Indigenous Environmental

Knowledge and its Transformations

 Studies in Environmental Anthropology
edited by Roy Ellen, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK
This series is a vehicle for publishing up-to-date monographs on
particular issues in particular places which are sensitive to both
socio-cultural and ecological factors. Emphasis will be placed on the
perception of the environment, indigenous knowledge and the
ethnography of environmental issues. While basically
anthropological, the series will consider works from authors
working in adjacent fields.
Volume 1
A Place Against Time
Land and Environment in Papua New Guinea
Paul Sillitoe
Volume 2
People, Land and Water in the Arab Middle East
Environments and Landscapes in the Bilâd ash-Shâm
William Lancaster and Fidelity Lancaster
Volume 3
Protecting the Arctic
Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Survival
Mark Nuttall
Volume 4
Transforming the Indonesian Uplands
Marginality, Power and Production
edited by Tania Murray Li
Volume 5
Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and its Transformations
Critical Anthropological Perspectives
edited by Roy Ellen, Peter Parkes and Alan Bicker
This book is part of a series. The publisher will accept
continuation orders which may be cancelled at any time and which
provide for automatic billing and shipping of each title in the series
upon publication. Please write for details.
 Indigenous
Environmental
Knowledge
and its Transformations
Critical Anthropological
Perspectives
Edited by

Roy Ellen, Peter Parkes, Alan Bicker

University of Kent at Canterbury
UK

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Cover: Kantu’ smallholder tapping one of his rubber trees

 CONTENTS

List of Maps, Plates and Tables vii

Notes on Contributors viii
Preface x

Introduction 1
Roy Ellen and Holly Harris
Chapter 1 Ethnobiology and Ethnoecology in the Context 32
of National Laws and International
Agreements Affecting Indigenous and Local
Knowledge, Traditional Resources and
Intellectual Property Rights
Darrell Addison Posey
Chapter 2 ‘We Wander in our Ancestors’ Yard’: Sea 56
Cucumber Gathering in Aru, Eastern
Indonesia
Manon Osseweijer
Chapter 3 The Construction and Destruction of 79
‘Indigenous’ Knowledge in India’s Joint Forest
Management Programme
Nandini Sundar
Chapter 4 Claims to Knowledge, Claims to Control: 101
Environmental Conflict in the Great
Himalayan National Park, India
Amita Baviskar
Chapter 5 Locating Indigenous Environmental 120
Knowledge in Indonesia
Tania Murray Li
Chapter 6 ‘Indigenous’ Regionalism in Japan 148
John Knight
Chapter 7 The Use of Fire in Northeastern Luzon 174
(Philippines): Conflicting Views of Local
People, Scientists and Government Officials
vi

Andres Masipiqueña, Gerard [Link] and

Denyse [Link]
Chapter 8 The Life-Cycle of Indigenous Knowledge, and 209
the Case of Natural Rubber Production
Michael [Link]
Chapter 9 Enclaved Knowledge: Indigent and Indignant 249
Representations of Environmental
Management and Development among the
Kalasha of Pakistan
Peter Parkes
Chapter 10 Endangered Forest, Endangered People: 290
Environmentalist Representations of
Indigenous Knowledge
[Link] Brosius
Chapter 11 Indigenous Knowledge: Prospects and 316
Limitations
Arne Kalland

Index 332
 LIST OF MAPS, PLATES AND TABLES

MAPS

Map 2.1 The Aru archipelago 58

Map 2.2 Southeast Aru and the Aru Tenggara Marine Reserve 59
Map 7.1 Topographic map of Northeastern Luzon 178
Map 9.1 The Kalasha valleys in Chitral, Northwest Pakistan 253

PLATES

Plate 2.1 Aruese woman cleaning boiled trepang and removing 61

its ossicles
Plate 7.1 The use of fire in the Cagayan valley 204
Plate 8.1 Kantu’ smallholder tapping one of his rubber trees 219
Plate 9.1 Ritual appointment of the roi constabulary during 261
the spring Joshi festival in Rumbur valley, April
1989

TABLES

Table 2.1 Locations and trepang species found, according to 67

women in Beltubur
Table 2.2 Trepang species distinguished by Aruese collectors 68
and Indonesian-Chinese shopkeepers
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Amita Baviskar is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of

Delhi, India.
Alan Bicker is a Research fellow in the Department of
Anthropology at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
[Link] Brosius is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Georgia, USA.
Michael [Link] is Professor of Social Ecology at the School of
Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University,
Connecticut, USA.
Roy Ellen is Professor of Anthropology and Human Ecology at the
University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
Holly Harris is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of
Anthropology at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
Arne Kalland is Professor of Anthropology at the Institute and
Museum of Anthropology at the University of Oslo, Norway.
John Knight is a Research Fellow at the International Institute
for Asian Studies in Leiden, The Netherlands.
Andres [Link]ña is Dean of the College of Forestry and
Environmental Management, and Professor in Forest
Administration at Isabela State University, The Philippines.
Tania Murray Li is Associate Professor in the Department of
Sociology and Social Anthropology at Dalhousie University,
Halifax, Canada.
Manon Osseweijer is a Ph.D. candidate in the Programme for
Environment and Development at the Centre of Environmental
Science, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
Peter Parkes is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the
University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
 ix

Gerard [Link] is Director of the Programme for Environment

and Development at the Centre of Environmental Science, Leiden
University, The Netherlands.
Darrell Addison Posey is Director of the Programme for
Traditional Resource Rights at the Oxford Centre for the
Environment, Ethics, and Society, Mansfield College, University of
Oxford, UK; and Professor, Departmento de Ciências Biológicas,
Universidade Federal do Maranhão, Centro-São Luíz, Maranhão,
Brazil.
Denyse [Link] is Assistant Professor at the Centre of
Environmental Science, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
Nandini Sundar is a Reader in Sociology at the Institute of
Economic Growth, Delhi, India.
 PREFACE
Roy Ellen, Peter Parkes and Alan Bicker

The workshop on which the present volume is based was held at the
University of Kent at Canterbury in May 1997, under the title
‘Indigenous environmental knowledge and its transformations’. It
was funded by the Asia Committee of the European Science
Foundation, and a brief report to the Foundation was published in
the Summer Newsletter of the International Institute for Asian
Studies in Leiden (1997, no. 13). The workshop was the third in a
series organised under the auspices of the East-West
Environmental Linkages consortium, an informal multidisciplinary
network of individuals and institutions from Europe, North America
and Asia.
The workshop was conceived as an opportunity to reflect critically
on what is now widely described as ‘indigenous knowledge’
(specifically, traditional, local or folk knowledge of the environment),
and sought to address the way such knowledge has been used, and
by equal measure abused, in different cultural contexts;
incorporated into official knowledge, caricatured, misused and
misunderstood, repackaged and sometimes re-invented, through,
successively, colonial science and top-down development strategies;
and more recently through farmer-first approaches and the
contemporary politics of ‘indigenous’ populations. As the
introduction starts by pointing out, the workshop was not directly
concerned to enter the practical and moral debates concerning the
technical efficacy or value of indigenous knowledge. It took the
empirical value of a great deal of IK for granted. By the same token
it was not part of its remit to provide further empirical examples of
IK in action or its applications in development, scientific or
commercial contexts. There are many other books and articles
which do this [e.g. Warren, Slikkerveer and Brokensha, 1995] and
indeed many of the contributors to this volume have demonstrated
their commitment to documenting the intricacies of local knowledge
 xi

systems and promoting their practical applications (e.g. Posey, Dove

and Ellen). Rather, the workshop was motivated by observing the
exponential growth in the applications of IK (see Sillitoe, 1998) and
a feeling that it was time to take stock of its growth, to take a critical
look at its underlying assumptions, methodologies and concepts; to
stand back and place it in some kind of grounded theory of ideas
and practices.
All chapters in the present volume, with the exception of those by
Peter Brosius and Peter Parkes, were prepared especially for the
workshop, and appear here in a revised form. Earlier, and slightly
modified, versions of the chapters by Ellen and Harris; Posey; and
Masipiqueña, Persoon and Snelder have appeared as working
papers 1, 2 and 3 respectively of the EU funded programme, Avenir
des Peuples des Forêts Tropicales. The chapter by Brosius first
appeared in Human Ecology (1997, volume 25, number 1), and we
are grateful to the editors of that journal for permission to
reproduce. The chapter by Peter Parkes has been written especially
for inclusion in the volume.
We would like to acknowledge the support we have received from
the Asia Committee of the IIAS and its various officers, in particular
Professor [Link], Max Sparreboom, Cathelijne Veenkamp
and Sabine Kuypers. Ulrich Kratz of the London School of Oriental
and African Studies attended the workshop on behalf of the
Committee. Other thanks are also due. Charles Zerner of the
Rainforest Alliance, Henri Bastaman of the Indonesian Ministry of
State for the Environment, Oekan Abdullah of Padjadjaran
University in Bandung, Nicole Revel of LACITO-CNRS in Paris, Juju
Wang, Chun-chieh Chi and Michael [Link] of the National
Institute of Technology at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and François Simard
of the Musée Océanographique in Monaco, all presented papers at
the workshop but were unable for various reasons to contribute to
this book. We thank them for their contributions which have fed
instructively into the final published outcome. We are also grateful
for the contributions of Kamal Misra of the University of Hyderabad,
Klaus Seeland of ETH Zentrum in Zurich, and Nigel Leader-Williams
of the Durrell Institute for Conservation and Ecology for their
intellectual and organisational inputs. Finally, we are grateful for
the assistance and comments of Laura Rival and Christin Kocher
during the preparation of this volume, and to Bob Parkin for his
professional sub-editing.

REFERENCES
Sillitoe, P. 1998 The development of indigenous knowledge: a new applied
anthropology. Current Anthropology. 39(2), 223–252.
xii

Warren, [Link], [Link] Slikkerveer and David Brokensha (eds.) 1995

The cultural dimension of development: indigenous knowledge systems.
London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
 INTRODUCTION
Roy Ellen and Holly Harris

Let us begin by indicating what this book is not about. It does not
seek to demonstrate the superiority, or even the complementarity,
of local knowledge compared with dominant global scientific
knowledge in particular instances; nor does it seek to provide
further empirical documentation of indigenous knowledge for its
own sake, or of its applications in development and scientific
contexts; nor does it seek to enter into any polemical discourse
suggesting the converse. It is assumed that most readers will
already be persuaded that indigenous environmental knowledge
(hereafter IK)1 can hardly be ignored in development contexts and
that it is an essential ingredient in any pragmatic development
strategy, especially those which claim to achieve a degree of
sustainability, as well as having applications in industry and
commerce. And yet, equally, we suspect, most of us will also accept
that the claims made for the environmental wisdom of native
peoples have sometimes been misjudged and naive, replacing denial
with effusive blanket endorsement and presenting an ‘ecological
Eden’ to counter some European or other exemplary ‘world we have
lost’.
Here our aim is different: to examine dispassionately yet critically
the status of, and claims made for, IK in the rhetoric and practice of
different academic disciplines, at different times and in different
political situations, ranging through environmental movements,
states, NGOs and local indigenist activism. We are particularly
concerned to focus on the transfer of ideas between these groups
and contexts. In short, we take it for granted that IK is useful in
particular contexts, but seek to go beyond such demonstrations and
statements of the obvious to ask what role it plays in ‘green’
arguments and scientific and political discourse more generally.
Our intention in this introduction is to focus on several issues
and themes: 1) the extent to which IK is still a significant category
2 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

within western patterns of production and consumption and the

extent to which the development of professional science and
technology have undermined or obscured it; 2) the relationship
between the great indigenous traditions (such as Ayurvedic
medicine) and the local myriad little folk traditions; 3) the way IK is
constantly changing, being produced as well as reproduced,
discovered as well as lost; 4) the often contradictory and
changing scientific and moral attitudes towards IK which are linked
to a history in which western science has by turns absorbed local
knowledge (both non-western and folk European) into its own and
rejected it as inferior, only to rediscover its practical benefits; and 5)
competing definitions and conceptions of IK in the context of
contemporary theory and practice in development and conservation.
In this last respect, we place particular emphasis on how IK has
been recorded and represented. We take the view that the
distinction indigenous-non-indigenous has many highly specific
regional and historical connotations which are not always
appropriate to other ethnographic contexts. This makes
comparative generalizations difficult. Some, indeed, argue that the
term ‘indigenous’ forces us into an oppositional logic of ‘us and
them’, while others assert that the category of IK is wholly
compromised by the ‘hegemonic opposition’ of the privileged us to
the subordinated them and is therefore morally objectionable as
well as being practically useless. We try to explain how it has become
possible to articulate these positions, given the way in which IK
studies have developed, without necessarily agreeing with the more
extreme formulations.

INDIGENOUSNESS AS APPLIED TO KNOWLEDGE: A

PROVISIONAL MODEL
What is meant by ‘indigenous knowledge’ is by no means clear, and
part of the purpose of this introduction is to draw attention to the
variety of terminologies, definitions and cognate concepts through
their geographical, local-global and various historic and disciplinary
refractions. The words we use are not insignificant, since whether we
speak of ‘indigenous knowledge’ (IK), ‘indigenous technical
knowledge’ (ITK), ethnoecology, ‘local knowledge’, ‘folk knowledge’,
‘traditional knowledge’, ‘traditional environmental (or ecological)
knowledge (TEK)’, ‘people’s science’ or ‘rural people’s knowledge’
says something about the direction from which we approach the
subject and the assumptions we make about it.2 However, these
terms are often used interchangeably, and there is arguably enough
overlap between their meanings to recognize the existence of a
shared intersubjective understanding, some ‘epistemic community’
which permits a sufficient degree of common-sense engagement to
allow that they refer to the same focal semantic space. However, if
 INTRODUCTION 3

we are to move beyond the level of describing particular empirical

bodies of such knowledge and their applications, we cannot proceed
far without a more rigorous attempt to deconstruct the subject.
Part of the problem is what we mean by ‘indigenous’. Those to
whom we attribute indigenous knowledge must be indigenous
people, and yet the terminological difficulties we confront in saying
as much uncover a veritable semantic, legal, political and cultural
minefield. For Posey (1996:7) indigenous people are ‘Indigenous and
local communities embodying traditional lifestyles’, a formulation
which indicates the inevitable immanence of tautology. Moreover, it
is impossible to use ‘indigenous’ in a morally neutral or apolitical
way. Peoples identify themselves as indigenous to establish rights
and to protect their interests, NGOs are established to support them,
and government departments to administer them. We have Survival
International, Cultural Survival, the International Work Group for
Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), periodical publications with titles such
as Indigenous Affairs and The Indigenous World 1995–6, which
‘support indigenous people in their struggle against oppression’,
and so on. At the same time, governments claim that peoples so
labelled are no more or less indigenous than other minorities or
majorities under their jurisdiction. This, for example, is the very
clear view of the Indonesian government. Although it may be
convenient to seek a technical definition of indigenousness in terms
of prior occupancy, length of occupancy, a capacity to remain
unchanged or whatever, such matters are seldom politically
neutral. Measuring indigenousness is not an exact science (see, for
example, Barnes 1995, Gray 1995, Kingsbury 1995).
Given its conflicting, ambiguous and strong moral load,
‘indigenous’ might seem the least useful way to describe a
particular kind of knowledge. ‘Native’ and ‘aboriginal’ have similar
connotations; ‘tribal’ is too restrictive and confuses a political
condition with a distinct kind of knowledge; ‘folk’ and ‘traditional’
are less morally loaded, though ‘folk’ still has rather quaint
associations in some quarters. ‘Local’ has the merit of sounding
more neutral, but fails adequately to indicate key qualitative
differences in the character of knowledge usually alluded to, while
being in danger of becoming coyly euphemistic. Of them all, despite
its implications of anachronism and long-term cultural stasis,
‘traditional’ seems to have more credibility and is among the most
common ways of describing a particular kind of anthropological
other. Like the other terms, it derives its meanings from variations
on the modernity-traditional dualism, which we have quite rightly
learned to treat with suspicion.
We shall return to some of the problems associated with this
dualism as applied to knowledge below, where we outline a
more critical approach to the distinctive features attributed to
indigenous or traditional knowledge. At this stage, however, it is
convenient to have some standard by which to operationalize a few
4 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

arguments, and to this end we can at least provisionally list some of

the more commonly asserted characteristics of IK:

1. IK is local: it is rooted to a particular place and set of

experiences, and generated by people living in those places. The
corollary of this is that transferring that knowledge to other
places runs the risk of, quite literally, dis-locating it. Thus, the
salience and significance of the same series of, let us say,
plant species for a particular indigenous people compared with
global science is likely to be very different, as their taxonomic
and utilitarian linkages are on the one hand, local, culture-
specific and restricted, and on the other, global, culturally de-
contextualised and extensive.
2. IK is orally-transmitted, or transmitted through imitation and
demonstration. The corollary is that writing it down changes
some of its fundamental properties. Writing, of course, also
makes it more portable and permanent, reinforcing the
dislocation referred to in 1. The latter transformation is in
evidence every time the affinities between ethnobotanical
categories are rendered as abstract taxonomic trees.
3. IK is the consequence of practical engagement in everyday life
and is constantly reinforced by experience, trial and error, and
deliberate experiment. This experience is characteristically the
product of many generations of intelligent reasoning, and since
its failure has immediate consequences for the lives of its
practitioners its success is very often a good measure of
Darwinian fitness. It is, as Hunn (1993:13; cf. Chambers 1983:
91) neatly puts it, ‘tested in the rigorous laboratory of
survival’.
4. 1 and 3 support a further general observation, that IK tends to
be empirical and empirico-hypothetical knowledge rather than
theoretical knowledge in the strict sense. To some extent its
non-literate oral character—as well as, in many cases, its
embeddedness in the non-verbally articulated interstices of
everyday technical practice and the memory which informs this
—hinders the kind of organization necessary for the
development of true theoretical knowledge.
5. Repetition is a defining characteristic of tradition (Hobsbawm
and Ranger 1983), even when new knowledge is added.
Repetition (redundancy) aids retention and reinforces ideas; it
is also partly a consequence of 1 and 2.
6. Tradition is ‘a fluid and transforming agent with no real end’
when applied to knowledge; negotiation is a central concept
(Hunn 1993:13). IK is, therefore, constantly changing, being
produced as well as reproduced, discovered as well as lost,
though it is often represented as being somehow static.
 INTRODUCTION 5

7. IK is characteristically shared to a much greater degree than

other forms of knowledge, including global science. This is why
it is sometimes called ‘people’s science’, an appellation which
also arises from its generation in contexts of everyday
production. However, its distribution is still segmentary, that
is, socially differentiated (Hobart 1993:13). It is usually
asymmetrically distributed within a population, by gender and
age, for example, and preserved through distribution in the
memories of different individuals. Specialists may exist by
virtue of experience, but also by virtue of ritual or political
authority.
8. Although IK may be focused on particular individuals and may
achieve a degree of coherence in rituals and other symbolic
constructs, its distribution is always fragmentary: it does not
exist in its totality in any one place or individual. Indeed, to a
considerable extent it is devolved not from individual to
individual at all, but in the practices and interactions in which
people themselves engage.
9. Despite claims for the existence of underlying culture-wide
(indeed universal) abstract classifications of the biological
world based on non-functional criteria (see e.g. Atran 1990,
Berlin 1992), where IK is at its densest its organization is
essentially functional, denotative ‘know-how’ geared to
practical response and performance (Lyotard 1979).
10. IK is characteristically holistic, integrative and situated within
broader cultural traditions; separating the technical from the
non-technical, the rational from the non-rational is
problematic (Scoones and Thompson 1994:18).

Using this rather crude checklist of characteristics, we are now in a

position to examine a number of substantive areas of critical
relevance. The first is what IK and its various semantic cognates
might mean in the context of western traditions of knowledge, what
they might mean in the context of non-western (particularly Asiatic)
traditions of knowledge, and what its impact has been on the
development of those traditions we call science.

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AT HOME IN THE

WEST
The West often assumes that it has no IK that is relevant, in the
sense of ‘folk’ knowledge, that it once existed but has now
disappeared, and that somehow science and technology have
become its indigenous knowledge. Certainly, there is plenty of
evidence that the existence of, for example, codified pharmacopoeias
such as the De Materia Medica of Dioscorides displaced local
knowledge and oral tradition extensively in Europe and the
6 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Mediterranean, but uncodified knowledge persisted and gradually

filtered into organized texts, as the number of modern remedies of
European folk origin manifestly attests to (Cotton 1996:10–11).
But western folk knowledge (non-professional, experimental,
uncodified, ad hoc, often orally transmitted) is arguably just as
important as it ever has been, though different, informed by science
where appropriate and located in different contexts (gardening, dog-
breeding, bee-keeping etc.): the folk are no less creative. Moreover,
in parts of Europe urbane folk actively seek out the authoritative
knowledge still regarded as being present in their own peasant
traditions, as in truffle-hunting, geese-rearing or the preservation of
rare breeds of sheep. This is splendidly illustrated in the work of
people like Raymond Pujol (e.g. Lecuyer and Pujol 1975) in France.
Peasant or rural knowledge becomes, in this context, the peculiar
product of Europe’s own inner indigenous other. Interestingly, and
paralleling a development we shall examine later for indigenous
knowledge elsewhere, such European folk traditions have in the last
forty years or so been reified, reinvented, celebrated and
commoditized, as demonstrated in the contemporary cultural
significance of living folk museums, craft fairs and such like. One of
the ironies of this is that these ‘folk’ traditions have become highly
codified. But the double irony, as we shall see, is that the process of
codifying folk knowledge into organized scholarly knowledge has
ever been thus.
In mediaeval and early modern Europe, proto-scientific knowledge
of plants and animals superseded folk knowledge through
classification, analysis, comparison, dissemination (usually through
books and formal learning) and thus generalization. The process
was not sudden: for a long time, common experience, oral tradition,
personal experience and learned authority contributed to the
‘aphoristic’ knowledge or ‘received wisdom’ upon which organized
specialised knowledge, particularly medical knowledge, depended
(Wear 1995: 158–9); and knowing where unorganized folk
knowledge, professionally restricted organized knowledge and
proper scientific knowledge began and ended is not at all easy. In
such proto-scientific technological practices, it is significant that
elements of discrete knowledge do not usually disclose how they
were arrived at. In other words, their ‘epistemic origins’ are hidden.
Sometimes they are of European folk origin, but especially from the
sixteenth century onwards they incorporated medicines of Asian
and American origin. It was this anonymity which helped define an
emergent scientific practice in opposition to folk knowledge. Even
after scientific discourse and practice had become distinct,
methodologically self-conscious and discriminating, it continued to
draw on practical folk experience. Darwin, for example, depended
extensively on the knowledge of pigeon fanciers in working out the
details of natural selection (Desmond and Moore 1991:425–30;
Secord 1981, 1985). Indeed, more generally we can see that modern
 INTRODUCTION 7

natural history arose through a combination of such indigenous

expertise and field studies (Zimmermann 1995:312), and field
studies themselves often drew heavily in turn on the knowledge of
local experts. Some have argued that the phylogenetic taxonomies
of contemporary post-Linnaean biology are based on a European
folk template (Atran 1990, Ellen 1979, Knight 1981). Others have
gone further by claiming that the European folk scheme and that of
modern biology are no more than variants on a single cognitive
arrangement of living kinds to which all humans are predisposed
through natural selection (Atran ibid., Boster 1996).
What we now recognize as scientific knowledge of the natural
world was, therefore, constituted during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries in a way which absorbed such pre-existing
local folk knowledge as was absorbable and, ultimately, confined
what was not to oblivion. The latter was at best of antiquarian
interest, at worst denied any existence as a meaningful and credible
set of practices, precisely because of the inability of the new
paradigm to absorb it. Part of this residue re-emerged as recognized
folk knowledge in the late twentieth century and has been subjected
to the kind of cultural revival we have already referred to. The rest,
unlabelled and unloved, continues as that vast body of tacit
knowledge which is necessary to operationalize book and theoretical
knowledge and which continues to inform the practical engagement
of ordinary skilled people: the informal uncodified knowledge of
house workers, of Durrenberger and Pálsson’s (1986; also Pálsson
1994, Pálsson and Durrenberger 1982) Icelandic fishing skippers,
or of any number of skilled professionals who take their cue from
real life situations unmediated by books. Unfortunately, nowadays
the economic pressures of publishing and the demand for useful
information are leading us to the further codification of the hitherto
uncodified, of the ‘1001 handy household hints’ and ‘tips from the
greenhouse’ variety, thus giving the appearance of moving even
further from the realm of IK.

IMPACT OF ASIAN FOLK KNOWLEDGE ON THE

DEVELOPMENT OF WESTERN SCIENTIFIC
TRADITIONS
As we have seen, much western science and technology emanates
from indigenous European folk knowledge (e.g. herbal cures), but
from the earliest times ideas and practices were flowing into Europe
from other parts of the world and vice versa. By the later middle
ages, however, and the beginnings of modern European global
expansion, there emerged a self-consciousness about the
desirability of obtaining new knowledge. We can see this process at
work by examining some recent scholarship relating to European
scientific interests in India and Indonesia.
8 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

As early as the sixteenth century, travellers were being advised to

observe indigenous practices and to collect material with a view to
extending European materia medica. For example, Garcia da Orta, a
Portuguese physician living in Goa, provides us with a description
of plants of the east which formed the basis of medicines available
in Europe and Portuguese colonies, and from which they could be
extracted. Orta relied on personal medical experience, fieldwork and
indigenous knowledge, and initially depended on Arabic sources,
thus reflecting the centre of gravity of the international trade in
materia medica. Orta’s Coloquios dos simples e drogas he cousas
medicinais da India, published in Goa in 1563, was translated into
Latin in 1567 by Charles d’Ecluse (Clusius), who went on to
establish the Hortus Medicus in Vienna and, in 1593, the Leiden
botanical gardens.3 In turn, Jacob Bondt relied heavily on the
Coloquios for his pioneering book on tropical medicine, De Medicina
Indorum, published in Leiden in 1642).4 The decline of Portuguese
power in Goa and the establishment of the Dutch in Cochin was
marked in botanical terms by the Hortus Indicus Malabaricus,
initiated by Hendrik van Rheede tot Drakenstein (1636–1691) in
response to the medicinal needs of the Dutch East India Company.5
We can thus see a remarkable chain linking Indian medical
ethnobotany, compilations of Middle Eastern and south Asian
knowledge organized on essentially non-European precepts,
Portuguese and Dutch political interests, and the formative period of
modern scientific botany and pharmacology.6 But this is only the
beginning.
What makes this story of knowledge transformation of particular
interest here is that in both the Coloquias of da Orta and the Hortus
of van Rheede, contemporary Hippocratic emphases on accuracy
and efficiency tended to privilege strongly local medical and
biological knowledge, leading to effective discrimination against
older classical texts and systems of cognition in natural history.
Because van Rheede, in particular, was unable to rely on any pre-
existing European template for south Asian plant knowledge, Grove
argues that he was largely responsible for elevating Ezhava
knowledge above that of the dominant Ayurvedic schemes, with the
aim of acquiring the highest quality indigenous expertise. The
Ezhavas were a lowly Shudra caste whose traditional occupation
was toddy-tapping, but many were also Ayurvedic physicians who
were highly regarded. As Brahmans were forced to rely on their low-
caste servants for detailed field knowledge of plants, it made sense
for van Rheede to bypass ‘academic’ Brahman knowledge (Grove
1996:136–7, n 52). He thus went through the same process of
rejecting Arabic classification and nomenclature and European
knowledge as da Orta, in favour of a more rigorous adherence to
local systems. It should be said, however, that an interpretation
privileging Ezhava is not supported by the work of Zimmerman
(1989; personal communication).
 INTRODUCTION 9

The perfection of European printing, the establishment of

botanical gardens, global networks of information and materia
medica transfer, together with the increasing professionalization of
natural history, facilitated the diffusion and dominance of Indian
medico-botanical knowledge and epistemological hegemony, and
imposed an Indie technical logic on subsequent ‘European’ texts on
south Asian botany. These retain the essentially indigenous
structure of the Coloquios and the Hortus, thereby transforming
European botanical science through contact with south Asian
methodologies of classification, rather than the other way round.
But given the long history of mutual knowledge transfer going back
to ancient times, any division between European and Asian
botanical systems might be construed as arbitrary (Grove 1996:127–
8).
We can see a similar, though, in terms of the epidemiology of
ideas, less complex process in the work and influence of George
Rumphius. Rumphius was a German naturalist employed by the
Dutch East India Company who lived in Amboina between 1653 and
1702, where he systematically recorded the natural history of not
only the islands immediately surrounding Amboina, but, through
the organisms provided him, island southeast Asia in general. In
doing this he relied heavily on local assistants and their knowledge.
His most important work, on plants, was published posthumously
as the Herbarium Amboinense. What is remarkable about this work
is not just its importance in listing many species hitherto unknown
in European botanical descriptions, but its heavy reliance on native
descriptions of plant ecology, growth patterns and habits, as well as
the extent to which its author relied on Malay and other local folk
classifications and terms to provide a meaningful and
comprehensive account (Beekman 1981, Peeters 1979). However,
compared with van Rheede’s work on western India, rather than
interference from or rejection of classical Javanese and other
politically dominant schemes, we find instead a reliance on Malay
(essentially a new language at that time in the Moluccas) as a
linguistic filter for indigenous ideas and knowledge. In turn,
Linnaeus, in particular in 1740, fully adopted the Indian
classification and affinities in establishing 240 entirely new species,
and to a lesser extent relied on the Ambonese and Malay
classifications and descriptions provided by Rumphius.
The influence of the Herbarium Amboinense and the Hortus
Malabaricus immediately established Holland as the centre of
tropical botany, and French, English and Dutch naturalists
employed by respective East India companies, following Dutch
methods, were instructed to collect as much indigenous knowledge
as possible (Grove 1996:140–1). Their influence on the canonical
Linnaean texts meant that subsequent authorities came to depend
on essentially Asian organizing frameworks, as with Roxburgh,
Buchanan-Hamilton and Hooker in India (ibid.: 139) and Burman,
10 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Blume, Henschel and Radermacher in Indonesia. But more than

this, the ‘seeds of modern conservationism developed as an integral
part of the European encounter with the tropics and with local
classifications and interpretations of the natural world and its
symbolism’ (Grove 1995:3).
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, local knowledge
was increasingly systematically tapped and codified. Such
‘routinization’ resulted in the publication of scientific accounts of
new species and revisions of classifications which, ironically,
depended upon a set of diagnostic and classificatory practices
which, though represented as western science, had been derived
from earlier codifications of indigenous knowledge. Numerous
encyclopaedic inventories began to appear, such as George Watt’s
Dictionary of the economic products of India (1889–96) and Burkill’s
(1935) similar encyclopaedia on Malaya inspired by the work of
Watt, which had all the hallmarks of the scholarly arm of
imperialism. Thus, the European relationship with local Asian
knowledge was, paradoxically, to acknowledge it through scholarly
and technical appropriation and yet somehow to deny it by re-
ordering it in cultural schemes which link it to an explanatory
system which is proclaimed as western. While on a personal level
scientists may have acknowledged the contributions of their local
informants, on the professional level the cultural influences which
those same informants represented were mute.7

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE MARGINALIZED

If, in the context of late European colonial scientific fieldwork in
Asia, traditional knowledge was evident but mute, with the
inexorable rise of modernity it become a kind of ignorance (Hunn
1993:13). Tradition was something to be overcome, to be subverted
rather than encouraged, its legitimacy questioned. Several
generations of ‘top-down’ development experts and organizations
engaged in resource extraction and management in the
underdeveloped world either deliberately avoided IK on the grounds
that their own models were superior, or simply never realized that it
might be a resource to be tapped. For some fifty years or more, the
dominant model of development has been based on useful
knowledge generated in laboratories, research stations and
universities, and only then transferred to ignorant peasants
(Chambers and Richards 1995:xiii). Such attitudes are now very
much on record thanks to the work of, for example, Paul Richards
(e.g. 1985). But not only has IK been grossly undervalued by
western-trained ‘scientific’ managers in terms of its potential
practical applications, when it was at last absorbed into ‘scientific’
solutions it was curiously insufficiently ‘real’ to merit any certain
legal status or protection from the battery of patents and copyrights
 INTRODUCTION 11

which give value and ownership to western scholarly knowledge and

expertise. Even when the knowledge was clearly being utilized, it
was often redescribed in ways which eliminated any credit to those
who had brought it to the attention of science in the first place. This
point is made by Harris (1996:11, following Shiva and Holla-Bhar
1993), in her discussion of neem (Azadirachta indica):

Whether or not the chemical properties assumed to provide the

active substance for cure have been identified by the
communities does not appear relevant. Rather, it appeared
that the method used by these western firms, and their ability
to synthetically reproduce the compounds, was perceived as the
true science and consequently, deserving of patent. Because
the knowledge held by the local populations is commonly
shared, it is deemed ‘obvious’ and traditional, folk knowledge
as opposed to modern, scientific, specialist knowledge. Not
only does this distinction seem arbitrary, it also implies certain
institutionally based criteria where laboratory professionals
practice recognized science, while indigenous lay peoples are
seen to possess folk knowledge.

The inherent ethnocentrism and elitism of late twentieth-century

global science, therefore, has made it difficult for scientists
themselves to accept that the folk have any knowledge of worth
(Johannes 1989: ix), a culture of denial which has been justified by
a methodological reductionism and evaluative process which
systematically renders such knowledge ‘unscientific’. This view is
reinforced by perceptions that traditional peoples often adopted
wasteful, even delinquent patterns of resource extraction, as
classically exemplified in the literature on shifting cultivation (e.g.
Dove 1983) and that when subsistence practices were evidently
damaging, this was a matter of preference or conscious indifference
rather than poverty.

THE REDISCOVERY AND REINVENTION OF

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
Since about the mid-nineteen-sixties the process of marginalizing IK
as outlined above has been put into reverse and is indeed
accelerating to a remarkable (some would say alarming) degree.
There are both romantic and practical reasons for this.
The romantic reasons have their immediate political renaissance
in the ‘sixties counter-culture (Ellen 1986), with the notion that
traditional, indigenous or ‘primitive’ peoples are in some kind of
idyllic harmony with nature. Such a view was initially prompted by
a crisis in the modernist project of science and technology, in terms
of both the increasing remoteness and arcane character of science,
12 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

its perceived arrogance and negative technological outcomes, and

its inability to explain much about the world which ordinary people
sought explanations for. As has been suggested on various occasions
(Budiansky 1995:3, n. 7; 251, quoting Kaufman, quoting Chesson)
it amounted to ‘good poetry’ but ‘bad science’. Others have gone
even further and questioned the poetry. What this often involved was
the selective remodelling of Asian and other exotic traditions to suit
the aesthetics needs of western environmentalist rhetoric drawn
from an intellectual pedigree which favoured idealized native
images. Conklin and Graham (1995:697) put it this way:

Contemporary visions of transcultural eco-solidarity differ in

that native peoples are treated not as peripheral members
whose inclusion requires shedding their own traditions but as
paradigmatic exemplars of the community’s core values.

In this new vision, indigenous peoples are given central focus

because of rather than in spite of their cultural differences. But, as
Conklin and Graham point out, this perception and consequent
alliance between indigenous peoples and science is a fragile one,
based upon an assumed ideal of (indigenous) realities which
contrasts with realities for the local people themselves. Such
assumptions are in danger of leading to ‘cross-cultural
misperceptions and strategic misrepresentations’ (ibid.: 696).
Reconstitution in an Asian context has often involved both the great
and little traditions (the scholarly and the tribal), often failing to
distinguish between the two and confusing ideal symbolic
representations with hard-headed empirical practice. It is not
altogether surprising, therefore, that this muddle has confirmed
some scientists in their worst prejudices and led to the inevitable
backlash summed-up in phrases such as ‘the environmentalist
myth’ (see, for example, Diamond 1987; cf. Johannes 1987).
Nevertheless, with the discarding of the more fanciful portrayals of
the wisdom of traditional peoples, a more practical approach has
emerged. This has been encouraged by anthropologists and other
development professionals eager to make IK palatable to
technocratic consumers and by technocrats themselves already
predisposed to see a role for IK. Its dissemination has been part of a
rhetoric extolling the virtues of ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’,
‘bottom up’ and ‘farmer-first’. Some measure of the
institutionalization of this version of IK (and in this version
abbreviations of the IK and TEK variety are de rigeur) is the number
of networking organizations and research units (see Warren et al.
1995:xv–xviii, 426–516). One of the difficulties with this approach,
however, has been that categorization of IK effectively becomes ‘a
direct consequence of the limited parameters of western
development/scientific theories which rely upon an ordered
 INTRODUCTION 13

conceptual framework from which and in which to work’. As Hobart

(1993:16) observes:

there is an unbridgeable, but largely unappreciated gap

between the neat rationality of development agencies’
representations, which imagine the world as ordered and
manageable, and the actualities of situated social practices.

As a consequence, we seem to end up with a theory which

misrepresents the context in which certain knowledges occur and
are experienced. Hobart has pointed to the limitations of
development and scientific knowledge in that they ignore or
undervalue contexts. Decontextualization is necessarily implied by
the uncritical placing of local knowledge systems under the
umbrella concept of ‘indigenous knowledge’, and the unique and
important knowledge of specific local groups becomes subject to the
same limitations and criticisms that we make on behalf of western
science and development theories. Moreover, the tendency to define
indigenous knowledge in relation to western knowledge is
problematic in that it raises western science to a level of reference,
ignoring the fact that all systems are culture-bound and thereby
excluding western knowledge itself from analysis. This limits
analysis of indigenous systems by narrowing the parameters of
understanding through the imposition of western categories.
Fairhead and Leach (1994:75) draw attention to this problem,
particularly regarding the tendency to isolate bits of knowledge
which are fitted into a ‘mirror set of ethno-disciplines’ for the
purposes of analysis and documentation. By examining local
knowledge in relation to scientific disciplinary distinctions, they are
pointing out how this can lead to the construction of certain aspects
of local knowledge as important, while excluding or ignoring other
areas and possibilities of knowledge which do not fall within the
selective criteria of western science. Moreover, they argue that this
risks overlooking broadly held understandings of agroecological
knowledge and social relations. So, for example, research and
extension agents examining Kouranko farmers tree-management
practices in Guinea fail to take into account farmers’ tree-related
knowledge, which involves knowledge and management of crops,
water and vegetation succession, as well as the ecological and
socioeconomic conditions which influence them. By failing
to include the broader constitutive processes surrounding Kouranko
tree-management, extension workers risk obscuring and
decontextualizing local knowledge, thus jeopardizing the potential
this may have for development on specific and general levels (ibid.).
Thus, in this depleted vision, IK becomes a major concept within
development discourse, a convenient abstraction, consisting of bite-
sized chunks of information that can be slotted into western
14 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

paradigms, fragmented, decontextualized, a kind of quick fix, if not

a panacea. Such approaches are in danger of repeating the same
problems of simplification and over-generalization that Richards
and Hobart identify as major limitations in development theory, and
in science applied to development ‘ignoring specific and local
experience in favour of a generalizable and universal solution’
(Harris 1996:14). Moreover, IK has become further reified in the
hands of NGOs—which in the last few decades have become
significant ‘knowledge-making institutions’—and within the
‘universalizing discourse’ of environmentalism. Because
environmentalist and indigenous NGOs are now an influential
moral and social force, stimulating public awareness, acting as
whistle-blowers and watch-dogs, and moving from the role of critics
to offering policy proposals to governments—and since they often
use the rhetoric of science—they gain enormous authority (Yearly
1996:134). This process has evidently yielded politically
advantageous results in terms of projecting a more positive image of
IK.
In some important respects, the way development professionals
have contextualized and scientized IK by codifying it and rejecting
the cultural context has simply repeated what has happened in
previous scientific encounters with traditional knowledge, as
discussed above. And similarly, once IK is drawn within the
boundaries of science, it is difficult to know where to draw the
boundaries between it and science. As we have already seen,
changing the boundaries is often sufficient to redefine something as
science, as what defines it is to a considerable extent determined by
who practises it and the institutional context in which the practices
take place. However, the danger of turning local knowledge into
global knowledge is that ‘at the empirical level all IK is relative and
parochial; no two societies perceive or act upon the environment in
the same ways. Science, by comparison, is a system of knowledge in
rapid flux that seeks universal rather than local understanding’
(Hunn 1993:13–15). It is precisely the local embeddedness of IK
which has made it successful.

RECORDING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE

In the introduction to The Cultural Dimension of Development,
Warren et al. (1995:xvii) express what is at present central to the
indigenous knowledge enterprise—the focus on documenting and
recording indigenous systems in order that they be ‘systematically
deposited and stored for use by development practitioners’.
However, when we consider the ways in which indigenous
knowledge is perceived and defined, the idea of a project to
centralize and store this knowledge appears to be a contradiction in
terms. Thus, how is it possible to organize something for practical
 INTRODUCTION 15

purposes which is inherently ‘manifold, discontinuous and

dispersed’ (Scoones and Thompson 1994:19)? This is where its
ambiguity as a concept is perhaps most evident. On the one hand,
it is described as above, with the authors arguing against the
assumption that indigenous knowledge is an ‘easily definable stock
of knowledge ready for extraction and incorporation’. On the other
hand, despite this warning against erroneous assimilation and
interpretation, Warren et al. observe that the priority of regional and
international indigenous resource centres is currently the
codification and documentation of this knowledge for general use. A
similar stress is found in an editorial for the Indigenous Knowledge
and Development Monitor, which states (vol. 1/3, 1993):

Knowledge produced by universities and research institutes

around the world is gathered, documented and disseminated in
a coherent and systematic way. The same should be done with
community-based, local or indigenous knowledge [which]
should be included alongside the more usual scientific
knowledge.

This is clearly an agenda for indigenous knowledge, despite the fact

that Scoones and Thompson refer to it as ‘embedded in a web of
meaning and influence’. In his criticism of the western-indigenous
dichotomy, Agrawal (1995:5) deals succinctly with this contradiction
and its implications:

If indigenous knowledge is inherently scattered and local in

character, and gains its vitality from being deeply implicated in
people’s lives, then the attempt to essentialize, isolate, archive
and transfer such knowledge can only seem contradictory. If
western science is to be condemned for being non-responsive
to local demands, and divorced from people’s lives, then
centralized storage and management of indigenous knowledge
lays itself open to the same criticism.

Not only is this a concern to be addressed within a theory of

indigenous knowledge, particularly for its implications in
development projects—which makes it vulnerable to the same set of
limitations that scientific theory possesses—it is also necessary to
consider just what is being recorded and documented. For example,
it is not clear whether ‘local’, when it defines indigenous knowledge,
signifies that knowledge which is peculiar to a particular group of
people, and if so, how it is to be utilized by other groups who must
equally possess their own specific knowledge.
Richards’s analysis (1993:62) of knowledge as performance
challenges the very idea of practices being grounded in an
‘indigenous knowledge’, suggesting rather that the range of skills
16 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

and strategies employed by farmers extend beyond simple applied

knowledge into a ‘set of improvisational capacities called forth by
the needs of the moment’. He posits a ‘theory of performance’ which
challenges the assumption that cultivation practices are evidence of
a fixed stock of knowledge from which techniques are drawn.
Rather, by drawing on the analogy of musicians who rehearse many
times for a performance but who adapt and draw on their own
resource skills when needed at a particular moment, he suggests
that farmers likewise adjust and adapt their techniques and skills
according to the needs which arise at a particular time. He
illustrates what he means by performance knowledge, and the
difficulties this presents for the recording of these practices for use
elsewhere, or even in the same location the following year, with an
example of Hausa inter-cropping plans in northern Nigeria. He
observes how Hausa farmers make a series of adjustments to
drought by planting and replanting different seed mixes until
germination is secured or until available resources are exhausted.
The resulting cropping pattern is not, he argues, a necessarily
predetermined design; rather (ibid.: 67):

each mixture is a historical record of what happened to a

specific farmer on a specific piece of land in a specific year. It
is not the outcome of a prior body of ‘indigenous technical
knowledge’ in which farmers are figuring out variations on a
local theory of inter-species ecological complementarity.

