by more than 30 specialists at a workshop in January organized by the North Africa and Middle Eastern Regional Office of IDRC. The Cairo workshop focused on investigating the role of indigenous knowledge in the management of resources in arid and semi-arid areas. It revealed just how complex and dynamic are the systems of traditional land management based upon local knowledge.

Participants discussed situations where knowledge is being lost and land degradation and desertification are occurring due to the introduction of systems of agriculture that disturb the soils. Other factors of land degradation include changes in herd management, linked to limitations in freedom and scale of movement brought about by settlements as well as increases in populations and stocks. They also heard about examples where new lore is being gathered in response to changes in the environment. They recommended strongly that governments, and their officials, consider indigenous knowledge in the development and implementation of policies. The delegates also recommended that the preservation and protection of indigenous knowledge become a priority for policy makers.

OVERSTEPPING CARRYING CAPACITY

Dr. Mohammed El Kassas, widely honoured as the father of the environmental movement in Egypt, explained that when human activities overstep the natural carrying capacity of the land, a variety of factors and processes or "triggering events" lead to damage of the soil and desertification. He added that most drylands are characterized by low and variable rainfall and fragile soils, which makes them very prone to desertification.

The containment of desertification involves a combined variety of corrective legal, financial, technical and policy actions that provide the basis for the sustainable development of land and water resources in affected areas. It is therefore important that local people, who are the holders of indigenous knowledge, be heavily involved in decisions affecting the resources upon which they rely. For this reason, participants recommended that analysts and decision makers take indigenous knowledge into full account when planning and implementing studies and development projects.

Traditional knowledge is often denigrated and ignored in the pressure to develop the countries of the developing world. Dr. Donald Cole, from the American University of Cairo, stressed that nomadic pastoralism developed as a specialized and highly skilled production system after the emergence of irrigation-based agriculture in the Middle East. This system provides a significant example of the development of indigenous knowledge in response to a specific set of environmental conditions. It also demonstrates that the incorporation by scientific knowledge of indigenous expertise is an important, although too often ignored, reality.

A major characteristic and advantage of indigenous management systems is the coherence with which local populations perceive, understand and integrate interactions between the different components of the milieu in which they live. Another important characteristic of these systems is their ability to adapt to the changing climatic conditions typical of their environment. In particular the workshop recognized that traditional pastoral and agropastoral communities had complex social and economic roles to play in their regions and, in fact, offered numerous sustainable responses to the degradation and desertification problems of the semi-arid lands. Because of their potential and socioeconomic importance, these dryland management techniques need to be protected and enhanced.

VARIATIONS ON NATURE

As Dr. Abdel Ghaffar El Ahmed, a Sudanese anthropologist, explained, "a distinctive feature of indigenous knowledge is that it encompasses the continuum between the landscape and the vegetation that exists upon it so that the two can be manipulated by people in the process of producing food." It should be understood, he continued, that African farming and herding is a series of variations upon the themes and processes observed within nature. Knowledge of ecological processes gives resource users the flexibility to direct processes to their own advantage. He added that "African countries need to redesign their self images and create a new science-led and culturally aware future."

More light was thrown upon the importance of indigenous knowledge in the lives of the people of Africa by Dr. Raphael Ndiaye, an NGO researcher from ENDA, Dakar. He believes that "all who are involved in development have to move from participation to partnership." Indigenous knowledge is important for the preservation of an individual's identity as well as for the preservation of a nation because, "a people without a memory is not a nation." He suggested to the workshop that strategies of communication must be developed that allow for the free exchange of information. "Messages must also go from local people to scientists and back again," he added.

It must also be remembered, however, that indigenous knowledge is owned by the people who hold it and use it. This means that while scientists and others should be able to work with communities in gathering information, the community and its members should have the ultimate say in how that information is used or to whom it is given. This issue raised considerable debate during the discussions. The participants felt strongly that indigenous knowledge was generally location specific and that its transfer to other locations and cultures was a complex process.

FEET ON THE GROUND

Discussion at the workshop highlighted the need to improve indigenous knowledge so as to improve modern knowledge. For their part, practitioners must be able to understand and appreciate the basis of the coherence and flexibility of the indigenous knowledge systems. Dr. Ndiaye reminded participants that "it must be remembered that the person who works and lives or dies with the results of development is the man working in the field. The researcher, the development worker, the environmentalist, they all deal with complicated matters but each must have his or her feet firmly in the soil along with those of the farmer."

The workshop concluded that indigenous knowledge, as it relates to desertification, comprises a wide range of accumulated local experience about natural resource use and management techniques, institutional and organizational arrangements as well as beliefs and values. This traditional knowledge can certainly be enhanced by the infusion of modern scientific knowledge: the challenge is to evolve the right mix between the two. Hence, given the importance of successfully combining traditional and modern knowledge systems, research should be carried out on how to best achieve this aim. One source of information might be to study how adaptations and innovations are being incorporated into indigenous systems by local communities. In designing research and interventions the workshop recommended that the cultural, ethical, spiritual and institutional aspects of indigenous knowledge systems be given full consideration.

IDRC Reports is published weekly on-line by the International Development Research Centre.
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