Category: Reports from the Field

Contributed by Henri ole Saitabau Abstract: Since time immemorial, the Loita Maasai have had rich indigenous knowledge about their environment and how to monitor and predict climate and seasonal cycles through observation of behavioral characteristics of biological components, cosmology and other traditional, socio-cultural methods. They still use the same knowledge to model weather events and livelihood management. However unpredictable weather...

Why are you asking our gyan (knowledge) and padhati (practice)?: Ethics and prior informed consent for research on traditional knowledge systems Contributed by Ranjay K. Singh1 This article presents practical guidelines for healthy and ethical collaborative research with traditional knowledge holders (TKHs) and local/traditional communities. Experience indicates that, in a majority of cases, research on indigenous knowledge or traditional...

Contributed by Olivia Sylvester * *This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. Information on the Centre is available on the web at www.idrc.ca; I was also supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through a grant rewarded to Dr. Iain Davidson-Hunt. Why do youth use forest foods and medicines? This is a question I set out to answer during...