His point has important methodological implications too,

highlighting the dangers of ‘misplaced abstraction’ whereby
development practitioners create a complete theory based on
assumed and observed practices. Now, this idea seriously
challenges the notion of a material stock of ‘indigenous knowledge’
which can be analysed and extracted for use in any context, even its
own context, which, as Richards suggests, is constantly changing
and intrinsically interactive. This is not to say that nothing is
analysable or useful beyond its own boundaries, but rather that it
perhaps makes better sense to recognize knowledge as grounded in
multiple domains, logics and epistemologies. Richards’ point is
useful in calling attention to the range of skills and practices which
a group collectively or individually may manipulate within their
particular locations, thus making pertinent the local or peculiar
knowledge generated within a particular cultural context.
Furthermore, as Agrawal (1995:5) suggests, it may be far more
productive to move away from the ‘sterile dichotomy between
indigenous and western’ which idealizes and obscures knowledge
and practices, disempowering peoples and systems through
artificially constrictive frameworks.
 INTRODUCTION 17

Codifying and documenting indigenous knowledge systems could

be a worthwhile endeavour if it were not for the tendency to present
such systems as models or blueprints for general use, and under
the broad heading ‘indigenous knowledge’. As such people’s
knowledge and the different ways in which they use, expand and
manage take on a static semblance, it increasingly resembles earlier
anthropological accounts of culture as timeless, non-dynamic,
bounded systems. The Cultural dimension of development (Warren et
al. 1995) provides some evidence of this. Chapter one reads like a
manual for development workers and even bio-prospecting agents,
with an interest in the value and use of ethnobotanical resources.
Without contextual analysis, Alcorn (1995:7) lists the kinds of
resources which can be ‘mined’ from ethnobotanical knowledge:
principles, facts, technologies, crops, farming systems, strategies,
and information on local constraints and opportunities. She
continues:

Traditional farmers have developed packages of practices for

tropical forested lands, arid lands, steep lands, swamp lands
and other marginal lands…. Most of these systems renew
fertility, control erosion, and maintain biodiversity through
following…these systems integrate useful wild plants into their
management regime, (ibid., our italics)

What are ‘useful’ plants? Useful to whom? By presenting these

systems as ‘packages of practices’, all agency and creative, dynamic
potential is drained, reducing local knowledge to some sort of
packageable commodity, secured and easily transferable from its
locality to somewhere else. The implication that people are not
agents but actors simply reacting to a set of established prompts is
strongly apparent, especially when Alcorn (ibid.: 6) advises us that:

farmers do not describe the details of their traditional farming

activities well. It is necessary to try to learn to farm as they do,
learn the decisions that are made, to learn exactly what they
are doing, and thereby, discover the wisdom held in their
methods.

This is a far cry from the dynamic, living systems that indigenous
knowledge is purported to be and which are advocated as the key to
future development. Moreover, these kinds of analysis present little
more than decontextualized inventories of people’s knowledge,
providing documents for, rather than about, people. From an
anthropological perspective, such contributions are inadequate
because they ignore the social and cultural context in which
knowledge is generated and put to practical use. Fairhead and
Leach (1994) make a similar point when they observe the ways in
18 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

which specific utilization patterns are separated into isolated parts

for the purposes of scientific analysis. Research and extension
workers thus isolate knowledge into studies of geographical
differences, specific crop species and their uses, particular practices
—agro-forestry, hunting, fishing, and so on—disregarding the
entirety of circumstance which surround these practices. While we
are not suggesting that Alcorn herself is guilty of depersonalizing
and immobilizing local knowledge systems (she provides references
to more detailed documentation of farming systems), the outcome of
such a general analysis nevertheless suggests the existence of a
definable body of knowledge independent of the contexts in which it
arises. One of the problems with this approach is that it removes
people’s agency, facilitating the appropriation by non-local agents of
these practices and techniques, only to be imposed as ‘top-down’
development. Not only does this defeat the objectives of
participatory development and local empowerment which an IK-
oriented theory expounds, it also establishes and legitimates itself in
the same way as previous western-centred development theories
have done, thereby presenting neither an effective nor a radical
alternative to the present development crisis. Furthermore, as local
knowledge is analysed and documented for use, it undergoes
changes which necessarily result from the specific orientations,
strategies and agendas of those using it, as well as the
transformations which inevitably occur through translation.
Hobart (1993:14) underlines some of the potential problems for
agency that can occur when knowledge is collected, codified
and decontextualized using an example from Croll’s (1993) study of
the post-revolutionary period in China. He notes how people’s
agency was diffused and depersonalized by attributing knowledge to
‘the masses’ in a government attempt to reverse the idea of a vision
of knowledge stemming from the elite and educated. He describes
the result:

As problems inevitably emerged in putting this reworked and

decontextualized knowledge into practice, local populations
came progressively to be defined as backward and ignorant…
they became presented not as agents but as objects to be
changed.

Similarly, Zerner (1994) discusses the introduction of an awards

scheme by the Indonesian government for villages who observe
idealized sasi customs in the central Moluccan Islands. Sasi are
ritualized arrangements for controlling access to natural resources
on a temporal and spatial basis, including closed seasons for
particular species—often those of commercial value—enforced
through traditional sanctions. Zerner (ibid.: 1104) notes that the
effect of this is to put villages in the public eye and under the
 INTRODUCTION 19

direction of local officials who are now able to get villagers to make
changes regarding the management of their resources. In the same
way, support groups and NGOs have been set up to observe and
ensure that sasi law is adhered to. Village councils, for example,
now have to submit annual reports to the provincial Environmental
Studies Center at Pattimura University.
It is not within the scope of this introduction to examine in depth
the political implications of the reorientation in development
towards indigenous people and their knowledge and practice. It is,
nevertheless, an important issue which has a direct bearing on the
indigenous people themselves and needs to be considered carefully
for the future of indigenous knowledge in development projects. As
it stands, indigenous knowledge emphasises the personal, the
specific and the contextual. To some extent, we would suggest that
it too is in danger of becoming a depersonalized, objectivized concept
which, if used as a top-down approach to development, may
inevitably lose its agency and efficacy once a new trend is
established. Should this happen, it is doubtful whether western
images of ‘tribal’, ‘indigenous’ peoples who require western aid will
change, thereby guaranteeing a continued role within development
enterprises. Much depends on the many indigenous groups and
alliances which are active in advocating political rights for and over
indigenous knowledge.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF INDIGENOUS

KNOWLEDGE IN CONTEMPORARY CONTEXTS
So far, the conceptualizations of IK which we have offered have been
implicitly those of western (or western-trained) professionals, even if
they do claim to be acting with the authority, and in the interests,
of indigenous peoples. However, the status of such knowledge from
the point of view of indigenous peoples themselves or from their non-
western compatriots and political leaders may be rather different. In
Asia, for example, what counts as indigenous knowledge is certainly
more problematic than it is for those operating from the West.
Thus, for western and non-western elites alike, IK variously refers
to some great tradition (e.g. Ayurvedic medicine), or more often to a
myriad little local traditions. The great Asian ‘scholarly ways of
knowing’ were a combination of epistemic and gnostic knowledge,
dependent respectively on an agreed shared authority and the
personal authority of a practitioner. They were often grounded in
written texts and resembled the European scholarly traditions
already discussed. Galenic, Chinese and Ayurvedic traditions of
medicine differed from each other, but each had scholarship in
common: ‘the foundational knowledge of each could only be
acquired by careful study under teachers relying on ancient texts’
(Bates 1995). Where the great and little traditions merge is unclear,
20 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

and as in the European case there is historical evidence to suggest,

for example, that the great Asian herbalist traditions have been
systematically absorbing and then replacing local folk knowledge.
Indeed, traditional Chinese medicine is increasingly influenced by
the work of medical scientifizers who seek to produce a body of
internally consistent, uncontested and impersonal knowledge that
can be called ‘Chinese medicine’ (Farquhar 1995:273, n. 27). Thus,
we see here something very reminiscent of the codifying and
simplifying processes which accompanied the incorporation of
European folk knowledge into the early modern scholarly traditions.
In the modern period, Asian reliance on indigenous knowledge
has been a combination of economic necessity and tradition. Many
Asian scientists, decision-makers and administrators have
frequently internalized an essentially western model in rejecting IK
as backward and as something which has to be replaced. Others
have always recognized the efficacy of some kinds of IK but seen it
as strictly complementary knowledge, which has little to do with
science-driven development. In recent years, however, the state
sector and NGOs in many countries have moved from colonial
hegemonic denial towards the positive acceptance of the utility of
local knowledge in medicine and sustainable development, partly
for political and partly for economic reasons. IK is being
rediscovered and ‘reinvented’. A classic example is the sasi
institution of the central Moluccan Islands of eastern Indonesia, to
which we have already referred. These arrangements for ritually
protecting resources by imposing prohibitions on harvesting at a
critical period in the growth or reproduction of the resource, which
in many areas had become moribund by the 1980s, experienced a
revival through endorsement by NGOs, were integrated into
national development plans, celebrated at a national level in the
discourse on development—linking ancestral culture with historic
resistance to Dutch depredations on resources—and redefined as
people’s science, as a form of resource management and
conservation that was wholly positive (Zerner 1994:1101–4). In his
Canterbury workshop presentation Zerner took this argument still
further, showing how rapidly changing representations, productions
and reproductions of sasi raise interesting issues about what
happens to knowledge once it becomes institutionalized, codified
and packaged—perhaps disseminated globally through electronic
media—and thereafter applied outside its original context.
Explicit and full recognition—in developing countries and in the
West—together with the rights which are deemed to accompany this,
has only come with the failure of top-down approaches. This has
been associated with the quest for appropriate and cheap
technologies for development and with the rise of ethnobotany in
the pharmaceutical industry, at a time when the environmental
movement has become morally committed to the notion of
indigenous environmental wisdom. No wonder, then, that at this
 INTRODUCTION 21

precise historical moment, when IK (through the assertion of

intellectual property rights) and the rights of ‘indigenous’ peoples in
more general terms are higher on the political agenda than they
have ever been before, ‘indigenous’ as a label is being reclaimed by
the protagonists themselves in pursuance of their own interests.
Distinct native peoples, though less so in Asia than in, say, the
Americas, have seen indigenous knowledge as part of their own
cultural identity and as a very concrete and politically appropriate
way of asserting it. Part of the reason for this is that, although the
guardians of such knowledge are traditionally oriented individuals
and groups, those who wish to document it are from westernized
elites or other outsiders. A very important relationship of unequal
power is thus articulated (Healey 1993).
States and NGOs have both sought to protect indigenous rights to
such knowledge, and this has given rise to a whole set of new issues
in merging the philosophies, legal traditions and discourses of the
West and the rest of the world. In some cases, cross-fertilization of
different local traditions and the reification of ‘tribal’ or ‘folk’
knowledge has occurred. Third World politicians, scientists and
others have had to work out for themselves how indigenous or
traditional knowledge is to be defined and whether its existence is
altogether to be welcomed. When it becomes a means by which to
flag problematic local minorities making political and cultural
claims against a government, it is clearly threatening; if it can be
defined in a more nationally inclusive way and commoditized, it is a
resource to be exploited.
Most of the contributions which follow address issues raised in
this section of the introduction: ‘indigenous knowledge’ as a present
social reality articulated through the voices of governments, NGOs,
scientists, ordinary citizens and those who claim it for their own.
Posey, whose chapter here situates IK in the context of the property
rights debate and who summarizes the complex international legal
and political setting in which other themes explored here must be
understood, also provides a useful clarification of the distinction
between ‘the knowledge of indigenous peoples’ and ‘indigenous
knowledge’. Osseweijer demonstrates the importance of nuancing
what we mean by ‘indigenous’ or ‘local’ in anthropological appeals
for the importance of stressing local knowledge and reminds us that
specialist knowledge may—almost by definition—be accompanied by
generalist ignorance: the IK which she demonstrates is a necessary
precondition for both economic productivity and effective marine
conservation of trepang (sea cucumbers) in the Aru Islands of
eastern Indonesia is not only that of the ‘indigenous’ extractors and
producers, but also the knowledge which non-indigenous traders
have of the trepang from a distribution and consumption angle.
Indeed, these knowledges are ‘dialogically’ related, to the extent that
indigeneity (local Aruese of local Chinese) becomes a questionable
label for their practical distinction.
22 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

The chapter by Sundar also critiques the assumption within

development discourse that IK is an easily identifiable body of
knowledge which can be instituted as development practice,
drawing attention to the differences between local knowledge and IK
as represented in government programmes. Baviskar considers the
various claims made for IK by locals, NGOs and government
departments in the context of Indian ecodevelopment and the
implications of this for our understanding of tradition, locality and
indigenousness. Similarly, Li analyses the ‘field of power’
surrounding the concept of indigenous environmental knowledge in
Indonesia and the circumstances in which it may or may not serve
as a vehicle to enhance claims to resources. She does this by first
examining the often contradictory position taken on IK by different
agencies within the Indonesian government and the deployment of
the concept by NGOs in relationship to the state and donors. This
then provides the context for an analysis of the processes, both
politico-historic and local-global, which provide one Indonesian
group with an opportunity to articulate an identity through IK,
while another must remain inarticulate. The position in non-
colonized developed Asian states such as Japan is understandably
different, with a less clear historic denigration of the traditional
past. Nevertheless, in his chapter, John Knight examines Japanese
attitudes to their own indigenous (upland) other with respect to the
rediscovery of specific traditional knowledge of the forest and
hunting, and explores rhetorical indigenization as part of an upland
cultural revival.
A number of chapters are concerned with the ways official and
native attitudes to IK change depending on the ruling development
ideology, scientific evaluations and concatenation of political
circumstances. Masipiqueña, Persoon and Snelder, for example,
illustrate shifting attitudes by state authorities to the role of fire in
resource management in the Philippines. The chapter by Dove
further explores the repackaging issues by tracking the successful
transfer of rubber production and management practices from its
original Brazilian environment to Southeast Asia, suggesting
advantages in leaving behind the cultural baggage of American folk
knowledge and relying on the flexible innovative knowledge of the
receiving local populations. Parkes too examines conditions of
miscommunication in the representation of IK in his account of the
Kalasha of northern Pakistan, but in this case the
miscommunication is intentional, or at least habitually instilled
through historical circumstances of ‘enclavement’. He also notes the
unintended and adverse political consequences of this for minority
enclaves. Brosius examines the rhetoric of an international
environmental campaign in support of the Penan of East Malaysia
against the activities of logging companies, especially the ways in
which western environmentalists have constructed Penan
environmental knowledge and used and transformed (his own)
 INTRODUCTION 23

ethnographic accounts in the generation of appropriate—largely

obscurantist and essentialist—rhetorical images, images which
have been recycled to the Penan themselves as part of a self-
definition which they find it politically expedient to project. The
recycling of distorted images of knowledge is increasingly evident as
information moves between different players in environmentalist
debates, from local peoples, through the ‘green lens’ of NGOs and
other organizations, and back to local peoples. It is part of the
process by which groups such as the Kayapó and Penan become
icons for the green movement. Finally, Kalland rounds off the volume
by returning to some of the key themes opened up in this
introduction, offering new critical insights in the light of the volume
as a whole.

THE END OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE?

We began with a list of distinctive features of what, for the sake of
convenience, we have called IK. However, IK is increasingly being
criticized for its lack of organizing themes, and whatever
characteristics might be used to carve out a meaningful intellectual
space, the cognate terms we use and concepts against which they
are matched suffer from several major epistemological weaknesses.
One of these concerns the question of context and the relationship
between IK and culture in its generality. A second is the extent to
which IK involves practices and patterns of thought which might be
described as comparable to science. A third is that it implies the
existence of some overarching comparator, what we might call
‘universal reason’ (or science) which is always ontologically
privileged. These issues are all closely related to one another, but the
emphasis in each case is slightly different. Our purpose here is not
to attempt a resolution of the problems so much as to highlight
them as questions for further debate.
In our discussion of the effects of recording and codifying
indigenous knowledge, we have drawn attention to the problem of
decontextualization, in particular the separation of such knowledge
from its human agents and from the situations in which it is
produced, reproduced, transformed and (presumably) is at its most
effective. It is important, however, to question the extent to which
something called IK can ever be successfully de-coupled from the
wider cultural context. Despite programmatic rhetorics to the effect
that considering ‘the cultural dimension’ of knowledge is important,
in a collection such as the eponymous The cultural dimension of
development (Warren et al. 1995), the examples provided appear to
have little to do with the cultural contexts in which they occur. The
result is an ambiguous representation of IK as ‘indigenous
science’, rational knowledge or empirical knowledge. Current
literature on IK presents it as largely separate from the cultures in
24 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

which it originates. At best, reference is made to certain ritual and

symbolic factors which should be considered, but any consideration
of whether and how indigenous knowledge and culture might differ
is ignored. In this way, IK is almost placed outside culture. Thus, in
their analysis of farmer experimentation in the Andes, Rhoades and
Bebbington (1995:298) present local knowledge as a sort of free-
floating quasi-science based on individual creativity. In an effort to
liberate small-scale farmers from previous assumptions which
presented them as passive and culture-bound, the authors are
concerned to show that farmer knowledge is as much a science as
that of laboratory scientists and to separate what is ‘useful’ from
what is not. This approach has the effect of redefining what is useful
in a somewhat narrow and technocentric way, externalizing culture
(separating it from what good farmers do) and recasting it as an
impediment to successful development. Such experimental
techniques are no less cultural than anything else farmers may do
or believe.8 The failure to take into account the co-existence and
interconnections between both empirically and symbolically
motivated criteria within any system of knowledge inevitably leads
to limited understandings and perhaps even fundamental failures of
understanding about how IK operates and how it is situationally
successful.
Indigenous knowledge has been categorized by outside interests
stemming from environmental and socio-economic influences which
have more to do with the popular perceptions of ‘others’ than with
what ‘others’ have themselves made clear. In this sense, ‘indigenous’
becomes relevant and necessary to separate an observer from an
observable other. Also, this neat categorization can be seen as a
direct consequence of the limited parameters of western
development or scientific theories which rely on an ordered
conceptual frame-work from which and in which to work. We also
need to ask if it is possible to define effectively the shifting
boundaries between science and folk knowledge, whether the
distinction is in any way helpful, and whether there is a difference
between folk knowledge and folk science. On the one hand, there is
a sense in which both traditional and western knowledge are
anchored in their own particular socio-economic milieux: they are
all indigenous to a particular context. This is reflected in the failure
of scientific solutions due to ignorance concerning particular
cultural circumstances (Agrawal 1995:4). But is there just good and
bad science, or is science qualitatively different in its underlying
cognitive organization? Is it all applied common sense, the only
difference being that one is practised by the folk and the other by
professionals, in other words an outcome of some division of
intellectual labour? Alternatively, is folk knowledge hopelessly
embedded in particular symbolic patterns of thought, while real
science is a distinctive kind of uncommon sense, driven by a logic
which often results in demonstrating its counter intuitive character
 INTRODUCTION 25

(Wolpert 1992)? Such an approach constructs science as reductive,

generalizable, universalist, disinterested, open, cumulative and
reliant on an explicit methodology legitimated by the generation of
results. If so, to what extent can we say that ‘science’ ever existed in
Asiatic traditions prior to western borrowings—a position which
many commentators would find quite indefensible in the light of the
revolution in our understanding of Asian science initiated by Joesph
Needham (see, for example, Staal 1993)? At this point, of course,
the trail leads us into the familiar anthropological thicket of the
rationality and relativism debate (Hollis and Lukes 1982, Horton
and Finnegan 1973, Overing 1985, Wilson 1970), of ‘the great
cognitive divide’ and the highly-charged confrontations between
defenders of a philosophically narrow definition of how science
works, the more broad-minded pragmatists and cultural studies
theorists.
Arguments about the existence of an overarching comparator in
the constitution of the subject matter of IK parallel those
disaggregating the concept of nature (Ingold 1992). If recognizing
separate local cultural constructions of nature necessarily implies
the existence of NATURE as a philosophical point of departure from
which particular cultural deviations might be measured (Ellen
1996), the same applies to the recognition of local knowledges. This
should not surprise us, since the cultural construction of nature is
the necessary condition for establishing knowledge (Strathern 1992:
194). Each indigenous knowledge is necessarily locally situated and
the emanation of a particular world view (it parallels ‘perceived
nature’). Now, in this model, there may be many indigenous
knowledges (Ingold 1997), each of which access the real world to
various degrees of imperfection and subjectiveness. From these
partial, imperfect knowledges can be distilled ‘universal reason’ by
eliminating what is incorrect, subjective, vague or local through the
application of agreed tests of authoritative validation. Thus,
universal reason is a superior understanding of the real world. An
alternative view, that of post-modernism, cultural studies and the
sociology of science, is one of extreme relativism, claiming that
indigenous knowledge and science are epistemologically equivalent
and equal. Our position is slightly different: that a baseline of
universal reason exists and that in all traditions it is driven by
shared human economic needs and cognitive processes, but also
that they are activated and expressed in different cultural contexts.
A final problem we must face is what some recent writers have
called ‘time-space compression’. What, for example, does the
implicit distinction between West and ‘other’—used throughout this
introduction—encode? More particularly, global-local distinctions
are now blurring and we are told that we inhabit a world of
‘transcultural discourse’ (Milton 1996:170). However sloppy some of
us may find the conceptual apparatus that is being offered to cope
with these issues, they do directly address the question as to
26 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

whether it is still possible to regard local knowledges as something

discrete, even less pristine, or whether we are trapped by the
representations of such in global (western) media and their
reformulation by indigenous people who learn it from, and who
raise their consciousness of it through, western sources. Should we
continue to try to separate local knowledge from global knowledge
on the assumption that one or other is superior in a particular
context, or should we give preference to the mixture of local and
global which most indigenous peoples now rely on? It is this
blurring which results in neologisms such as ‘glocal’ (Robertson
1996) and a new analytical emphasis on how people shift the
geographical context of their knowledge (Strathern 1995). For
Vitebsky (1995:183) the problem is encapsulated in the historical
simultaneity of shamanism expiring on the tundra just at that
moment that it is taken up by new agents. Can indigenous
knowledge survive such appropriations? However, we believe that IK,
in the sense of tacit, intuitive, experiential, informal, uncodified
knowledge, will always be necessary and will always be generated,
since, however much we come to rely on literate knowledge which
has authority, the validation of technical experts and is
systematically available, there will always be an interface between
this kind of expert knowledge and real-world situations. It will
always have to be translated and adapted to local situations and
will still depend on what individuals know and reconfigure
culturally independently of formal and book knowledge. Indigenous
knowledge is dead. Long live indigenous knowledge.

NOTES

1. In this context it is perhaps important to stress that by IK we have

in mind local environmental knowledge (knowledge of plants,
animals, soils and other natural components) with practical
applications, rather than the more encompassing sense of IK
associated with environmental philosophies or world views, or even
ITK (indigenous technical knowledge) in its wider sense. However,
we accept that such practical, technical and empirical knowledge is
characteristically embedded in, linked to and informed by these
broader understandings.
2. On definitions, see also Berkes 1992; Chambers, 1983:82–3;
Johnson 1992:4; Warren et al. 1995.
3. Published in English as Colloquies on the simples and drugs of India
by Garcia da Orta, transl. Sir Clements Markham (London: Henry
Southern 1913).
4. See An account of the diseases, natural history and medicine of the
East Indies, translated from the Latin of James Bontius, Physician to
the Dutch settlement at Batavia, to which are added annotations by a
physician (London: [Link] 1769).
 INTRODUCTION 27

5. Continans Regioni Malabarici apud Indos celeberrimos omnus generis

Plantas rariores, 12 vols. Amsterdam, 1678–1693.
6. Most of the details presented in this paragraph are derived from
Grove (1996:125–34), but see also the important work of
Zimmerman (1989).
7. One cannot avoid noting the comparison here between nineteenth-
century field science and modernist (functionalist) anthropology in
the tradition of Malinowski.
8. The difficulties of separating rational empirical knowledge from
religious, moral or symbolic knowledge are well illustrated in an
analysis by Lemonnier (1993) of Ankave-Anga eel-trapping.

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 INTRODUCTION 31

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 Chapter 1
ETHNOBIOLOGY AND
ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT
OF NATIONAL LAWS AND
INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS
AFFECTING INDIGENOUS AND
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE, TRADITIONAL
RESOURCES AND INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY RIGHTS
Darrell Addison Posey

Over the past twenty years, indigenous peoples—together with their

languages, cultures, and knowledge systems—have become the
focus of increasing international attention. In part this is the result
of growing interest in the use of traditional knowledge held by local
communities on the utilization of flora and fauna, and in the genetic
resources, such as agricultural landraces and medicinal plants,
held by indigenous peoples, with a potential for the biotechnology
development of new products by the pharmaceutical, agrochemical,
seed, cosmetics and nutraceutical industries.1 Frequently cited
figures indicating the enormous market potential of bioprospecting2
—such as US$ 43 billion per year for sales of natural-product based
pharmaceuticals (Principe 1989), US$ 50 billion per year for seeds
derived from traditional crop varieties (RAFI 1994: 19), and similar
figures for other natural compounds—have increasingly led
countries rich in biological and cultural diversity to treat their flora,
fauna and traditional knowledge as valuable national resources that
must be protected from unauthorized exploitation, being ‘developed’
instead to benefit the country and its citizens.

INDIGENOUS AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES’

KNOWLEDGE IN CONSERVATION AND SCIENCE
Science has increasingly recognized the importance of Indigenous
Knowledge (IK, as used in this volume) in advancing hypotheses and
enriching scientific knowledge in such disciplines as botany,
ecology, zoology, entomology, forestry and agriculture (Posey 1986).
Local and indigenous knowledge has also become central to
conservation and development projects, along with a philosophical
shift from implementing top-down management to community-
based participation (Kalland, this volume). IK has been shown to be
extraordinarily successful in the sustainable utilization of natural
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 33

resources. Indeed, the concept of sustainability is embodied in

indigenous and traditional livelihood systems (Posey and Dutfield
1996). Historical evidence exists of the sustained productivity of
indigenous systems, applied in some cases for thousands of years
on the same land.3 Indigenous peoples and traditional communities
often possess a ‘conservation ethic’4 developed from living in
particular ecosystems (Bierhorst 1994; Callicott 1989). This ethic
cannot be regarded as universal, but indigenous systems do tend to
emphasize the following specific values and features (Posey and
Dutfield 1996):

• cooperation;
• family bonding and cross-generational communication, including
links with ancestors;
• concern for the well-being of future generations;
• local scale, self-sufficiency, and reliance on locally available
natural resources;
• rights to lands, territories and resources which tend to be
collective and inalienable rather than individual and alienable;5
• restraint in resource exploitation and respect for nature,
especially for sacred sites.

The ‘traditional knowledge, innovations and practices’ of ‘indigenous

and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles’ are often
referred to by scientists as Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).6
TEK is far more than a simple compilation of facts: it is the basis for
local-level decision-making in areas of contemporary life, including
natural resource management, nutrition, food preparation, health,
education, and community and social organization. TEK is holistic,
inherently dynamic, and constantly evolving through
experimentation and innovation, fresh insight, and external stimuli.
Scientists are becoming increasingly aware of the sophistication of
TEK among many indigenous and local communities. For example,
the Shuar people of the Amazonian lowlands of Ecuador use eight
hundred species of plants for medicine, food, animal fodder, fuel,
construction, fishing and hunting supplies. Traditional healers may
rely on thousands of medicinal plants, and shifting cultivators
throughout the tropics frequently sow more than a hundred
varieties of crops in their forest farms (ibid.).
A failure to understand the human-modified nature of ‘wild’
landscapes, including those which are sparsely populated at the
present time, has blinded outsiders to the management practices of
indigenous peoples and local communities (Gomez-Pompa and Kaus
1992). Many so-called ‘pristine’ landscapes are in fact cultural
landscapes, either created by humans or modified by human
activity, such as natural forest management, cultivation and the
use of fire (Balée 1996; Denevan 1992). Indigenous peoples, and a
34 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

growing number of scientists, believe that it is no longer acceptable

simply to assume that just because landscapes and species appear
to outsiders (no matter how competent or famous they may be as
scientific specialists) to be ‘natural’, they are therefore ‘wild’.
According to a resolution sponsored by Aboriginal peoples at the
1995 Ecopolitics IX Conference in Darwin, Australia NLC 1996:
166):

The term ‘wilderness’ as it is popularly used, and related

concepts as ‘wild resources’, ‘wild foods’, etc., [are
unacceptable]. These terms have connotations of terra nullius
[empty or unowned land and resources] and, as such, all
concerned people and organizations should look for alternative
terminology which does not exclude indigenous history and
meaning.

For indigenous peoples, forests are far more than just a source of
timber. Most traditional peoples who inhabit forests, or areas close
to forests, rely extensively upon hunted, collected or gathered foods
and resources, a significant portion of which are, or have been,
manipulated by humans to meet their needs. These non-
domesticated resources (NDRs)—sometimes also known as ‘semi-
domesticates’ or ‘human modified species’ (Posey 1994a, 1997)—
form the basis for a vast treasury of useful species that science has
systematically undervalued and overlooked, yet they provide food
and medicinal security for local communities around the world.7
For example, their children often supplement vitamin requirements
by gathering fruits and seeds in the forests. In many countries,
there are ancient forest groves which are sacred places dedicated for
rituals. These may also have great conservation importance for the
communities for their use as burial sites or as sources of valued
medicinal plants (Posey and Dutfield 1997). Indigenous peoples also
plant forest gardens and manage the regeneration of bush fallows in
ways which take advantage of natural processes and mimic the
biodiversity of natural forests.8
Much of the world’s crop diversity is in the custody of farmers
who still follow age-old farming and land-use practices that
conserve biodiversity and provide other local benefits. Among such
benefits are the promotion of indigenous diet diversity, income
generation, production stability, minimization of risk, reduced
insect and disease incidence, efficient use of labour, intensification
of production with limited resources, and maximization of returns
under low levels of technology. These ecologically-complex
agricultural systems, often associated with centres of crop genetic
diversity, utilize traditional cultivars or ‘landraces’ that constitute
an essential part of our world crop genetic heritage, as well as non-
domesticated plant and animal species that serve humanity as
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 35

biological resources. There are numerous categories of traditional

knowledge among indigenous peoples which clearly have great
potential for application in a wide range of sustainability strategies.
Indigenous peoples conserve biological diversity, and in some cases
provide other environmental benefits, for example, soil and water
conservation, soil fertility enhancement, and management of game
and fisheries (Posey and Dutfield 1997).
Globally, there is a growing recognition of the ‘inextricable link’9
between biological and cultural diversity that has stimulated a
process of re-evaluation of the importance of indigenous peoples in
the international community. The United Nations has become the
primary forum for this process through discussions on indigenous
rights by ECOSOC’s Working Group on Indigenous Populations,
which has developed the Draft Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples (DDRIP, see Appendix 1). The DDRIP is the
result of over a decade of negotiations by indigenous peoples in the
Working Group. It is now considered the principle UN document
guiding debates on indigenous issues and places considerable
emphasis on the importance of indigenous and local knowledge
systems, which are seen as central to the integrity and well-being of
indigenous societies.
The importance of traditional and local knowledge also figures
prominently in the Earth Charter, Agenda 21, the Convention to
Combat Desertification, and the Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD) (see Posey 1996). The CBD was opened for signature during
the United Nations Conference on Conservation and Development
(UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. It has now been ratified by over
177 countries, making it the most broadly supported legally binding
international agreement in global history. The majority of
indigenous peoples regard it as little more than a sovereignty grab by
nation states, who want to take over all biological and ecological
resources existing on their lands and territories.
The objectives of the Biodiversity Convention, as stated in Article
1 are:

the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of

its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the
benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources,
including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by
appropriate transfer of relevant technologies, taking into
account all rights over those resources and to technologies,
and by appropriate funding.

‘Rights’ here refers to the sovereign rights of states. Similarly the

beneficiaries of equitable sharing are apparently the contracting
parties, i.e. the nation states that ratify the CBD, not individuals,
indigenous groups or communities. It is important to note that
36 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

‘relevant technologies’ can be interpreted to mean either ‘indigenous

and traditional technologies’, with reference to the language of
Article 18.4, ‘Technical and Scientific Cooperation’, or those based
upon traditional ‘knowledge, innovations and practices’, with
reference to language used in Article 8.j. The latter article states that
each Contracting Party shall:

Subject to its national legislation, respect, preserve and

maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous
and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant
for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity
and promote their wider application with the approval and
involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and
practices and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits
arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and
practices.

While indigenous peoples might be flattered by the recognition of

their relevance to in situ conservation, they are hardly convinced
that the governments that have so often tried to annihilate them,
take away their lands and destroy their habitats are now suddenly
going to defend their rights. They are also not convinced that—given
their suffering and decimation in the past—any ‘equitable sharing’
will ever trickle down to them and their communities, even though
they are the sources of both the knowledge and genetic resources
that governments are seeking. Thus many indigenous leaders are
both frustrated and angry that the very countries which are
unwilling to guarantee even their most basic rights (to their lands,
their territories, and to the expression and practice of their own
languages and customs) are now zealously claiming sovereignty
over the plants, animals and resources indigenous peoples have
managed, protected and defended, and, indeed, even over the very
knowledge that defines and sustains the souls of their peoples and
the identities of their cultural systems.
This irony is no better expressed than in the CBD itself, in which
intellectual property rights (IPRs) are provided as the only principal
mechanism for ‘equitable sharing’ and protection. But IPRs are
problematic for developing countries in general, and
indigenous, traditional and local communities in particular, for the
following reasons:

1. IPRs undermine the free exchange of commonly held resources,

while stripping communities of their control over IK, cultural
and genetic materials.10
2. They are intended to benefit society through the granting of
exclusive rights to ‘natural’ and ‘juridical’ persons or ‘creative
individuals’, not collective entities such as indigenous peoples
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 37

(cf. the Bellagio Declaration, reproduced in Appendix 3 [after

Boyle 1996]).
3. They cannot protect information that does not result from a
specific historic act of ‘discovery’. Indigenous knowledge is
transgenerational and communally shared. Knowledge may
come from ancestor spirits, vision quests, or orally
transmission by lineage groups. It is considered to be in the
‘public domain’ and, therefore, unprotectable.
4. They cannot accommodate complex non-western systems of
ownership, tenure and access. IPR law assigns authorship of a
song to a writer or publishing company that can record or
publish it as it sees fit. Indigenous singers, however, may
attribute songs to the creator spirit, and elders may reserve
the right to prohibit its performance, or to limit it to certain
occasions and to restricted audiences.
5. They serve to stimulate commercialization and distribution,
whereas indigenous concerns may be primarily to prohibit
commercialization and to restrict use and distribution. As a
statement from COICA (The Coordinating Group of the
Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon Basin), made in 1994, put
it:
For members of indigenous peoples, knowledge and
determination of the use of resources are collective and
inter-generational. No indigenous population, whether of
individuals or communities, nor the government, can sell
or transfer ownership of resources which are the property
of the people and which each generation has an obligation
to safeguard for the next.
6. They recognize only market economic values, failing to
consider spiritual, aesthetic or cultural—or even local economic
—values. Information or objects may have their greatest value
to indigenous peoples because of their ties with cultural
identity and symbolic unity.
7. They are subject to manipulation by economic interests that
wield political power. Sui generis protection has been obtained
for semi-conductor chips and ‘literary works’ generated by
computers (Cornish 1993), whereas indigenous peoples have
insufficient power to protect even their most sacred plants,
places, or artefacts.
8. They are expensive, complicated and time-consuming to
obtain, and even more difficult to defend.
9. IPRs are intended to benefit society through the granting of
exclusive rights to ‘natural’ and ‘juridical’ persons or ‘creative
individuals’, not collective entities such as indigenous peoples.
38 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

10. Contemporary intellectual property law is constructed around

the notion of the author as an individual, solitary and original
creator, and it is for this figure that its protections are
reserved. Those who do not fit this model—custodians of tribal
culture and medical knowledge, collectives practising
traditional artistic and musical forms, or peasant cultivators of
valuable seed varieties—have no such protection.

Universities and scientific research institutions increasingly utilize

IPRs to protect the results of their research that, in turn, provide
much of the intellectual and informational underpinnings of
international trade and development. This has led many indigenous
peoples to become suspicious of scientists who study traditional
knowledge, regarding them as little more than ‘bioprospectors’ for
industry. To be more succinct, many indigenous groups view
anthropologists, ethnobotanists, ethnobiologists, ethnoecologists
and the like more as instruments of exploitation than objective
seekers of knowledge. As a result, research into IK systems has
become anything but the ‘dispassionate yet critical’ activity that
Ellen and Harris envision for this volume (see Introduction). On the
contrary, such a view is naïve and misleading. This paper argues
that those who are interested in IK must recognize the sensitive
political contexts in which research, development, planning and
conservation activities utilizing traditional resources now occur. It
further argues that equitable partnerships (including IPR
agreements) with indigenous and local communities are necessary
to advance studies in IK, but that existing legal and non-legal
mechanisms are inadequate means of guaranteeing such
collaboration. This points to the necessity of developing additional
and alternative strategies, built more upon human rights and
environmental concerns than upon economic considerations.
The negotiations of the terms of—and the mechanisms and
methodologies for—this dialogue will dominate debates on IK until
sufficient consensus can be obtained to insure trust from all
partners. Those who study IK should take the lead in promoting
this dialogue.

CONCLUSIONS
Studies of IK are now invariably bound up with concerns over the
unauthorized use and exploitation of knowledge and genetic
resources, and are increasingly guided by national laws that provide
for criminal penalties for infringement. At the least, the use and
collection of IK raises questions of intellectual property rights. Since
the CBD was signed in 1992, IPRs have become important to those
working with indigenous and local knowledge systems because the
data from such research are often expropriated by global economic
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 39

and commercial interests in order drastically to cut research and

development costs. The resulting bioprospecting frenzy may
attenuate when, as many experts predict, the highly exaggerated
hype converts itself into disappointing profits. In the meantime,
however, economic expectations are heightened, and IPRs have
become code for the unethical and unsustainable exploitation of
local communities and their resources.
Scientists and scientific institutions studying IK are affected by
this situation as soon as they become involved, whether actively or
passively, with the private sector. Plant, animal and cultural
material collected with public funds for scientific, non-profit
purposes are now open for commercial exploitation. Research, even
in universities and museums, is increasingly funded by
corporations and subject to IPR protection, raising questions of who
controls the resulting data. ‘Purely scientific’ data banks have
become ‘mines’ for ‘biodiversity prospecting’. The publishing of
information, traditionally the hallmark of academic success, has
become a superhighway for transporting restricted (and even sacred)
information into the unprotectable ‘public domain’.
Nation states find themselves proclaiming major expansions of
sovereignty over traditional resources, but have no means to
implement or exercise the responsibility that increased sovereignty
demands. Frequently, neither technical capacity nor capital
potential are adequate to develop the knowledge or genetic materials
that are claimed.
International law hardly exists, and where it does, as in the case
of IPRs, it favours industrialized nations rather than bioculturally
rich nations. There is little evidence that existing western legal
structures can be adapted to enhance either the conservation of
biological diversity or the empowerment of indigenous, traditional,
local communities. Any attempts will need to combine ‘bundles of
rights’ from a wide range of agreements to guide a newly emerging
system of international law.
The Convention on Biological Diversity and related UNCED
agreements call for access to and protection of traditional
technologies and benefit-sharing in respect of their use and wider
application. However, enforcement mechanisms—or, indeed, even
the general basis of agreement as to what to enforce—are far from
appearing on the international scene. The fundamental question of
what constitute legal requirements versus moral and ethical
responsibilities portends many difficulties for all ‘stakeholders’.
Rather than looking hopelessly on, one hopes that the situation
will provide opportunities for new dialogue; increased recognition of
indigenous peoples and their knowledge; new codes of ethics and
standards of conduct; socially and ecologically responsible business
practices; holistic approaches to sustainability; and alternative
concepts of property, ownership and value. IPRs, once replaced by a
rights-based Traditional Resource Rights concept,11 can serve to
40 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

catalyse this dialogue and, indeed, transform conflict into

conciliation. But however this process evolves, it seems clear that
those who study and work with IK will be at the centre of this
process—hardly aloof in the ‘dispassionate yet critical’ world of
‘objective’ science.

