The local communities
worldwide have long histories of interaction with natural
environment. These communities are having knowledge, know-how,
practices and symbolic representations. The quality and quantity of
traditional knowledge varies among community members, depending on
gender, age, social status, intellectual capability and occupation.
Language, religion, biophysical imperatives, and socio-cultural
aspects, and environmental traits, are
important driving forces in shaping these practices.
With rapid urbanisation,
increasing disbandment of traditional village structures and the
decline of traditional/indigenous communities as well as the
introduction of western “high-tech” solutions much of the
traditional knowledge of resource management is on the verge of
getting lost. These are however often much better suited for the
needs of developing countries and also seem to be much more
sustainable in many cases.
However, on the last
decades more attention has been brought to indigenous knowledge (a
term often uses synonymously to TK) representing a shift away from
the preoccupation with centralized, technically oriented solutions,
which failed to improve the prospects of most of the world’s
peasants and small farmers (Agrawal, 2004).
According to Berkes et
al. (2000) a high variety of local or traditional practices exist for
ecosystem management. These include multiple species management,
resource rotation, succession management, landscape patchiness
management, and other ways of responding to and managing pulses and
ecological surprises.
Traditional knowledge and
local technology are part of social complex systems that represent
list of technical solutions and in the other hand an integral
approach between society, culture and economy. The transfer of
traditional knowledge needs to be flexible and responsive to the
diversity of cultures and countries in order to allow profitable
benefits from the global sharing of traditional knowledge
The need for
revitalizing traditional knowledge
Different knowledge
systems have been linked to emerging legal and market interests in
developing cross-cutting activities on traditional knowledge.
Traditional knowledge and its technology plays a primary role in
poverty alleviation. Traditional knowledge is essential for humanity
because it reduces global dependence on inequitable and revive for
the economic betterment of the world, because its technologies are
eco-friendly and allow sustainable growth.