NOTES

1. See Gray 1991; Reid et al. 1993; RAFI 1994; Chadwick and Marsh
1994; Posey 1995; Posey and Outfield 1996; Balick et al. (eds.) 1996.
2. The search for commercially valuable genetic and biochemical
resources, with particular reference to the pharmaceutical,
biotechnological and agricultural industries (Posey and Dutfield
1996:14).
3. For examples, see Posey and Balée 1989; Warren et al. 1995;
Brokensha et al. 1980; Posey and Dutfield 1997.
4. Johannes and Ruddle (1993). define ‘conservation ethic’ as ‘an
awareness of people’s ability to deplete or otherwise damage natural
resources, coupled with a commitment to reduce or eliminate the
consequences.’
5. According to Gray (1994): ‘Indigenous land rights are based on a
people’s prior occupation of an area, usually before a state was even
formed. In this sense, Indigenous peoples have a claim to “eminent
domain” (inalienability) which a state usually considers to be its own
exclusive right…. Connected with the concept of inalienability is the
collective responsibility which a people has for its territory. This
does not mean that individual persons cannot hold lands and
resources for their own use, but that personal ownership is based
on collective consent. The collective rights to lands and resources of
Indigenous peoples have been acknowledged by many governments
of the world in their constitutions and in international provisions.’
6. Defined by Gadgil et al. (1993:151) as ‘A cumulative body of
knowledge and beliefs handed down through generations by
cultural transmission about the relationship of living beings
(including humans) with one another and with their environment.’
7. Such useful species provide most of the foods, medicines, oils,
essences, dyes, colours, repellents, insecticides, building materials
and clothes needed by a local community.
8. For examples, see Anderson (ed.) 1990.
9. Belem Declaration: see Appendix 2.
10. Significantly, some indigenous groups already have their own
policies and regulations addressing the need to control access to
their territories, monitor the activities of plant collectors and
researchers and become the beneficiaries of plant collections and
research. Examples in Latin America are the Kuna of Panama and
the Awa of Ecuador (see Posey and Dutfield 1996).
11. See Posey 1994b, 1995.
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 41

APPENDIX I
UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples
As Agreed Upon By Members Of The Working Group
on Indigenous Populations At Its Eleventh Session—
1993
Affirming that indigenous peoples are equal in dignity and rights
to all other peoples, while recognizing the right of all peoples to be
different, to consider themselves different, and to be respected as
such,
Affirming also that all peoples contribute to the diversity and
richness of civilizations and cultures, which constitute the common
heritage of humankind,
Affirming further that all doctrines, policies and practices based
on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis
of national origin, racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are
racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and
socially unjust,
Reaffirming also that indigenous peoples, in the exercise of their
rights, should be free from discrimination of any kind,
Concerned that indigenous peoples have been deprived of their
human rights and fundamental freedoms, resulting, inter alia, in
their colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories and
resources, thus preventing them from exercising, in particular, their
right to development in accordance with their own needs and
interests,
Recognizing the urgent need to respect and promote the inherent
rights and characteristics of indigenous peoples, especially their
rights to their lands, territories and resources, which derive from
their political, economic and social structures, and from their
cultures, spiritual traditions, histories and philosophies,
Welcoming the fact that indigenous peoples are organizing
themselves for political, economic, social and cultural enhancement
and in order to bring an end to all forms of discrimination and
oppression wherever they occur,
Convinced that control by indigenous peoples over developments
affecting them and their lands, territories and resources will enable
them to maintain and strengthen their institutions, cultures and
traditions, and to promote their development in accordance with
their institutions, cultures and traditions, and to promote their
development in accordance with their aspirations and needs,
Recognizing also that respect for indigenous knowledge, cultures
and traditional practices contributes to sustainable and equitable
development and proper management of the environment,
Emphasizing the need for demilitarization of the lands and
territories of indigenous peoples, which will contribute to peace,
42 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

economic and social progress and development, understanding and

friendly relations among the nations and peoples of the world,
Recognizing in particular the right of indigenous families and
communities to retain shared responsibility for the upbringing,
training, education and well-being of their children,
Recognizing also that indigenous peoples have the right freely to
determine their relaionships with States in a spirit of coexistence,
mutual benefit and full respect,
Considering that treaties, agreements and other arrangements
between States and indigenous peoples are properly matters of
international concern and responsibility,
Acknowledging that the Charter of the United Nations, the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights affirm
the fundamental importance of the right of self-determination of all
peoples, by virtue of which they freely determine their political
status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural
development,
Bearing in mind that nothing in this Declaration may be used to
deny any peoples their right of self-determination,
Encouraging States to comply with and effectively implement all
international instruments, in particular those related to human
rights, as they apply to indigenous peoples, in consultation and
cooperation with the peoples concerned
Emphasizing that the United Nations has an important and
continuing role to play in promoting and protecting the rights of
indigenous peoples,
Believing that this Declaration is a further important step
forward for the recognition, promotion and protection of the rights
and freedoms of indigenous peoples and in the development of
relevant activities of the United Nations system in this field,
Solemnly proclaims the following United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:

ARTICLES

PART I

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the full and effective

enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms
recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights
law.
2. Indigenous individuals and peoples are free and equal to other
individuals and peoples in dignity and rights, and have the
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 43

right to be free from any kind of adverse discrimination, in

partiular that based on their indigenous origin or identity.
3. Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination. By
virtue of that right they freely determine their political status
and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural
development.
4. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen
their distinct political, economic, social and cultural
characteristics, as well as their legal systems, while retaining
their rights to participate fully, if they so choose, in the
political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.
5. Every indigenous individual has the right to a nationality.

PART II

6. Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom,

peace and security as distinct peoples and to full guarantees
against genocide or any other act of violence, including the
removal of indigenous children from their families and
communities under any pretext. In addition, they have the
individual rights to life, physical and mental integrity, liberty
and security of person.
7. Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right not
to be subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide, including
prevention of and redress for:

(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of
their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values
or ethnic identities;
(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them
of their lands, territories or resources;
(c) Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect
of violating or undermining any of their rights;
(d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or
ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or
other measures;
(e) Any form of propaganda directed against them.

8. Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right to

maintain and develop their distinctive identities and
characteristics, including the right to identify themselves as
indigenous and to be recognized as such.
9. Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right to belong to
an indigenous community or nation, in accordance with the
traditions and customs of the community or nation concerned.
No disadvantage of any kind may arise from the exercise of
such a right.
44 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

10. Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their

lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the
free and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned
and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where
possible, with the option of return.
11. Indigenous peoples have the right to special protection and
security in periods of armed conflict. States shall observe
international standards, in particular the Fourth Geneva
Convention of 1949, for the protection of civilian populations
in circumstances of emergency and armed conflict, and shall
not:

(a) Recruit indigenous individuals against their will into the

armed forces and, in particular, for use against other
indigenous peoples;
(b) Recruit indigenous children into the armed forces under any
circumstances;
(c) Force indigenous individuals to abandon their lands,
territories or means of subsistence, or relocate them in
special centres for military purposes;
(d) Force indigenous individuals to work for military purposes
under any discriminatory purposes.

PART III

12. Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize

their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right
to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future
manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and
historical sites, artifacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies
and visual and performing arts and literature, as well as the
right to the restitution of cultural, intellectual, religious and
spiritual property taken without their free and informed
consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.
13. Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice,
develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions,
customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and
have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the
right to the use and control of ceremonial objects; and the
right to the repatriation of human remains. States shall take
effective measures, in conjunction with the indigenous peoples
concerned, to ensure that indigenous sacred places, including
burial sites, be preserved, respected and protected.
14. Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop
and transmit to future generation their histories, languages,
oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures,
and to designate and retain their own names for communities,
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 45

places and persons. States shall take effective measures,

whenever any right of indigenous peoples may be threatened,
to ensure this right is protected and also to ensure that they
can understand and be understood in political, legal and
administrative proceedings, where necessary through the
provision of interpretation or by any other appropriate means.

PART IV

15. Indigenous children have the right to all levels and forms of
education of the State. All indigenous peoples also have this
right and the right to establish and control their educational
systems and institutions providing education in their own
languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods
of teaching and learning. Indigenous children living outside
their communities have the right to be provided access to
education in their own culture and language. States shall take
effective measures to provide appropriate resources for these
puposes.
16. Indigenous peoples have the right to have the dignity and
diversity of their cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations
appropriately reflected in all forms of education and public
information.
States shall take effective measure, in consultation with the
indigenous peoples concerned, to eliminate prejudice and
discimination and to promote tolerance, understanding and
good relations among indigenous peoples and all segments of
society.
17. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish their own media
in their own languages. They also have the right to equal
access to all forms of non-indigenous media. States shall take
effective measures to ensure that State-owned media duly
reflect indigenous cultural diversity.
18. Indigenous peoples have the right to enjoy fully all rights
established under international labour law and national
labour legislation. Indigenous peoples have the right not to be
subjected to any discriminatory conditions of labour,
employment or salary.

PART V

19. Indigenous peoples have the right to participate fully, if they so

choose, at all levels of decision-making in matters which may
affect their rights, lives and destinies through representatives
chosen by themselves in accordance with their own
46 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own

indigenous decision-making institutions.
20. Indigenous peoples have the right to participate fully, if they so
choose, through procedures determined by them, in devising
legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.
States shall obtain the free and informed consent of the
peoples concerned before adopting and implementing such
measures.
21. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop
their political, economic and social systems, to be secure in
the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and
development, and to engage freely in all their traditional and
other economic activities. Indigenous peoples who have been
deprived of their means of subsistence and development are
entitled to just and fair compensation.
22. Indigenous peoples have the right to special measures for the
immediate, effective and continuing improvement of their
economic and social conditions, including in the areas of
employment, vocational training and retraining, housing,
sanitation, health and social security.
Particular attention shall be paid to the rights and special
needs of indigenous elders, women, youth, children and
disabled persons.
23. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop
priorities and strategies for exercising their right to
development. In particular, indigenous peoples have the right
to determine and develop all health, housing and other
economic and social programmes affecting them and, as far as
possible, to administer such programmes through their own
institutions.
24. Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional
medicines and health practices, including the right to the
protection of vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals.
They also have the right of access, without any discrimination,
to all medical institutions, health services and medical care.

PART VI

25. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen

their distinctive spiritual and material relationships with the
lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources
which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or
used, and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations
in this regard.
26. Indigenous peoples have the right to own, develop, control and
use the lands and territories, including the total environment
of the lands, air, waters, coastal seas, sea-ice, flora and fauna
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 47

and other resources which they have traditionally owned or

otherwise occupied or used. This includes the right to the full
recognition of their laws, traditions and customs, land-tenure
systems and institutions for the development and
management of resources, and the right to effective measures
by States to prevent any interference with, alienation of or
encroachment upon these rights.
27. Indigenous peoples have the right to the restitution of the
lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally
owned or otherwise occupied or used; and which have been
confiscated, occupied, used or damaged without their free and
informed consent. Where this is not possible, they have the
right to just and fair compensation. Unless otherwise freely
agreed upon by the peoples concerned, compensation shall
take the form of lands, territories and resources equal in
quality, size and legal status.
28. Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation,
restoration and protection of the total environment and the
productive capacity of their lands, territories and resources, as
well as to assistance for this purpose from States and through
international cooperation. Military activities shall not take
place in the lands and territories of indigenous peoples, unless
otherwise freely agreed upon by the peoples concerned.
States shall take effective measures to ensure that no
storage of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands
and territories of indigenous peoples. States shall also take
effective measures to ensure, as needed, that programmes for
monitoring, maintaining and restoring the health of indigenous
peoples, as developed and implemented by the peoples affected
by such materials, are duly implemented.
29. Indigenous peoples are entitled to the recognition of the full
ownership, control and protection of their cultural and
intellectual property. They have the right to special measures
to control, develop and protect their sciences, technologies and
cultural manifestations, including human and other genetic
resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of
fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs and visual
and performing arts.
30. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop
priorities and strategies for the development or use of their
lands, territories and other resources, including the right to
require that States obtain their free and informed consent
prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands,
territories and other resources, particularly in connection with
the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or
other resources. Pursuant to agreement with the indigenous
peoples concerned, just and fair compensation shall be
provided for any such activities and measures taken to
48 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

mitigate adverse environmental, economic, social, cultural or

spiritual impact.

PART VII

31. Indigenous peoples, as a specific form of exercising their right

to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-
government in matters relating to their internal and local
affairs, including culture, religion, education, information,
media, health, housing, employment, social welfare, economic
activities, land and resources management, environment and
entry by non-members, as well as ways and means for
financing these autonomous functions.
32. Indigenous peoples have the collective right to determine their
own citizenship in accordance with their customs and
traditions. Indigenous citizenship does not impair the right of
indigenous individuals to obtain citizenship of the States in
which they live. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine
the structures and to select the membership of their
institutions in accordance with their own procedures.
33. Indigenous peoples have the right to promote, develop and
maintain their institutional structures and their distinctive
juridical customs, traditions, procedures and practices, in
accordance with internationally recognized human rights
standards.
34. Indigenous peoples have the collective right to determine the
responsibilities of individuals to their communities.
35. Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international
borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts,
relations and cooperation, including activities for spiritual,
cultural, political, economic and social purposes, with other
peoples across borders. States shall take effective measures to
ensure the exercise and implementation of this right.
36. Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition,
observance and enforcement of treaties, agreements and other
constructive arrangements concluded with States or their
successors, according to their original spirit and intent, and to
have States honour and respect such treaties, agreements and
other constructive arrangements. Conflicts and disputes which
cannot otherwise be settled should be submitted to competent
international bodies agreed to by all parties concerned.

PART VIII

37. States shall take effective and appropriate measures, in

consultation with the indigenous peoples concerned, to give
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 49

full effect to the provisions of this Declaration. The rights

recognized herein shall be adopted and included in national
legislation in such a manner that indigenous peoples can avail
themselves of such rights in practice.
38. Indigenous peoples have the right to have access to adequate
financial and technical assistance, from States and through
international cooperation, to pursue freely their political,
economic, social, cultural and spiritual development and for
the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms recognized in this
Declaration.
39. Indigenous peoples have the right to have access to and
prompt decision through mutually acceptable and fair
procedures for the resolution of conflicts and disputes with
States, as well as to effective remedies for all infringements of
their individual and collective rights. Such a decision shall
take into consideration the customs, traditions, rules and legal
systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.
40. The organs and specialized agencies of the United Nations
system and other intergovernmental organizations shall
contribute to the full realization of the provisions of this
Declaration through the mobilization, inter alia, of financial
cooperation and technical assistance. Ways and means of
ensuring participation of indigenous peoples on issues
affecting them shall be established.
41. The United Nations shall take the necessary steps to ensure the
implementation of this Declaration including the creation of a
body at the highest level with special competence in this field
and with the direct participation of indigenous peoples. All
United Nations bodies shall promote respect for and full
application of the provisions of this Declaration.

PART IX

42. The rights recognized herein constitute the minimum

standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the
indigenous peoples of the world.
43. All the rights and freedoms recognized herein are equally
guaranteed to male and female indigenous individuals.
44. Nothing in this Declaration may be construed as diminishing
or extinguishing existing or future rights indigenous peoples
may have or acquire.
45. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for
any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity
or to perform any act contrary to the Charter of the United
Nations.
50 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

APPENDIX 2
The Declaration of Belém
[The Declaration of Belém, the founding set of principles of the
International Society for Ethnobiology, refers to traditional
knowledge as the basis for the ‘inextricable link’ between biological
and cultural diversity. See Posey and Dutfield 1996.]
This Declaration was adopted at the First International Congress
of Ethnobiology in Belém, Brazil, in 1988.
As ethnobiologists, we are alarmed that:
SINCE

tropical forests and other fragile ecosystems are disappearing,

many species, both plant and animal, are threatened with
extinction, indigenous cultures around the world are being
disrupted and destroyed;

and GIVEN

that economic, agricultural, and health conditions of people

are dependent on these resources, that native peoples have
been stewards of 99% of the world’s genetic resources, and
that there is an inextricable link between cultural and
biological diversity

We, members of the International Society of Ethnobiology, strongly

urge action as follows:

1) henceforth, a substantial proportion of development aid be

devoted to efforts aimed at ethno-biological inventory,
conservation, and management programs;
2) mechanisms be established by which indigenous specialists
are recognized as proper authorities and are consulted in all
programs affecting them, their resources, and their
environment;
3) all other inalienable human rights be recognized and
guaranteed, including cultural and linguistic identity;
4) procedures be developed to compensate native peoples for the
utilization of their knowledge and their biological resources;
5) educational programs be implemented to alert the global
community to the value of ethnobiological knowledge for
human well-being;
6) all medical programs include the recognition of and respect for
traditional healers and the incorporation of traditional health
practices that enhance the health status of these populations;
7) ethnobiologists make available the results of their research to
the native peoples with whom they have worked, especially
including dissemination in the native language;
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 51

8) exchange of information be promoted among indigenous and

peasant peoples regarding conservation, management, and
sustained utilization of resources.

APPENDIX 3
The Bellagio Declaration
We the participants at the Bellagio Conference on intellectual
property, come from many nations, professions and disciplines. We
are lawyers and literary critics, computer scientists and publishers,
teachers and writers, environmentalists and scholars of cultural
heritage.
Sharing a common concern: the effects of the international regime
of intellectual property law on our communities, on scientific
progress and international development, on our environment, on
the culture of indigenous peoples. In particular,
Applauding the increasing attention by the world community to
such previously ignored issues as the preservation of the
environment, of cultural heritage, and biodiversity. But
Convinced that the role of intellectual property in these areas has
been neglected for too long, we therefore convened a conference of
academics, activists and practitioners diverse in geographical and
cultural background as well as professional area of interest.
Discovering that many of the different concerns faced in each of
these diverse areas could be traced back to the same oversights and
injustices in the current international intellectual property system,
we hereby
Declare the following:
First, Intellectual property laws have profound effects on issues as
disparate as scientific and artistic progress, biodiversity, access to
information, and the cultures of indigenous and tribal peoples. Yet
all too often those laws are constructed without taking such effects
into account, constructed around a paradigm that is selectively
blind to the scientific and artistic contributions of many of
the world’s cultures and constructed in fora where those who will be
most directly affected have no representation.
Second, many of these problems are built into the basic structure
and assumptions of intellectual property. Contemporary intellectual
property law is constructed around the notion of the author, the
individual, solitary and original creator, and it is for this figure that
its protections are reserved. Those who do not fit this model—
custodians of tribal culture and medical knowledge, collectives
practicing traditional artistic and musical forms, or peasant
cultivators of valuable seed varieties, for example—are denied
intellectual property protection.
Third, such a system has strongly negative consequences.
Increasingly, traditional knowledge, folklore, genetic material and
52 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

native medical knowledge flow out of their countries of origin

unprotected by intellectual property, while works from developed
countries flow in, well protected by international intellectual
property agreements, backed by the threat of trade sanctions.
Fourth, in general, systems built around the author paradigm
tend to obscure or undervalue the importance of ‘the public
domain’, the intellectual and cultural commons from which future
works will be constructed. Each intellectual property right, in effect,
fences off some portion of the public domain, making it unavailable
to future creators. In striking respects, the current situation raises
the same concerns raised twenty years ago by the impending
privatization of the deep-sea bed. The aggressive expansion of
intellectual property rights has the potential to inhibit development
and future creation by fencing off ‘the commons’, and yet—in
striking contrast to the reaction over the deep sea bed—the
international community seems unaware of the fact.
Fifth, we deplore these tendencies, deplore them as not merely
unjust but unwise, and entreat the international community to
reconsider the assumptions on which and the procedures by which
the international intellectual property regime is shaped.
In general, we favor an increased recognition and protection of the
public domain. We call on the international community to expand
the public domain through expansive application of concepts of ‘fair
use’, compulsory licensing, and narrower initial coverage of property
rights in the first place. But since existing author-focused regimes
are blind both to the importance of the commons and to the
interests of non-authorial producers, the main exception to this
expansion of the public domain should be in favor of those who
have been excluded by the authorial biases of current law.
Specifically, we advocate consideration of special regimes,
possibly in the form of ‘neighboring’ or ‘related’ rights regimes, for
the following areas:
The protection of folkloric works.
The protection of works of cultural heritage.
The protection of the biological and ecological ‘know-how’ of
traditional peoples.
In addition, we support systematic reconsideration of the basis on
which new kinds of works related to digital technology, such as
computer programs and electronic data bases, are protected under
national and international intellectual property regimes. We
recognize the economic importance of works falling into these
categories, and the significant investments made in their
production. Nevertheless, given the importance of the various
concerns raised by such a regime—concerns about public access,
international development and technological innovation—we believe
that choices about how and how much to protect databases should
be made with a view to the specific policy objectives such protection
 ETHNOBIOLOGY AND ETHNOECOLOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF NATIONAL LAWS 53

is designed to achieve, rather than as a reflexive response to their

categorization as ‘works of authorship’.
On a systemic level, we call upon states and non-governmental
organizations to move towards the democratization of the fora in
which the international intellectual property regime is debated and
decided.
In conclusion, we declare that in an era where information is
among the most precious of all resources, intellectual property
rights cannot be framed by the few to be applied to the many. They
cannot be framed on assumptions that disproportionately exclude
the contributions of much of the world community. They can no
longer be constructed without reference to their ecological, cultural
and scientific effects. We must reimagine the international regime of
intellectual property. It is to that task that this Declaration calls its
readers.

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sustainable use of the Amazon rain forest. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Balée, W, 1996. Footprints of the forest. New York: Columbia University
Press,
Balick, M.J., [Link] and [Link] (eds.) 1996. Medicinal resources
of the tropical forest: biodiversity and its importance to human health.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Bierhorst, J. 1994. The way of the earth: Native America and the
environment. New York: William Morrow & Co.
Boyle, J. 1996. Shamans, software and spleens: law and the social
construction of the information economy. Cambridge: Harvard University
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Brokensha, D., [Link] and [Link] (eds.) 1980. Indigenous
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America.
Callicott, J.B. 1989. In defense of the land ethic. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
Chadwick, D.J., and [Link] (eds.) 1994. Ethnobotany and the search for
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Cornish, W.R. 1993. The international relations of intellectual property.
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Denevan, W.M. 1992. The pristine myth: the landscape of the Americas in
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Gadgil, M., [Link], and [Link] 1993. Indigenous knowledge for
biodiversity conservation. Ambio 22/2–3, 151–6.
Gomez-Pompa, A., & [Link] A. 1992. Taming the wilderness myth.
BioScience 42/4, 271–9.
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Gray, A. 1991. Between the spice of life and the melting pot: biodiversity
conservation and its impact on indigenous peoples. Copenhagen: IWGIA
(Document 70).
—Territorial defence as the basis for indigenous self-development.
Indigenous Affairs 4, 2–3.
Johannes, R.E., and [Link] 1993. Human interactions in tropical
coastal and marine areas: lessons from traditional resource use. In
[Link] and [Link] (eds.), Applications of the biosphere reserve
concept to coastal marine areas. Gland: International Union for the
Conservation of Nature.
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indigenous peoples’ management of environmental resources.
Casuarina, NT: NLC.
Posey, D.A. 1986. Topics and issues in ethnoentomology, with some
suggestions for the development of hypothesis generation and testing in
ethnobiology. Journal of Ethnobiology (Special Volume: New Directions
in Ethnobiology), 6/1, 99–120.
—1994a. International agreements and intellectual property rights for
indigenous peoples. In [Link] (ed.), Intellectual property rights for
indigenous peoples: a sourcebook. Oklahoma City. Society for Applied
anthropology.
—1994b. Traditional resource rights (TRR): de facto self-determination for
indigenous peoples. In [Link] der Vlist (ed.), Voices of the earth:
indigenous peoples, new partners and the right to self-determination in
practice. NCIV: Amsterdam.
—1995. Indigenous peoples and traditional resource rights: a basis for
equitable relationships? Oxford: Green College for Environmental Policy
and Understanding
—1996. Traditional resource rights: international instruments for protection
and compensation for indigenous peoples and local communities. Gland:
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (with contributions
by Graham Dutfield, Kristina Plenderleith, Eugênio da Costa e Silva
and Alejandro Argumedo)
—and [Link]ée (eds.) 1989. Resource management in Amazonia:
indigenous and folk strategies. Advances in Economic Botany 7. New
York: New York Botanical Garden.
—and [Link] 1996. Beyond intellectual property: toward traditional
resource rights for indigenous and local communities. Ottawa:
International Development Research Centre.
—and [Link] 1997. Indigenous peoples and sustainability: cases and
actions. Utrecht and Gland: International Books and International
Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Principe, P.P. 1989. The economic significance of plants and their
constituents as drugs. In [Link], [Link] and [Link]
(eds.), Economic and medicinal plants research, Volume 3. London and
San Diego: Academic Press.
Reid, W.V., [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link], [Link],
[Link] and [Link] (eds.) 1993. Biodiversity prospecting: using
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genetic resources for sustainable development. Washington, D.C.: World

Resources Institute.
Rural Advancement Foundation International [RAFI] 1994. Conserving
indigenous knowledge: integrating two systems of innovation. An
independent study by the Rural Advancement Foundation International.
Commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme, New
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Warren, D.M., [Link] and [Link] (eds.) 1995. The cultural
dimension of development: indigenous knowledge systems. London:
Intermediate Technology Publications.
 Chapter 2
‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’
YARD’: SEA CUCUMBER GATHERING
IN ARU, EASTERN INDONESIA
Manon Osseweijer

Local Environmental Knowledge

This chapter describes local knowledge of Aruese sea cucumber
harvesting practices, including their significance for more
sustainable exploitation.1 It is based on the following assumptions.
First, I draw upon Geertz’s understanding of local knowledge: ‘local
not just as to place, time, class, and variety of issues, but as to
accent-vernacular characterizations of what happens connected to
vernacular imaginings of what can’ (Geertz 1983:215). The
pertinence of this way of regarding local knowledge is ‘in drawing
attention to the need to treat what happens contextually in terms of
ideas and beliefs in the culture in question’ (Hobart 1993:18). It
implies that local knowledge need not be identical with indigenous
knowledge, but rather entails a dialogue of indigenous knowledge
interlocked with exogenous knowledge. Indigenous knowledge can
rarely be treated as an insulated domain, especially where local
subsistence interacts with commercial markets and preferences,
whose ‘exogenous knowledge’ therefore needs to be apprehended
within indigenous knowledge. Secondly, I draw upon Ingold’s (1992)
heuristic distinction between perception and understanding:
respectively, between the way people practically conceive of the
natural environment and what it ‘affords’ them, and the more
metaphysical or non-apparent interpretation of such empirical
observations, including cosmological ideas of the natural
environment and its social reciprocities. In everyday life, such
perceptions and under-standings—or practical and metaphysical
kinds of knowledge—are, of course, likely to be interconnected and
mutually influential. Yet Ingold’s analytical distinction proves
useful in understanding observed discrepancies between people’s
practical perceptions and their imaginative understandings of
 ‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’ YARD’ 57

natural resources, as appears to be the case in Aruese trepang

harvesting.
The following is an account of my personal experience of ‘being-in-
the-world’ of an Aruese village. This was Beltubur, a village of
approximately 500 inhabitants in the Southeast of the archipelago.
My narrative concerns sea cucumber harvesting on the tidal flats
and in the deeper waters near the coast and between the islands,
which are the main source of local income. The Aruese appear to be
grossly over-harvesting sea cucumbers, to the point of extinction.
They seem to be aware of this predicament, yet they seem to be
unable to do much collectively about it.

Sea Cucumber Trade in the Aru Islands

The Aru Islands are situated in Southeast Maluku Province,
Indonesia. The archipelago consists of five main islands, of which
Wokam, Kobroor and Trangan are the largest, with many smaller
islands along the east coast, amounting to a total land area of 8,225
[Link]. A population of approximately 55,000 people is distributed
over 125 small villages and two towns, Dobo, the administrative
centre of the sub-region (kecamatan), and Benjina, an important
fisheries harbour (see Map 2.1). The Aru Islands are geologically
part of the Sahul shelf and thus connected to New Guinea and
Australia.
The sea between the three land masses has an average depth of
only forty metres, so the landscape near the islands comprises a
vast expanse of tidal flats consisting of sandbanks, coral reefs and
sea grass beds. Aruese people are sedentary hunters and foragers,
and also engage in wild plant-food subsistence. They are therefore
seasonally dependent upon the two monsoons for their economic
activities. The east monsoon (May to October) allows people to
collect sea cucumbers on the tidal flats and sandbanks, fish, work
in their gardens, make sago starch, collect many kinds of molluscs
and crabs on the beaches and in the mangroves, and hunt deer or
wild pig in the savannas and forests. During the west monsoon
(November to April), people focus more exclusively on marine
resources, such as pearl-diving, collecting sea cucumbers (on the
tidal flats as well as in deeper areas) and occasionally shark fishing.2
Yet Aruese do not collect just for their own subsistence: they are
collectors for trade and have exchange or barter relations with
Indonesian and Chinese middlemen and shopkeepers, who have
lived in their villages for several generations. These shopkeepers
have specialized in the trade of such marine resources as sharks’
fins, sea cucumbers and pearl oysters. Migrant Bugis and Buton
fishermen also engage in large-scale shark fisheries.
Edible sea cucumbers, also known as sea slugs, bêche-de-mer or
trepang (Malay), are invertebrates inhabiting all seas and depths,
58 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

MAP 2.1 THE ARU ARCHIPELAGO (AFTER: ENVIRONMENTAL

PROGRAMME MALUKU/PSL UNPATTI, 1994)
which have a distinct commercial niche in the commodity market of
Southeast Asia. Trepang is exported dried or smoked to Hong Kong,
Singapore, China, Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan, where it is used as
a delicacy in Chinese and Japanese cooking. Trepang (Chinese hai-
shên or ‘sea ginseng’) is valued as a ‘fortifying food’ (Chinese pu),
high in protein and calories, having a jelly-like texture which gives
 ‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’ YARD’ 59

MAP 2.2 SOUTHEAST ARU AND THE ARU TENGCARA MARINE

RESERVE (AFTER: ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMME MALUKU/PSL
UNPATTI, 1994).

the right substance to the dish. It takes on and accentuates the

flavours of other ingredients used for the dish and it is reputed to
stimulate sexual appetite. Parts of the trepang are also considered
to have medicinal value.3
In Aru, sea cucumbers have been collected by local people ever
since traders from Makassar and Bugis visited the islands at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. Traders from Gorom bartered
sago with Aruese of the hinterland for pearl oysters, trepang and
turtles, which they sold to traders in Dobo. From the 1840s, Hokien
Chinese coming from Singapore through Makassar also entered the
trade network in Aru, ending the Bugis and Makassan monopolies
(and notoriously harsh practices). Chinese traders or anakodas
came to Dobo at the start of the west monsoon, temporarily settling
there and buying trepang and other valuable commodities like pearl
oysters, sharks’ fins and birds’ nests from Aruese coming to the
main town; or else these traders would send commissionaires
(toekang petak) into the Aruese hinterland (belakang tanah) to stay
for a couple of months (March-August) in local settlements and run
their businesses. Aruese bought their imports on credit and
afterwards paid with maritime resources. Most Aruese thereby
acquired enormous debts which could not easily be settled. Annual
60 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

interest on debts would thus double, with repayments postponed to

the next west monsoon. But often extensions of payment were not
granted, and traders ‘passed on’ the cost of an expected default
through the high price of their own products. There were then no
agreed price regulations with respect to the size of trepang, although
prices did correspond to distinctions in species.4 In an 1854 report,
Bosscher already remarked strikingly that Aruese myopically
gathered trepang on the same sand bank until the stock seemed to
be depleted (1854:349). But in this particular region people then
used to collect just one species. Only after 1994–5, when a pearl-
oyster virus and low prices of seaweed diminished income from
alternative products, did traders encourage local people to collect
other species of trepang. Moreover, with the exception of Karey and
Batugoyang, Aruese villages were earlier located further inland, with
less immediate access to maritime resources. Only at the beginning
of this century, under administrative pressure from the Dutch
colonial government, were villages moved closer to the coast.
Indonesian-Chinese traders who buy trepang from the Aruese
nowadays live permanently in this region. The two traders in
Beltubur village, for example, have lived there for over thirty years.
One was born in the village, having a Chinese father and an Aruese
mother, and she had only recently established a shop there. The
other trader was born in a village further north, also with a Chinese
father and an Aruese mother, and had come to this village as a
pioneer with his young family. He had started buying and selling on
his boat, with which he would visit the villages of east Trangan
Island and Barakai Island, otherwise subsisting like local Aruese by
hunting and gardening.
The preparation of sea cucumbers for sale requires much energy
and effort. The fresh animals are cleaned, gutted and boiled to
cause them to eviscerate as well as to shorten and thicken. Then
they are dried, either in the sun or by smoking over a fire, when
sometimes the body ossicles are removed (see Plate 2.1). Aruese
today collect some eight species of sea cucumber, which are highly
prized commodities: depending on the species, one kilogram of
smoked and dried trepang yields Rp. 7,500 to 160,000 (April 1998)
when sold in the local store. From there it is shipped to Dobo, and via
Surabaya or Ujung Pandang it will finally reach dried seafood shops
in Hong Kong and Singapore. Considering the already high price of
trepang in the village, one can imagine its exorbitant price when it
reaches the Chinese markets. In 1989, the amount of trepang
exported from Indonesia to Hong Kong (the major centre of the
world-wide sea-cucumber trade) was 1,785,60 tons, a 40% share of
the Hong Kong trepang market (van Eys 1986: 41–4; Sant 1995:66).
At the time I was living in Beltubur village, sea-cucumber
collecting had become one of the main income-generating activities
in the coastal zone of the Aru Islands. Due to a price collapse for
pearl oysters, which were temporarily no longer being bought from
 ‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’ YARD’ 61

Aruese divers by the end of 1996, local people had lost a

substantial part of their traditional income (although since then
pearl oysters are again being bought at the same earlier low price of
Rp. 15,000). Consequently, trepang-collecting by men, women and
children was intensified to substitute for this lost income.

THE PRACTICE OF HARVESTING TREPANG

Information on trepang harvesting was gathered in several different
ways. Aruese were individually interviewed, as were some shop-

PLATE 2.1 ARUESE WOMAN CLEANING BOILED TREPANG AND

REMOVING ITS OSSICLES
keepers, but most of the time I asked groups of people—men and
women separately—freely to discuss sea-cucumber collecting, also
gathering information on the species found and places visited
through self-drawn maps. Most such data was collected in the
appropriate context of actual gathering trips. I thus had informal
conversations with the participants on the way out to a reef or while
out collecting trepang, and afterwards, back in the village, it was
easy to pursue such enquiries with reference to our shared
experiences. But sometimes specific knowledge, whether practical
or metaphysical, was not easily shared. Having privileged knowledge
of something gives a person power over those who do not have that
knowledge, which can be a good reason for not telling everything;
also, recalling one’s knowledge of a marine resource like trepang
takes time, gradually accumulating through fragmentary bits and
pieces of information. The practice of trepang-collecting is therefore
62 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

described with the help of three such experiential fragments, based

on my own field notebook and diary, which appropriately narrate
such cumulative and fragmentary knowledge, as well as conveying
the contextual atmosphere of this practical activity.

Durel (30 September 1996)

It was 7.00 a.m., the agreed time to meet the other women in
Edo’s shop [Edo is one of the two Indonesian-Chinese
shopkeepers or middlemen in Beltubur village]. Today we are
to go on a trip to some islands and tidal flats to collect sea
cucumbers. Edo will take us and we promised, in exchange, to
sell the ‘harvest’ to him. Fuel was free, but food and drinks had
to be paid for. In the kitchen Mui, Edo’s sister, was busy
preparing some snacks, as well as forewarning me of the heat,
the vicious rays that sting the ankles, the slimy trepang
themselves, the weariness on board, the basic meals of sago or
rice with (salted) fish we might expect, the cramped sleeping
facilities, and so on. But she could not change my mind. By 10.
00 a.m. Edo, the four women and I departed, and after about
an hour’s sailing eastwards from Beltubur we arrived at Durel.
There we had to wait another hour for low tide.
After lunch we changed into long-sleeved shirts, headgear
and rubber boots or canvas shoes. We descended into the
water: the view was vast: all around us was ocean, with a
single coral reef ahead. It was exhausting to walk over this flat,
and besides spotting some other interesting animals—red and
black spotted sea stars, rays and crabs—we did not encounter
as many sea cucumbers as I had imagined. We wandered for
about two hours, peering vainly through the glittering water
surface. The tide came in fast, and with just one or two sea
cucumbers we all walked back to Edo’s boat. The harvest was
disappointing: a bare fifteen trepang of different species.

When sailing out on a collecting trip, Aruese take either a fellow

villager’s boat or an Indonesian-Chinese shopkeeper’s craft. All have
a barter relationship with a shopkeeper, in Beltubur, or in
neighbouring villages, or else in the small trading settlement of
Meror. Goods can be taken from the shop in advance and the
amount settled afterwards when selling the trepang. Most villagers
on a collecting trip take products (including fuel) on credit from the
store first, and many times they end up in debt; but sometimes,
when the sea cucumbers offered are worth more than the articles
bought on credit, no cash money will be given, so villagers are
effectively forced to spend their profits in the same store, or leave it
chalked up for another occasion.
The barter relation is similar in the collecting trips on
shopkeepers’ boats. Both Indonesian-Chinese shopkeepers in
 ‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’ YARD’ 63

Beltubur regularly take their own group of Aruese women on trips

of one to five days. The boat owner then brings the consumption
goods (rice, sago, instant noodles, coffee, tea, cigarettes and
tobacco), in exchange for which the participating women will sell
their harvest of trepang or valuable molluscs. The consumed food
and the fuel are evenly shared by the party and settled up according
to each member’s harvest. But although all Aruese have individual
accounts with particular shopkeepers and try to spread their debts
in hard times by buying consumption goods in shop A and sell
trepang in shop B, those who belong to a shopkeeper’s boat team of
women are less independent, for they risk losing their regular
means of transport if they try to sell elsewhere. This barter
relationship between Indonesian—Chinese shopkeepers and Aruese
villagers—more or less unchanged since Wallace’s (1869)
observations—remains the basis of socio-economic life throughout
the Aru Islands.5

Gathering on Gorijahihahuai (31 October 1996)

Today Jahari (the local kiosk owner) and I decided on
impulse to join the women who had planned to collect sea
cucumbers on the flat called Gorijawahahai, the ‘small island’.
It was drizzling and the sky was cloudy: ‘perfect for going on a
sea cucumber trip’, Jahari explained, ‘because sea cucumbers
show up when it is less hot.’
About 9.15 am, fully dressed and equipped, we boarded
Laibu’s boat and were greeted by some twenty passengers. We
were soaking wet, since it was taijugir (spring tide), and dirty
because of the muddy area in the mangroves where the boat
was. The boat docked at Meror, where we delivered a couple of
people who wanted to help a Beltubur family clear a garden
plot. Naturally, we visited this family too: it was not yet low
tide, so why not have a coffee there first; besides, some women
wanted to shop in the two Chinese-owned stores.
10.30 a.m. We—ten women and two men—left for
Gorijawahahai, not far from the coast. The reason for going to
that location, besides its being known for its red and black sea
cucumbers (sem merah and sem hitam), was that yesterday
and the day before the villagers had been lucky and brought
back full bags. Everyone was excited that this trip would
definitely be a success. After forty minutes, we arrived at the
spot and the men made explorative dives to confirm the
presence of sea cucumbers.
12.15 p.m., and the water level was low enough (at calf-
height) to start searching. Enthusiastically we all jumped in
the water, some of us armed with spears in case we spotted a
crab or fish to bring home for dinner. For two and a half hours
we roamed the ‘small island’ for those red and black slugs. My
64 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

huge 25 kg rice bag was slowly filled as I was wondering how

exactly these animals lived and reproduced. When the water
level rose you could see black sea cucumbers emerging from
the sand a little.
I found myself greedily picking up every single trepang I
spotted, both small (4 cm) and large (30 cm). I suppose I had
the urge to prove that I was able to collect as many as the
others. Even though other women were gossiping and laughing
during the collecting, there was a slight tension to be felt—a
sense of keen competition. Finally, when the tide turned and
water was at waist height, we climbed aboard and laid our
sacks proudly on the deck. The average harvest was one sack
per person, equivalent to two kilograms of dry or smoked sea
cucumbers for sale. The deck was piled up with wet and heavy
bags, and we all felt satisfied and thoroughly musty from
strolling on the sandy seagrass beds. After a stop in Meror we
returned home, where the rest of the processing started at
once.

Aruese thus still collect sea cucumbers by going to a reef where

someone has found a good supply the previous day or night.
Subsequently, people return to that same location for up to a week,
until they come back with no harvest at all. With few exceptions—
notably the Imam of Beltubur, who says it is ridiculous to make a
long and expensive trip when you know that the sea cucumbers are
nearly depleted—most Aruese villagers still adhere to this habit of
recurrent harvesting in one site to the point of resource exhaustion.
The timing of trepang collection is correlated with the seasons and
the tides, which define the amount and species of trepang available.
The length of the tides in the east monsoon or enan somar differs
from that of the west monsoon or enan ahuar, as is also the case
with spring tide (tai jugir), at full and new moon, and neap tide
(ermule), at the moon’s first and third quarters. At neap tide the low
waters cover a longer period and are more visible than during the
spring tide. Due to the complex semi-diurnal mixed tidal system on
the Aru Islands, with daily two high and two low tides, each of
different heights, many people actually distinguish only one low tide
a day when it is spring tide. Like other women in the village who
only rarely go to sea, the wife of a shop owner thus explained that it
was only ‘briefly low tide during the day at springtide,’ when it was
therefore less efficient to go on a gathering trip.
In comparing the two seasons, everyone agreed that during the
east monsoon the tidal flats at sea are larger at night, requiring
nocturnal gathering trips using electric torches. Men and women
often leave the village for a week at such times (during neap tide) to
collect and prepare trepang, while camping on the islands of Jeh
and Mar, or in the trade settlement of Meror. During the west
 ‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’ YARD’ 65

monsoon, the vast tidal flats occur around noon. Those having their
own boat then usually come and go every day, while those
participating in Indonesian-Chinese boat trips may stay at sea for a
couple of days. Trepang collectors often used to be involved in
alternative activities during the spring tides, such as fishing,
gardening and strand gathering; but when money is urgently
needed, or when places appear unusually full of trepang, they may
give its harvest a try during spring tides as well as neap tides. Even
though people admit that neap tide (especially in the east monsoon)
is the proper time to collect sea cucumbers, in practice it is now a
year-round, everyday activity, whenever the weather permits. Even
during the west monsoon men would thus dive for sea cucumbers
at neap tide, while women would go to the tidal flats in the day at
spring tide.
When asked about the regeneration of sea cucumbers, only a
couple of men, including the Chinese-Indonesian trader in the
village, reported that the sent putih and matahui species reproduce
in April. You can then see the semen coming out of their bodies
when boiling trepang, orange thick and slimy for the matahui and
peculiarly white thin threads for the sem putih. People did not know
exactly how long it took for a sea cucumber to reach full maturity,
but length is taken as an obvious standard of age. Sem species
smaller than 10 cm are considered immature. Recently, a party of
Moslem youth collecting sem in a so called bakti general-purpose
trip for the local mosque even specifically brought these small ones
to the Haji’s sea nursery to cultivate them there.
Aruese men as well as women are involved in sea-cucumber
harvesting. Men dive during the west monsoon and collect by
walking and wading during the east monsoon. Women always roam
the tidal flats and coral reefs, at daytime during the west monsoon,
at night during the east monsoon, sometimes together with the men,
using electric torches and gas lamps. Knowledge of sea cucumber
species and locations differs according to gender and relative
experience. Women only visit the tidal flats and collect four species,
sem putih and matahui during the east monsoon at night, while
during the west monsoon black and red variants, sem hitam and
sem merah, are collected. Male divers find the last three species all
the year round, together with several others which only occur at
depth. Different trepang species are also tied to specific locations,
depending on seabed quality.

Night harvesting on Durel (28–29 April 1998)

This afternoon I joined Jahari’s family on a trip to senter sem
(literally ‘flashlight sea cucumbers’, i.e. using torches to find
sea cucumbers) on Durel reef. We left Beltubur around 17.30
p.m. On our way to Meror, Jemy (Jahari’s 13-year-old son) had
explained me that it was taibaiboi or extreme high tide and
66 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

that we could step from the boat right on to the wooden pier,
whereas usually we would have climbed out on to a rubber
tyre. An hour later, after shopping in Meror, we sailed to
Durel; it was new moon and very dark. Some were cooking at
the rear end of the boat; but Jahari, her husband Husin (the
captain for our trip), Jemy and I sat on the roof of the cabin,
talking and watching the stars. Suddenly we stopped, and I
asked Taha, Jahari’s son-in-law, how one knows one has
reached the right spot on Durel. ‘Do you see those two stars,
one of which is the morning star? Right beneath those stars is
the island of Jeh, and just in front is Durel, where we are now.
Then you have to estimate where to wait with your boat for low
tide in order to arrive at the right spot and be able to start
collecting right away without walking a great distance first.’
While having our meal, we talked about harvesting sea
cucumbers. Husin said: ‘Nowadays we dive and roam the reefs
in both the west and east monsoons, during neap and spring
tides; it is like planting something today, but then tomorrow
someone else harvests it (prematurely). It is because of the
price increase of sem. In the old days only adult men would
collect, but nowadays women and children all come along to the
tidal flats. The price goes up and up, but each day the amount
of sea cucumbers is less and less.’ Husin almost lyrically
described harvesting trepang in front of the old village of
Beltubur in 1994, when they built a raft to take the many
trepang they had found. Five 25-kg rice bags full of sea
cucumbers per person was unexceptional in those days. When
I raised the possibility of total depletion, Husin answered, ‘No,
the maritime resources may decrease but they will not become
extinct. What we might do is to stop harvesting a particular
species temporarily, just as we used to do with sir [a kind of
sasi or traditional harvest restriction].’
We went to Durel because other people had found many
trepang there the night before. From 9.30 [Link] 12.30 a.m.
Jemy and I walked around in circles and collected altogether
half a bag of sem putih and some eight big matahui (sandfish).
We left the small sea cucumbers ‘in order for them to grow,’
taking only those larger than 10–12 cm.

It is intriguing to understand how people decide exactly where they

should be for which species of trepang. At high tide, people need to
navigate close to the location where they intend to gather trepang
when it is low tide. At daybreak one can see the sandbank or reef
and can check whether there are sea cucumbers by diving, but at
night one has to know precisely the right spot in order to avoid a
long wade out from the boat to the location at low tide. The main
sites for gathering are Golir, Benggori, Durel, Jeh, Mar, Hanase and
 ‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’ YARD’ 67

TABLE 2.1 LOCATIONS AND THE TREPANG SPECIES FOUND,

ACCORDING TO WOMEN IN BELTUBUR

Gorhijahihahuai, and for diving, Kolsijin, Hahatolda, Loinsi,

Hanase, near Gorijahihahuai and beneath the old village of
Beltubur. During group discussions, walking or diving locations for
trepang were distinguished by men and women, of which the latter
only mentioned the places they visited themselves, deferring to male
knowledge about diving sites. Women distinguished between sand
and seagrass, coral or stone, and mixed sand and coral locations,
indicating the different species to be found in these various habitats
(Table 2.1). Men distinguished many more locations, as expected,
including the tidal flats and reefs where they walk together with the
women, as well as their own diving locations.6
While women generally only collect four species, they could name
others, including those ‘dived for by men’ or ‘not having a price yet’
(belum punya harga). The shopkeepers, however, only mentioned
species which they bought from local people and sold in Dobo. The
names for trepang species, used by both Aruese and Indonesian-
Chinese shopkeepers, are mostly in the local (East Trangan)
language, with terms sometimes differing between villages; but
trepang are also known by their common Indonesian names
(Table 2.2).
The dried trepang are sold by both men and women. Women sell
their own harvests, while men sometimes sell their harvests
themselves, or they may give them to their wives. All people involved
in trepang collection know the current prices for each species, which
vary from season to season. Species ‘with no price yet’ are in fact
sold indiscriminately with other cheap species.
68 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

TABLE 2.2 TREPANG SPECIES DISTINGUISHED BY ARUESE

COLLECTORS AS WELL AS INDONESIAN-CHINESE SHOPKEEPERS

*=NAMES GIVEN BY FEMALE AND MALE INFORMANTS; **=EITHER

FROM LITERATURE (SEE CANNON & SILVER 1996, SOUTH PACIFIC
COMMISSION 1994 MARKET PRICES:) OR IDENTIFICATION BY
INFORMANTS USING PHOTOS FROM THE LATTER REFERENCE. H=>RP.
50,000/KG; M=RP. 20,000–50,000/KG; L=<RP. 20,000/KG

UNDERSTANDING THE MARITIME ENVIRONMENT

With regard to the origins of marine resources, all Aruese villagers,
whether Protestant, Catholic or Muslim, agree on the ultimate
responsibility of God as Creator. Beneath God is a sea goddess, Tai
dugai or Ruler of the Sea, and ancestors (including those who could
not flee the island of Enu during a primordial deluge) who serve as
proximate guardians or ‘keepers’ of marine resources.7 Every
marine species has its own specific guardian, who grants the
resource to human beings. In order to obtain access to these
resources, one should offer this guardian ritual gifts. One’s chances
of finding resources are also believed to be influenced by respecting
customary rules when gathering at the reefs, as well as living in
peace and harmony in the village and at sea. Unlike the people in
the first two diary fragments (Protestant and Catholic women going
with Edo, and Muslim women going with Laibu’s boat), there are
several women who still conform to ancestral rules, making tobacco
ritual offerings at sea or when foraging. In their rites they use
general proper names—even of those of Biblical prophets—to
address their requests; or they may use the secret name of a
particular ancestor who rested and left his or her footprint on a
particular tidal flat. Knowing an ancestor’s personal name gives
them the power to ask for sea cucumbers or other marine resources,
 ‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’ YARD’ 69

which the ancestor may manifest from another spiritual or hidden

world. After making the offering, one must search for sea
cucumbers quietly, without talking too much or laughing or yelling.
The topic of romantic love should not be discussed, and the worst
ritual infringement would be to arrange a lover’s tryst or engage in
sexual intercourse on the tidal flat or the boat. Furthermore, one
should not be greedy or over-zealous in harvesting.
Two of my key informants, Jahari and Mama Ida, still practised
this traditional way of asking from the ancestors. Mama Ida
explained:

You have to be aware that the sea is not yours, you see, you
are wandering in the ancestors’ yard. The sea is to the
ancestors what the backyard in a village is to the people. When
children are making too much noise, playing in your backyard,
you will probably send them away. The same is true of the
ancestors. So it is possible that you leave in the morning and
the weather conditions are perfect, while in the afternoon,
when returning to the coast, there are enormous waves and
strong winds (which are the ancestors’ grandchildren).

These two women also practise traditional healing and are in many
other respects unlike most Aruese villagers in their devotion
to tradition. I have experienced many trips without any ritual
offerings, where people are noisy, where lovers meet up together and
where people were invariably greedy, taking young as well as
mature sea cucumbers. Many people therefore do not behave
according ‘proper’ Aruese rules concerning behaviour at sea. ‘They
just go and see whether they are lucky in bringing back a good
catch; they never tell you that bad behaviour, on the tidal flats and
in the village, is sanctioned by the ancestors in the form of a
disappointing harvest, sudden bad weather, encounters with
ancestral sharks (e.g. hammerhead sharks) or getting stung by a
ray.’ Still, as Jahari also made clear during our many long
conversations, ‘different people have different ideas’, and there are
indeed some young men who still use ancestral names while
collecting sea cucmbers, as do almost all men with regard to pearl-
diving. Some even use magical charms. But this ritual practice and
knowledge is kept secret: it is not a topic to talk about openly with
other people. Only when discussing tidal flats in the region and
their local history, for instance, did Wau, a woman in her thirties,
explain that she knew the name of a particular reefs’s ancestor,
which she also uses in private rituals when gathering trepang. But
although many Aruese subscribe to this cosmological belief, which
may thus influence their harvesting behaviour, at the same time
they are aware of the ‘natural’ reproduction cycle of trepang, as well
as the fact that they evidently over-exploit the flats and reefs.
70 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

INDIGENOUS AND EXOGENOUS KNOWLEDGE

Indonesian—Chinese traders’ knowledge, on the other hand, refers
primarily to commercial distribution and consumption. As Pannell
described in the case of trochus shell collection by Damer Islanders
(also Southeast Moluccas), so with Aruese trepang harvesting:

understanding of the species habits and habitat is largely

confined to the technicalities which facilitate its collection.
Thus, little is known about the reproductive cycle of the
species, its longevity or its role within the reef ecosystem.
(Pannell 1993:63)

Local Aruese collectors thus tend to have more knowledge of the

‘production’ side of trepang, while Indonesian—Chinese traders
know more about the ‘distribution’ and ‘consumption’ aspects. But
these traders often process the trepang a second time themselves in
order to get a better processed and more marketable product. Yet
fine quality distinctions between species, the likely prices in the end-
market and sometimes even where this end-market might be are
not usually known by local [Link] simply buy the trepang and
sell it in Dobo to other Indonesian-Chinese traders, usually through
their own family connections. The precise route trepang follows from
the Aruese hinterland to Singapore and Hong Kong is also unclear
to them. When asked why trepang should be a delicacy, younger
traders rarely have an answer; for they are not much interested in
traditional Chinese culture and hardly speak Chinese themselves.
But being in the business makes their wives know how to prepare
trepang, which is eaten at wedding banquets and at the Chinese
New Year festival, whereas an average Hong Kong woman is unlikely
to know recipes for trepang dishes and may never cook it at home
(Conttia Lai, Hong Kong, personal communication).
Indigenous Aruese knowledge is thus necessarily intertwined with
the ‘exogenous knowledge’ of the Indonesian—Chinese traders, just
as their local subsistence has long been located within a regional
nexus of international trade. The Aruese learn from the traders how
to process trepang for market sale, which species are in current
demand and how much they are worth. When the trader enquires
about a new species, being given market knowledge by his own
ethnic networks, the villagers will try to collect it specifically and
inform the trader of its local availability. Some Aruese say that they
simply follow the Indonesian-Chinese shopkeepers’ shifting
demands. Thus when one resource becomes depleted or drastically
decreases in price (like sea weed at the beginning of the 1990s),
they simply collect another resource indicated by the trader as
marketable.
 ‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’ YARD’ 71

BREAKDOWN OF COLLECTIVE MANAGEMENT

Common-property Management
In the Southeast Trangan region, sea cucumbers and all other
maritime resources are commonly owned property where villages all
have equal access to the reefs and flats. Tahoran tamnam or ‘we eat
together’ is what people refer to in discussing such collective
resource management. According to a myth about two divine and
rival brothers, Ursia and Urlim, the Aru Islands were divided into
two regions: the southern part was owned by Urlim (the whale), the
northern part by Ursia (the shark). The villages of Trangan thus
belong to the same quasi-totemic region and ‘eat together’ from the
resources in the sea of Urlim (Urlimgualor). The reefs, tidal flats and
islands, however, have been owned by separate clans ever since
their respective ancestors left the island of Enu and travelled to
these places, where they left their footprints as mnemonic traces of
ownership. When one wants to gather sea cucumbers on another
clan’s reef, permission therefore has to be asked from the clan’s
elders.
As we have seen, however, sea cucumbers of all sizes are now
collected, and traditional seasonal harvest restrictions are no longer
adhered to. These harvest restrictions or sir (known as sasi in the
rest of Maluku; cf. von Benda-Beckman et al. 1992; Zerner 1994)
used to be practised by village clusters. Beltubur forms such a
cluster with two neighbouring villages, Karey and Jorang, with
which it held communal rituals, including those temporarily closing
off a particular area of sea as sir. When sir was closed, it meant that
during a period of three to five years it was forbidden to collect
trepang, breaches being sanctioned by fines. After that period the
area was ceremonially opened up again and people would gather sea
cucumbers en masse. One of the older women in Beltubur had
herself witnessed sasi teripang in another northern village: when
the area was closed and opened again, an offering was brought to a
location where the ancestor or guardian of the sea cucumber
supposedly lives.
Under the influence of Christianity and Islam, such traditional
ideas of the cosmos and the natural environment have rapidly
waned. Sasi or sir is no longer practised, and even the yearly ritual
for the sea goddess (gualor kan lilil), held at the beginning of the
west monsoon (the diving season), is rarely or imperfectly observed.
In 1996, Beltubur and its cluster did not conduct the ritual, while
in 1997 its performance was delayed until December, when villagers
had already been diving for over three months. The protocol of the
ritual also deviated from tradition. The influence of the Protestant
religion is especially noticeable, ‘anti-tradition’ being expressly
advocated in church by the pastor.
72 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Yet there are cases of Aruese villages where sasi teripang still
occurs, as further north near the island of Baun, a nature reserve
covering 55,000 hectares of virgin and secondary forest in the
villages of Koba, Kobadangar and Kobaselfara. In December 1996,
sasi was ceremonially opened after a three-year closure. It seems
that the economic situation in the Southeast Trangan area is
fundamentally different: unlike the Koba villages, those on Trangan
form a larger area, which is less protected and more easily exploited
by different outsiders. Bugis and Buton fishermen use the waters
for shark-fishing; trawlers even come near the coast of South
Trangan. Since 1995 there have, moreover, been serious conflicts
over the ownership of land and sea, which have bitterly divided the
villages. All communities are involved in these conflicts, which have
already led to the mutual destruction and burning of gardens and
temporary shelters on the islands; and there has even been a
murder.
In 1994, the Catholic parish and the Moslems created sea
nurseries (tambak) to cultivate matahui (Holothuria scabra or
sandfish) in front of the old village of Beltubur, because the
conditions for this were better than in front of the present-day
village, where the sea is too shallow. There are some deeper areas
where, even at low tide, the nursery is full of water, and the
protection of the bay against storms was another reason. The sea
cucumbers were gathered during collective trips in which everyone
participated and the collective harvest was put into the nursery.
But the maintenance of the stone and wooden construction of the
nursery turned out to be problematic: holes appeared and were not
repaired, and the stealing of sea cucumbers was a serious problem.
After one year both groups therefore abandoned the nursery. A
question often heard was, ‘Why spend so much time on
maintenance and care, which gives you only frustration, when you
can harvest immediately at sea?’ The postponement of the harvest
and sale of trepang is obviously difficult in this society’s ‘direct-
return’ or hand-to-mouth economy, where everybody otherwise
endorses the short-term view: ‘What we find today, we sell today—
and the money will also be spent today. Tomorrow we will see
again.’
The erosion of traditions once adhered to by the whole
community, combined with mounting economic pressure, less
income from pearldiving, highly competitive demands for different
species and personal debt for consumer goods—together with inter-
village conflicts over property rights, have thus all contributed to a
modern breakdown of traditional management regimes of marine
resources, and of sea cucumbers in particular. The implicit motto
seems to be, ‘If I don’t take it, someone else will.’
 ‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’ YARD’ 73

Depletion of trepang
Despite the likelihood of irreversible depletion, Indonesian-Chinese
traders also seem untroubled about this alarming prospect. Only
one of the traders in Meror explicitly warned villagers about a
probable depletion of trepang. Twice he vainly tried to convince
customers of an evident decrease of marine resources; but his
rhetorical concern was scarcely matched by his own action, such as
setting a minimal size on the sea cucumbers he would purchase.
It is conceivable that the Aruese collectors’ traditional cosmology
of spiritual regeneration may have contributed to such ecological
optimism or fatalism concerning trepang harvests: i.e., that ‘the
social management of the species [as in respecting rules or bringing
offerings to the ancestors] will somehow miraculously ensure an
endless supply’ (Pannell 1993:63). As local statements make clear:

The ancestors of the sea are the keepers of the marine

resources, so they can decide to take the sea cucumbers to
other areas temporarily, as during the lawsuit with neighbours
in Karey.
If the ancestors do not want to give you sea cucumbers, then
you have bad luck.
The sea cucumbers have become less because the ancestors
are disappointed about our social behaviour.8

But on the whole, Aruese people evidently know very well why the
sea cucumbers are harder to find nowadays. Husin, for example,
mentioned several such practical reasons in the third diary fragment
reported above, namely that sea-cucumber collecting has become i)
a year round activity, ii) conducted at neap tide as well as at spring
tide, iii) practised by diving as well as wandering the flats and reefs,
and iv) practised by men as well as women and children. Also v)
traditional rules concerning the permissible size of gathered trepang
or allowed harvest periods are no longer applicable. In short, people
quite wittingly (if regretfully) over-exploit the reefs and tidal flats in
ways corresponding with the personally indulgent behaviour the
ancestors were supposed to abhor. Yet nobody believes marine
resources will actually become extinct. They might become harder
to find for ritual or other reasons of human irresponsibility, but total
depletion is impossible. Such resources have always been there and
they always will be there, albeit to a greater or lesser extent of
human access.

THE FUTURE
Sea cucumbers and all other maritime organisms, such as sea
turtles, are objects to be protected and preserved in the Southeast
Aru marine reserve, established in 1991. The reserve covers 114,
74 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

000 hectares and includes many of the reefs, flats and islands the
Aruese use for seacucumber collecting and pearl-diving. The reserve
is not yet protected by PHPA officials (Department of Forestry and
Nature Conservation), and local people do not adequately know what
the reserve is intended for, or indeed, where its boundaries are.
Pannell (1996) has written critically on the establishment of this
reserve and how its region is being seen as a terra nullia with a
homo nullius (cf. Osseweijer 1998), further arguing that indigenous
people are not natural ‘conservationists’ who might be expected to
share the environmentalist assumptions of industrial or post-
industrial westerners. These assumptions are listed as:

1) Things have been depleted and should be conserved; 2)

there is a relationship between human action and the extent of
environmental degradation; 3) humans can be instrumental in
the process of replenishment and conservation; and 4) nature,
when left to its own devices, will restore balance and harmony.
(ibid.: 31–2)

In relation to Aruese environmental understanding, however, a

culturally relative local discrepancy is only perhaps evident in the
first of these ‘western’ assumptions: Aruese apparently do not have
the same urgent desire to conserve natural resources because of
escalating depletion, since they do not believe that these resources
can ever become truly extinct. However, the other three ‘western’
assumptions do arguably apply to the way Aruese conceive of their
natural environment. They know that if you gather too much of any
resource it will become scarcer, and so it is aggregate human action
which ultimately causes such depletion (however it may be
mediated through spiritual agencies). Furthermore, Aruese did
effectively leave nature to its own regenerative devices, so to speak,
when they used sasi or sir harvesting bans. Restoration of ‘balance
and harmony’ or the replenishment of the resource, if only to
harvest profitably again after some time, was exactly the intended
effect of sasi. But modern conservational ethics arguably entail
more than these four basic assumptions, for conservation also
implies ‘non-exploitation’ (however this may be conceived), which
indeed Aruese do not regard as an absolute necessity or as an
overriding moral imperative.
I have indicated, however, that their complex and variably
distributed local knowledge may be of vital value to conservationists:
for this local knowledge is where indigenous understanding
responds to and mutually shapes exogenous understanding, in
social and political dialogue as well as in economic cooperation with
others, and in practical as well as in metaphysical conception,
concerning ritual notions of marine resources like sea cucumbers
and the traditional ideas behind sasi (teripang), together with
 ‘WE WANDER IN OUR ANCESTORS’ YARD’ 75

apprehensions of the market requirements of Indonesian-Chinese

traders. Understanding such composite knowledge, compiled of
locally accumulated fragments of personal experience, collective
memory and inherited tradition, is indeed a necessary basis for
developing a more sustainable means of resource exploitation with
the Aruese together with other locally and regionally engaged
indigenous actors like the Indonesian-Chinese traders; also perhaps
for explaining the not entirely alien notion of a conservational
reserve, an ‘ancestors’ yard’, which might provide further for living
descendants and successors.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments on earlier
drafts of this chapter from Roy Ellen and Gerard Persoon, and the
helpful editorial comments from Alan Bicker and Peter Parkes. For
sharing experiences at the tidal flats, and the teachings and
discussions about sea cucumber gathering I am grateful to Mia
Gelanjinjinai, aunt Jahari Wajin, aunt Milka, mama Kalarci and
mama Ida, as well as the Aruese-Chinese shopkeepers Bun Huat
Anggerek and Ocam Salay. The empirical material on which this
chapter is based was collected during eighteen months of fieldwork
in the Aru Islands (1996–97, 1997–98), funded by NWO (Dutch
Organisation for Scientific Research). For permission to carry out
this work I thank LIPI, Jakarta and Pusat Studi Lingkungan of the
Pattimura Diversity in Ambon.

NOTES

1. This contribution is based on recent fieldwork on the Aru Islands,

the Southeastern part of the island of Trangan, from May 1996 until
February 1997 and from December 1997 until July 1998. The
research was funded by NWO (Dutch Organization for Scientific
Research), carried out under the auspices of the Indonesian
Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and sponsored by the Pusat Studi
Lingkungan, Pattimura University, Ambon.
2. See Harris 1996:444–7; Persoon et al. 1996:103–10. For a detailed
account of pearl-diving culture on the Aru islands, see Spyer 1992,
1997.
3. See Cannon and Silver 1996 (CD-rom); MacKnight 1976:7;
Simmoons 1991:25, 434–5; Stevens 1987:194; Sun Yinfu et al.
1983:93. Some sources mention the medicinal quality of holothurin,
a toxic substance obtained from sea cucumbers with a significant
anti-tumour effect (Simmoons 1991:435). Sant (1995:29) mentions
that in French Polynesia the toxin from Holothuria atra is sometimes
used in traditional medicine for soothing sea-urchin wounds.
76 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

4. See De Hollander 1898:525; van Eijbergen 1866:94, 99; Riedel 1868:

257; van Rosenberg 1878:330; Wallace 1862:131.
5. I should note that contemporary barter between shopkeepers and
villagers need not be entirely one-sided. The relationship is not one
of unilateral dependence, but rather of commercial
interdependence, where the shopkeeper has a similar relationship
with his own creditor. Nor do all Aruese invariably have huge debts
with shopkeepers: it depends on the season, the payments to be
made (like school fees, marriage costs, Ramadan expenses or engine
investment), and of course individual self-discipline and book-
keeping.
6. Cf. van den Biggelaar 1998 for locations distinguished by men
during group discussion and individual interviews.
7. Aruese believe that their ancestors come from the island of origin or
Enu, which used to be connected to another island, Karang. When
Enu-Karang was destroyed and flooded by one of the ancestors of
Trangan because of a serious quarrel of two brothers, all the
ancestors had to flee the island in boats, bringing their people and
clan identities with them. Those who could not flee became marine
resources—fish, dolphins, sharks etc.—and promised to help the
survivors whenever they were needed.
8. Stories about rare or extinct maritime animals always refer to
ancestors who decided to keep such animals away from humans or
send them to another place. But eventually, these animals will
return. The ancestors are thus the real managers and ‘keepers’ of
marine resources.

REFERENCES
Battaglene, S.T., and [Link] 1997. Potential of the tropical Indone-
Pacific sea cucumber, Holothuria scabra, for stock enhancement.
Unpublished paper, ICLARM Coastal Aquaculture Centre, Solomon
Islands,
von Benda-Beckmann, F., et al. 1992. Changing ‘indigenous
environmental law’ in the Central Moluccas: communal regulation and
privatization of sasi. Paper presented to the Congress of the
Commission on Folk Law and Legal Pluralism at Victoria University,
Wellington, August, 1992.
van den Biggelaar, M. 1998. Sustainable exploitation of sea cucumbers in
Aru, Southeast Maluku. M. SC field report, Nijmegen.
Bosscher, C. 1854. Statistieke aanteekeningen omtrent de Aroe-eilanden.
Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 1854, 323–31.
Cannon, L.R.G., and [Link] 1996. Sea cucumbers of northern Australia.
Berlin: Springer Verlag, CD ROM, ETI.
van Eijbergen, H.C. 1866. Verslag eener reis naar de Aroe en Key
Eilanden. Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkendekunde 14,
557–68.
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van Eys, S. 1986. The international market for sea cucumber. Infofish
Marketing Digest 5, 41–4.
Geertz, C. 1983. Local knowledge. Further essays in interpretive
anthropology. New York: Basic Books.
Gosliner, T.M. et al. 1996. Coral reef animals of the Indo-Pacific. Monterey:
Sea Challengers.
Hobart, Mark 1993. Introduction: the growth of ignorance? In [Link]
(ed.), An anthropological critique of development. London: Routledge.
Ingold, T. 1992. Culture and the perception of the environment. In
[Link] and [Link] (eds.) Bush base, forest farm: Culture,
environment, and development. London: Routledge. pp. 39–56.
MacKnight, C.C. 1976. The voyage to Marege: Macassan trepangers in
northern Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Osseweijer, M. 1999. Co-existing interpretations of the marine
environment: ‘competition’ between ancestors and Chinese traders in
the Aru Islands, Indonesia. In [Link] and [Link] (eds.) Cultural
and spiritual values of biodiversity. London: Intermediate Technology
Publications.
—1998. Conflicting boundaries: landscape, customary rights and maps in
Aru, Indonesia. Paper presented to the IIAS/NIAS seminar on Co-
management of Natural Resources in Asia, Isabela, Luzon, Philippines.
Pannell, S. 1993. Circulating commodities: reflections on the movement
and meaning of shells and stories in North Australia and Indonesia.
Oceania 64/1, 57–76.
—1996. Homo Nullius or, Where have all the people gone? refiguring
marine management and conservation approaches. Australian Journal
of Anthropology 7/1, 21–42.
Persoon, G.A., [Link] longh and [Link] 1996. Exploitation,
management and conservation of marine resources: the context of the
Aru Tenggara Marine Reserve (Moluccas, Indonesia). Ocean and Coastal
Management 32/2, 97–122.
Riedel, J.G.F. 1868. De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tussen Celebes en
Papua. The Hague.
Sant, G. 1995. Marine invertebrates of the South Pacific: an examination of
the trade. Cambridge: Traffic International.
Simmoons, F.J. 1991. Food in China: a cultural and historical inquiry.
Boca Raton etc.: CRC Press.
South Pacific Commission 1994. Sea cucumbers and bêche-de-mer of the
tropical Pacific: a hand-book for fishers. Noumea, New Caledonia: South
Pacific Commission.
Spyer, P. 1992. The memory of trade: circulation, autochthony, and the
past in the Aru Islands. University of Chicago: PhD thesis.
—1997. The eroticism of debt: pearl divers, traders, and sea wives in the
Aru Islands, eastern Indonesia. American Ethnologist 24/3, 515–38.
Sun Yinfu, Xin Jiguang and Xiao Shiling (eds.) 1983. The secrets of the
master chefs of China. London: Newton Abbot.
Sutherland, H. 1987. Tripang and wangkang: the China trade of
eighteenth century Makassar, 1720s–1820s. Paper presented at the
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Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology International Workshop

on South Sulawesi: Trade, Society and Belief.
Wallace, A.R. 1869. The Malay Archipelago. London: MacMillan and
Company.
—1896. On the trade of the eastern archipelago with New Guinea and its
islands. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 32, 127–36.
Zerner, C. 1994. Through a green lens: the construction of customary
environmental law and community in Indonesia’s Maluku Islands. Law
and Society Review 28/5, 1079–1122.
 Chapter 3
THE CONSTRUCTION AND
DESTRUCTION OF ‘INDIGENOUS’
KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA’S JOINT
FOREST MANAGEMENT
PROGRAMME
Nandini Sundar

1908: SAN ANDRES DE SOTAVENTO THE

GOVERNMENT DECIDES THAT INDIANS DON’T
EXIST

The governor, General Miguel Marino Torralvo, issues the

order for the oil companies operating on the Colombian coast.
The Indians do not exist, the governor certifies before a notary
and witnesses. Three years ago, Law No. 1905/55, approved in
Bogota by the National Congress, established that Indians did
not exist in San Andres de Sotavento and other Indian
communities where oil had suddenly spurted from the ground.
Now the governor merely confirms the law. If Indians existed,
they would be illegal. Thus they are confined to the cemetery
or exile.
Eduardo Galeano, Century of the wind

One summer afternoon, as I waited in the Jagdalpur Collectorate for

an appointment with the collector, the local head of the
bureaucracy in Bastar, a large tribal district in Central India, I
witnessed the following exchange. Some mail had just arrived and
the superintendent picked up one letter and read it aloud. It was a
parliamentary question about what was being done about the rights
of indigenous people in Bastar. ‘Indian genius?’ he wondered aloud.
Then, after much discussion with the other clerks, the
superintendent checked the word in the dictionary, and finding that
it meant swadeshi or native, they decided that since adivasis were
no less native than anyone else but also no more, the question was
just not applicable to Bastar.
80 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

In recent years, predominantly tribal areas like Bastar have seen

their demographics change as non-tribal immigrants have flooded
into these areas, seeking their fortunes in the trade in timber and
non-timber forest produce, mining, illegal tin-smelting and, of
course, in that vast money-making enterprise called ‘development’.
Attempts by some local groups to demand an autonomous district
council with pre-dominant representation for tribals has called forth
indignant responses from these immigrants: ‘Its all one country,
we’re free to settle anywhere.’ The question of who is indigenous and
who is not becomes, in this context, a political question, a question
of representation rather than of fact. This creates a special problem.
On the one hand, there is an increasing wealth of historical and
ethnographic evidence which indicates the absence of any distinctly
identifiable category called an indigene, or in the Indian context an
adivasi (‘original inhabitant’). On the other hand, there is the
equally inescapable fact that those certified as scheduled tribes by
the government of India constitute a large percentage of those
displaced or destroyed by the current capitalist mode of development
(Fernandes & Thukral 1989). The question of indigenous knowledge
and its mobilization in government programmes, whether through
participatory processes aimed at local development or
straightforward extraction of local know-how to serve outside
groups, must be seen in this dual context. While this section looks
critically at the concept of ‘indigenous’ people and ‘indigenous
knowledge,’ the following sections focus on the manner in which the
rhetoric of indigenous or local knowledge is employed in
development programmes.1

DEFINING THE ‘INDIGENOUS’

Critiquing the notion that one can pigeon-hole societies into neat
boxes, Eric Wolf writes:

What of the localized Algonkin-speaking patrilineages, for

example, which in the course of the fur trade moved into large
nonkin villages and became known as the ethnographic
Ojibwa? What of the Chipeweyans, some of whose bands gave
up hunting to become fur trappers, or ‘carriers,’ while others
continued to hunt for game as ‘caribou eaters,’ with people
continually changing from caribou eating to carrying and
back? …The more ethnohistory we know, the more clearly
‘their’ history and ‘our’ history emerge as part of the same
history. Thus, there can be no ‘Black history’ apart from ‘White
history,’ only a component of a common history suppressed or
omitted from conventional studies for economic, political or
ideological reasons (Wolf 1982:17–19).
 KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA’S JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME 81

A similar case can be made for the concept of ‘tribe’ in India.

Historically, the construction of the tribal in India has been similar
to that in Africa, drawing on evolutionary classifications based on
race and anthropometry, the denial of any indigenous kingship in
favor of an acephalous, kinship-bound society, and the perceived
primitiveness of modes of production. However the Indian ‘tribe’ was
further understood to be differentiated by religion and culture from
the Indian ‘caste.’ The census records in particular contributed to
this objectification,2 an objectification which fuelled social science
debates for a long time (Bailey 1961, Dumont 1962, Mandelbaum
1972). Much recent work has been directed against these
hegemonic categories (Bates 1995; Clifford 1988; Cohn 1990;
Sengupta 1988; Stocking 1983, 1984, 1991). Increasingly, the
categories ‘tribal,’ ‘primitive,’ ‘savage’ or ‘wild’ are seen as deeply
imbricated in domination and anxiety, providing both the
justification for colonial rule and the means towards it (Spurr 1993,
Taussig 1987, White 1978). The concept of ‘indigenous’ people
comes partly out of one of the shifts of this image. As Taussig puts
it, describing the tragedy of alliances of ‘indigenous peoples’ with
western powers against the destruction of their habitats by their
local states:

Sustaining the realpolitik of these situations is a powerful

modern mythology of good savage/bad savage by which the
whites of Europe and North America purify themselves through
using the good savage to purge the bad one, whether
comrrmnists in Vietnam, Sandinistas in Nicaragua, supposedly
corrupt and ecologically insensitive Third World government in
Brazil and Panama or, most especially, the bad savage within
the historic constitution of First World whiteness itself.
(Taussig 1993:142–3)

In Bastar, while it is possible to distinguish local people—scheduled

castes and scheduled tribes—from later immigrants, this is not on
the grounds of antiquity or historicity as such. It is possible to trace
tribal migrations to the region, albeit at some early and undefinable
date, and we find multicaste assemblies and high Hinduism
preceding tribal societies in the area. The local history of tribal
kingdoms as born out of internal stratification within tribal
societies, their relations with neighbouring populations which
sometimes involved plunder and destruction of their environment,
also gives the lie to any essentialist notion of traditional indigenous
eco-friendly wisdom (Sundar 1997:47–51). To use the term
‘indigenous’ in the Indian context is therefore to be complicit in a
history of somebody else’s making, to accept the category of Hindu
and tribal as defined by a century and more of colonial knowledge
82 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

creation, to deny the possibilities of common construction and

common destruction by ‘indigenous’ and non-indigenous alike.
If it is impossible to box indigenous people neatly, defining their
knowledge in bounded terms is even more difficult, given the status
of knowledge as a transferable, flowing entity (Agrawal 1995:422).
European science and mathematics owes much to the Indian
concept of zero, to give one of the most widely known examples (see
also Grove 1995 on the appropriation of Ezhava botanical and
medicinal knowledge in Dutch botanical science). Attempting to get
around this conundrum, Ellen and Harris (this volume) try to define
indigenous knowledge as local knowledge which is found in both
‘east’ and ‘west,’ a form of ‘tacit, intuitive, experiential, informal,
uncodified knowledge’ as opposed to ‘literate’ or ‘expert’ knowledge.
There is, indeed, a form of ‘local knowledge’ or the knowledge of local
situations that people have by virtue of their intimate acquaintance
with that landscape. This holds as true for old timers in New York
neighbourhoods as it does for villagers in Bastar, though the kind
of knowledge they need to negotiate their surroundings may be
different. It holds as true of academics who learn not just ‘facts’ but
also techniques such as writing papers in a suitably sonorous style
as it does for pastoralists who learn how to control their herds from
straying. These techniques cannot be transmitted in any systematic
coherent way but come from long experience.
While this definition may avoid ethnocentrism, by retaining the
term ‘indigenous knowledge’ several risks are run. In this form, it
refers to nothing other than a folk or embodied knowledge versus a
high or systematized knowledge. But others have slipped into seeing
this kind of knowledge as the typification of the knowledge that
indigenous people have. Thus Hobart summarizes a particular
stance embodied by his volume: ‘Most of the contributors share the
view that the peoples they write about seem to work more through a
body of practices—knowing how to do things and to react to
changes, a set of practical procedures—than through a formal
system of shared knowledge’ (1993:18, italics mine). Indigenous
people may well have this kind of ‘knowledge how’ but they also
have ‘knowledge that’ or propositional knowledge (on this
distinction, see Quinton 1967:346). To attempt to extract one for
‘development’, or other even less savoury pursuits, while ignoring
their other beliefs reeks of arrogance. Indigenous people are not
merely technicians but also scientists who have complex systems of
classification and abstract philosophical ideas and who can provide
systematic accounts of various aspects of the world (see Agrawal
1995:422). Moreover, what are the ‘formal systems of shared
knowledge’ that industrial workers and scientists in America have in
common that makes their ‘culture’ different from ‘the peoples’ that
Hobart’s contributors write about?
On the other hand, several descriptions of indigenous knowledge
emphasise its rootedness in a ‘community’ (Banuri and Apfel
 KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA’S JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME 83

Marglin 1993:10–18). Werner and Begishe (1980:152; quoted in

Fairhead 1993:193) argue for the systematicity of indigenous
knowledge across a ‘culture’: ‘Although we start with informants
(consultants) and their individual knowledge, we end up with the
total knowledge of an idealized member of the culture.’ Fairhead
argues (ibid.) that this ignores the dynamic nature of farmers’
knowledge. Equally importantly, it ignores the fact that knowledge
is not distributed evenly across societies. In every society,
knowledge and access to it is differentiated by class and gender, age
and occupation, specialization and degree of expertise. Anil Gupta
(1996) has brought out several examples of villagers in India who
have innovated and experimented in their individual capacities, and
who other villagers look to for specialist assistance. Men and women
may have different kinds of environmental knowledge. In a situation
where women marry into distant villages (as in north India), they
may possibly have ‘a greater understanding of spatial variations and
lesser understanding of temporal variations’ than men (Jackson
1993:411).
Local knowledge changes as local environments change and as
people become implicated in new projects. This is obviously an
uneven process, as memories of past practices continue to hold
good for a while and as knowledge is transmitted through cultural
practices which continue to take place even when the features of
the world they refer to no longer exist in the same way.3 In a
situation of rapid deforestation due to large development projects
like dams, industrial forestry projects, forest department
exploitation, timber-smuggling and villagers’ own need for extending
cultivation, it is inevitable that the number of species that villagers
will have knowledge or experience of will be drastically reduced over
time. A herbal medical practitioner we encountered in the hills of
eastern Andhra Pradesh claimed that in the high forests of East
Godavari district he had access to and made use of some four
hundred species. In the degraded jungles further west near
Narsipatnam, on the other hand, he could find only about forty to
fifty species. Older people might remember species of plants and
animals and crops that used to exist. The young, however, are
affected by more than just the changes in the natural landscape. The
horizons of ‘civilization’ now lie in another direction, in the sphere
of urban employment rather than what is seen as old-fashioned
botanical knowledge, an emphasis which is reinforced by the entire
educational system which values bookish literacy and certificates
alone (see also Nanda 1994:117, for a description of how the
educational system encourages the ‘growth of ignorance’ in tribal
areas).
Following Agrawal’s (1995) demolition of ‘neo-indigenista’ claims
that IK can be distinguished on substantive, methodological and
contextual grounds, we see that on almost any count—the presence
or absence of a formal system or the degree to which it is held by a
84 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

community in common—indigenous knowledge shares features with

non-indigenous knowledge. Nor is ‘tradition’ versus knowledge a
helpful way of understanding the IK-non-IK dichotomy. As the
philosopher of science Barry Barnes argues, knowledge is always
bound up with tradition:

In all societies, learning is a matter of extending, adapting and

at times pruning the inherited knowledge. The world is never
apprehended directly: experience and tradition (nature and
culture as is often said) acting together, symbiotically,
inseparably, define the conditions in which perception and
cognition proceed. (1995:116)

But the question of how ‘tradition’ is defined in any particular

context or at any particular time is not pre-given, it is individuals
who choose and thus take tradition forward. The opposition of
‘tradition’ to science or ‘enlightened reason’ therefore has little
meaning except as part of ‘self-congratulatory accounts of
‘modernity’ (ibid.: 112, 126). By emphasising that IK depends on
‘tradition,’ one is really categorizing certain people as ‘traditional,’
usually in a pejorative sense. A similar point is made by Fairhead:
‘the creation of difference between groups of people is reproduced in
the construction and depiction of their different types of knowledge,
and in the location of agency for action in that knowledge’ (Fairhead
1993:201).
To conclude this section, there is a serious risk of ‘indigenous
knowledge’ being used to patronize ‘indigenous people,’ among both
devotees of the concept and cynics. The concept has achieved some
popularity, causing governments, the World Bank (see Warren 1991)
and development planners to want to institutionalize popular
participation and valorize indigenous knowledge in particular
schemes, through mechanisms like PRA (discussed in the next
section). At the same time, larger political and economic processes
set in motion by the same actors are conspiring to marginalize
certain types of people, through both physical displacement and
denigration of their life-styles and systems of knowledge.

MAPS AND MATRICES: THE REPRESENTATION OF

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE THROUGH PARTICIPATORY
RURAL APPRAISAL
Tracing the history of development discourse through what he calls
the ‘neo-Fabian’ and ‘neo-LiberaP stages, and emphasising the roles
of the state and market respectively, Robert Chambers hits upon a
third paradigm, which he calls ‘an ideology of reversals of the
normal’. This third ideology, which currently enjoys dominance in
the discourse of development agencies—notably donors, professional
 KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA’S JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME 85

NGOs, consultants and related academics—is characterized as

‘putting people before things and poor people first; development
through learning process rather than blueprint; decentralization,
democracy and diversity (to value local knowledge, participation and
small group and community action): open and effective
communications and access’ (1992:31). ‘What is especially new,’
adds Chambers, ‘is the value placed on adaptive and iterative rather
than linear processes, on learning and changing rather than
implementing a set plan, on differentness, on empowering local
groups, and on demand from below’ (ibid.).
In this whole process, PRA or ‘participatory rural appraisal’ plays
a major role as the instrument which elicits local knowledge.
Described by Chambers, one of the people most closely identified
with the development and spread of PRA, as ‘a family of approaches
and methods to enable rural people to share, enhance and analyse
their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and to act’ (1994a:
953), it generally includes ‘participatory mapping and modelling,
transect walks, time lines and trend and change analysis, seasonal
calendars, daily time use analysis, livelihood analysis, well being
and wealth grouping and ranking, matrix scoring and ranking’ etc.
(ibid.: 960).
Some of the major claims made for PRA, based on a reading of
several reports included in Chambers (1994b) are: first, that it is a
set of tools (whether RRA or PRA) that is better at getting quick
research output using local knowledge than other conventional
research tools, including surveys and the extended fieldwork
conducted by anthropologists. The heavy emphasis on visual
methods is seen as preferable for illiterate, rural populations.
Enthusiasts like Jules Pretty from IIED in London claim in addition
(personal communication, November 1994) that PRA inherently has
an equalizing tendency, since people (investigators and
respondents) are no longer looking at each other but jointly looking
at something on the ground, for example, while doing social
mapping.
The second major claim is that it enables rural people to analyse
their own conditions in order to act. As one development
practitioner breathlessly wrote to Robert Chambers: ‘I agree with
you that we can use this technique for making dominant groups
analyse the position of subordinate groups in not just gender
relations but parents-children, junior-senior, old-young, rich-poor
etc., and even a different caste group’ (Meena Bilgi, Aga Khan Rural
Support Programme, to Robert Chambers, October 14 1992). The
assumption is first, that local people are not fully aware of their own
conditions or that of their subordinates or superiors, and that they
come to this awareness in the process of drawing maps for
outsiders; and secondly, that once they know their own situation
they can change it.
86 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

The third assumption is that PRA techniques are neutral with

respect to the multitude of relations swishing outside the circle of
map-drawers or matrix-rankers, so that, for example, it is assumed
that tree-ranking will be a pristine reflection of people’s needs
rather than being subject to the latest information about which
trees are commercially valuable and which are not.
No doubt in many situations, some if not all of these claims have
been found to be true. But there are also certain crucial things
about local knowledge and the way it becomes accessible to an
outsider that are being ignored here. Apart from the scepticism
associated with thinking that class relations—and the distance
between the city-bred researcher or even activist and villagers—can
be obliterated with a stroke of a felt pen or covered up with coloured
powder, there is perhaps also a dangerous assumption that villagers
are more spatially and visually oriented and less able to cope with
direct verbal questioning. As anyone who has listened to the rural
old telling their stories knows, language and communication is not
a problem. The problem perhaps lies instead in the outsider’s lack of
understanding of the nuances of language and her/his need for
visual and hence easily understandable data, rather than in the
villagers’ need to communicate thus. In very few instances have I
come across even NGO personnel, let alone government staff, with
any significant knowledge of tribal languages. In most cases they
use the language of the local state (Hindi, Gujarati, Oriya or Telugu
in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh
respectively, instead of Dhurwa, Gondi, Chodhri, Kui etc.). Given
that so much knowledge is stored in a particular language and in
particular words for things that have no existence in other
languages (Geertz 1983:88), loss of a language means the loss of a
certain way of knowing the world. Simultaneously, as David Mosse
points out, there are large areas of expertise that cannot be
linguistically or visually translated, but ‘exist as unconscious
schemes which produce practical fluency in a task, or skill in
making a judgement’ (1994:519).
Secondly, it is a moot point as to whether it is awareness of their
own conditions that people lack or the structural capacity to change
them. For instance, Jan Breman (1974) has shown in his study of
lower caste agricultural labourers (Halpatis) in southern Gujarat
and their high-caste employers (Patidars), that the former are
limited not by ideological mystification but by the objective
economic and political situation they find themselves in. Their
problem is internal segmentation, the lack of time and energy
afforded by their living and working conditions, the sheer force
employed by Patidars who are often assisted by the state, and their
dependence on the Patidars for work. In any case, given the hoary
tradition of debates on false consciousness among subordinate
groups, it is doubtful whether this aspect of PRA can be as
 KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA’S JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME 87

emanicipatory as it claims to be, in the absence of other factors that

enable people to organize.
Thirdly, drawing maps or listing villagers in terms of their wealth
are not merely passive reflections of an existing reality but active
interventions into shaping that reality. Maps of border lines between
countries are hotly contested, not because the squiggles they
represent are unpleasing to the eye or because they are ‘inaccurate’
but because they represent recognitions of sovereignty, things that
people are forced to die for. In one village in north India where we
tried to do ‘social mapping’, i.e. obtain a graphic presentation of all
the different castes and houses in the village, we found that the
upper-caste young men involved had entirely left out the Harijan or
scheduled-caste hamlet. Was this lack of a basic knowledge of the
layout of their village or a statement about the significance of some
castes and the insignificance of others? A brief look even at some of
the chapter titles of Denis Wood’s (1992) book, the Power of Maps,
illustrates the functions maps can perform: ‘Maps work by serving
interests; maps are embedded in a history they help construct;
every map shows this…but not that; the interest the map serves is
masked’, and so on. PRAs where maps of the village are
communally and publicly constructed in order to facilitate the
channelling of certain development goods provide opportunities to
dominant groups—males, upper castes, elders—to structure reality,
effectively to redraw the maps of their social and economic
existence.
Maps can make different kinds of sense out of what appears to be
the same landscape. Comparing aboriginal and white settler
understandings of landscape and history, Paul Carter writes:

Aboriginal occupation had created tracks and clearings: it had

been responsible in all probability for the ‘meadows’ Cook
remarked on. Instead of confronting chaotic nature, map-like
in its uniformity, explorers and overlanders entered a country
replete with directions. The very horizons had been channelled
and grooved by aboriginal journeys…. It is not simply that
Aborigines ascribed different meanings to a country already
there: the country itself was the product of their journeying….
It may be that the incidents and accidents of travelling that
constituted the explorer’s history of the country did not exist
for the guides. They shared the same sensory experiences….
But the meaning of these events, the historical significance of
their spatial appearance was another matter. The world of the
journey furnished a symbolic text where each culture read its
own intentions. Physical overlap was no guarantee of mutual
under-standing…the country did not precede the traveller: it
was the offspring of his intention. (1987:337–49)
88 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

However, it is possible for the same ‘culture’ or even the same

person to juggle different maps of the same object within their
minds, depending on the particular context, and even for those
maps to harm each other in their intent (see also Bender 1993:3).
For instance, while walking through the Kanger National Park in
Bastar with a local inhabitant, what appeared to me as a succession
of dense forest and open spaces was explained instead as the site of
a former settlement of distillers, as a place where all the cattle
would gather before the village to whom the cattle belonged was
displaced, a stone representing a petrified man—history in rock and
stone and trees, a spatial record of time and the passing of events
and people. But equally, my guide could tell me the history of the
forest as the history of coupes demarcated by the forest
department, as the history of wide roads cut into the jungle for the
trucks of former contractors, the history of the forest as the history
of the mansions in the city made on its exploitation. To work as
wage labour in the framing of the second type of map might well
mean obliterating the first.
In India’s recent Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme,
villagers are given degraded state-owned forest land to protect in
return for a share of the final harvests. In most states, the better
forests are meant to be reserved for forest department management.
In this case, it is not a map of where villagers draw their needs from
or a map of their resource catchment that matters, but a map of
what portions of their surroundings are degraded or non-degraded
in technical forestry terms. It is quite another matter that an area
which appears to foresters as degraded (with less than 40% crown
density cover) may actually yield a range of intermediate products to
villagers, like grasses, tubers, etc. In other words, even within a
single scheme, different aspects generate different types of maps of
the same local environment. As Henkel and Stirrat note in their
critique of ‘participation’, maps are based on a particular agenda,
which in the case of PRA for a particular programme is not
necessarily that of the local map-makers. ‘Different kinds of visual
representations of space are crucially dependent on their cultural
context, their institutional frame and their purpose. They are
therefore culturally specific or “ideological”’ (1996:11).
A similar case can be made for other types of PRA; the answer one
gets depends on what one asks for, the meaning ascribed to the
process of doing PRA by the local villagers etc. Let us take another
common PRA, one designed to enable planners to identify the right
‘beneficiaries’ and target the poorer or weaker sections, viz. wealth-
ranking or the classification of villagers in order of wealth. Again
this is usually done in a group to enable people to counter and
balance each other’s estimations. In the north Indian village where
we tried to do wealth ranking, it seemed to be going relatively
smoothly till one lady insisted that a particular man be placed on
top. The others initially demurred but finally acquiesced, and said
 KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA’S JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME 89

that it was because he was her uncle, from which we concluded

that our wealth-ranking was being subject to local contests over
prestige. As James Scott so convincingly shows in his Weapons of
the weak, the classification of the rich and poor into different strata
is not a question of describing an objective reality but part of
another reality: the continuing class warfare within a village and the
negotiation of expectations. Scott writes:

The economic gap between the rich and the poor is

dramatically different depending on which point of view one
adopts. As seen by the rich, the gap is quite small; they
themselves are barely making do, while those who claim to be
poor are actually doing quite nicely.…As seen by the poor, the
economic gap is much greater; the rich are much better off
than they let on and the poor are very poor indeed.…What we
observe, in brief, is not some trivial difference of opinion over the
facts, but rather the confrontation of two social constructions of
the facts, each designed and employed to promote the interests
of a different class (1985:203–4, italics mine).

While in public the rich may be able to push their interpretation of

the facts, in private the poor may give an entirely different point of
view. The representation of ‘local knowledge’ and the construction
of that locality itself depends, in short, on the end to which people
perceive their knowledge to be put, whom one is talking to and
where and when one is talking to them. In the following section I
focus on one particular government programme, Joint Forest
Management, to examine the way in which local knowledge is
constructed within its confines.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF NEEDS AND

KNOWLEDGE WITHIN JOINT FOREST
MANAGEMENT
Joint Forest Management refers to co-operative agreements between
village communities and the local Forest Department to protect a
particular patch of (state-owned) forest land and share the final
harvest. In addition to the Government of India circular of 1 June
1990, nineteen states have passed resolutions regarding the
implementation of JFM, and one estimate suggests that nearly 15,
000 village forest protection and management groups are currently
protecting over 1.5 million ha. of state forest land (Agarwal and
Saigal 1996:2). However, each state resolution has varying rules
regarding the constitution of forest protection committees, their legal
status, the kind of land they are given to protect, the shares
involved etc. Apart from this, differences in culture, ecology and the
90 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

organizational structure of the Forest Department have introduced

variations in actual practice.
However, certain common features of Joint Forest Management
include a stress on microplanning to be conducted through PRA; a
stress on planting villagers’ choice of species, wherever natural
regeneration is not enough; and in some states the provision of
alternative development inputs to wean people away from
dependence on the forest or at least to build up trust in the forest
department. In theory, villagers are asked what their problems are
and the best way of redressing them. This is perhaps the first time
that local knowledge and action are being formally tapped within
forest policy, though in practice much of the work of forest
departments has depended on the intimate knowledge and expertise
of villagers regarding the forests in their vicinity. For instance,
although ‘scientific forestry’ has traditionally managed forests for
timber or ‘major’ forest produce at the expense of a diversity of
‘minor’ forest products, in practice forest departments have always
depended for much of their revenue on the trade in minor or non-
timber forest produce (NTFPs). And this has always been crucially
dependent on the knowledge of villagers regarding the plants
available, appropriate gathering practices etc. Other peasant
practices too, such as grazing, lopping and firing, which were
initially denigrated, were eventually utilized by forest departments
as having positive silvicultural advantage (Guha 1989:49–55; Jeffery
and Sundar 1995; Rangarajan 1996:89–92; Sundar 1997).
Underlying the concept of JFM is a certain notion of villagers’
needs and patterns of use. A critical part of the Orissa JFM
resolution is the preparation of microplans, defined in the following
terms:

It would be based on a diagnostic study of the specific problem

of forest regeneration of the locality and the specific cost-
effective solution for the same that may emerge from within the
community. The views of all sections of the community,
particularly the womenfolk, should be elicited in the PRA
exercise for preparing the microplan.

Similarly, in Madhya Pradesh spearhead teams have been formed in

those divisions taken up under the World Bank project. These
teams have been trained in ‘participatory methods’ and are expected
to train other staff in turn.
In practice, however, both usage and needs are incorporated into
the JFM program through a process of negotiation between
competing agendas. On the one hand, there are limits on the
number of forest protection committees that can be set up, which
are circumscribed by targets, funding and the person-power
available to the forest department. There are restrictions on the kind
 KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA’S JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME 91

of land that can be given over to village communities to protect: as

mentioned earlier, in most states this is restricted to degraded land
with less than forty percent crown density. While microplans are
drawn up, working plans which lay out in detail the working of the
forest department over a twenty year period continue to exercise
pre-eminence, though the situation may be changing somewhat. In
Gujarat, the AKRSP (Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, a local
NGO) had to abandon its plans for afforestation in a particular
village because it was not due for plantation under the working plan.
This resulted in the loss of thousands of seedlings as well as
employment opportunities for villagers, many of whom were forced
to migrate in search for work (Chandran and Singh 1995–7).
However, there is now an attempt to dovetail microplans and
working plans towards the same objectives (Chief Conservator of
Forests, Gujarat, April 1998, SPWD workshop). But even more
crucially, in at least three of the four sites studied by the Edinburgh
University Joint Forest Management Project, the major threats to
forest land came from commercial interests or large-scale
development projects, for instance, tourism and bauxite mining in
Borra in Paderu division of Visakhapatnam, proposed power plants
in Sambalpur and the CPM paper mills near Kevdi village in
Gujarat. Within all this the space reserved for the exercise of local
knowledge or initiative is extremely limited. In the remaining portion
of this paper, however, I look at those domains in which some
premium is given to villagers’ views in respect of selecting the forest
areas to protect and choosing the species to plant in those areas.
In some cases, the choice of the particular plot is left to the
villagers to decide, based on their usage patterns and their
knowledge of their immediate environment, while in other cases it is
the forest department which does the apportioning. Where villagers
themselves initiate protection, they may choose to apportion land in
informal ways that are generally ignored by forest departments in
setting up their village-wide committees. For instance, in village
Kenaloi in Sambhalpur distict of Orissa, after a period of flagging
protection, villagers decided in 1993 to overcome the problem by
having a sub-committee in each hamlet which would look after the
protection of the forest patch closest to it. The total forest area was
divided into seven parts and in each hamlet a president and
secretary were appointed who were responsible to the original
committee (Mishra and Peter 1995–7). As against this, the formal
government scheme assigns land to the committee as a whole and
makes decisions regarding the closure of certain areas for protection
each year, regardless of the fact that this may affect the needs of
hamlets differentially.
When the forest department decides to hand over land to villagers
to protect, this is sometimes done on the basis of the availability of
degraded land, regardless of which village it belongs to. But there
are also conceptions of custom that both villagers and foresters
92 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

subscribe to, such as the idea that forest land within the revenue
boundary of a village should be given to it for protection. The
manner in which existing use conies to be recognized and addressed
by schemes like JFM depends on the relative strength of either of
these imperatives at any one point of time. On the other hand,
contemporary notions of village boundaries are often determined by
settlements made by earlier forest departments, and the ‘customary
rights’ that villagers fight to retain are often rights conferred by
earlier administrations.
For instance, in 1992, the forester responsible for two
neighbouring villages in Rajpipla West Division, Gujarat, gave 61 ha.
of Bharada forest land to Tabda to protect. The logic behind this
was apparently that the Bharada villagers had encroached on parts
of forest land, and also that Tabda was a larger village. In this 61
ha. within the Bharada boundary, the FD had planted khair (Acacia
Catechu) in 1987, as part of a standard departmental plantation,
i.e. one which would have excluded villagers. Thus when Tabda
received the patch to protect, they started with a five-year
plantation. According to the Tabda villagers, the forester told them
that since the land belonged to the forest department, there was no
problem in transferring some of it from Bharada to Tabda. The
Ranger said, ‘Whether it is in Bharada or Tabda’s boundary, it
belongs to the forest department and whoever protects it will get it.’
In contrast, the Bharada villagers feel strongly that the forest land
within their boundary is theirs, because their ancestors put veth or
free labour into planting and protecting it. They also say that their
‘encroachments’ are of long standing, and that they have recently
won their case to get pattas for the land. In fact there were several
hamlets of Bharada in this area and nearby which were later
depopulated due to cholera. Matters are complicated by the practical
problems imposed by the type of species planted on the land and
the fresh claims that protection has generated. The Tabda villagers
say that they will return the land with the khair plantation after the
first felling, while the Bharada villagers argue that the forest
department should give wages for protection for four years to Tabda
and return the land to Bharada. Since teak and khair plantations
take thirty years to mature, the Bharada villagers may have to wait
a long time to get their land back (author’s field notes, 1996). Given
the complex interplay of ‘customary’ boundaries, actual usage, the
definition of forest as state property and new claims as a result of a
changed context—all of which are invoked at different times—the
concept that site selection can be a function of ‘local’ knowledge is
highly problematic.
Unlike the selection of forest areas, which may or may not be left
to villagers to decide, the selection of species for plantation in the
protected areas has been specifically set aside for them, and it is
generally assumed that these species will be NTFP bearing ones. As
 KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA’S JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME 93

Shivaramakrishnan puts it, highlighting the manner in which

participation is compartmentalized:

Foresters are intent on preserving their control (in the final

instance) through silviculture, a knowledge that through
manuals and working plans is claimed as their exclusive
preserve. Given the participatory framework, this leaves the
awkward question of what should be conceded to the domain of
local knowledge, where under the rules of JFM villagers are
skilled practitioners. The answer, jointly provided by
environmentalists and development specialists, is the
knowledge of NTFP collection and processing. (1996:19)

The emphasis on NTFPs in JFM arises for several reasons. In most

states, villagers generally have rights (or concessions) to collect
NTFPs, but no rights to timber. Offering villagers an increase in
NTFPs as a part of JFM agreements does not normally require any
change in the legal rules or existing balance of power. Secondly,
timber products will take a long time (forty years in the case of teak)
before they come to maturity. Thirdly, the degraded lands that are
given for JFM may never be capable of good marketable timber,
whereas even the most degraded patch is probably capable of giving
some NTFPs—including fuelwood, grasses, and so on. In practice
again, targets and availability of species in the forest department’s
nursery often determine what gets planted. This could mean NTFPs
but it could also mean timber species like eucalyptus, since that
may be all the local forest department has. The Divisional Forest
officer in Paderu recognized that the department ‘should give
priority to people’s choices;’ but he added, ‘November is the time for
preparing the nurseries. If we ask the villagers they may suggest
mango, tamarind etc. But at this time the department does not have
the seed stock for these and they are very costly. So we prefer to
plant whatever is feasible within the time limit’ (Gorada 1995–7).
Where NGOs are involved they may be better placed to cater to
villager’s expressed demands, but here too, the process by which
demands come to be expressed is not a straightforward one. For
instance, in the plantation projects of the AKRSP in Gujarat, tree
selection is done by village-level extension volunteers through PRA
techniques like species-ranking. This is carried out with different
groups of men and women, and the two are then compared and a
consensus formed (Ajith Chandran, ex-PO Forestry, personal
communication). However, the very idea of ranking is something
that is project-oriented and associated with the delivery of benefits,
and not necessarily connected with the wide range of uses that
villagers make of different plants (Mosse 1995). In one village in
Bastar, a couple of old women identified, at a casual sitting, some
51 species for which they had various uses. This in itself is probably
94 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

a small sample of their knowledge. Of these, however, only a few

would be nursery species, and even fewer would be provided within
a plantation programme.
In several villages in Andhra Pradesh which were practising joint
forest management, we found that villagers did not ask for trees
which had traditionally grown in their forest areas or even those
species from which they collected NTFPs for sale. When asked why,
a common reply was that these would regenerate naturally from
protection so it made sense to ask for new species, preferably
timber species or commercially valuable species like coffee or jaffra,
a red dye plant. In one village, the villagers asked for teak although
previously they had had mainly rosewood in their forests because
they had learnt from neighbouring villages and NGOs that teak was
an important timber species. Thus one finds villagers in diverse
ecological settings asking for the same species, regardless of the
fact that it may or may not be suitable to the soil and the climate of
the area. And this is often despite the fact that they are aware and
knowledgeable about the suitability of particular species to
particular soil types. In addition, while villagers recognize that
regeneration is sufficient to afforest degraded land without
additional plantation, they are loath to turn down the possibility of
getting free seeds from the forest department. Forest staff, on the
other hand, sometimes complain that they have to persuade the
villagers of the benefits of natural regeneration and of traditional
NTFP species rather than giving into their demands for the
plantation of exotics like cashew. This is in many ways an
interesting reversal of roles in a country where the forest department
has long been castigated for creating large-scale plantations of alien
species like eucalyptus (field notes, 1997).
In other words, villagers mould their own demands according to
what they feel the project can deliver (see also Mosse 1995:9) and
the opportunity this gives them, or at least some among them, for
entering into the commercial sphere, as against continuing with
their old subsistence economy. The simple assumption many
environmentalists make, that villagers, if asked, will predominantly
choose species which yield NTFPs, ignores the multiplicity of
interests which different groups in a village can have, or their
specific contexts. In Koraput, Orissa, just over the border from
Paderu, villagers wanted eucalyptus because of the proximity of
various paper mills. The choice of certain species or of certain
silvicultural methods over others is not just a question of local
knowledge or local choice but is a gendered and class question. For
instance, in West Bengal, Orissa and Bihar, a common source of
income for women is the collection, manufacture and sale of sal
(Shorea robusta) leaf plates. As sal forests regenerate and
increase in height to the level that foresters consider good timber,
the availability of leaves goes down (Sarin 1996:26). Commercially
valuable timber species are often associated with male elites,
 KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA’S JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME 95

whereas fruit- and fodder-bearing trees are associated with women

and lower classes. This has been documented in the Chipko case by
Shiva (1988). However, in many cases, especially for poorer women,
‘subsistence’ includes the sale of NTFPs or firewood through
headloading, and unless some acknowledgement is made of this,
environmental action intended to help women or poorer sections
can often end up harming them (Rangan 1993, Sarin 1996).
Over the past two years in village Kilagada in Paderu, a hilly and
tribal tract of Visakapatnam district in the state of Andhra Pradesh,
successive conversations with villagers as to the objective of JFM
have yielded different answers. Initially, fresh from the ‘motivation
speech’ delivered by the forest staff, villagers cited ecological
reasons, such as increased rainfall, for their involvement in JFM.
Another reason cited was the fact that the forest department
constructed a village meeting room and provided various other
goods in order to improve their relations with the villagers. In
subsequent meetings, villagers cited the increase in NTFPs as a
factor for engaging in protection and finally came down to coffee as
the major reason why they had taken to JFM. In Paderu, the forest
development corporation and the Integrated Tribal Development
Authority, which together constitute the major initiators of
‘development’ in the area, have flooded it with silver oak, which acts
as a good shade for coffee. Coffee plantations are an important
source of employment. Thus, even where the soil and climate is not
suitable for silver oak, villagers often end up asking for it to be
planted in their protection areas (Gorada 1995–7). In general one
might argue, though, that this request for coffee comes from richer
villagers who are not so dependent on the forests for the collection
and sale of NTFPs like adda leaves (Bauhinia vahilii). Apart from
providing a valuable lesson in the perils associated with the doing
of oral history and the practice of ethnography in general (see
Clifford and Marcus 1986), what this illustrates is the manner in
which local knowledge is a deeply problematic entity, differentiated
by class and gender and under constant refashioning by the
passage of time and the interaction with non-local forces. What
comes to be represented as local knowledge to outsiders or adopted
by villagers from the outside are not merely ‘matters of
instrumentalities, technical efficiencies, or hermeneutics…but
involve aspects of control, authority and power that are embedded
in social relationships’ (Long 1992:270).

CONCLUSION
Essentially, what I have tried to argue in this paper is that
indigenous or local knowledge is not a frozen, inert, timeless entity,
but dependent on the material conditions of those whose knowledge
it is, the changing environment in which they find themselves and
96 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

the uses to which it is put. To the extent that indigenous people or

the poor are marginalized by economic and social processes, their
knowledge is marginalized, however much it may be celebrated in
development rhetoric.
Moreoever, the expression of ‘indigenous knowledge’ through the
prism of certain programmes often has more to do with the aims
and structures of the programme than with any reservoir of local
knowledge. In other words, even where villagers do exercise
initiative, it is under terms dictated by the overall framework of
targets and activities prescribed by government rules, which in
some sense distorts their agency. This has been well summarized by
Mosse in a different context: ‘If projects end up ventriloquizing
villager’s needs it is not only, or primarily, because artful and risk-
averse villagers ask for what they think they will get. It is also
because various development agencies are able to project their own
various institutional needs on to rural communities’ (1995:16). The
parallels between this process and the codification of indigenous
laws and traditions in the colonial period is striking: the selection of
texts to translate, the choice of religious scholars all determined
what kind of corpus would be institutionalized as ‘Hindu’ or ‘Muslim’
law and tradition, which all classes and castes were then expected
to follow (Cohn 1990). Similarly, the kind of local knowledge that is
mobilized within ‘participatory’ programmes for development action
is presumed to be a kind of knowledge that is common to all groups
within a village, regardless of their differing interests. In actuality,
local knowledge, though drawing on a shared environment,
constructs that environment in different ways.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Siddharth Varadarajan and Roger Jeffery for their
inputs and editing. Some of the material for this paper has been
collected through the Edinburgh University Joint Forest
Management Research Project in India, funded by the ESRC. I am
grateful to my former colleagues in this project for sharing their
research material with me.

NOTES

1. There have been movements in recent years by adivasi

organizations in India to obtain recognition as indigenous people,
for instance, under the Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples under consideration by the United Nations. For definitions
of indigenous peoples under the ILO convention, see Posey, this
volume. Nothing in this paper is intended to prejudice such political
definitions of ‘indigenous’—simply to point out its problematic use
 KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA’S JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME 97

as a historical category in the Indian context and perhaps to point

to alternative political trajectories.
2. Successive census reports agonized over the problems in
differentiating between tribals and others on the basis of a
distinction between animism and Hinduism, especially when people
were so lax about providing themselves with a category, and the
enumerators at least initially put down whatever they thought the
people should answer. But that the distinction should be made was
never doubted. See especially Government of India 1881, ch. II;
Government of Central Provinces 1911, ch. IV.
3. See, for example, the description of penda or shifting cultivation and
a particular type of grain (aikul) that is embodied in the buffalo-
shooting episode of the kuraal, a dance drama that takes place in
some Dhurwa villages in Bastar on winter nights. The practice of
shifting cultivation in that form and with this grain, however, has
mostly died out among these Dhurwas. See Sundar 1997, ch. 2.

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Guha, R. 1989. The Unquiet Woods. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
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Honey Bee Perspective. New Delhi: SPWD.
Henkel, H., and [Link] 1996. Participation as spiritual duty; the
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(ed.), An Anthropological Critique of Development: The Growth of
Ignorance, pp. 1–30. London: Routledge.
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ecofeminist ‘development. The Journal of Peasant Studies 20/3,
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discourses of non-timber forest products in India. Paper presented to
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Knowledge: The Interlocking of Theory and Practice in Social Research
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Division, Orissa. Edinburgh University Project on Joint Forest
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on the practice of participatory rural appraisal. Development and
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——1995. People’s Knowledge in Project Planning: The Limits and Social
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Forest Management in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
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action in the Garhwal Himalayas. In [Link] (ed.), In Defense of
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Change in India’s Central Provinces, 1860–1914. Delhi: Oxford
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joint forest management. Mimeo. New Delhi: SPWD.
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Sengupta, N. 1986. The March of an Idea: Evolution and Impact of the
Dichotomy Tribe-Mainstream. Madras: MIDS Offprint.
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Ecology and Survival in India. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
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forestry in Bengal. Paper presented to the SSRC Conference on
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Asia.
——1996. Joint forest management: the politics of representation in West
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——1993. Mimesis and alterity. New York: Routledge.
100 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Warren, D.M. 1991. Using Indigenous Knowledge in Agricultural

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 Chapter 4
CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS
TO CONTROL ENVIRONMENTAL
CONFLICT IN THE GREAT
HIMALAYAN NATIONAL PARK, INDIA
Amita Baviskar

A passing bow to indigenous knowledge (IK) is a common courtesy

in conservation policy in India today. An instrumental concern about
promoting and harnessing IK is expressed in most policy
documents, including those of Ecodevelopment, a World-Bank
funded project that seeks to remove human pressure on the natural
resources inside selected national parks and sanctuaries by
creating alternative economic opportunities. Ecodevelopment has
been initiated in the villages around the Great Himalayan National
Park (GHNP) in the state of Himachal Pradesh in north-west India.
From its very inception, the project has provoked fierce controversy
between the Forest Department (FD: the state agency implementing
the project) and local villagers over the meanings and motives
around Ecodevelopment. Claims about knowledge figure centrally in
this conflict—how ‘ecological degradation’ is determined or which
management practices are superior—and are closely linked to
claims over natural resources. In this debate, the notion of IK is
used politically by local villagers and a non-governmental
organization (NGO) working with them to naturalize and legitimize
their claims to graze livestock and collect medicinal plants inside
the park. However, villagers’ actual practices do not necessarily
conform to the idealized notion of IK that they project, but in fact
creatively use the opportunities opened up by changing
institutional structures such as the market. The FD, on the other
hand, acknowledges the existence and importance of IK, but
reduces it to a single component, viz. ethnobotany. At the same
time, the FD also imports ‘scientific experts’ as Ecodevelopment
advisors whose research borrows heavily from IK and yet plucks it
out of its context. Villagers as well as the state employ the notion of
IK to push their varied agenda and, in the process, raise related
questions about the ways in which we understand ‘tradition,’
‘locality’ and the ‘indigenous’.1
102 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

THE AREA
The Great Himalayan National Park covers an area of 765 sq km in
Kulu district, Himachal Pradesh state. The park largely consists of
high mountain ridges rising more than 5500 metres high, divided by
the gorges cleft by three streams, the Tirthan, Sainj and Jiwa Nala,
that ultimately flow into the Beas.2 These upper reaches of the Beas
catchment are covered by moist temperate forests of oak and
conifers, high-altitude forests of birch and fir interspersed with sub-
alpine pastures crowned at the highest points by alpine meadows,
scrub, and finally, permanently snow-capped peaks (Kothari et al.
1989:146). The rich flora of the area sustains an equally rich fauna,
including several endangered species such as musk deer, serow,
brown bear, blue sheep, Himalayan tahr, western tragopan, chir
pheasant and the splendid-looking monal.
Every spring, as the snow starts to melt in the mountains, the
high-altitude pastures come out of hibernation. When the weather
warms, thawing ice moistens the soil and allows the first shallow-
rooted annual herbs to sprout. As spring lapses into summer, the
pastures change colour as one group of herbs, grasses and sedges
flowers, sets seed and dies, to be replaced by another group. The
wild herbivores of the area are not the only beings keenly
monitoring this succession; for the human inhabitants of the
adjoining villages, the seasonal vegetation includes as many as fifty
species of medicinal use, which have recently become commercially
valuable too. Besides medicinal plants, the villagers also seek
cbhunchhru or guchchhi (Morchella esculenta), the morel mushrooms
growing in the shaded forest undergrowth, much prized as
delicacies abroad.
The pastures provide excellent forage for the herds of sheep and
goats reared by villagers on the periphery of the park. In an
intricately ordered system of grazing runs, every village despatches
its livestock in herds of five hundred to a thousand, supervised by
three or four fuaal (shepherds) and their dogs, into the park. From
May to October, the animals graze in the alpine pastures and put on
the flesh that will see them through the winter. The pastures also
attract herds from villages far south of the park in Ani tehsil as well
as migratory pastoralists such as Gaddis. While historical records
show that livestock have grazed in this area for more than a century
and a half, the extent of grazing in the past is not known
(Bhattacharya 1995). At present, it is estimated that around 35,000
sheep and goats enter the park annually.3

THE NATIONAL PARK AND PEOPLE’S RIGHTS

While grazing is an ancient activity, the park itself is of recent
creation. From 1980 onwards, the birds and large mammals in the
reserved forests of the region came to be sporadically surveyed by
 CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS TO CONTROL 103

Gaston and Garson (biologists from Canada and Britain,

respectively), key actors in the Himachal Wildlife Project, an
enterprise of international environmental NGOs and the Himachal
Pradesh government. Largely on their recommendation, the initial
notification for GHNP was issued in March 1984, specifying a core
and buffer zone. However, it was soon realized that the buffer zone
contained numerous villages, all of which would have to be
evacuated before final declaration as a national park could take
place under the terms of the Wildlife Protection Act 19724 (Gaston
and Garson 1992:9–12). Since the inclusion of this highly populated
zone in the park would make the settlement of rights ‘impossibly
complex’, the Himachal Pradesh legislature issued a re-notification
specifying that only the original core area was to be declared as the
GHNP. This left only 24 households spread over four settlements
inside the vastness of the park. However, as we shall see later, the
redefining of the park boundary did not avert a conflict over
villagers’ rights to resources within the park but merely
reconfigured it, though in a muted form.
From 1987 onwards, the park authorities prepared a ten-year
management plan for the area that set out the following objectives:

1. To maintain optimal habitats for wildlife

2. To increase populations of endangered species
3. To eliminate factors causing degradation of ecosystems
4. To carry out surveys and research on wildlife
5. To provide wildlife viewing opportunities for educational and
recreational purposes
6. To provide employment opportunities for local people (Gaston
and Garson ibid.: 20).

The management plan was the creation of the wildlife wing of the
Himachal Pradesh Forest Department, with major support from the
biologists mentioned above. Local people figured in the plan only as
degraders of ecosystems who would have to be provided with
alternative employment in return for making them give up their
traditional resources. The plan does not appear to have consulted
villagers except through informal conversations with the porters
accompanying the biologists and with shepherds met along the way
during field trips.
There has been a large gap between the formulation and
implementation of the management plan. According to the Forest
Department, the major obstacles in implementing the plan are the
inroads made by the local population into the park, which degrade
resources and disturb wildlife. However, destructive though the
park authorities may consider villagers’ activities inside the park,
villagers have undeniable rights to graze their livestock and collect
herbs and to a quota of construction timber.5 These rights are laid
104 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

down in an astonishing document, Anderson’s Forest Settlement

Report of 1886, which records in minute detail the specific rights of
villages and even individuals in the demarcated forests of Kulu.
There has been no substantial revision of rights since the
compilation of this report, and it remains the standard reference
work for present-day divisional forest officers. The power of this
book over people’s lives is enormous and their faith in it
unshakeable. Illiterate village elders, who could never have had
access to the report, let alone decipher it, when questioned about
their rights, will say that the names of their ancestors are recorded
on such and such page of the kitab (book) and that this is how they,
the descendants, come to have rights. Of course, the rights
accorded in 1886 now operate in a vastly changed context, where
human and livestock populations, landuse practices, links with the
outside economy and life-styles bear little resemblance to what
prevailed more than a century ago. As the subsequent discussion
will show, villagers successfully invoke their ‘traditional legal rights’
in order to legitimize different present-day resource-use practices.
It is unclear why the rights of 1886 have not been gradually
revised since. However, it would appear that the notification of the
national park, as mandated by the Wildlife Protection Act, made it
incumbent on the forest department to proceed with a task it had
avoided for decades. Yet the process of settling these rights remains
‘impossibly complex’ because local livelihoods remain heavily
dependent on resources within the park.6 Even though park
boundaries had been carefully redrawn to ensure that only four
settlements would be physically displaced by the notification of
their lands as part of the park, apparently the authorities had
entirely overlooked the problem of ‘resource displacement’. That is,
more than 150 villages outside the western and southern edge of
the park and numberless pastoralists from further afield stood to
lose a crucial component of their economy, a threat that brought
forth murmurs of local protest. Instead of attempting to settle these
rights—a hazardous process full of headaches like offering
inadequate compensation, facing public wrath and trying to identify
alternative resource sites in an already burdened landscape—
conservationists suggested that GHNP be adopted for the
ecodevelopment approach, which would ‘wean away’ villagers from
going into the park by providing them with alternative economic
opportunities.

ECODEVELOPMENT: ON PAPER AND IN PRACTICE

According to Shekhar Singh, one of its influential proponents,
‘ecodevelopment’ is a strategy for protecting ecologically valuable
areas (protected areas) from unsustainable or otherwise
unacceptable pressures resulting from the needs and activities of
 CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS TO CONTROL 105

people living in and around such areas’ (Singh n.d.: 3). Officially,
ecodevelopment is described as ‘a site-specific package of measures
derived through people (sic) participation, which addresses all
aspects of land use and other resources, in order to promote
sustainable land-use practices, as well as income-generating
activities, which are not deleterious to Protected Area values’
(Panwar, cited in WII 1996:8). Ecodevelopment’s basic thrust is to
divert biotic pressure from the protected area (Kothari 1996). This
attempt could take the form of establishing substitute fuel and
fodder plantations to meet villagers’ biomass needs and starting
cottage industries to provide alternative income sources. Thus
ecodevelopment is rather like rural development, but with an added
emphasis on natural resource conservation, especially the
conservation of wildlife within the protected area. However,
ecodevelopment begins with the assumption that wildlife
conservation is a priority that overrides people’s rights to resources
within the protected area. Its underlying philosophy is statist in
that it ignores the crucial issue of redressing a fundamental
inequity, namely the denial of rights to local people, a systematic
bias begun by the colonial state and continued in independent India
(Gadgil and Guha 1992). A critical perspective on ecodevelopment
does not deny the cause of biodiversity conservation but argues for
alternative modes of conservation which respect subsistence rights.
The strategy of ecodevelopment for India’s protected areas was
first mooted around 1990 by international NGOs such as the World
Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The idea gained institutional support
during the 1992 United Nations Commission for Environment and
Development (UNCED) conference in Rio de Janeiro, following which
the World Bank created a special loan fund called the
Global Environment Facility (GEF). In consultation with the World
Bank and international NGOs, the Indian government identified
possible protected areas in the country where ecodevelopment could
be tried out. In the first phase, two National Parks, GHNP and
Kalakad Mundanthurai in the southern Nilgiris, were chosen and
the Bank funded their ecodevelopment plans with an IDA loan. In
the second phase, seven other parks and sanctuaries, including
Ranthambhor in Rajasthan, Rajaji in Uttar Pradesh, Gir in Gujarat
and Melghat in Maharashtra, were also targeted for GEF funding.
In the case of GHNP, ecodevelopment was launched in November
1994. The GHNP project consists of a sixty-million rupee loan from
the World Bank to be disbursed over five years, repayable at four
percent interest. This money is to be spent under three heads: i)
improving park management (training, equipment, infrastructure);
ii) research (being conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India); and
iii) actual ecodevelopment. The World Bank loan conditions
stipulate that the park authorities must prepare detailed ‘micro-
plans’ for every panchayat with the involvement of villagers as well
as local NGOs. However, the exercise was entirely foreign to the FD
106 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

and, despite a crash course in participatory rural appraisal (PRA)

techniques, microplans could not be made before 1994, and then
only with the help of outside NGOs. Research gradually got under
way from July 1995. In effect, this meant that research (an input
into the planning process), planning and implementation started
concurrently!
The present situation is somewhat absurd. Ecodevelopment
suffered a temporary setback till mid-1996, with the World Bank
rejecting all the micro-plans submitted by the GHNP authorities on
the grounds that, inter alia, i) they did not quantify returns such as
enhanced ecological productivity outside the park due to
ecodevelopment;7 and ii) did not include enforceable contracts
between the park authorities and local people in which the latter
would agree to forego their rights to resources within the park in
return for ecodevelopment. Since several successive teams of
researchers had circulated through the area, all of them describing
ecodevelopment in glowing terms, popular expectations about the
scale of investment had ballooned out of all proportion. Since two
years passed without any signs of money coming in, these
expectations became tinged with the suspicion that the park
authorities were bent on deceiving and manipulating people. The FD
realized that the atmosphere was too charged to allow the project to
proceed smoothly. They played for time by initiating a new approach
called TRUCO (Trust and Confidence-Building Measures). With the
objective of getting villagers to look favourably upon the park
authorities, officials undertook public relations activities, including
building bridges, repairing bridlepaths, improving water supply and
so on. However, TRUCO was perceived by some villagers as a move
on the part of the park authorities to insinuate themselves into
areas of public life traditionally managed by the village panchayat,
and they remained wary of this approach.8 Villagers also felt that
the park authorities had to have some ulterior motive for their
actions—they simply did not fit the role of fairy godmother.
Ironically, then, the result of TRUCO was a groundswell of
opposition to ecodevelopment and widespread unease about the
intentions of the park authorities vis-à-vis local rights to resources
within the park. This opposition has been buttressed by SAVE
(Society for the Advancement of Village Economy), an NGO working
in the area, as well as by local traders who control the trade in
medicinal plants and by local politicians.

ECODEVELOPMENT VERSUS INDIGENOUS

KNOWLEDGE
While local villagers have opposed ecodevelopment on the grounds
that it will impoverish an economy that is heavily dependent on
natural resources within the park and that, moreover, this
 CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS TO CONTROL 107

dependence is legitimized by their traditional rights as enshrined in

the Settlement Report, SAVE activists have injected a new set of
arguments in the debate. The NGO points out that ecodevelopment
has been initiated on the assumption that local resource-use is
inimical to the objectives of wildlife management. The scientific
validity of this assumption has been challenged by the NGO and,
instead, a counter-proposition put forward that traditional resource-
use by local villagers is based on sound ecological principles which
have always promoted, or at least maintained, the interests of
wildlife. By stressing local management practices as superior to the
scientific claims of the park authorities, the NGO has shifted the
debate away from a ‘park versus people’ confrontation to a scenario
in which villagers and wildlife have convergent interests which
stand threatened by a forest department bent upon disrupting the
fine ecological balance between the two.
This representation of traditional management practices also
invokes the superiority of indigenous knowledge. However, asserting
this superiority has not been easy for the NGO. While the park
authorities and the researchers associated with them have been,
rather unsurprisingly, dismissive of indigenous knowledge, it has
also been difficult to convince local people about the worth of what
they know and practice. For people, most knowledge about the
environment is ingrained in a set of material and ideological
practices in which they engage in a fairly matter-of-fact way. Such
knowledge tended to be taken for granted and therefore valued
lightly. Through regular village meetings, games and exercises, the
NGO has tried to transform aspects of such knowledge into a more
self-conscious repertoire. Such a change, it was felt, was essential
for making people realize their own strength, intellectually and
politically.
For the people living in the ecodevelopment zone immediately
adjacent to the park, the area inside its boundaries has several
meanings. Initially, however, when mapping indigenous knowledge,
it was decided to treat the park primarily as a resource catchment
and deal with its three main uses: grazing, the collection of
medicinal plants and hunting. Documenting other ways of knowing
will come later.

Grazing
Since agriculture and animal husbandry are inextricably linked in
the local economy, the former would not be possible without access
to the high-altitude pastures inside the park. Besides maintaining
the fertility of the agricultural fields, livestock herds provide
highland people with wool, meat and leather, which are assets that
can be readily encashed when money is needed. From October to
March, the herds of goats and sheep remain indoors, feeding on the
108 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

grass cut during the rainy season from the village pastures.9 March
brings spring; the weather is fairer, and there is enough fodder
around the village for livestock. But the crucial phase for fattening
livestock is their time up in the mountains.
Villages send their combined livestock, in herds of five hundred to
a thousand, with three or four shepherds and their dogs. Different
villages have fixed routes (some are, in fact, mentioned in the 1886
Settlement Report), with specified numbers of days to be spent at
places en route. The routes are detailed, with as many as seventeen
stops one way, and are planned to optimize utilization of the
combination of grass and sedge species available in different
meadows along the way. This involves knowing and exploiting the
life-cycles of different plants, and also knowing their nutrient
qualities. For instance, the highest pastures at Khandadhar become
snow-free last and have the richest grass. So the grazing run of
Sharan village is timed so that their livestock reaches Khandadhar
in August and stays there for most of the month. Another pasture is
known for its protein-rich ‘black grass,’ overindulgence in which can
cause livestock to fall sick, so their time in this pasture is carefully
restricted. While the pastures are vast, the shepherds always bed
down the livestock for the night near the small stone shelters,
where they can sleep in some warmth themselves. This has the
effect of limiting the spread of Rumex and other ‘weed’ species that
tend to proliferate in the presence of livestock activity. By collating
instances of such practices, the NGO argues that the shepherds
have a fine-tuned understanding of the environment that they use
and also a respect for its limits. Nothing akin to this indigenous
knowledge exists with the FD.
There is another aspect to such knowledge which is, curiously, not
highlighted by the NGO or the villagers. Even though hundreds of
villages send groups of livestock into the park at the same time, the
entire operation is remarkably smooth and efficiently run. Villagers
and park authorities could not recall even one incident in which
villagers had to settle disputes about the transgression of the rules
and norms governing the grazing runs. These rules pertain not only
to adherence to allotted routes and periods of stay, but also to the
maintenance of bridges and paths, etiquette regarding right of way
and so on. Such exceptional management of criss-crossing people
and livestock is surely a key element of institutionalized knowledge.
The high degree of co-operation that villagers are able to muster for
this task testifies to the importance that grazing has in the local
economy.

Collection of Medicinal Plants

As mentioned above, spring and summer are seasons when the park
yields more than fifty species of medicinal and edible plants. In
 CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS TO CONTROL 109

terms of both monetary value and quantity collected, the most

important medicinal plants are dhoop (Jurinea macrocephala), kadu
(Picrorhiza kurroa), patees (Aconitum heterophyllum), hathpanja
(Orchis latifolia) and nhaini (Valeriana hardwickii). Successful
collecting requires a knowledge of habitats (aspect, altitude,
topography, vegetation types and so on) and also entails an
understanding of moisture, soil and other micro-conditions
favourable to particular plants. Naturally, it also presumes an
ability to identify different species of plants. Like grazing, these
skills are learnt on the job, passed on by the older men to the
boys.10
Concern has recently emerged that the medicinal plants may be
over-exploited. Collectors report that, whereas three years earlier
they harvested dhoop roots as thick as their arm, now they can only
find roots no thicker than their fingers. According to local villagers,
they harvest certain annuals only after they have flowered and set
seed. However, certain local traders employ Nepali migrant labour to
collect plants from the park, and these ‘outsiders’ are ignorant or
unmindful of the plants’ life-cycle. Villagers know that only they
have the right to collect plants in the park and they have sometimes
turned back Nepali collectors. Yet the power to exclude others from
one’s territory cannot be exercised constantly; high up in the hills:
if half a dozen Nepalis outnumber the shepherds or local collectors,
the latter usually let them pass unchallenged. So far, the situation
has remained one of somewhat uneasy accommodation between
local villagers and the few Nepali collectors. While the latter are
blamed for the over-harvesting, the real reason lies in the steadily
rising demand for medicinal plants from pharmaceutical
companies. With hundreds of rupees to be earned from selling a few
kilos of herbs, local villagers have definitely stepped up the amounts
that they collect.

Hunting
Hunting and trapping for flesh or fowl used to be a common
pastime for villagers in the winter months, when animals would
move to lower altitudes. Besides food, snares were also set for two
prized quarries: the musk deer for its valuable gland, and the male
monal for its iridescent crest (used as an ornament on caps worn by
local men). Success in hunting and trapping calls for, among other
skills, a knowledge of animal habitat and behaviour. However,
because hunting is now forbidden, this knowledge is on its way
underground. Hunting was banned in Kulu district in 1982 (except
for crop protection), and inside the park it is doubly disallowed. If
caught, poachers are liable for fines and imprisonment; teams of
forest guards remove snares from the park in preventive combing
operations. Hard as it is to get reliable information on a subject that
110 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

might land the informant in trouble, I would hazard the observation

that enforcement by the park staff, combined with greater material
prosperity in the agricultural economy, seems to have reduced
overall hunting in the park.11 The ticklish case of hunting apart,
local villagers and the NGO opposing ecodevelopment have tried to
establish that indigenous knowledge is embedded in a set of
practices that promote the sustainable use of resources inside the
park.
Villagers say that the resources within the park are theirs by
virtue of their longstanding customary rights, which are enshrined
in the colonial Settlement Report. As traditional stewards of the
forest and its creatures, they have an intimate understanding of
natural processes. Villagers feel that, as managers of the forest,
they have certain privileges too. As an elderly man put it, ‘They call
this a park. Park means bagicha (garden). And one can pluck
flowers from a garden.’ A shepherd said, ‘Just as God put the bird
in the sky and made seeds for it to eat, so He placed our sheep on
the earth and gave them pastures upon which to graze.’ In
articulating their opposition to the park and to ecodevelopment,
villagers often use metaphors and analogies naturalizing their
relationship with nature and attributing to it a timeless quality. The
identification of certain spots in the upper reaches of the park as
sacred sites endowed with mystical power adds another dimension
of cultural signification to the park landscape, an aspect that
reinforces the feeling of continuity and timelessness. Such a
naturalization and sacralization of the park-people relationship is
employed to legitimize claims to resources within the park further.
Yet, as we shall see below, this strategy constructs a selective
history and a partial present.

THE FD DISCOURSE ON DEGRADATION AND

CONSERVATION
Ranged against the claims of indigenous knowledge and local rights
is the FD’s discourse on degradation and conservation, in which the
livestock herds and herb-collectors figure as the most visible targets
for censure in the eyes of the park authorities. Since the park was
established with the avowed aim of creating optimal conditions for
wildlife, especially endangered species, this entailed eliminating all
factors perceived by the FD as causing the ‘degradation of
ecosystems’. By definition, any ecological change apparently inimical
to the interests of wildlife, especially endangered species, came to be
condemned as ‘degradation’. Thus grazing livestock may gradually
create a forest clearing with increased floral diversity, but grazing
would still be described as ‘degradation’ by the park authorities
because, they argue, livestock disturb wild animals and deprives
wild ungulates of fodder. The browsing flocks of livestock, and the
 CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS TO CONTROL 111

shepherds and dogs who accompany them, who ascend on the

park’s pastures from May to October, disturb breeding pipits and
wild ungulates and compete for food with the latter. Not only that, it
is claimed that the visitors transfer diseases to the wild animals of
the park. The other side of the equation, that domesticated livestock
leaves its dung behind in the pastures and contributes generously
to their fertilization, for the benefit of all, wild or tame, is often
underplayed. Also ignored is the fact that grazing is an activity of
ancient vintage which, over time, seems to have been
accommodated and even integrated into ecological processes in the
park. The extent of grazing has not increased over the years either.
The threat to biodiversity through herb collection is more
substantial. In January 1997, most of the medicinal plants collected
in the north-western Himalayas were included by the IUCN in its
Red Data Book. Patees and hathpanja were declared to be ‘critically
endangered’, kadu ‘endangered’ and dhoop ‘nearly threatened’
([Link], personal communication). Given the mixed nature of
impacts and the importance of these activities for the local
subsistence economy, there needs to be a carefully considered
evaluation of resource-use practices. Instead, park authorities tend
towards a blanket ban where all human activities come in for
censure.
Those opposing ecodevelopment point to the sketchy scientific
basis of the FD’s assumptions. They assert that the FD’s and
conservationists’ identification of grazing and herb-collection as the
two main ‘biotic pressures’ threatening the conservation of wildlife
within the park is based only on impressions gained from short treks
through the area, not on any ‘scientific study’. I had the opportunity
to corroborate this independently. I had assumed that the research
component of the ecodevelopment project was aimed at monitoring
ecological changes brought about by human resource use. But
researchers who have been working in the park for more than a
year were swift to disabuse me of this notion. Monitoring change,
they said, requires baseline information on the species diversity of
plants and animals inside the park and the relationships between
them. The process of collecting these data had hardly begun. In the
absence of baseline information about biodiversity, how can one
track changes in it? Thus, without exact evidence of which specific
human resource-use practices adversely affect park wildlife, the
state has initiated comprehensive measures to curb them.12 That the
state is able to assert the superiority of its own understanding of
the situation by claiming scientific legitimacy points to the power of
the alliance between conservationist biologists and the FD, an
alliance that is underwritten by the force of law, in particular the
Wildlife Protection Act.
112 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

ECODEVELOPMENT, SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
Secure in the knowledge that its own science is superior, the FD
has not been interested in seriously engaging with the issue of
indigenous knowledge. For the most part, the park authorities
consider local people to be simple and ignorant. The Park Director
narrated a story about the absurd fears that villagers entertained
about ecodevelopment:

Villagers told the Park Director that they had heard that,
under the ecodevelopment programme, a special kind of
leopard had been released in their forests. This leopard had
been imported from America and its diet chiefly consisted of
sheep and goats. The villagers said that they knew someone
who claimed to have seen one such leopard and this person
had reported that the leopard had an identification tag in its
ear which said ‘made in America’. The Park Director had
laughed heartily at this story and at the villagers. ‘Bring me
this man,’ he said, ‘and I will touch his feet. He must be
extraordinarily brave if, on seeing a leopard, instead of running
for his life, he went close enough actually to read what was
printed on his ear-tag!’

The Park Director relates this incident to stress that people’s doubts
about ecodevelopment are baseless and that gullible villagers will
swallow almost any tale cooked up by ‘vested interests’. Yet the
story, if true, can also be interpreted as villagers’ use of a telling
metaphor of an imported concept, namely ecodevelopment,
consuming and alienating local resources.
Even though park authorities are dismissive of villagers’ beliefs
and apprehensions, the ecodevelopment documents have the usual
statements about getting them to participate. The Guidelines for
Ecodevelopment Planning offer a somewhat ingenuous rationale for
eliciting villagers’ participation:

People who use natural resources, and who should benefit from
rural development, have sometimes contributed to the undoing
of programmes or, at best, have not believed that the
programmes were for their benefit. Perhaps they were not
asked to contribute to the programmes’ success. (Pabla et al.
1995:3)

Thus, if villagers are asked to contribute to programmes, they would

be more convinced about their benefits. This line of thinking
assumes that people’s responses have so far been hostile because of
ignorance or because they resent being cold-shouldered. The
guidelines do not acknowledge that there may be a real conflict of
 CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS TO CONTROL 113

interest between the park authorities and the villagers. Participation

is seen as purely instrumental here, as something that promotes
programme implementation rather than a right that villagers have
as interested parties to the changes being contemplated by the
state. The nature of participation is also not spelt out: going by
experience so far, it seems that villagers are mainly called upon to
submit to PRAs and then to submit to the ecodevelopment plans
formulated on the basis of them.
That people may have knowledge and opinions about the
objectives and strategies of natural resource management is not
considered, let alone incorporated into the plans. The only way in
which indigenous knowledge figures in official discourse is in the
outline of research to be conducted (WII1996) where, under Task
No. 2: assessment of the social context and socio-economic
conditions of people using the GHNP’, is listed a sub-task: ‘Study
ethnobiology of the area, including knowledge of local species, their
medicinal use, and involvement in local rituals, ceremonies, food,
fibre, etc.’ Thus indigenous knowledge is reduced to ethnobotany
and studied in a manner that divorces it from its changing political
and economic context. Such an approach has led to the diligent
preparation of lists. A couple of villagers are employed as native
informants to identify and collect plants and bring them to outside
researchers. The researchers refer to their taxonomic texts and
figure out botanical names before adding the plants to their
herbarium and noting down the uses mentioned by the local
informants. The list so generated is the only official
acknowledgement that indigenous knowledge exists. Yet the very
manner of incorporating such knowledge into ongoing ‘scientific’
research devalues it and makes it irrelevant to the process of
formulating resource management plans.
While the official attempt to bring in indigenous knowledge has
only resulted in collecting and filing away a rapidly drying miscellany
of botanical odds and ends, what has gone unacknowledged is the
critical contribution of indigenous knowledge in making the entire
research programme possible. The research component of
ecodevelopment has brought in several ‘scientific experts’ to study
wildlife and suggest how the park should be managed. Their work
on, say, the ecology and diet of the monal and western tragopan
pheasants would not be possible without local field assistants
whose knowledge of bird habitat and behaviour is based on their
previous experience of hunting and trapping. The study of wild
ungulates also relies on the knowledge and skills acquired by
villagers during the time spent grazing livestock. While a couple of
the researchers may informally admit in a generous moment that
their porters and guides know much more than them about the
park and its wildlife, their research has a pre-set agenda which
cannot accommodate local world-views and management objectives.
That is, the indigenous knowledge developed by villagers to manage
114 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

a subsistence economy based on the integrated use of

natural resources is now being acquired by ‘scientific experts’ as
data to be incorporated into a new management regime aimed at
optimizing conditions for wildlife.

CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS TO CONTROL:

CONCLUSIONS
For local people as well as for the FD, the pursuit of knowledge is
central to the political act of controlling nature. Across the
ecodevelopment divide, the claims to superior knowledge are key to
legitimizing claims to control natural resources. In the above
section, we have seen how the state officially rejects local knowledge
or renders it meaningless even as it exploits and appropriates it
through its unofficial practices. Local knowledge is transferred to
the scientific expert and made to serve a new management
objective, which ironically runs counter to the interests and ideals of
local people.
In mobilizing against ecodevelopment, NGO efforts have
highlighted the scientific validity of indigenous knowledge and the
ecological sustainability of management practices based upon it.
However, while asserting the role of indigenous knowledge and
challenging the scientific hegemony of the FD, people have been
compelled to construct a new myth, glorifying the IK tradition and
representing it as timeless and unchanging.13 Although the ‘eternal
village,’ with its ancient institutions, is a potent symbol to rally
round, enabling village leaders to draw clear-cut lines of political
difference vis-à-vis the FD and its outside experts, not all villagers
are equally enthused by this representation of knowledge and
community. The extent to which different people have supported the
political use of indigenous knowledge is closely related to how they
have responded to the opportunities opened up by changing
institutional structures such as the market.
The traditional highland economy consisted mainly of the
cultivation of subsistence crops such as barley, wheat and beans,
and the rearing of livestock. However, this economy has been
drastically changed over the course of the last two or three decades.
With the expansion of the road network and improved transport and
communications in Kulu district, horticulture has emerged as a
lucrative alternative to subsistence agriculture. Orchards of
apricots, apples, plums and pears have replaced the fields of barley.
More recently, vegetable crops such as potatoes, radishes, tomatoes
and garlic have also been enthusiastically adopted. The climate of
the area has always been suitable for these crops: with improved
transport facilities, perishable produce can reach urban markets
quickly. Enhanced links with cities have also fostered the collection
of medicinal plants. Once gathered only for one’s own use and in
 CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS TO CONTROL 115

much smaller quantities, now different species of plants are

collected in bulk and sold to traders to meet the rising demands of
pharmaceutical companies. A similar situation prevails with respect
to cannabis and opium, the most profitable as well as the most
risky crops grown locally. Cannabis flourishes in the wild here.
Earlier harvested only for self-consumption, it is now grown almost
entirely for sale. In the more remote villages, where these illicit
crops can be cultivated and processed with little fear of punitive
action, villagers discuss the economics of their operations with a
business-like matter-of-factness. At least two growers approached
this researcher for tips about contacting dealers directly in Delhi
and Goa!
Consequent upon these changes, there has been a large influx of
money into the area, and life-styles have changed too.14 However,
the rise in incomes has not been uniform. Villages closer to the
roadhead have been better able to capitalize on market
opportunities. Within villages, those with larger land holdings have
prospered more than those with less land and the landless, but even
the latter seem to have gained more employment locally in
agricultural work. The increased profitability of agriculture and
horticulture has weakened the economic relationship between some
people and the park to some extent in that the livelihood of the
better-off households appears to be less dependent on livestock-
rearing.15 While villagers report that livestock herds are getting
smaller over the years, the collection of medicinal plants seems to
have increased in intensity with increased demand. However, the
better-off families are no longer interested in the activity
themselves. Since herb collection is an extremely arduous business,
it is done mainly by boys and young men from poorer families.
Certain other practices appear to be unchanged: for instance, poor
Dalits still harvest bamboo (Arundinaria falcata) and bhashal (Salix
wallichiana) from the park to weave baskets, their traditional
occupation.
Increased integration with the market, changed cropping patterns
and intensity, combined with the higher densities of human and
livestock populations in the region, have modified the nature and
extent of people’s relationship with the park. In this changed context,
certain activities remain salient. Grazing continues to be the
mainstay of most poor and middle-income families. The increasing
demand for medicinal plants feeds the poorer families as well as
making profits for local traders. Thus access to resources inside the
park continues to be crucial for the survival of the weaker sections
of village society. The emerging economic differentiation of the
village community has resulted in different political responses to
ecodevelopment too. It is the poorer and middle-income sections
who provide the groundswell of opposition to ecodevelopment.
Among them, the invocation of indigenous knowledge resonates
most in the minds of the older men. Most younger men, even those
116 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

from poorer families who remain heavily dependent on resources

within the park, find grazing and herb-collecting too arduous and
would rather do something else if they could. Education and market
opportunities have turned their eyes away from the snow-clad crags
of the park towards the road and the urban settlements it links
them to. For the young men, knowledge has shifted ground to a new
terrain, where the skills they desire relate to the service sector
(tourism, government jobs) and not to the land and livestock.
Even though younger villagers, especially the better-off ones, are
gradually turning away from the actual practices which kept
indigenous knowledge of natural resources alive and dynamic,
many of them appreciate the importance of IK as a purely political
symbol of strategic value in mobilizing their community against the
FD. That is, even if they do not subscribe to the values underlying
IK as naturalizing and sacralizing the relationship between villagers
and the park, even though they do not employ indigenous
knowledge for their subsistence, many of them believe that
‘traditional’ indigenous knowledge is valuable for defining their
cultural identity vis-à-vis the state and outsiders. Here, the claim to
knowledge becomes not a claim to control the material resources
inside the park, but an assertion of the political and symbolic
autonomy of the community from the state.

NOTES

1. This paper is based on fieldwork conducted in the Ecodevelopment

area around GHNP over two months in 1996. The research for this
paper is part of a larger project coordinated by the Wildlife Institute
of India (WII) on the ‘Ecological Study of the Conservation of
Biodiversity and Biotic Pressures in the Great Himalayan National
Park: An Ecodevelopment Approach’. I am grateful to the WII
researchers in Kulu, especially Badrish [Link], Sanjay Singh and
Pradeep Chaudhary for their unstinted support. I would also like to
thank Iqbal Singh, Hukam Ram and Lata Sharma of SAVE, Sainj
and Ashwini Chhatre for help of various kinds, Farhad Vania and
Ashish Kothari for briefings and debriefings, Beli Ramji and family
in Sharan for their warmhearted hospitality, and the Park Director
and other members of the Himachal Pradesh Forest Service. The
views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author.
2. Besides these three gorges, the park includes 235 sq. km. of the
Parbati valley, which were added in 1994.
3. While park authorities accept this figure, it is challenged by those
opposed to the park as a gross over-estimate. This view has been
borne out by the preliminary findings of [Link], a biologist at
the Wildlife Institute of India. On the basis of a meticulous and
comprehensive survey, Mehra established that 23,280 sheep and
goats visit the park annually.
 CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS TO CONTROL 117

4. The Act specifies that rights to land or other resources inside the
area to be notified as a national park must be acquired by the
government, thus effectively displacing villages. In addition, no
wildlife can be destroyed, exploited or removed from a national
park, nor can grazing be permitted.
5. Villages are allocated rights in different forests, and each household
in a village is entitled to one tree every five years.
6. So far, GHNP has not managed to achieve full-fledged national park
status. However, this state of limbo is by no means unusual; most
national parks and sanctuaries in India have not received final
notification. This situation may change with the recent Supreme
Court order in a case filed by WWF-I (Worldwide Fund for Nature-
India) that settlement be completed within a year of notification.
Specifying a deadline for the complex process of identifying rights
and rights-holders and compensating them may have been
motivated by the best of intentions but, if hurried through, may end
up short-changing villagers.
7. The World Bank seems to be primarily interested in reducing the
situation to a simple equation: quantifying the value of natural
resources extracted by people from the park, and investing in
ecodevelopment in order to generate the same value outside the
park. Unfortunately, such an elegant solution is a little hard to
obtain in the context of an ecological landscape saturated with
political-economic and other cultural meanings (or in any other real-
life situation, for that matter!).
8. In one village, however, the local panchayat committee was quite
content to let bridge repairs languish, anticipating that the FD
would step into the breach.
9. Most of these hay fields belong to the government and are leased to
individual farmers. Some people cut grass from their orchards too.
10. All three activities, grazing, the collection of medicinal plants and
hunting, are performed by men only. Thus, the knowledge so far
mapped and made political by the efforts of the NGO is exclusively
male knowledge. Women have little to do with the park directly.
11. However, a census of the musk deer population conducted over the
last five years shows an alarming decline (by almost half) in their
numbers (Mehra, personal communication). The reasons for this
decline may be poaching, disease, drastic changes in food
availability or habitat, or some combination thereof. It does seem
rather puzzling, though, that the numbers of a species identified as
‘most vulnerable’ by the park authorities should plummet following
the ‘protection’ of its habitat.
12. Anxiety about degradation may well be due to considerations other
than those of local ecology. Saberwal (1996) discusses the
institutional origins of the ‘alarmist degradation discourse’ and
attributes the FD’s (scientifically dubious) concern about the
environmental impact of resource-use in the Himalaya to inter-
118 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

departmental conflicts within the state, i.e. with the agriculture

ministry.
13. Such a myth is now familiar in environmentalist writings about
tribal and peasant struggles over nature and has been variously
described as ‘the myth of the noble savage’, ‘the new traditionalist
environmentalism’, and so on (see Baviskar 1995).
14. When I left Sharan my hosts had just planted garlic in all their
fields and were engrossed in discussions about which brand of
television set to buy with the profits.
15. These households are also able to afford chemical fertilizers, thereby
reducing their dependence on organic manure.

REFERENCES
Anderson, A. 1886. Report on the demarcation and settlement of the Kulu
forests. Lahore: Government Press.
Anon 1995. Wake-up Call for Himachal. Amruth. Bangalore: Foundation
for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions.
Baviskar, Amita 1995. In the belly of the river: tribal conflicts over
development in the Narmada Valley. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Bhattacharya, N. 1995. Pastoralists in a colonial world. In [Link] and
[Link] (eds.), Nature, culture, imperialism: essays on the environmental
history of South Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Gadgil, M., and [Link] 1992. This fissured land: an ecological history of
India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Gaston, A.J., and [Link] 1992. A re-appraisal of the Great
Himalayan National Park. Report of the Himachal Wildlife Project-III.
Mimeo.
IIPA (Indian Institute of Public Administration) 1995. Great Himalayan
National Park, Himachal Pradesh: a report on the human-nature
interactions in and around the Park. New Delhi, Mimeo.
Kothari, A. 1996. Is Joint Management of Protected Areas Desirable and
Possible? In [Link], N. Singh and [Link] (eds.), People and protected
areas: towards participatory conservation in India. New Delhi: Sage
Publications.
——, [Link], [Link] and [Link] 1989. Management of national
parks and sanctuaries: a status report. New Delhi: Indian Institute of
Public Administration.
Pabla, H.S., Sanjeeva Pandey and Ruchi Badola 1995. Guidelines for
ecodevelopment planning. Dehradun: Wildlife Institute of India.
Saberwal, Vasant 1996. You can’t grow timber and goats in the same
patch of forest: grazing policy formulation in Himachal Pradesh, India,
1865 to the Present. In [Link] and K. Sivaramakrishnan (eds.),
Agrarian environments: resources, representations and rule in India.
Singh, Shekhar, n.d. Biodiversity conservation through ecodevelopment:
a conceptual framework. Mimeo.
 CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE, CLAIMS TO CONTROL 119

WII (Wildlife Institute of India) 1996. Forestry research education and

extension project: Great Himalayan National Park: research proposal.
Dehradun: Wildlife Institute of India.
 Chapter 5
LOCATING INDIGENOUS
ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN
INDONESIA
Tania Murray Li

The idea that there is an epistemological or substantive distinction

between indigenous knowledge and other kinds of knowledge
(western, scientific, non-indigenous) has been, quite rightly,
debunked (Agrawal 1995). Everyone has practical, usually tacit
knowledge of their social and physical environment, a competence
reflected in ‘knowing how to go on’ in the routine activities of
everyday life, and the capacity to improvise and innovate when
necessary (Giddens 1979). This is the kind of knowledge or
disposition Bourdieu (1977) refers to as ‘habitus’. If such knowledge
exists everywhere, in city and country, west and east, then the
distinctive feature of ‘indigenous environmental knowledge’ is not its
content but rather its location in particular agendas. As Gray (1995)
argues, the term ‘indigenous’ is more imperative than descriptive,
referring to a quality that emerges in the course of struggles over
rights to territories, resources and cultural respect. Typically, these
struggles pit local groups against encompassing nation states. It is
in the context of such struggles that the concept of ‘indigenous
environmental knowledge’ takes on meaning and relevance.
International and national NGOs, donors, officials from various
government departments, academics and tourist promoters have
particular interests in supporting (or rejecting) the idea that
‘indigenous people’ have important knowledge. The diversity of
agendas surrounding the concept of indigenous environmental
knowledge forms a field of power within which alliances may be
formed, struggles waged, claims made and rights asserted (or
denied).
In this chapter I examine the field of power surrounding the
concept of indigenous environmental knowledge in Indonesia and
explore its strengths and limitations as a vehicle for advancing
claims to resources. First, I outline some of the positions taken by
the Indonesian government, itself a complex formation in which
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 121

there are varied interests in acknowledging, or rejecting, claims

about indigenous knowledge. Next, I discuss Indonesian NGOs,
exploring the different ways in which claims about indigenous
knowledge have figured in their arguments and campaigns and in
their relationship to the state and to donors. Then I examine two
contrasting sites in central Sulawesi, identifying the characteristics
of local conjunctures at which claims about indigenous knowledge
have (or have not) been made. Finally, I consider both the tactical
benefits and the risks associated with attaching a political agenda
about the rights of indigenous people to claims about indigenous
knowledge and practice.

STATE-MENTS: INDIGENOUS PEOPLE,

KNOWLEDGE AND RIGHTS
The official position of Indonesia’s Department of Social Affairs is
that Indonesia has no indigenous people,1 although it still has some
communities which are, due to accidents of history or geography,
isolated and alienated from society at large. Such people are
designated masyarakat terasing and are estimated to number about
one million (Departmen Sosial 1994a:1). The mandate of the
department is to re-locate, re-form and re-educate these people
(Department Sosial 1994b), bringing them closer into line with an
imagined category of ‘ordinary, average, Indonesian persons’
(Koentjaraningrat 1993). The very category masyarakat terasing and
the programme designed for people so classified are antithetical to
the concept of indigenous knowledge. All that is unique about
masyarakat terasing, bar a few songs and dances, is regarded as
evidence of deficiency, to be rectified by ‘development’. The
Department’s programme exemplifies, in extreme form, the overall
logic of ‘development’ in Indonesia, which assumes that subalterns
know nothing of value and must be instructed, guided,
administered and changed according to state-defined models (Dove
1983). Those who obstruct ‘development’ are deemed to lack the
necessary knowledge and understanding, and they must therefore
be re-educated to the point where they do understand (Dove 1999).
The potential usefulness of traditional environmental knowledge
has been recognized by other branches of the state apparatus, but
not in ways which concede much on the issue of rights. Speaking at
an NGO forum on indigenous people and customary land rights,
Minister of State for Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja
informed activists that Indonesia ‘is a country of indigenous people,
run and governed by and for indigenous people’ (1993:12).
Therefore, he argued, the term ‘indigenous’ as used in the west is
inappropriate for Indonesia. The relevant term for Indonesia is
‘vulnerable population groups’, which includes tribal people and
others who depend on natural resources, as well as the urban
122 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

poor.2 He warned the activist community against the risk of

cultural relativism in view of Indonesia’s attempt to balance
diversity with national unity. He argued against the assumption that
indigenous cultures should be preserved at all costs and noted that
indigenous resource management institutions are not necessarily
relevant to today’s conditions. He also warned against romantic and
patronizing views which emanate from an imported
environmentalism without a community-based constituency. The
Minister’s statement was well crafted. That he attended and spoke at
such an event sent a message that he acknowledged the
significance of the issues and the national and international
constituency formed around them. He conceded arguments about
poverty and vulnerability while suggesting that the state, through
its new legislation, had matters under control. He conceded that
traditional or local knowledge might be practically useful, but made
this claim subject to empirical verification. He firmly rejected the
concept of indigenous identity, dismissing it as a western import
and/or a recipe for national disintegration.
The Department of Forestry has taken a hard line on rights and
stepped up its efforts to remove people from the vast areas (75% of
the nation’s territory) that are officially classified as state forest land
(Departmen Kehutanan 1994). At the same time, responding to
international criticism, NGO campaigns and the threatened
disruption of timber exports, the Minister has acknowledged that
forest-dwelling communities which have customary conservation
practices and local capacities for collective organization and
discipline may be able to play a role in forest management.3 The
Department has therefore conceded the issue of knowledge (subject,
again, to verification) and accepted the rhetoric of ‘participation’,
but rejected the discourse that presents forest dwellers as
‘indigenous peoples’ with traditional and enduring rights to the land
currently under Forestry control. Those who are permitted to
remain on land officially classified as state forest land must do so
on terms defined by the Forest Department.4
Two official documents prepared in the past few years confirm that
the ecological soundness of ‘traditional knowledge’ is increasingly
accepted by (some parts of) Indonesia’s ruling regime. One document
is the Biodiversity Action Plan for Indonesia (Bappenas 1993). This
Plan was prepared as part of a pitch for donor funds to support
conservation activities. It does not start from the premise that rural
people (including those who might be called indigenous) have rights
to their resources, but focuses rather upon the need for the
participation of traditional resource users if conservation objectives
are to be met. It recognizes that such people possess relevant
knowledge (Bappenas 1993:29, 37, 44). It also recognizes, possibly
for the first time in an official document, that there are forty million
people living in or dependent upon resources in the public forest
estate, and that these people are the effective resource managers
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 123

(ibid.: 43). It notes that insecure land tenure has had deleterious
effects on sound land management (ibid.: 15) and calls for a revision
to the 1967 Basic Forestry Law to accommodate customary (adat)
rights to land (ibid.: 19, 25, 38). It seems to assume that
‘traditional’ people are naturally inclined to conserve biodiversity,
although it notes that the compatibility of ‘traditional’ uses and
conservation goals still needs to be assessed (ibid.: 36–8). Not
surprisingly, given the direction of its argument (from conservation
goals, to a recognition of traditional knowledge, to an enhancement
of rights), the report begs the question of how ‘traditional resource
users’ are to be identified, or by whose criteria the sustainability of
their resource use and management systems should be assessed.
New respect for traditional or tribal environmental knowledge has
had positive implications for rights, but the argument for rights is
instrumental and framed as an adjunct to a conservation agenda.
The term ‘indigenous’ is not used.
The second document which highlights indigenous environmental
knowledge is Indonesia’s national strategy for implementing Agenda
21 (KLH/UNDP 1997). This is a six-hundred-page document
resulting from a consultative process involving over a thousand
participants (government, non-government and academic). It
contains, therefore, some unevenness in terminology and approach.
The chapter on poverty notes the need for continued transmigration
to make use of ‘unproductive’ lands in the outer islands (ibid.: 28),
and the chapter on agriculture observes that low returns to ‘slash-
and-burn’ farming force its practitioners to ‘become nomads, so
that they simply leave their farms when the land is no longer
productive’ (ibid.: 29). In contrast, the chapters on forestry and on
biodiversity refer strongly and repeatedly to both the knowledge and
the rights of people called, at various times, indigenous, traditional,
local, forest-dwelling or tribal. As in the biodiversity document
discussed above, the argument generally moves from a recognition
of indigenous knowledge and conservation-related practices to the
need for enhanced rights. For example:

Many of the diverse cultures among indigenous groups in

Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Irian Jaya and Maluku have a special
affinity with the forests. With this cultural development,
knowledge about the ecology and sustainable use of the forest
is generated, and is of high value today in terms of biodiversity
management. For instance, at least 6,000 indigenous plants
and animal species are used on a daily basis by Indonesians for
food, medicine, dyes and many other purposes. (Bappenas
1991)
Equitable sharing of benefits would ensure the preservation
of this knowledge which would, in turn, help to ensure
sustainable forest management. (KLH/UNDP 1997:365)
124 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

More remarkably, the conservation agenda has opened up space for

a recognition that existing forest policies and practices are contrary
to the interests of communities and that locals are acting rationally
when they resist them:

In places where government-designated forest land overlaps

with areas in which forest-dependent communities farm, hunt,
fish and gather non-timber forest products, serious adverse
impacts on local communities occur. Modern functional
classification and development of the forestry sector is often in
conflict with the community’s customary rights and tenure
over land and forest resources. This stems from lack of
recognition of customary (adat) laws and the boundaries
separating logging concessions or other forestry operations
from community forests on the outer islands. In the inner
islands, the reason is the insecurity of land tenure as well as
competition for land and resources. This leads to loss of
economic and socio-cultural access to forest resources, and to
conflicts between forestry companies and the communities as
well as between forestry officials and the communities. These
conflicts sometimes lead to community protests that create
physical and ecological damage, and to non-cooperation on the
part of the communities towards new schemes of sustainable
forest management. The final result is erosion of local
customary institutions which might otherwise offer a
mechanism for increased sustainable forest management.
(KLH/UNDP 1997:389)

In the same vein, and also contrary to the normal direction of

instruction presupposed by the logic of ‘development’, the report
observes that there is a need to ‘improve the capacity of local
government officials to understand the ecological, economic and
cultural value of the forests to the community’ (ibid.: 92). From the
recognition of the capacities of forest-dwelling people stems the need
to ‘set-up a legal mechanism which protects traditional knowledge,
territories, cultural practices and which also guarantees the
genuine participation of traditional communities by recognizing
their traditional laws and incorporating them into the national laws’
(ibid.: 401).
Despite the rhetoric, the legal mechanisms proposed for forest-
dwelling communities fall short of full recognition of their rights to
occupy, much less farm, state-defined forest land. The report calls
for clarification of the legal status of traditional communities vis-à-
vis concessionaires; the development of a legal framework for
‘community forestry’ as an official state program; a review of the
regulations on participation in forestry programmes; systematic
mapping and inventory of forest dwelling communities; consultation
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 125

and equitable sharing of benefits; documentation of sustainable

techniques; and the revival and adaptation of traditional resource
management institutions (ibid.: 390). The emphasis is, again, on
conservation within a forestry framework, for which the
participation of traditional communities and the strengthening of
their rights is a prerequisite.
Mild as they are, the discussions of traditional knowledge and the
rights of ‘traditional’ communities in these documents put the state
institutions that prepared them significantly at odds with others
which continue to deny the existence of indigenous knowledge (e.g.
the Department of Social Affairs), or which have a mandate to
intensify state territorial control or to bring large scale
‘development’ programmes into areas in which traditional resource-
users are located (e.g. transmigration, forestry, estate-crops, mining
and energy). Claims about knowledge and struggles over rights take
shape in relation to the constraints and opportunities set up by this
complex, differentiated field of power.

LOCATING POLITICS IN KNOWLEDGE: NGO AND

DONOR AGENDAS
The activities and agendas of Indonesian NGOs both shape and are
shaped by state policies and donor priorities. Similarly, international
donors adjust their agendas to accommodate, while also attempting
to reform, the policies and programmes of particular state agencies
and NGOs. Both donors and NGOs participated in the production of
the two documents mentioned earlier, making it difficult to separate
or clearly distinguish ‘government’, ‘non-government’ and ‘donor’
positions. Donors acknowledge the sensitivity of the issue of
‘indigenous people’ to the ruling regime and have avoided becoming
directly involved in struggles over land. The conservation and
biodiversity agenda offers a compromise, an agenda upon which
state, donors and NGOs can agree. It is significant that the word
‘consensus’ is mentioned in the foreword to the biodiversity
document, and also in the introduction to Agenda 21. Around the
edges of this compromise, struggles continue to be waged, often
discretely, over the meaning of key terms as well as their
applicability in particular contexts.
Support for ‘indigenous people’ is widespread in the activist
community. The green claim that ‘indigenous people’ derive
ecologically sound livelihoods from their ancestral lands and
possess forms of knowledge and wisdom which are unique and
valuable has provided a common platform for many Jakarta-based
NGOs. But for many activists, the political significance of
‘indigenous people’ goes beyond green arguments. For some, the
plight of indigenous people is taken to indicate one among many
ways in which the promises of Indonesian democracy and
126 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

nationhood remain unfulfilled. For others, ‘indigenous people’ have

come to hold a special place as the representatives of diverse but
pure forms of Indonesian cultural heritage unsullied by encounters
with colonialism, westernization and modernity.5
There is some difference among NGOs in the nature and extent of
the population group that is envisaged to fit within the category of
‘indigenous people’.6 Some focus their concern upon relatively more
isolated or exotic people, those the state would readily classify as
masyarakat terasing. They seek to reverse the negative valorization
placed upon the knowledge and practices of such groups and to
defend their right to maintain distinctive ways of life, contrary to the
state logic of ‘development’. For other activists the classification
‘indigenous people’ properly applies not only to a few especially
isolated groups, but to the majority of Indonesia’s rural citizens
outside Java. Their goal is to secure land rights for the millions who
are currently deemed to be ‘squatters’ on state land and who are
subject to displacement in the course of state-defined ‘development’
imperatives. Their legal arguments refer to the Basic Agrarian Law of
1960 which recognizes customary (adat) rights so long as these are
not in conflict with the national interest.7 According to legal
activists, a customary tenure system can be said to exist when
people manage their land and resources in an orderly way. It is not
necessary for customary knowledge and practice of this kind to be
written down or formulated in explicit rules and regulations: it is
enough that people ‘know how to go on’, making everyday decisions,
resolving disputes and adapting to new conditions as required.
Neither ‘traditional’ life-styles nor a conservation orientation are
prerequisites for the applicability of law recognizing customary
rights.
The implication of a broad definition of customary knowledge and
practice is that millions of Indonesian citizens could make claims
for security of tenure under the Basic Agrarian Law. It is a scenario
that has provoked a response from the National Land Board (BPN)
and led to an attempt to limit the scope of the term ‘customary’. The
head of the BPN has accused unnamed parties of attempting to
reactivate traditional rights where ‘in fact, they no longer exist’ in
order to seek political or personal gain (Kepala BPN akan Matikan
Hukum Adat, Forum Keadilan 22, 18 February 1993). He has also
suggested that such rights will disappear because they are not
properly documented (Eksistensi Hukum Dewasa Ini, Kompas, 27
March 1996). The identification of what, precisely, will count as
evidence of ‘customary knowledge and practice’ has therefore
become a crucial issue in the struggle over rights. For NGOs, their
participation in the documentation of ‘traditional environmental
knowledge’ in support of conservation agendas is also an
opportunity to help communities strengthen their legal position vis-
à-vis agencies such as the BPN, which deny the existence of
customary knowledge and rights in the modern era. NGOs have
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 127

worked with communities to prepare documents, lists, rules and

regulations as well as maps showing territorial boundaries and land-
use zones, all of which help to make the idea of a community with
customary practices and rights more visible to the state.8
The shifting definition of who counts as ‘indigenous’ or traditional
people in Indonesia has provided some room for manoeuvre in the
relationship between donors and NGOs9. When the international
environmental lobby and donors connect biodiversity with
indigenous people, they probably have in mind some famous
exemplars, mostly based in the Amazon (cf. Stearman 1994). Their
images and expectations resonate readily with NGO support for
especially remote and exotic people, who, it is assumed, have large
and unique reservoirs of biodiversity knowledge. They resonate less
readily with the millions of rather ordinary farmers whose
customary resource-management practices could also be framed in
terms of ‘indigenous environmental knowledge’. Yet, so long as
definitions remain vague and the compromise agenda focused on
conservation can be invoked, support for the latter is not ruled out.
Donor agendas and budget lines, together with the opportunities
and constraints presented by different state agencies, are important
in shaping the work that NGOs do and, more significantly, in
shaping the ways their work is framed and presented.
Within the contested array of state and activist positions, there
are many criteria for specifying who qualifies as ‘indigenous’ in
Indonesia.
Rural people also have ‘room for manoeuvre’ as they situate
themselves in relation to the images, discourses and agendas that
others produce for or about them, although, under some
conditions, the room may be quite limited. Struggles over resources,
which are simultaneously struggles over meaning, tend to invoke
simplified symbols fashioned through processes of opposition and
dialogue which narrow the gaze to certain well-established signifiers
and traits. Those who are to fit the preconfigured space of
‘indigenous people’ must be ready and able to articulate their
identity in terms of a set of characteristics recognized by the
government agencies that might support them, by NGOs and by the
media that presents their case to the public. Agency is involved in
the selection and combination of elements that form a recognizably
‘indigenous’ identity, as well as in the production of a reified body of
‘indigenous environmental knowledge’ from the pool of everyday
local knowledge and practice.
The repertoire of images and arguments surrounding indigenous
environmental knowledge offers one framework within which
alliances can be made and struggles configured. But it is not the
only possible repertoire, nor is it necessarily one which is available
or relevant to all rural people who might potentially fall within its
scope. The constraints and opportunities presented by international
and national images, agendas and debates resonate differently with
128 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

the sedimented histories and landscapes, as well as the current

concerns, of particular groups in the Indonesian countryside. In the
next section I turn to two contrasting sites in the hills of central
Sulawesi, seeking to account for the factors that led struggles to be
focused around the issue of indigenous identity and environmental
knowledge in one case but not the other.

CONDITIONS AND CONJUNCTURES: INDIGENOUS

KNOWLEDGE IN CENTRAL SULAWESI

Sulawesi Tribe Opposes Lake Lindu Dam Project

So stated a headline in the Jakarta Post (an English language daily)
on 11 September 1994. The article quoted Gesadombu, ‘Tribal Chief
of the Lindu plains’, on the centrality of the lake to the Lindu tribe’s
livelihood; the ‘strong traditional and practical ties the Lindu people
had with the land they live on’; and the certain loss of traditional
values should the reservoir be constructed and the people moved
out. Accompanying the Chief were ‘23 other fellow Lindu indigenous
people, non-governmental activists, students and nature-lovers
from Central Sulawesi’. They were visiting Jakarta to meet with
state officials and present their case against the construction of a
hydroelectric plant at the lake. The article also quoted activists on
the ecological soundness of the Lindu people’s traditional resource-
management practices, on the need for the government to learn
about land and water management from the people and on the right
of the Lindu people to express their culture.
Every component of this news story is familiar: the presence of
tribes, tribal leaders, tribal ecological wisdom and a specific tribal
place central to the group’s identity and culture, plus the presence
of allies and sympathizers, and of a massive external force poised
for destruction. It is a story for which the conceptual space already
exists and for which the intended readership has been prepared.
Nevertheless, the telling of this story in relation to Lindu or any
other place in Indonesia has to be regarded as an accomplishment,
a outcome of the power-laden processes through which indigenous
knowledge and identity are made explicit, alliances formed, and
media attention appropriately focused.
The historical preconditions for this situation were established at
Lindu at the turn of the century, when, according to Acciaioli (1989)
the area was subjugated by the Dutch and the scattered hill
farmers (numbering about six hundred) were forced to form three
concentrated settlements beside the lake. There, they were
converted to Christianity by the Salvation Army mission, educated
in mission schools and encouraged to view ‘custom’ as matter for
display at celebrations overseen by an officially recognized
‘customary’ leadership, the adat council. Subsequently, the arrival
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 129

of migrants from neighbouring districts and of Bugis from the south

gave the Lindu people some (often bitter) experience in articulating
claims to their ‘ancestral, customary or village land’ (ibid.: 151).
Resource struggles provided the stimulus to articulate (select,
formulate and convey) a set of Lindu adat rules which ought to be
acknowledged by outsiders, a process which in turn reworked the
significance and substance, of Lindu knowledge and identity. The
mission-educated, literate middle class of Lindu village officials,
school teachers and prosperous farmers participated in the process
of articulating Lindu identity, rights and claims.
The identity of the Lindu as an indigenous people with valuable
knowledge and with rights to their ancestral land was firmly
established in the context of opposition to the hydroelectric plan
and the threat of forced resettlement. According to Sangadji’s
account (1996), the campaign involved confrontational encounters
with the authorities, media attention, collaboration with national
and international NGOs and activities organized by Lindu leaders to
heighten awareness within the community. NGO campaigning and
support began in 1988. In 1992, at a dialogue with NGOs in Palu, a
local leader stated that the people of Lindu would rather die than be
removed from their ancestral lands. A youth group formed at Lindu
to research Lindu—tradition and work for its preservation. Many
journalists and officials visited the site, and adat leaders reiterated
their preference to die rather than lose their culture. Security forces
warned the people against activists who were misleading them,
whose values were western and contrary to national ideals
(pancasila). An environmental assessment was carried out by
consultants in 1993, but invited no public input. The delegation
which visited Jakarta and met with top-level officials was told that
plans had changed and resettlement would no longer be necessary.
However, there are concerns that the requirement for a ‘green belt’
around the lake will restrict access both to fisheries and to
farmland, and opposition to the project continues.10
The scale of the threat to local lives and livelihoods, the dramatic
nature of a dam as a stage for NGO action, the location of the dam
within a national park, and the massive economic implications of the
project, explain why Lindu attracted the attention it did. But it
remains to be explained how and why the Lindu have come to
articulate their identity, present themselves and be represented by
their supporters in terms consistent with both national and
international expectations concerning ‘indigenous people’ or tribes.
The news coverage and documents prepared in the course of the
campaign shed some light on the ‘how’ question. Various
documents were written by members of the NGO coalition (with
Lindu leaders as key informants) to inform the public and policy-
makers about the Lindu people and the negative impacts of the dam.
These documents present Lindu as a unique, tribal place, its
integrity basically intact. They note that the Lindu are the only
130 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

speakers of the Tado language (related to Kaili) and that they are an
autonomous group that have managed their own affairs (hidup
mandiri) for hundreds of years (Sangadji 1996:19; Laudjeng 1994:
150–2). There is little mention of the impact of Dutch rule or the
presence of Bugis and other non-Lindu at the lake. The documents
focus upon cultural features which confirm the uniqueness of the
Lindu people, their environmental wisdom and their spiritual
attachment to the landscape. Culture is substantivized through a
focus upon ‘traditional’ costumes, major annual feasts and
marriage arrangements. Lindu capacities for environmental
management are demonstrated through the existence of the adat
council, said to have jurisdiction over the Lindu people’s collective
territory, an area which extends to the peaks of all the mountains
surrounding the lake. Management rules include the exclusion of
outsiders from the use of Lindu resources (except with the
permission of the adat chiefs) and the zoning of land according to
specified uses. The documents pay considerable attention to the
existence of named zones for farming, hunting and grazing, and
sacred sites in which all forms of activity (tree-cutting, gathering,
etc.) are strictly forbidden (Laudjeng 1994: 155–60). They also state
that each clan and, within the clan, each household has fishing
rights over specific portions of the lake. Filtered and interpreted
through a ‘green lens’ (Zerner 1994), these land-use categories are
presented as similar to, but more efficient than, the land-use zones
imposed by the state through its forest and national park
regulations (Sangadji 1996:26–8). Finally, the documents
emphasise Lindu people’s attachment to their place by naming
features of the landscape: hills, sacred spots, grazing areas and,
most especially, the sacred island in the lake associated with the
magical culture hero Maradindo. Although they mean nothing to a
reader without a map, these place names assert and confirm that
the Lindu are thoroughly familiar with their territory. Between the
named zones and the specific named places, the point is made that
there is no undifferentiated or unclaimed space, but rather, an
orderly system of land-use designed and managed by the ‘indigenous
people’ of Lindu.11
A finer reading reveals many subtleties in these accounts. They
present a selective picture, but one which is complex rather than
simple, positioning the Lindu in relation to multiple fields of power.
They emphasise that the Lindu are ‘traditional’ people, but in no
sense are they primitive. The mention of Christianity confirms their
nationally acceptable religious standing, yet little is made of the
influence of ninety years of missionary work upon their ‘traditional’
rituals and practices. They are shown to be in touch with nature
and the bearers of tribal wisdom, but by emphasising the
orderliness of the Lindu land-use system it is made clear that there
is nothing wild about this scene. The accounts emphasise
subsistence uses of the forest, such as building materials and
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 131

medicinal plants (Sangadji 1996:44). They make less of the

presence within these forests of the hill-side coffee-groves that
provide the Lindu people with a significant source of cash. It is
noted that the Lindu people are not poor: they have an adequate
standard of living, though not luxurious, and they are satisfied with
their lot. Thus they are sufficiently similar to ‘ordinary rural people’
not to be in need of drastic changes or improvements framed as
‘development’, still less the civilizing projects directed at
masyarakat terasing. Yet they are unlike ‘ordinary rural people’ in
their uniqueness, their special knowledge and their attachment to
place.
The efficacy of framing of the position of the Lindu people in terms
of the arguments and images associated with ‘indigenous people’
was not guaranteed. It was effective in the NGO campaign, as
activists were able to use the case of the ‘green’ Lindu to argue
against the dam and also to support their arguments on behalf of
other ‘indigenous people’ in Indonesia. In activist circles, Lindu
became an exemplary case, which was both framed within, and
helped to frame, broader struggles.12 But not all NGOs recognized
the tribal uniqueness of Lindu. In 1992, while the Lindu campaign
was underway, a parks-focused international conservation NGO
described the population in the many villages bordering the
national park as ethnically diverse, with a mix of ‘local’ or
‘traditional’ people and newcomers. It observed that they were
subsistence farmers, only weakly integrated into markets, and often
exploited and displaced by aggressive newcomers. It also noted that
they were rather lacking in handicrafts with a tourist potential
(Schweithelm et al. 1992:39–47). Thus described, they fit the state
category of ‘ordinary villagers’. But the NGO’s report contains no
suggestion that the border villages in general, or Lindu in particular,
are populated by tribal people who have ancient ties to the forest or
who possess unique environmental wisdom.
Media receptiveness to the idea of the Lindu as an indigenous
people was also mixed. The English-language news coverage cited
earlier picked up the tribal angle, as the headline clearly shows. The
coverage of opposition to the dam in a major Indonesian language
newspaper (Kompas) was more equivocal. An article (Masyarakat
Lindu Menolak Rencana Pembangunan PLTA, Kompas 11
September 1993) described the Lindu people not as a tribe but as ‘a
sub-group of Kaili’. It acknowledged their environmental wisdom,
but observed that, the satisfaction expressed by residents
notwithstanding, the area does suffer from a development deficit,
signaled by the seventeen-kilometre hike from the nearest road,
the muddy village paths and the incomplete electricity service. Most
of the media coverage skilfully analysed by Sangadji (1996)
supported the hydroelectric plan on the grounds of ‘development’
and did not address the issue of ‘indigenous people’.
132 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Throughout the campaign, the government agencies promoting

the power plant neither accepted nor rejected the notion that the
Lindu are ‘indigenous people’: they simply did not engage with it.
Refusing, or not recognizing, the discursive terrain developed by the
Lindu people and their allies, officials maintained their focus upon
the need for electricity to promote modernization and industrial
development in the Palu valley (Sangadji ibid.: 54). They also made
the argument that the resettlement of the Lindu would make them
more developed, but this was difficult to justify. It was an argument
consistently rejected by Lindu spokesmen. Indeed, it was their overt
rejection of the idea that they were in need of state-directed
‘development’, as much as their emphasis upon the unique
character of their tribal place, that was notable in their campaign.
In view of the weak case made by the state, various approaches
could have been used to frame opposition to the project. A
materialist case focusing upon the loss of good livelihoods and a
political case focusing upon the rights of the Lindu people to fair
treatment as citizens were indeed argued. But the most prominent
argument focused upon the loss of a unique tribal identity and way
of life. The reasons for this had to do with the fields of power and
opportunity surrounding the concept of indigenous people at that
conjuncture. The possibility of articulating local concerns with
national and international agendas was clearly present. Situations
which set indigenous people up against big projects and the state
are guaranteed attention, and they set up predictable alliances
(Sangadji ibid.: 13, 16). Also significant is the way in which an
indigenous or tribal identity asserts the unity of people and place,
addressing an issue at the heart of state-society relations in the
Indonesian countryside. According to the state model which sees
rural people as ‘ordinary villagers’, those that must be moved can be
compensated in cash or given new land to replace the old. If the
Lindu people were simply villagers, their livelihoods could, in
theory, be re-created elsewhere. Indeed, the state’s plan for them
was that they would join the (technically troubled) transmigration
scheme at Lalundu (ibid.: 20), thus becoming homogenized quota-
fillers, names on a list. Only ‘indigenous people’ can claim that their
very culture, identity and existence are tied up in the unique space
that they occupy (Cohen 1993). There can be no compensation. This
was the point argued repeatedly by the Lindu and their supporters
(Sangadji ibid.: 16).
Finally, the concept of indigenous people, especially when they
are shown to be ecologically wise, opens up some ‘room for
manoeuvre’ unavailable to ordinary villagers. Obstinate peasants
can be labelled communists, as they often are in Java (Sangadji ibid.:
15), but communist tribesmen are somehow less plausible. Their
concerns seem to be somewhat different from those of the mass of
rural people reacting to the contempt and arrogance with which
they are treated by their government. Indigenous people, and their
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 133

nature-and-culture loving supporters, are differently positioned in

relation to the field of power. The sacred shrine of the Lindu’s heroic
and supernatural ancestor Maradindo is located on an island in the
lake. When Maradindo is angered, he causes accidents, bizarre
events, of which the Lindu can cite recent examples (Sangadji ibid.:
32, 41–2). The Lindu tell a powerful story: ignore Maradindo at your
peril.13

Lauje Hill Farmers Get By Without Anyone Paying

Much Attention to Their Knowledge
This is not a plausible newspaper headline, not because the
statement is untrue, but because it posits an unlikely scenario of
media attention becoming focused on a place where nothing much
(of interest to outsiders) is happening. The Lauje people, currently
numbering about 30,000, occupy the hilly interior and the narrow
coastal strip of the peninsula to the north of Tomini Bay and are
concentrated in the present-day districts of Tomini and Tinombo.
Their language (Lauje) shades gradually into Tiaolo and Tajio, the
languages of their neighbours. Besides language, there are no
ethnicizing or demarcating signs that mark the borders of the Lauje
domain. The Lauje hills are fairly densely settled and cultivated but
not especially fertile, so they have not attracted outsiders. Unlike
the Lindu, the Lauje have not therefore been provoked into
articulating collective identities and associated boundaries in order
to claim or defend their territory (Li 1996).
According to Nourse’s (1989) account of local history, in
precolonial times most Lauje kept to the hills for fear of slave-
raiders and pirates, although they traded jungle produce. Those
occupying the drier, lower slopes produced tobacco for regional
markets. Lauje who moved down to the coast during the nineteenth
century constituted themselves as a class of aristocrats, converted
to Islam, and inter-married with incoming Bugis, Mandar and
Gorontalo traders. The Lauje area was of only peripheral interest to
the Dutch. It contained little natural wealth, and the coastal lords
were quiescent and easily co-opted, posing no threat to Dutch
authority. A half-hearted attempt was made early this century to
move the interior population to the coast, but it was clear that they
could not survive on the resources of the narrow coastal strip, and
they were soon allowed to return to their scattered and rather
anarchic hillside hamlets. Some performed occasional corvée duty,
working on the construction of the coast road and bridges, while
others moved further inland to evade such obligations. Dutch
revenues from the area, such as they were, came from taxing the
owners of coconut groves planted along the coast at Dutch
insistence.
134 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

The minimal obligation of the coastal chiefs toward their Dutch

overlords was to keep peace in the interior and prevent feuding and
bloodshed. Their model of governance was to select highlanders of
renown, people who appeared to command respect, and make them
responsible for maintaining order over ‘their’ people. Since the
expectations associated with rule over the interior were relatively
light, they had no need to discover, constitute or record Lauje
customary practices or traditional law (adat). The mechanisms for
accomplishing rule in the post-colonial period became somewhat
more systematic but did not fundamentally change. Since the
borders of administrative village units (desa) were defined to cross-
cut the terrain from the coast to the hills, the coast-based village
heads continued the practice of appointing local leaders to be
responsible for the maintenance of order in their part of the hillside
terrain. Today these leaders occupy the official positions of hamlet
chief (kepala RT) and chief of customary affairs (kepala adat). The
task of the latter is to adjudicate marriage arrangements and local
disputes in the vicinity of the hillside hamlets to which they belong.
According to several of those holding responsibility for ‘customary
affairs’, the procedures, rules and fines they administer in their
hillside hamlets were not handed down by the ancestors but rather
established by the coastal authorities in order to overcome the
anarchy and feuding that previously prevailed in the area.
Similarly, they consider their own authority to settle disputes to be
a power granted by the village administration, ultimately backed by
the civil, police and military authorities of the district. They do not
articulate a sense of adat or tradition as something distinctive,
autochtonous, locally derived or essential to Lauje identity. There
are, of course, many beliefs and practices of a spiritual nature
relating to ancestors as well as to features of the landscape, but
these are described as matters of personal, family or at most
hamlet-wide conviction rather than pan-Lauje tradition. Village
officials regard the hill people and their farming practices as
backward and show no interest in them at all. The coastal Lauje
elite seldom if ever hike into the hills and know little about the
everyday lives or concerns of the hill farmers. Although they have to
acknowledge that they speak a common language, most coastal
Lauje regard their shared ancestry with the hill people as a source of
embarrassment. Officials from the Ministry of Education and
Culture bemoan their assignment to an area of Indonesia patently
lacking in the kinds of songs, dances and handicrafts that they are
expected to identify and turn into emblems of the local for display in
provincial or national fora. No sympathetic outsiders have yet come
looking for indigenous people or environmental knowledge.
Engagements between the state and the Lauje people have been
framed within, rather than outside or in opposition to, the state’s
discourse of development. This does not mean that there is any
consensus on who or what needs to be developed, or how
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 135

development should be accomplished (Li 1997). But there is no

suggestion, for now at least, that the Lauje are an ‘indigenous
people’ for whom, or by whom, an alternative agenda should be
proposed. In general, coastal officials ignore the hills. Village maps
show the hills in spatially compressed form, while showing the
houses and public facilities on the narrow coastal strip in minute
detail. Some officials describe the hills as ‘empty’, even when more
than half the village population lives up above (see Li 1996). When
pressed to discuss the mountain population, they emphasise their
primitive, unruly nature and their status not as noble savages but
as awkward and annoying ones. Officials sometimes refer to the
mountain dwellers as orang dayak, a term they have picked up
through media exposure to the apparently wild and primitive people
of the Kalimantan interior, and which they have chosen to extend in
order to label and characterize their own ‘backwoods’.
Village officials readily classify the mountain Lauje as masyarakat
terasing. In so doing, they seek to absolve themselves of
responsibility for the onerous task of trying to count, monitor or
control, let alone provide services to, a population which, they
stress, is continuously on the move. They also hope to attract
resettlement projects to their village, massive deployments of state
attention and expenditure which would help to resolve the
difficulties they face in administering the hills, as well as boost the
local economy. An official document of the Department of Social
Affairs (Department Sosial 1994a:89–93) has it on record that there
are 612 Lauje families in Tinombo and Tomini that fall into the
category of masyarakat terasing in addition to 130 households that
have already been resettled under the department’s programme.
But the department receives many more requests for resettlement
programmes than it can handle. Numbers alone do not make a
compelling case. The department has already been exposed to
embarrassment when all the Lauje abandoned a resettlement site
and returned to the hills within a year. Moreover, the Lauje are
considered rather dull folk, lacking in the paint and feathers
expected of true primitives. As one senior official observed in an
interview,14 ‘sometimes we look at them and say these are not
indigenous people, they are village people’. There are other groups
in Central Sulawesi, such as the Wana, who better fit the bill.15 The
mountain Lauje, who are not especially exotic and have no serious
competitors for their hilly terrain, have therefore been left pretty
much to their own devices.16
The hill people potentially classified as masyarakat terasing are,
to my knowledge, unaware of the assumptions about primitives
embedded in the official programme description and therefore have
not addressed the issue of whether or not this classification should
be applied to themselves. Their concerns are practical ones. Those
who have heard about the resettlement program are quite afraid
that they will be forced to move out of the hills against their will.17
136 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

While they would be happy to receive new houses and rice rations
as gifts from the government, they are rightly skeptical about
livelihood prospects on the coast and insist therefore that they
would have to remain where they are. Some of them know about the
failed resettlement site and are anxious about the punishments
which might follow if they too find that they cannot survive on the
coast and must return to the hills.
Generally, the mountain Lauje agree that their part of the
province, and the hills in particular, suffer from a development
deficit. This is a deficit they mostly attribute not to their own
primitiveness or recalcitrance, but to the indifference, corruption
and greed of local elites who direct state facilities, programmes and
benefits away from them. Not having been exposed to the overtly
coercive dimensions of state power, nor to the threat of having land
and livelihoods removed from them in the name of ‘development’,
they have not articulated collective positions on these matters.
Their engagements with state authority and ‘development’ occur
mostly through unremarked, mundane patterns of action and
inaction. Some participate in mandatory public works days (kerja
bakti) dedicated to ‘development’ tasks, others do not. Some hike
down to the village office when called upon to pick up free
seedlings, others surmise that any seedlings offered to them will
probably be of poor quality or purloined by coastal elites, and make
their own arrangements. Some pay land taxes, others claim they are
too poor to pay and count on officials to be lenient. In general, they
bring a well-honed cynicism to these everyday encounters. They
have learned the parameters of what can be requested from the
government, the list of things (schools, seedlings, roads or foot-
paths) that fit within the official purview of what ‘development’
entails. These are indeed things they feel they want and need,
although they do not define their lives as chronically deficient due
to their absence, nor do they sit passively waiting for ‘the state’ to
secure their futures. They are willing to adopt the position of
supplicants in the hope that some of the desired things will come
their way. To this end, some highlanders have begun to consolidate
their hamlets, fixing their social and physical position on the
landscape in ways that will attract development resources (Li 1996).
So far, there has been no conjuncture, no context, site, event or
encounter, in which the mountain Lauje have articulated a
collective position as ‘indigenous people’. No hillside leaders have
emerged interested in, or capable of, articulating territorial claims
beyond the level of their own hamlet, still less a generic Lauje
identity. There are respected shamans living both in the hills and on
the coast, but their agendas do not appear to be political. The
pretensions of coastal Lauje ‘aristocrats’ are largely unheard or
ignored. The main authority hill folk acknowledge is that of village
officials, but, as noted above, they are rightly suspicious of the
motives of this group and resent the unfair treatment they receive
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 137

at their hands. They are not anti-development. Indeed, they are

taking their own initiatives to improve their chances of being
included in state development agendas which have hitherto passed
them by (cf. Schuurman 1993). They engage with the state in a
discourse consistent with their knowledge of themselves, their
needs and aspirations, and their understanding of what it is
possible to demand and expect in that relationship. The concept of
‘indigenous people’ has not taken hold in the Lauje hills because,
under current conditions, it would not help people to make sense of
their situation, nor would it help them to improve it.

LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL

KNOWLEDGE IN SHIFTING FIELDS OF POWER
The contrast between my two examples highlights some of the
conditions under which ‘indigenous environmental knowledge’ has
(or has not) been located in contemporary Indonesia. A summary of
the factors present at Lindu, but not in the Lauje case, includes the
following: competition for resources, in the context of which group
boundaries were rendered explicit and cultural differences
entrenched; the existence of a hierarchical political structure which
included individuals (elders, leaders, tribal councils) mandated to
speak on behalf of the group; a capacity to present cultural identity
and local knowledge in forms intelligible to outsiders, an activity
undertaken in this case by a literate elite or ‘middle class’ of
teachers, local officials, prosperous farmers and entrepreneurs; an
interest on the part of urban activists in discovering and supporting
exemplary indigenous subjects and documenting ‘indigenous
knowledge’ which fit the niche pre-constituted through national and
international environmental debates; and, finally, heightened
interest in a particular place, arising from a conflict which pits
locals against the state or state-sponsored corporations.
Two further brief examples confirm the significance of these
conditions, even though each conjuncture has its own unique
characteristics. In a subtle account which is full of surprises, Tsing
(1999) shows how Meratus village leaders in Kalimantan have been
able to construct a ‘tribal situation’ which accurately plays up to the
expectations of environmentalists seeking tribal wisdom while
making use of the attention accorded to their village to make
development claims upon the state. In her example, indigenous
identity and development ‘longing’ have been creatively combined,
not opposed. The leaders articulating Meratus identity in terms of
this delicate balance occupy positions as village officials. Their
status as ‘tribal elders’ is less than apparent to their local
constituency, although readily apparent to outsiders. That outsiders
showed any interest in them was the result of a conflict that erupted
between villagers and a logging company over forest resources. Such
138 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

conflicts are common enough, but this particular one coincided with
an international conference on tropical forests in a nearby city
hosted by two national NGOs. As part of the programme, the NGOs
wished to expose the participants to a ‘case study’ of a conflict
between a timber company and ‘a local indigenous community’
(Hafild 1997). This initial contact lead to some (successful)
campaign activities by the NGO in defence of the villager’s resource
rights. It also led to the village becoming marked by other NGOs,
journalists and nature-lovers as a tribal place, offering village
leaders the multiple opportunities for developing the ‘tribal situation’
described in Tsing’s account.
Back again in central Sulawesi, a study of a group known as the
Da’a reveals the difficult position of people who might be expected to
possess indigenous ecological wisdom, but who are found deficient
according to green-standards or fail to articulate their knowledge in
forms intelligible to outsiders. The Da’a are usually seen as the hill-
billies of the Kaili and they are officially classified as masyarakat
terasing. They were the subject of a research project by two
university-based anthropologists (Mamar and Nur Ali 1990), who
had been prepared by their reading of the ‘indigenous environmental
knowledge’ literature to look out for, and indeed to give credit to, the
ecological wisdom in swidden practices normally dismissed as
primitive. The exemplary case they cite is that of the Kantu Dayak
of Kalimantan described by Michael Dove. But in the case of the
Da’a the researchers were, sadly, disappointed. They encountered
no informant or spokesman able or willing to explain Da’a practices
in the ‘indigenous knowledge’ framework they were expecting. The
only explanation they were able to elicit was that the Da’a simply
carried on doing what their ancestors had done before them, even
though they did not really know why things should be done that
way. This was a ‘normal’ explanation—normal or commonsensical
for the Da’a. It was also ‘normal’ for educated Indonesians, who
generally do not expect much from primitives. There was a failure to
connect, and stereotypes re-emerged to fill the space where
recognition and respect for ‘indigenous knowledge’ might have been.
The researchers concluded that the Da’a are in urgent need of state
guidance to improve their agricultural practices and increase their
understanding of the problems of erosion and the ecological
function of forests.
Where ‘indigenous environmental knowledge’ might be expected,
but the necessary processes of selection, filtering and articulation
have not occurred, the application of a green lens presents a double
burden. Those who are apprehended as failed or rather
unsatisfactory primitives, like the Da’a, would not please
environmentalists and would therefore miss out on a potentially
positive niche. Others fail to meet expectations for different reasons.
The majority of Indonesia’s swidden farmers have long been
committed to producing for the market, and many are more
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 139

interested in expanding commercially oriented agriculture than in

conserving forests.18 Some are interested in profits from the sale of
timber, and not just from the ‘non-timber forest products’ usually
deemed appropriate for them. Dove (1993) has critiqued the logic he
dubs ‘rain forest crunch’, which assumes that forest-dwelling people
will be satisfied with the marginal economic niche to which they
have been assigned. Neither good tribes nor good peasants, many
rural Indonesians are in an ambiguous position which, rather than
allowing them ‘room for manoeuvre’, may instead restrict their
scope and make it difficult to locate opponents, allies or arenas for
action.
Environmentalists, journalists and other social and political
activists searching for ‘indigenous knowledge’ find it more easily in
some places than others, as the contrast between Lauje and Lindu
clearly reveals. For people in a hurry, it is easier to seek out
conjunctures at which the ‘indigenous people’ scenario is already
established and connections easily made. Such places then become
exemplars, visited by many people, and increasingly reified as they
are written about, quoted and cited in ever-broadening circuits of
knowledge and action.19 The process at work has some similarities
to that described by Chambers as ‘rural development tourism’
(1983). The circumstances of my own very brief visit to Lindu can
usefully illustrate this point. It was NGO friends in Jakarta active in
the campaign against the hydroelectric project who suggested I
should visit Lindu and put me in touch with their partner NGO in
Palu. With such smooth connections, I was able to make a two-day
visit to Lindu at the end of a five-week stint in the Lauje hills. When
I arrived at Lindu, an articulate group of educated, Indonesian-
speaking community leaders gathered to talk to me, and the NGO
presented me with a set of documents and press clippings.
Connecting with the hillside Lauje is much more difficult. Very few
people speak Indonesian, illiteracy is almost total, and there are
precious few documentary sources. The hillside population has no
obvious spatial or social centre, no hierarchy of leadership that
would suggest to a visitor where they should go or who they should
talk to. There is no individual or group able or willing to pontificate
on Lauje identity, culture and tradition. My accounts about the
Lauje are therefore more nuanced, but also fuzzier, more equivocal,
less easily picked up and read by outsiders in search of exemplary
indigenous people bearing tribal wisdom. The reasons for this are
deep but contingent, as I have shown. The process of locating
‘indigenous environmental knowledge’ in contemporary Indonesia is
therefore uneven, but it is not random. It has less to do with the
innate qualities or wisdom of particular groups than with the power-
laden processes through which knowledge and identity are
formulated, communicated and brought to bear at particular
conjunctures.
140 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

The issue which tends to draw NGOs to a particular scene is

conflict, especially when it pits locals against the state. The
identification of indigenous environmental knowledge and the
presentation of that knowledge as part of the struggle occur
subsequently. This scenario might change as NGOs become involved
in community mapping and other activities designed to render
indigenous identity and knowledge visible and explicit before
conflicts arise. As the Da’a and Lauje cases both suggest, however,
local enthusiasm for this kind of exercise might be to hard to
generate if the group in question has not already experienced
resource pressure and seen the relevance of writing down or telling
outsiders about what they know and do.
Government agencies with a stake in proving that the state both
recognizes and supports the traditional ecological wisdom of (some
of) its people are not drawn by conflict, since they are likely to find
themselves confronting their counterparts in other government
agencies. Like NGOs, however, they are on the look-out for ‘case
studies’ or exemplary places that illustrate the concept of
indigenous environmental knowledge. As Zerner (1994) reports,
officials from the Ministry of State for Environment played a role in
the ‘discovery’ of the indigenous institution known as sasi in
Maluku and its green reconstruction. Other participants in this
process were local officials, scholars of Maluku culture and history,
NGOs and donors, each with their own agendas but able to find
common cause in the identification of ‘indigenous environmental
knowledge’ at that conjuncture. Interestingly, Zerner observes that
the new sasi was initially of little interest to villagers. He suggests
that this situation will begin to change as villagers find it necessary
to oppose sasi when it is deployed by local officials to increase their
control over coastal resources or, alternatively, when they find that
they can themselves deploy sasi to reinforce local control threatened
by state and market intrusions (ibid.: 1109–14). The complex array
of interests, risks and opportunities surrounding sasi are
characteristic of the conjunctures at which ‘indigenous
environmental knowledge’ is formulated and deployed.
In Indonesia, the concept of ‘indigenous environmental knowledge’
is associated with an apparently non-political niche, characterized
by a scientific language (biodiversity), an attractive set of
images (communities with ecology and culture intact), the approval
of the international environmental lobby and donor support. The
same features which make the concept acceptable (in at least some
government circles) also make it both weak and risky. The problems
relate to the expectations set up by romanticized green images about
‘indigenous people’. Exaggerated claims make it possible for
government agencies to agree to the rhetoric but then to find very
few cases which meet the criteria in practice. They also legitimate
the restriction of rights to those who practice ‘traditional,
sustainable’ resource management. Whereas large-scale resource-
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 141

users (timber concessionaires, mine operators, plantations) are

routinely excused for the environmental ruin they cause, the
activities of ‘indigenous people’ granted resource rights on the basis
of their ecological wisdom are severely monitored. The array of new
government regulations and reporting requirements surrounding
sasi are a case in point (Zerner ibid.). Land and resource rights
made contingent upon stewardship are a pale version of the rights
that other citizens effectively enjoy. Backlash is another risk, one
that has already arisen in Amazonia, where Kayapó have
experienced disastrous consequences from the exaggerated claims
made by outsiders on their behalf (Stearman 1994). In Indonesia as
elsewhere, the field of power within which the concept of
‘indigenous environmental knowledge’ is deployed remains stacked
against the people likely to be deemed its subjects. Nevertheless, it
is a concept which does offer some ‘room for manoeuvre’, and it
provides, for the moment at least, a relatively safe and productive
location for the advance of projects which are, at heart, about rights
to resources, democracy and citizenship.

NOTES

1. Since the Indonesian government does not acknowledge the

existence of indigenous people, it does not consider itself bound by
pronouncements on their rights in international law and
conventions such as that of the ILO (see Posey, Chapter 1).
Nevertheless, developments in the international legal sphere do enter
into the changing meanings of the term ‘indigenous people’ as
deployed in different discourses and struggles in Indonesia.
2. Act Number 10 of 1992 concerning Population Development and
Development of Prosperous Family (Ministry of State for Population
and the Environment 1992) includes provisions in Article 6b and 6c
which confirm the rights of tribal people and others who depend
upon natural resources to their customary lands (wilayah warisan
adat). This is potentially a very strong law, since it makes rights
contingent upon occupation and use and makes no reference to
ecological knowledge or conservation outcomes. However, there are
still no implementing regulations for the Law, so there is no
clarification of what it will take for a group to qualify for the
enjoyment of rights to customary land.
3. The context of some of these remarks was the Asia Region Public
Hearing on Forests and Sustainable Development attended by
international commissioners. According to media reports, this event
was ‘dominated’ by representations by and on behalf of Indonesia’s
‘indigenous people’ about loss of forest land, livelihoods and other
rights abuses. See WCFDS: Hargai Hakhak Masyarakat Tradisional,
Kompas, 4 March 1996 (Anon); Sidang WCFSD Didominasi
Perdebatan Pengusaha dan Masyarakat Tradisional, Kompas, 5
142 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

March 1996 (Anon); Kelestarian Hutan Berkait dengan Masa Depan

Masyarakat Tradisional Media Indonesia, 4 March 1996 (Anon);
Locals want more say, Jakarta Post, 4 March 1996 (Anon).
4. See Li (1999) for an extended discussion of the tensions between
Forestry and other departments over control of population and
resources on the nation’s frontiers.
5. See, for example, Moniaga (1993b); Ekistensi Hukum Adat Dewasa
Ini, Kompas, 27 March 1996 (Achmad Sodiki).
6. I am drawing here upon a set of interviews I carried out with
Jakarta NGOs in 1996 as well as upon their published documents.
Where the subject matter might be sensitive, I do not identify-the
organizations to which I am referring in my discussion.
7. See critiques of the government for its refusal to recognize
customary land rights in Moniaga 1993a, 1993b; Skephi and
Kiddell-Monroe 1993; Semoga Hak Ulayat Dihargai, Kompas, 29
March 1993 (Masri Singarimbun); ‘Indigenous Peoples’ dan
Penguasaan atas Tanah, Kompas, 29 April 1993 (Tim Babcock and
Maria Ruwiastuti); and Eksistensi Hukum Adat Dewasa Ini,
Kompas, 27 March 1996 (Achmad Sodiki). For an overview of the
legal status of customary land rights, the difficulties of specifying
who should be included in the category of ‘indigenous people’ in
Indonesia and an attempt to reconcile these questions with World
Bank policies, see Evers 1995. For a discussion of the difference
between the Dutch colonial concept of a traditional-law society
(masyarakat hukum adat) and the broader internationally
recognized concept of ‘indigenous people’, as well as the (lack of)
resonance of these concepts with forestry law, see Safitri 1995.
8. Peluso discusses the implications of mapping and notes the
romanticism of activists and villagers alike who view adat
unproblematically as the way local resources were managed prior to
the 1960s, when foreign investment and intensive logging increased
in frontier lands off Java (1995:399).
9. For an elucidation of the phrase ‘room for manoeuvre’, see Tsing
1999; also Coombe 1989.
10. Sangadji (1996) states that the seven Lindu subgroups (descended
from the seven original hillside hamlets) each have their own points
of access to the lake and their own specific fishing grounds.
Therefore, even if the Lindu were still allowed to fish after the power
plant was constructed, they would not be able to do so according to
their own traditions, and their cultural integrity would therefore be
jeopardized. Sangadji’s research continues to highlight the ways in
which the Lindu are, and must remain, anchored to very specific
spots on the landscape.
11. When I visited Lindu, a ‘community mapping’ process facilitated by
an NGO was underway. The Lindu leaders who had travelled to
Jakarta were key participants. They had been informed directly by
the Minister of State for Environment that their case would be
strengthened by representing their customary zones and places on
 LOCATING INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN INDONESIA 143

maps which outsiders could read. On the politics of mapping (or

counter-mapping) by the state, donors, NGOs and communities, and
the implications of adopting a territorialized framework for
describing and asserting resource rights, see Peluso 1995.
12. For green readings of Lindu used to support broader arguments, see
Moniaga 1993a:33 and Kearifan Masyarakat Adat dalam Konservasi
Alam Sangat Tmggi, Kompas 13 September 1993 (Anon). The
Institute of Dayakology also presents generic ‘Dayak’ as
environmentalists (Barnba 1993). For critiques of the claim that
natives are naturally nurturant of nature, see Ellen 1986, Stearman
1994.
13. Opposition to the hydroelectric project at Lindu was widespread in
the community, so there was a common interest in the success of
the campaign. On other matters, including the relevance of
indigenous environmental knowledge to everyday lives and practices
and the role of the adat council in controlling resources, there are
bound to be differences of opinion among people differently situated
by class, gender and ethnic origins. Since I have not carried out field
research at Lindu I am not in a position to discuss these. On the class
and gender inequities of adat systems, see von Benda-Beckman and
von Benda-Beckman 1994; on ‘lairdism’ or the risks asso ciated
with concentrating power in the hands of adat chiefs, see Colchester
1994:87; on the ways in which concentrated adat power becomes
more easily enmeshed in or subverted by the projects of the colonial
and post-colonial states, see Zerner 1994.
14. I am grateful for access to transcripts of interviews with provincial
officials carried out by Dan Paradis in 1994. Because the transcripts
had been translated, I do not know which Indonesian expression was
being translated here as ‘indigenous people’.
15. To illustrate his point, the official showed photos of a Wana
medicine man conducting a ritual. Prominently displayed in the
Palu office are ‘before and after’ pictures of near-naked Wana who
had subsequently been clothed, revealing the contradictory
impulses of nostalgia and ‘development’.
16. This situation has changed in the past five years as coastal elites
have begun to plant, or buy up, cocoa and clove gardens. For
discussions of the local and regional class dimensions of this
process, see Li 1996, 1997.
17. Many people were reluctant to talk to me when I first started
fieldwork in the Lauje hills because they feared that my research
would lead to their resettlement. They were especially nervous about
anything that looked like a list of names.
18. For an extended discussion of the implications of attributing a
conservation ethic and subsistence motivations to upland farmers in
Indonesia, see Li 1999; for a perspective on similar issues in the
Philippines, see Li forthcoming. In the Amazon, Stearman (1994)
notes the outrage of environmentalists when the Kayapó sought to
profit from the mineral resources within their territory.
144 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

19. Keck (1995) describes how particular places and events become
efficacious in the articulation of political causes and the formation of
alliances as they are re-interpreted through ever-widening frames of
meaning. Her case concerns Brazilian rubber-tappers fighting
labour battles being reframed as saviours of the tropical rainforest.
A similar dynamic within India is documented by Sinha et al. 1997
and Rangan 1993. For a close reading of the textual embellishments
and communicative processes through which environmental
rhetorics are inflated, circulated and infused back into their
‘original’ sites, see Brosius 1997, Ch. 10 this volume.

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program. Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature

Conservation, Ministry of Forestry, and Nature Conservancy.
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 Chapter 6
‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN
JAPAN
John Knight

Japan is a modern society with a conspicuous preoccupation with

the past. Commentators have suggested that present-day Japan is
afflicted by a chronic ‘sense of homelessness’ (Robertson 1995:101),
that it is governed by a fetishistic cultural logic (Ivy 1995), and that
the upshot of this sense of loss and incompletion is a national
tendency to restore what has disappeared and to recover distant
origins. One feature of this intense national nostalgia is the role of
the regions as repositories of Japanese custom and tradition and
‘cultural building blocks’ of the nation (Yoneyama 1988:79). In the
context of rural tourism and revitalization initiatives, localities and
regions project themselves as ‘survivals’ of particular historical
pasts, well-known examples of which include the reconstructed
period-style ‘villages’ such as ‘Heian Village’, ‘Edo Village’, ‘Meiji
Village’ etc.1
A recent manifestation of this Japanese heritage industry is the
Jömon ‘boom’ (Kataoka 1997:39). The Jömon period, named after
its distinctive style of pottery, is the foraging period usually dated
10,000 BC–300 BC. Hitherto the Jömon period has tended to be
understood as opposed to, and replaced by, the agrarian Yayoi
period (300 BC to AD 300) and later periods of Japanese history. To
the extent that the Jömon legacy continued at all, this was in the
alien peripheries of the Japanese archipelago, among the Ainu in
the north and in the Ryükyü islands in the south. Jömon culture
has largely been viewed as ‘poor, shabby, primitive and barbaric’
(ibid.). However, recent archaeological finds on the main islands of
Japan have created a strong public interest in and re-evaluation of
the Jömon era. These finds, including pillar foundations, lacquered
bowls and jade ornaments, indicate a ‘hitherto unimagined cultural
sophistication and prosperity’ among Jömon-era people. These sites
and Jömon exhibitions have drawn large crowds and attracted
 ‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN JAPAN 149

enormous public and media interest, and a large number of books

on the Jömon era, including some best-sellers, have appeared.
Jōmon heritage has been linked to a revival of national pride.

[T]he rediscovery of the Jōmon period’s spectacular history

appears to have boosted Japanese self-confidence…. Having
experienced the catastrophe of defeat in World War II, they
renounced their past values and, with great effort, pulled
themselves up from physical and spiritual collapse…[But] the
Japanese have been ridiculed as economic animals by other
countries…[T]he Japanese are now beset with a feeling of crisis
as they wonder whether the very economy that produced their
success can survive…The Japanese have finally realized that
they have neglected to seek spiritual enrichment in their rush
to achieve material prosperity. The rediscovery of the Jōmon
era occurred in this context. The Jōmon people led peaceful
lives in harmony with nature. This “philosophy” is a welcome
relief as an antidote to a modern civilization that increasingly
feels like a dead end. For Japanese, the Jōmon culture
provides new forms and ideals for the future, (ibid.)

But this national self-renewal is mediated by the regions. There has

emerged a form of Jōmon regionalism on the main islands of Japan
in which localities and regions project themselves as sites of Jōmon
culture as part of rural revitalization strategies. ‘Jōmon Villages’,
featuring the reconstruction of Jōmon-era architecture and
dwellings, have been established (Iikubo 1997). Some commentators
suggest that this new Jōmon regionalism can serve to raise the self-
esteem of regional populations in the eyes of metropolitan
Japanese.

From a regional perspective, the sudden national fame of the

Sannai Maruyama ruins has undoubtedly given a tremendous
boost to the confidence and pride of the citizens of Aomori
Prefecture, who have struggled with feelings of inferiority vis-à-
vis central Japan since the beginnings of recorded history.
(Kataoka ibid.)

However, this new Jōmon regionalism, I shall argue, is rather more

complicated than such accounts of it suggest. This is because it
engages the very basis of the Japanese state the relationship
between majority Japan and the minorities subjugated in the
establishment of the Yamato state. Jōmonism is not simply another
form of regional exploitation of national heritage, but potentially
represents a challenge to, even a revision of, received
understandings of national identity.
150 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

This chapter focuses on a particular manifestation of Jōmon

regionalism from western Japan: the region on the southeast of the
Kii Peninsula known as Kumano, and more specifically the upland
municipality of Hongū-chō, where I carried out
ethnographic fieldwork in the late 1980s and mid-1990s. The
Jōmon period is invoked by local government modernizers as the
indigenous past of Hongū and other municipalities in the Kumano
region. But it is also invoked by particular groups of local people for
whom it is a tradition at odds with, and even threatened by,
present-day modernization.
The primary site of Japan’s Jōmon heritage is the forest. The
forest’s ‘Jōmon’ associations contribute to its utilization as a
material and symbolic resource by modern municipalities in
connection with wildlife industries, tourism and environmentalism.
However, the exploitation of traditional forest knowledge, as
opposed to forest symbolism, is actually quite limited. In an attempt
to account for this, in what follows I show how Jōmon forest
heritage is viewed in a number of different ways: as the ancient
heritage of a modernizing rural town; as a distinctive set of physical
characteristics and proficiencies and an intimate knowledge of
forest space; and as a site of backwardness and danger. The
practical exploitation of the Jōmon indigenous heritage is
complicated by its local status as a highly contentious past to which
different would-be legatees lay claim in the present.

INDIGENOUSNESS IN JAPAN
In Japan the term ‘indigenous people’ (senjūmin) is largely
associated with overseas—American Indians, Australian Aborigines,
Maoris et al. Internally, the term has come to be associated with the
Ainu of Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. In recent decades,
through their involvement in the world indigenous people’s
movement, the Ainu have come to identify themselves in terms of the
international language of indigenousness and aboriginality (Siddle
1997:37–43; Hanazaki 1996: 127–8). But while the Ainu are
officially recognized as an ethnic minority in Japan, their claim to
be an indigenous people is not accepted by the Japanese
government.
Another referent of indigenousness in Japan is the pre-agrarian
Jōmon period, which, in recent years, has become the object of
considerable scholarly interest and public fascination.2 Until
recently, Japanese national identity has tended to be seen as
discontinuous with that of Jōmon dwellers. The majority Japanese
population of the main islands was seen as originating from
migrations during the Yayoi and Kofun (AD300–700) periods (Omoto
and Saitou 1997:438). These invasions have typically been
positively represented as the introduction of a higher civilization
 ‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN JAPAN 151

and have largely formed the genealogical base point of national

history in the second half of the twentieth century.
The effect of this model is to fix the majority Japanese population
as continental migrants or settlers, and, by default, the minority
Ainu and Ryūkyū populations as native or indigenous, a polarity
reinforced by recent Ainu indigenist discourse. Where this
continental ancestry comes to be specified—for example, as a
Korean ancestry—it becomes the source of considerable
controversy.3
On the other hand, there is also a tendency in present-day Japan
towards identification with the ‘primitive’ past. From tourism to
popular music, Ainu and Ryūkyū an cultures have become
incorporated into Japanese popular culture. Some commentators
even refer to ‘the dramatic shift from the demonization of the “wild”
inhabitants of the North (whether animal or human) towards their
idealization in the literature of the last twenty years’ (Liman 1995:
184). This is the background to the recent tendency in majority
Japan to trace national origins to the ‘Jōmonese people’ (Jōmonjin)
(Taira 1997:145). Hitherto, a pervasive self-image within Japan, and
a recurring theme in political and social discourse up until the
second world war and afterwards, has been that Japanese culture
is, at base, an agrarian culture or ‘rice culture’ (inasaku bunka).
However, many archaeologists and other scholars now argue that it
is the Jōmon period rather than the Yayoi period which is ‘the base
of Japanese culture’ (Mori et al. 1994). One of the features of this
genealogical repositioning of Japanese national identity is the role
played by the regions.

‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONS
One of the main exponents of this Jōmonist view of Japanese
culture is the philosopher Umehara Takeshi, the former head of the
International Research Center for Japanese Studies (known as
Nichibunken) in Kyoto, who has been variously described as a
‘conservative intellectual’ (Gluck 1993:88) and ‘Japan’s foremost
exponent of Stone Age purity’ (Asahi Evening News 22/9/1987).
Umehara’s thesis consists of a number of inter-related themes.
Umehara argues that the legacy of Jōmon culture is most clearly
evident among the Ainu to the north and in the Ryūkyū islands to
the south (1990:44). The Ainu are the forebears of the modern
Japanese: ‘Let us view Ainu culture as the furusato [place of origin,
literally ‘old village’] of Japanese culture, and try to learn from it’
(Umehara, and Nakagami 1994:86). Japanese culture as such has
Jōmon roots by virtue of this Ainu ancestry.
Umehara holds that some regions on the main island have
retained this legacy more than others. In 1988 he gave the keynote
address to a conference convened in Kumano to consider the
152 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

region’s identity. A central theme of the gathering, Kumano’s

indigenous or Jōmon identity, was captured by a photograph that
appeared in local newspapers. Beneath the headline ‘The Time to
Look Again at Kumano’ was a photo of Umehara talking with Ainu
performers dressed in their distinctive folk costumes. The Ainu
presence at the conference served to highlight the idea of a common
Jōmon legacy with ‘Kumano people’ (Kumanojin).
One conference speaker stated that ‘long ago, the Ainu were all
over Japan, and today the Japanese have much Ainu blood within
them’. The implicit suggestion here is that Kumano has an Ainu
ancestry and therefore that the population of Kumano have Ainu
blood. Umehara has similarly argued that the people inhabiting the
special Jōmon regions of the Japanese main island physically
resemble the Ainu. They are ‘old mongoloids’ in contrast to the ‘new
mongoloids’ of south-western Japan (Umehara et al. 1993:48).4 In
drawing this distinction, Umehara is attempting to blur the racial
line between Ainu and majority Japanese rather than emphasise
new racial divisions within majority Japan. His point is that the
Japanese racial pool includes rather than excludes the physical
characteristics associated with the Ainu.
Although Umehara emphasises genetic ancestry, race is not in
fact central to his thesis. More than the bodies of regional
Japanese, the principal sites of Japan’s Jōmon legacy are the
nation’s extensive forests. The typical Jōmon forest is beech (Fagus
crenata) forest, associated with eastern Japan, but the Jōmon
legacy is also found in Lucidophyllous forest areas of western Japan.
The forest is a central theme in Ainu self-identity. The English
title of the autobiography of a leading Ainu figure is Our home was a
forest (Kayano 1994). Kayano begins the book by referring to the
‘dense woods’ of his youth, the ‘herds of deer’ which ran through
them, and the old hunting and fishing lifestyle in which the Ainu
would take only as much as they needed (ibid.: 8). But then came
the shamo (Japanese). ‘Ignoring the ways of the Ainu, who had
formulated hunting and woodcutting practices in accordance with
the cycles of nature, the shamo came up with arbitrary “laws” that
led to the destruction of the beautiful woods of Nibutani for the
profit of “the nation of Japan” and the corporate giants’ (ibid.: 9). The
Japanese colonization of Hokkaido replaced the forest, on which
Ainu livelihoods were based, with farms and ranches for settlers. The
misery of the modern Ainu has its origin in their forcible separation
from their forest home. This forested landscape, suffused with
nature spirits, is one of the main foci of the Ainu movement.5
Although from the Ainu view, the Japanese appear as forest-
clearing farmers and ranchers, the effect of Jōmon indigenization is
to typify majority Japan as a ‘forest culture’ (shinrin bunka) (cf.
Ichikawa and Saito 1985; Tadaki 1988; Takaya 1989). The
traditional forest or mori is the object of considerable nostalgic
interest as a site of national identity. Mori connotes a ‘deep’ (fukai)
 ‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN JAPAN 153

forest, unmodified by human contact, an abode of the spirits

(Shidei 1993:132–6), which inspires fear and gratitude among the
Japanese (Makino 1988:199). However, the mori also inspires
affection among present-day Japanese as a gentle, warm and benign
place (Shirahata 1994:100–1).
A central theme in this concern with the mori is its disappearance
in the face of extensive logging and replacement by timber
plantations (e.g. Gotō 1994:47–8; Aoyama 1994:24). But there is
also a tendency to extend the term mori to include these artificial
conifer forests. The effect of this is to focus on the amount of forest
rather than criticize its qualitative character. Thus, for Umehara,
tree cover per se serves as evidence of Japan’s Jōmon character:
despite large-scale industrialization, forest still makes up around
two-thirds of Japan’s land area (Umehara 1993b:112). Unlike many
other countries, Japan has not undergone irreversible deforestation
in the course of its industrialization. In an age of widespread
desertification, Japan’s forest heritage makes the nation particularly
well placed to proclaim internationally the importance of conserving
the world’s forests (ibid.: 114).
Thirdly, Jōmon dwellers were hunters and gatherers. Boar-
hunting with dogs is seen as a quintessential Jōmon activity. The
importance of wild boar hunting to Jōmon peoples is suggested by
discoveries of shellmounds of wild boar bones (Koike 1992:210) and
figurines of wild boars (Sutō 1991:120). Clay figurines of dogs from
the Jōmon era show that ancient boarhounds had pointed ears and
a curly tail—i.e. features common to present-day regional hunting
dog breeds in Japan (Saitō 1987:239). The centrality of hunting in
Jōmon times reinforces its status as an important national tradition.
The association of hunting with national identity was made by a
Hongū hunter when, in the course of a long explanation of why he
and others hunted, he informed me that the Japanese were a
‘hunting people’ (shuryō minzoku). This national
self- characterization is occasionally made in Japan by folklore
scholars and other writers.6
The fourth area of the Jōmon legacy is ritual and religion. While
technology and political organization have undergone enormous
change, religion in Japan still bears ‘the imprint of Jōmon times’
(Umehara 1989: 73). Japanese religion contains a ‘primordial
concept of the afterlife’, and one feature of this ‘indigenous
Japanese [religious] view’ is ‘the notion of the cyclic continuity of life’
(ibid.: 80–1). This world-view is manifested in the Japanese kuyō
memorial rituals, especially the hunting kuyō, which Umehara
likens to the famous Ainu bear ceremony or iyomante, in which the
bear’s spirit is sent back to the spirit country as a condition for
regenerating the population of bears in this world (1988:109–12).7
For Umehara, hunters’ rites for wild boars and for bears
documented in the Tōhoku area share this regenerative logic of the
Ainu bear-sending ceremony (Umehara 1988:112; 1994:273–7; cf.
154 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Nebuka 1991:69). There is, in other words, a Jōmon character to

Japanese hunting culture and to Ainu culture.8

A ‘JŌMON’ TOWN
Within the Kumano region, some localities have taken up the theme
of Jōmon heritage more enthusiastically than others. One of these
is Hongū-chō, an upland municipality which has been largely
dependent on forestry. Hongū has undergone large scale
depopulation through urban out-migration over the postwar
decades, losing over half its population between 1956 and 1996.
Depopulation is seen as threatening the very survival of upland
areas like Hongū, and since the 1970s this has been an object of
intense government concern. The main response has taken the form
of rationalization and modernization. Settlement geography has
been altered by the relocation of the scattered upstream population
to more concentrated downstream zones, and a quasi-urban public
environment of surfaced roads, civic amenities and factory
workplaces has been established.
This new environment would help to foster civic integration and a
sense of local community and municipal identity by replacing
existing village parochialisms. Efforts have also been made to
promote popular identification with, and even pride in, the
municipal locality. One perceived obstacle to achieving such
popular identification with the town is its artificiality. Hongū was
established as a municipal entity in 1956, from the merger of a
number of smaller entities. Moreover, its constituent mountain
village settlements, originating in the medieval period, lack any great
historical depth.9 It is against this background that the concern in
the 1990s with Jōmon origins can be understood. One stimulus was
provided by Umehara Takeshi’s pronouncements at the 1988
Kumano conference above. Moreover, in his publications Umehara
has since emphasized the special Jōmon character of Hongū. For
example, Umehara explicitly invokes his knowledge of Ainu culture
in interpreting the character of the Hongū shrine kami (1990:116–
17).
A further aspect of the take-up of Jōmon identity has to do with
Hongū’s involvement in national forestry politics. Hongū played a
founding role in the establishment of an association of upland
municipalities which is calling on the Japanese government to
provide new resources to mountain village areas in recognition of
their role in forest management (see Knight 1998). In 1993 a
conference calling for the establishment of a ‘forest grant’ for upland
municipalities was convened in Hongū. Umehara Takeshi gave his
support to the forest grant campaign, and made the opening
address at the conference. While the main arguments for the forest
grant are environmental and economic, the emphasis of Umehara’s
 ‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN JAPAN 155

own remarks was on national identity. For him, the primary

importance of upland forest areas like Hongū is as sites of Japan’s
Jōmon legacy.
The association between Hongū and Umehara Takeshi is also
evident in the 1996 booklet produced to commemorate the fortieth
anniversary of the founding of the municipality. In the centre of the
booklet is a discussion between Umehara and the Hongū mayor,
Nakayama Yoshihiro. The two-page article is entitled ‘Kumano is a
romantic, mysterious place which conceals Jōmon culture’, and in
the course of the discussion Umehara praises Hongū for its special
Jōmon heritage (Hongū-chō 1996). The front cover of the booklet
features a photograph of the dark Hongū mountains wrapped in
fog, while on the back is a photograph of an old, thick forest tree
with a shimenawa sacred rope around it—visual expressions of
Hongū’s Jōmon identity.
Another stimulus to Hongū’s adoption of Jōmon identity was the
discovery, in the early 1990s, within it’s municipal area, of Jōmon-
era stone implements (axes, hide-cutters and pounding stones).
According to the town newsletter, the discovery indicates the
location of a hunting camp (Hongū-chō 1992:5). The newsletter
reports that the large size of the implements, compared to similar
items found on the coast, indicates that the wild boar and deer in
the Hongū area were large animals. The report adds that the local
education committee has decided to display the tools in the lobby of
the Mountain Village Development Centre—alongside other items of
local material culture and stuffed wildlife specimens—and it invites
Hongū citizens to come along and see the Jōmon discoveries for
themselves.
Arguably, the rediscovery of Jōmon, ‘stone-age’ roots serves to
help naturalize the new municipality. Jōmon forest culture
represents the distant upstream past of a modern, downstream
town. Jōmon tradition serves as a remote—indeed, the remotest—
starting-point against which progress can be measured.

‘MOUNTAIN PEOPLE’
Invocation of Jōmon heritage in Hongū is not exclusive to municipal
authorities. The discovery of the Jōmon hunting camp reinforced
the status of hunting as a local tradition. Among Hongū hunters,
the find was taken as proof of the antiquity of their hunting and its
centrality to local identity. In contrast to municipal officialdom,
hunters are just as likely to stress continuity with the Jōmon past
as distance from it. Although most present-day hunters are
recreational hunters, they still identify with ancestral hunting
which, providing meat for household consumption and medicinal
animal organs for sale, was important to local livelihoods. Each time
a wild boar or deer is killed, an organ (often the heart) of the animal
156 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

is offered to the mountain spirit—a recognition that the mountain

spirit is the source of the forest animals on which upland dwellers
feed.
Hunters, many of whom work as forest labourers, are
knowledgeable about the forest. They know which parts of the forest
are favoured by deer, wild boar and bears; they can identify animal
tracks, forest passages, and animal fur or faeces; and they know
where this or that variety of herb, mushroom or flower can be
picked. Hunters and foresters develop a certain physical ease when
walking in the mountains that contrasts with the breathlessness of
others. They are renowned for their speed of movement, their
balance on inclines, their powers of endurance and their sharp
senses. This almost animal-like mobility is evident during hunting,
when the seko (the beater-cum-chaser who flushes the animal out of
its mountain lair), following the scent of the wild animal, runs in a
crouching posture with his dogs along the low, narrow animal
corridors in the forest.
Hunters and foresters are known to have distinctive physical
characteristics. According to a local doctor, they have wiry, lean
bodies and thick, powerful hearts which allow them to move easily
up and down the mountainsides. They are known for their
hardiness; foresters come into the doctor’s surgery with serious
injuries sustained days before which, in the case of other people,
would have led to an ambulance emergency. The doctor adds that
while they eat salty food, drink and smoke, they age less than other
men; many a forester has the body of a man ten or twenty years
younger. In short, hunters and foresters are physically different
from others, though this is not, pace Umehara, a racial difference,
but a physical one deriving from the mountainous environment.
Their upland home is, as it were, physically part of them.
There is also a sense in which those who hunt or work in the
forest have a different character from others. This is especially
pronounced in the case of hunters to whom a certain mystique
attaches. Hunters—especially boarhunters—are renowned for their
daring and courage in the mountains, but they are also seen as
dangerous in the village. There are many tales of morally dissolute
hunters who are a source of discord and conflict in the village. By
virtue of their association with the space of the mountain forest or
yama, in contrast to the village, ‘mountain people’ form part of a
different moral universe.
These themes are evident in the folklore on ‘mountain people’ or
yamabito. One local writer, Ue Toshikatsu, uses the term yamabito
to describe the charcoal-burners, timber-foresters and hunters of
the southern Kii Peninsula. As someone brought up in the
mountains in a wandering family of charcoal-burners, who later
worked as a plantation forest labourer, living in mountain huts, Ue
identifies himself as a yamabito and claims to have ‘wild blood’
(yasei no chi) running through his body (Ue 1987:95).
 ‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN JAPAN 157

But, this yamabito tradition is in tension with the modern society

that Hongū has become. Post-war resettlement schemes has made
Hongū an overwhelmingly downstream municipality in which most
of the population live much more apart from the forest than before.
The establishment of a network of forest roads in recent decades
has transformed human mobility in the mountains, while the decline
of forestry has greatly diminished the number of forest labourers.
Hunting, one of the archetypical forms of Jōmon behaviour, is also
in decline: in addition to the falling numbers of hunters, hunting is
the object of ever-increasing official regulation and restriction.
Hongū is a ‘Jōmon town’ whose forest-centred Jōmon character is
steadily disappearing.

EXPLOITING FOREST KNOWLEDGE?

One reason for the adoption of the Jōmon theme was its perceived
internal appeal in providing historical depth for a new municipality.
But another reason was its perceived external appeal to the wider
Japanese population. In this section, I survey the ways in which the
Jōmon heritage has been exploited economically.

(i) Wildlife Products

Jōmon dwellers are known to have eaten a range of forest mammals,
including wild boar, deer, serow, bear and even monkeys (Ue and
Tanba 1987:43). Consumption of forest wildlife also takes place in
the present-day. In Hongū, wildlife-related cures and tonics are
popular, and hunters are a ready source of wildlife valuables.
Although monkeys are not generally eaten in the modern era, there
is a certain amount of health-related consumption of monkeys. For
example, after the outbreak of E. coli food poisoning in Japan in the
summer of 1996, one local response in Hongū was to acquire
monkey meat from hunters (employed culling pest monkeys) in the
belief that it had the power to prevent or combat food poisoning.
In addition to this largely informal circulation of wildlife
substances, hunters also supply the wider market for wildlife-based
health products such as bear gall. But hunting cannot ensure a
regular supply of wildlife products. One local response to this urban
demand for wildlife parts has been the establishment of wildlife
farms, mostly of wild boar and deer. Demand for wild boar meat,
marketed as ‘the taste of the wilds’ (yasei no aji) or ‘the taste of the
mountains’ (yama no aji), has soared in the 1980s and 1990s
(Takahashi 1995:40–55; Ue 1994:151–4). Venison and boar meat
are served in ryokan tourist inns in rural areas and sold through
mail-order by farm-produce businesses as a quintessential winter
taste of the Japanese countryside. Other deer products include deer
‘ham’ on the bone, deer horn alcohol (tsunoshu), and deer velvet
158 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

(rokujo).10 Some proponents believe that deer farming could become

a mainstay industry for depopulated upland areas in Japan (Drew et
al. 1989:345). One of the attractions of wildlife farming is that, in
contrast to the many transplanted industries found in rural areas,
it would draw on local knowledge of and familiarity with wild
animals.
Wildlife farming has encountered certain problems, however.
First, farmed wildlife products are often viewed as inferior to the
body parts of wild animals. Wild animals are believed to concentrate
the goodness of their natural environments within them, an
association which extends to the idea of the environmental
determination of the curative potency of wildlife parts. One example
of this is the distinction made between the gall of bears from
different kinds of forest in Japan. In Niigata, the bears of white oak
(Quercus spp.) forest are believed to have harder and better quality
gall bladders than do those of beech (Fagus crenata) forest.11 Herb-
farming encounters similar objections.12 A second problem with
wildlife farming is its image as a lowly, dirty, unpleasant occupation.

(ii) Tourism
Jōmon-based regional revival is perhaps strongest in the northeast
of Honshu, where ‘Jōmon villages’ have been established as part of
regional revitalization strategies and tourist promotion. But perhaps
the best-known example of Jōmon-related nature tourism are the
Jōmon cryptomeria stands (Jōmon sugi) on the southern island of
Yakushima (Mishima 1994:11–12). Dogs with ancient pedigrees are
another possible Jōmon tourist attraction. In the Kumano area,
claims are made that the local breed, Kishūken, is a dog with
Jōmon ancestors (cf. Iwahashi 1989:15–16) and even a canine
‘mirror’ which ‘reflects the Jōmon period’ (in Ue and Tanba 1987:
45). Two rival municipalities on the Kii Peninsula claim to be the
home of the Kishūken breed, and one of them established an annual
dog festival. In other parts of Japan too, ancient dog-breeds are the
focus of local and regional revival efforts linked to tourist
promotion. The local identity which such dogs help to define is one
which also evokes a sense of the wider nation. Many of the regional
Japanese or waken breeds have been designated ‘natural treasures’
(tennen kinenbutsu) of the nation. Hunting allows a rural
municipality to present itself as the repository of some otherwise
disappearing national tradition.
However, this incorporation of hunting into tourism is highly
partial. Some guesthouses feature stuffed game animals in their
lobbies, as well as books on local folklore which include hunting
lore. But in Japan there is relatively little hunting tourism as
such.13 There is no significant hunting tourism on the Kii Peninsula,
and local hunting is typically deemed inappropriate for the eyes of
 ‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN JAPAN 159

visitors. No visual illustrations of hunting appear on Hongū tourist

pamphlets. An indication that the tourist sector is effectively
insulated from hunting was the fate of some hunting photographs
(of a wild boar being assailed by hounds) given to the owner of a
popular guesthouse by a hunter friend. The friend’s intention
evidently was that the photographs would help to decorate the walls
of the guest rooms, but the guesthouse-owner decided that the
photos were not suitable to put up.14
Forests have a central place in Hongū’s tourist appeal. They
appear on tourist brochures as the verdent background to hot-
spring pools or as the dark tree cover of a rolling mountain
landscape. Many of the souvenirs sold at guesthouses are
woodcrafts, some of which are made by retired local foresters. Some
plain wooden dolls are presented as ‘like those made by foresters in
their mountain huts for their daughters in the village’. Other
forestry-related souvenirs include charcoal and bottled wood
fragrances such as cypress. Some ex-foresters act as tourist guides
advising tourist visitors about which forests to visit for herb-
gathering etc.

(iii) Forestry
Traditional forest knowledge has been largely neglected in post-war
timber forestry. Large-scale state-sponsored scientific intervention
has taken place in areas such as breeding, planting, pruning and
thinning techniques, the development of chemical fertilizers,
herbicides and insecticides, and pest control. The logging process
has been mechanized with the introduction of chainsaws for felling
and (depending on slope) tractors and yarders for skidding and
hauling. The state has also attempted to promote the idea of timber
forestry. The tradition of charcoal forestry meant that many existing
foresters were growing different sorts of tree and had to be
persuaded to grow conifer species instead. In particular, small-scale
forest owners or farmer-foresters were targeted, for whom the forest
had hitherto been an adjunct of the farm. A new forestry extension
section was established in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
to which was attached a cadre of specialist advisors, whose task
was to assist forest owners in areas such as nursery techniques,
species selection and fertilization, with a view to improving land
productivity and increasing foresters’ profits (Kamino 1988:227).
Advice was also given on forest management, resource planning and
financial matters.
Despite this scale of intervention, there is a widespread perception
that plantation forestry has failed both economically and
environmentally. In part, this failure is attributed to post-war
forestry’s disregard of certain basic rules and practices of earlier
forestry. There is much criticism of excessive post-war planting.
160 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

There are many sayings about which kind of earlier forest makes for
good plantations—‘ask the soil, then plant’ (tsuchi ni kiite ueyō),
create cryptomeria plantations in the sites of former chestnut forest
and white oak (nara; Quercus mongolica) forest, and establish
cypress plantations in Quercus phillyreoides (ubamekashi) forest,
etc.—but post-war forestry established plantations everywhere,
including in the most inappropriate places, such as high up the
mountainside, too close to the village, etc. Postwar forestry also
contravened earlier concerns about excessive felling—for example,
that part of the deciduous natural forest should be left standing so
that the soil below can continue to be fertilized by greenery.

JŌMON ENVIRONMENTALISM?
One of the main expressions of Kumano regional distinctiveness is
the forest. In the upland interior of the Kumano region, both beech
(Fagus crenata) and Lucidophyllous forests are found in close
proximity, leading some local writers to proclaim the special
importance of the area’s natural environment as the place where
Japan’s two ecologies meet (Ue 1994:4–6). Yet, most of the visible
mountainside where Lucidophyllous species such as evergreen oaks
and pasania grew earlier is now covered with plantation conifers
(cypress or cryptomeria).
Umehara stresses the present-day environmental relevance of
Jōmon thought. In his introduction to a book on forest civilizations
(subtitled ‘Searching for a path to save mankind’), Umehara reflects
on the forest civilizations of the past which have disappeared and
ends by invoking Ainu thought as manifested in the bear ceremony
and what he sees as its central motif—the regeneration of life
(Umehara 1993a:31). The message is that the way forward in
protecting the world’s forests is to recover this Ainu-Japanese
regenerative ethos. Other writers too hold up Jōmon dwellers as
ecological exemplars. In the course of almost ten thousand years,
Jōmon people ‘gained a deep knowledge of nature’ and even lived ‘in
harmony with nature’. This Jōmon legacy, it is argued, ‘provides
clues for solving many of the problems facing Japan today…Jōmon
people’s way of life, their use of varied natural resources, enabled
them to maintain the ecological balance’ (Mori et al. 1994:83).
Jōmon heritage is invoked to support forestry. For Umehara, the
forestry industry appears more as custodian of the Jōmon forest
than destroyer of it. This is suggested by his interpretation of
forestry ritual. ‘Tree spirit memorial rites’ (mokurei kuyō) for the
spirits of felled trees are carried out by commercial forestry
associations in the Kumano area and other parts of Japan (see
Knight 1997a). According to Umehara’s Jōmonist analysis, such
rites are ki no iyomante or ‘tree-sending ceremomies’ in which the
tree’s soul is sent back to the other world in order to be regenerated
 ‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN JAPAN 161

as a material tree once more in the future (Umehara 1994:284).

Commercial forestry, to the extent that felling is soon followed by
planting, is deemed consistent with this regenerative ethic
(Umehara in Hongū-chō 1996:17). The implication of this apparent
endorsement of forestry is that the industry can continue to fell
primary and secondary forest and build ever more forest roads.
But the forest’s status as a site of indigenous heritage may, on the
contrary, serve as an environmentalist idiom directed against the
excesses of the forestry industry. Forestry has attracted much
criticism in Japan in recent decades, including anti-logging protests
on the Kii Peninsula (Ue 1994:130–3). During the protests against
logging in Shiretoko National Park (in Hokkaido) in the 1980s,
rituals for tree spirits were carried out by Ainu groups (Mitsuda and
Geisler 1992:38 n.). The Shiretoko struggle showed how the
indigenous identity of the forests can be invoked against the logging
industry. But logging also engages a ritual sensibility in mainland
Japanese culture, not just among the Ainu. Much Japanese folklore
on trees concerns the disastrous consequences of felling old stands.
Many of the sacred trees on the Kii Peninsula were felled at the
beginning of the century as part of the national government’s
shrine-merger policy, which aroused considerable opposition and
many attempts to save sacred old trees (see Ue 1984:188–93, on the
Kii Peninsula). In some cases, rumour spread that death befell
those people who actually carried out the merger policy, suggesting
that they had incurred the revenge of the tree spirit (Hardacre 1989:
99). The premise of these beliefs is that tree-felling or logging is a
form of violent life-taking which, like human and animal life-taking,
leads to spirit-revenge. This danger is offset by holding kuyō
memorial rites for the spirits of the felled trees.
This interpretation of the kuyō rites—as facilitating tree-felling by
ritually neutralizing the danger of spirit revenge—is not the only
possible interpretation. These rites could also be interpreted as
expressing the interdependence of human beings and the wider
natural world and the imperative of exercizing restraint in exploiting
the forest. Accordingly, Jōmon heritage would take the form of a
new environmental concern for the forest and its wildlife and
reinforce the local claim to care for the nation’s forests. In practical
terms, this would mean halting the proliferating network of forest
roads, a moratorium on felling primary and much secondary forest,
and control of large-scale, forest-clearing resort developments. This
interpretation of the Jōmon legacy is critically opposed to ongoing
upland modernization and would entail a challenge to the various
interests served by the road-building, forestry and tourist
industries.
162 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

AMBIVALENT ‘JŌMONESE’
The take-up of Jōmon identity by municipal localities is problematic
for a number of reasons. First of all, Kumano’s claim to Jōmon
identity is somewhat at odds with the region’s actual significance in
the Jōmon period itself. Estimations of the population distribution
in the Jōmon period show a much higher population in the eastern
(Kantō) area than in western Japan such that the cultural centre of
the Jōmon period is conventionally sited in the east (Sasaki 1993:
212–15).
Secondly, present-day upland municipalities like Hongū can only
very partially be characterized as places of ‘forest culture’. Fewer
and fewer people live in upstream settlements surrounded by forest;
the numbers of foresters and hunters are steadily falling; and
knowledge of forest wildlife is far from generalized.15 Even among
hunters, the claim to indigenous Jōmon heritage is open to doubt
because of the major discontinuities between the practice of
present-day hunting and past hunting (for example, the use of
imported guns, tranceivers and heat sensors, and the preference for
western dog breeds). The hunter’s earlier forest knowledge has been
rendered obsolete by changes in the forest, such as the spread of
timber plantations and forest roads, which disrupt animal paths in
the forest such that many hunters cease to be able to accurately
assess and predict animal movements. If Hongū people are Jōmon
descendants, most of them lack their forebears’ knowledge of the
forest.
Thirdly, the claim that Japanese hunting contains an indigenous
environmental ethic—that hunting kuyō have a regenerative logic
similar to the Ainu iyomante—is also open to question. Umehara’s
iyomante interpretation conflicts with the interpretations given
locally for the Japanese kuyō rite. Formally, the kuyō is an act of
Buddhistic compassion towards the dead animal: the hunter inflicts
a fatal violence on his prey, and the transgressive character of this
violence is institutionally expressed in the Buddhist kuyō. But a
more widespread, popular understanding of hunting kuyō rites is
that they are a kind of ritual pacification of the dead animals and
therefore an act of protection of the hunter from the revenge of the
animal spirit. There is a sense that the hunting kuyō insures
hunters against spirit revenge. A further problem with the
interpretation of hunting kuyō as regenerative is that many hunters
themselves justify hunting in exactly opposite terms, as limiting the
natural tendency of wild animals to multiply. Hunting is often
characterized as mabiki or the ‘thinning’ of excessive animal
numbers. Hunting is necessary, hunters argue, because forest
animals would otherwise proliferate.
Fourthly, the Jōmon past, and the forest space associated with it,
are often viewed negatively. The later periods, Yayoi and Kofun,
have tended to be more popular than the Jōmon period with both
 ‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN JAPAN 163

archaeologists and the general public (Mori et al. 1994:76). Among

Hongū people, as among Japanese people more generally, ancient
Jōmon dwellers are more likely to be viewed as primitive, alien pit-
dwellers than ancestors to be revered. The stigma of the Jōmon
association may also be related to the tendency of some scholars to
project the Jōmon-Yayoi racial difference on to different
contemporary social strata; thus the ‘immigrant type’ is associated
with the upper classes (and above all the imperial clan) and the
‘Jōmon type’ with the lower classes (Hanihara in Taira 1997:144).
Upstream dwellers have often been stigmatized by the wider rural
society. They are likened to demons or wild animals—bears
(Sakurai 1990:599), monkeys (Nebuka 1991:91) and such—
recalling similar imagery applied to the Ainu.16 Those people
perceived to live in or near the forest inhabit what is really a non-
human space. Indeed, present-day forest labourers are sometimes
objects of suspicion and even fear. The presence in the mountains of
forest labourers, many of whom were from other areas, induced a
certain caution among village women out gathering and reinforced
the imperative to return to the village before dusk. Reports tell of
female hikers who hide when encountering foresters in the
mountains (e.g. Ue 1980:165).

CONCLUSION
This chapter has examined an example of what might be termed
strategic self-indigenization. One expression of this is revisionist
nationalist discourse on the part of nations founded on the conquest
of indigenous populations. Indigenous or native traditions have
been symbolically co-opted by settler nations, such as the United
States and Australia, to stand for ancient national roots.17 A
Japanese example of strategic self-indigenization is evident in
international forums such as the International Whaling
Commission, where Japan asserts its right to whale ‘along the same
lines as aboriginal whaling’ (Kalland and Moeran 1992:1; see also
Takahashi 1998).
The present-day interest in Jōmon origins in Japan points to a
similar process taking place. At a time when international
environmental issues assume growing importance and Japan is
subject to a range of environmentalist criticisms, the Jōmon Japan
thesis portrays Japanese culture as close to nature and as
containing the basis of an international environmental ethic for the
twenty-first century. At a time when the Japanese government has
sought ‘to declare itself a world leader on environmental matters’
(Brazil 1992:338), Jōmonism might provide intellectual support for
such a claim.
The new Jōmonism can also be seen as a rhetorical defence
against the rise of indigenist politics in Japan. On the Japanese
164 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

right, Ainu indigenism is viewed as threatening national integrity:

not only is there an indigenist claim on the island of Hokkaido, but
the indigenist argument has an important bearing in the dispute
between Russia and Japan over the Southern Kurile Islands by
challenging the legitimacy of the Japanese territorial claim.18
Another conservative fear is that Ainu indigenism threatens the
integrity of Japanese society, long imagined as ethnically
homogeneous. Indigenist proponents argue that official recognition
of the Ainu as an indigenous people would be ‘an important first
step towards a multi-ethnic and multicultural Japanese state and
society’ (Hanazaki 1996:127). The Japanese absorption of
indigenism, in the form of Jōmon regionalism, arguably serves to
neutralize such a danger. One observer has likened the Japanese
embrace of the idea of a common ancestry with the Ainu to a
similar pre-war discourse directed towards Koreans, which was
used to legitimate the Japanese colonization of Korea (Nakagami in
Umehara and Nakagami 1994:86).
This chapter has shown how indigenousness has been
incorporated into Japanese regional revitalization by rural
municipalities. In the 1990s, Japanese regions have increasingly
been projecting themselves as sites of national indigenous origins, a
process in which the forest constitutes the central symbolic medium.
Yet, as we have seen, this trend involves the rediscovery of past
knowledge of the forest only to a very limited extent. Rather, the
forest serves as a touristic resource and as an environmental symbol
—and in both cases the distinction between the pre-plantation and
plantation forest is effectively blurred.
One of the main obstacles to the exploitation of forest knowledge
is the association of the forest and those who live near it or work in
it with backwardness and danger. This is why strategic self-
indigenization on the part of the rural municipality of Hongū is
highly circumscribed. The Jōmon tradition is recovered as the
distant heritage of an upland modernity, but arguably highlights
how far upland dwellers have come from these primitive origins as
much as their connection to them. Accordingly, such ‘indigenous’
origins should be consistent with, not threatening to, municipal
modernization.
This municipal strategy is complicated by the existence of other
local claims to Jōmon heritage. Hunters invoke the Jōmon past.
While they too are clearly distanced from it in practice, there is
nonetheless a tendency to praise it in opposition to the modernizing
present-day. There is, in short, a split in Jōmon regionalism
between, on the one hand, its deployment as ancient heritage in the
context of upland modernization and community-building
strategies, and, on the other, its invocation as living heritage, via
the yamabito tradition, which forms the basis for a revived upland
culture based on interaction with the forest rather than ongoing
distantiation from it. If, from the municipal perspective, the
 ‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN JAPAN 165

invocation of indigenous, Jōmon roots is meant to naturalize the

modern locality through extra historical depth, the yamabito
tradition, because of its associations of backwardness,
primitiveness and degeneracy, threatens to indigenize in a very
different way.
Although the trends of depopulation and modernization continue,
this does not necessarily ensure the success of municipal
indigenization. This is because of the existence of certain
countervailing forces. First, the outside folkloric interest in the
yamabito tradition has the effect of raising its profile. Secondly, the
changing character of upland areas may also lead to new support for
the yamabito tradition. A prime example of this is the presence of
city-born incomers who practice natural farming. Among one group
of settlers in Hongū who call themselves ‘the Kumano tribe’
(Kumanozoku) there is considerable interest in indigenous cultural
politics, from North American Indians to the Ainu.19 One of the
concerns of the settlers is to re-integrate farming with the forest, for
example by using forest greenery as fertilizer. And although they
tend not to hunt, they are enthusiastic forest gatherers (of herbs,
nuts and mushrooms).
A kind of indigenous environmental knowledge is being
rediscovered and exploited in the Japanese regions, but this takes
the form of abstract motifs and symbolism and largely excludes the
long tradition of routine human engagement with, practical mastery
in and detailed knowledge of the upland environment.

NOTES

1. See Kanzaki (1988:131–198), Arima (1991:156–9), Ehrentraut

(1993), Shioji (1994), Takada (1995:118–121).
2. In response to recent excavations a considerable reassessment of
the Jōmon period is taking place (Kobayashi 1989; Anon. 1996). In
particular, Jōmon dwellers have come to be viewed as much more
technologically advanced. Although Jōmon culture was essentially a
foraging culture, a degree of plant cultivation seems also to have
taken place (Kobayashi ibid.: 16; Barnes 1993:89–91), as well as
raising animals (dogs and wild boars) (Mori et al. 1994:78–9). The
Jōmon way of life is seen as having been highly stable, and in the
absence of continental invasions, as likely to have continued—just
as North American Indian culture on the other side of the Pacific,
with which it is often compared, continued until the eighteenth
century (Kobayashi ibid.: 17).
3. Some scholars have even argued that, in addition to genetic
continuity, the Japanese language, Shintoism, the imperial family
and many other aspects of Japanese culture have Korean origins
(Hong 1988, 1994).
166 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

4. These ‘Jōmon people’ are thick-bearded, have prominent noses, big

eyes, large mouths, long limbs relative to the body, waxy ears and a
strong body odour (Umehara 1993b:47). While these regional
populations might imagine themselves as racially different from the
Ainu and according to Umehara similar to other majority Japanese
they are, in fact physically much more similar to the Ainu (ibid.).
5. The renewed concern among the Ainu with their lost forest tradition
is evident in the revival of deerhunting, as well as Ainu hunting
ceremonies (Asahi Shinbun 2/6/1986, 16/11/1995).
6. One eminent folklorist has even suggested that the Japanese
national flag—the hinomaru or ‘round sun’—derives from hunting.
Hunters throughout Japan offer the heart (or other organ) of the
wild boar to the mountain spirit in recognition of the spirit’s
benevolence in granting them the animal. The offering is made by
placing the bloody heart on white paper—creating the image of a red
circle against a white background (Hayakawa Kōtarō in Tanigawa
1980:288).
7. The most common Buddhist rite in Japan is the kuyō (Sanskrit puja).
The kuyō is performed for dead people in the form of the ‘ancestral
memorials’ (senzo kuyō) carried out or sponsored by family
descendants. But the kuyō is also performed for a range of non-
human spirits, including those of dead game animals, livestock
animals, pets, fish, laboratory animals, insects and timber trees.
See Knight 1997a.
8. This recalls the debate among Japanese folklorists over the extent to
which the Matagi hunting tradition of the Japanese Northeast is
related to Ainu culture. Many Ainu words are found in the hunting
language used by Matagi hunters (Tanigawa 1980:324–5).
9. Many Hongū villagers trace village origins to the ochi’udo (literally
‘fallen people’)—the refugees of the twelfth-century Genpei Wars, who
fled into the mountains to escape the persecution of the victors. The
original appeal of the mountains, then, was less as a place of
residence than a place of refuge capable of enveloping and
concealing those who entered it. If anything, this origin story has
developed an even greater rhetorical power in the recent decades of
large-scale out-migration to the city, for it provides a reason why
such a marginal area with little arable land was settled in the first
place and in a sense naturalizes its abandonment at the present
day.
10. See Asabi Shinbun (1/3/1986; 17/10/1991; 24/3/1993). Some
rural municipalities have established deer parks as part of a tourist
promotion strategy (Asahi Shinbun 9/10/1991).
11. See Suzuki (1982:222); Hazumi and Yoshii (1994:31); cf Tanba
(1993:82). Similarly, the gall of bears of particular regions,
renowned for their natural forests and the herbal growth in them, is
reputed to have special curative and tonifying powers (Miyao 1989:
185). Hunters in Hongū point out that it is only the wild boars of the
forest which have powerful gall bladders because they eat directly
 ‘INDIGENOUS’ REGIONALISM IN JAPAN 167

from the forest, in contrast to the farmed wild boar which are fed
imported American wheat meal. Some hunters speculate that it is
because the wild boars of the forest eat the mamushi snake
(Agkistrodon halys blomhoffii), which itself eats lots of medicinal
forest herbs, that the animals have such powerful gall bladders.
12. There is a perception that farmed herbs are inferior to wild herbs.
Wild herbs are natural concentrates of environmental goodness and
their curative powers are associated with specific natural
environments. One popular author accounts for the power of herbs
by pointing out that they are the first thing to recover from the
severity of the winter, and so concentrate in them the life power of
spring (Tōjō 1995:12–16). The secret of the herbs is that they are a
concentrated form of yōki, the Yang force of the universe; it is
because of this Yang energy that herbs have their curative powers.
13. There are various reasons for the scarcity of hunting tourism. One of
the main ones has to do with the problems of access to hunting
lands and the likely opposition of local hunters to rival (tourist)
hunters coming in from outside. A further illustration of the
disconnection between the touristic incorporation of hunting
heritage and actual hunting is to be found in the revival of the
serow-hunting hound in Yamanashi Prefecture (Asahi Shinbun 22/
3/1992), which is independent of actual serow-hunting, which
(aside from culling) continues to be banned.
14. The wider unacceptability of bloody dog-boar encounters is further
indicated by the fact that in the new Kishüken festival mentioned
above, the dog-boar fights initially envisaged as a part of the festival
were called off because of local fears about complaints on grounds
of animal welfare.
15. Among those who do not hunt, there is considerable ignorance. Some
women believe that the serow is a kind of deer (because of the
similarity of their names—the Japanese term for serow is
kamoshika, while that for deer is shika) (cf. Ue 1983:66–7), while
younger people, especially women, are often unaware that the wolf
is extinct.
16. The Ainu have been viewed in Japan variously as savage, demonic,
childlike, morally and culturally inferior, and subhuman and
animal-like (Siddle 1995:76–81). Official assimilationism in the
seveneenth and eighteenth centuries co-existed with popular
prejudices against the Ainu as a hairy, animal-like people.
17. On the United States, see Strong and Van Winkle 1993; On
Australia, see Kapferer 1988: 142–3; Lattas 1991.
18. See Akibe 1993; Hanazaki 1996:128–9; Ludwig 1994.
19. See Knight 1997b. Some of the settlers participated in the Japan-leg
of the ‘Run for Peace’ in the late 1980s—when American Indians
came to Japan in the course of their worldwide run. There is also a
broad set of alternative interests among some of the settlers,
including Druidism and shamanism. One man had a keen interest
in Ainu words and the link between Ainu and Japanese cultures.
168 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

This same man and his young family practiced their own kind of
communion with nature—which entails placing one’s head on the
stem of old trees or large rocks to feel the vibrations, a practice they
associated with ancient Celtic culture. But they also tend to identify
Shinto as a Japanese counterpart of these foreign indigenous
animist traditions, arguing, for example, that in the folk Shinto
pantheon can be found the ubusuna spirits, which are the Japanese
equivalent to the North American Indian ‘Great Spirit’—a prominent
theme in Japanese New Age spiritualism (see Yamada 1995). ‘In
Japan, beginning in the distant Jōmon age, a rich tradition of
nature worship has been passed down through Shinto’ (ibid.: 20).

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 Chapter 7
THE USE OF FIRE IN
NORTHEASTERN LUZON
(PHILIPPINES): CONFLICTING VIEWS
OF LOCAL PEOPLE, SCIENTISTS,
AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
Andres [Link]ña, Gerard [Link] and Denyse
[Link]

Since Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to the world in
mythical times (or similar fire origin stories in other cultural
contexts), the use of fire has probably been the most powerful force
in changing the landscape throughout history. This not only refers
to the role of deliberate burning in the present-day reduction of the
tropical rainforest: fire has also been an important element in many
western countries, where forest lands were turned to pastures and
agricultural land. European countries like Great Britain, Holland
and Ireland and probably many others lost almost all their ‘wild’
forests in this process. It was only afterwards and through active
replanting and strict protection of areas set aside for ‘nature’ itself
that these countries regained some degree of forest cover, though of
a domesticated nature, part of which is now being left to grow ‘wild’
again (Buis 1993; Neeson 1991; Rackham 1996). There are only a
very few exceptions of societies where traditional forms of
agriculture were developed in a forest area without the use of fire
(see, for example, Conklin 1961).1
Control over the use of fire has played an important role in the
general ‘civilization process’ (Goudsblom 1992). States increasingly
tried to restrict, control and domesticate the use of fire. Colonial as
well as national governments have tried to stop the process of slash
and burn agriculture because of its environmental effects. Most of
them wanted to conserve forests for watershed protection, nature
parks or other reasons. They considered conversion of forest land
through shifting agriculture a wasteful practice (see, for example,
Fokkinga 1934; Goudsblom 1992). By and large this has not been
successful in relation to expansion of agricultural land in forest
areas. Conversion of forest land to agricultural land is hardly
feasible without the use of fire. The cultivation of annual crops like
wheat, rice, and corn is virtually impossible without ‘clearing’ the
land using fire.
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 175

Burning is a common practice in traditional systems of shifting

cultivation, i.e. small-scale ‘slash and burn’ agriculture, all over
Southeast Asia. Its primary advantage is in the immediate release of
nutrients for plant uptake, stimulating crop growth during the first
years of cultivation. Moreover, fire alleviates labour-intensive
activities, such as clearing vegetation, weeding, removal of crop
residues after harvesting, and removal of trunks and branches on
recently slashed forest land. Fire is an important and deliberately
used management tool.
The role of fire in resource management varies with the various
land-use stages characterizing the tropical moist-forest zone.
Whereas tribal forest communities, the sole forest-dwellers in the
past, did not directly depend on fire for the collection of food, the
use of fire received increasing attention over the years when land
use shifted from logging for timber and fuel wood to temporary and
more permanent cultivation and extensive grazing. Whether the use
of fire is beneficial for resource management and conservation
under each land use is questioned by different scientists. Some of
them describe fire as the primary destructive agent of tropical
humid environments. The indigenous practice of conservative fire-
use by ‘traditional’ shifting agriculturalists in forests has apparently
been disregarded by pioneer shifting cultivators who migrated from
other, often lowland areas. Their knowledge of fire effects on forest
resources, based on environmental conditions in their place of
origin, has been applied to grassland-converted environments with
distinct atmospheric, hydrological and nutrient cycles. How far is
indigenous knowledge applicable and to what extent has its
application been altered and adjusted to the changes in biophysical
conditions described above? What is the role of socio-economic
factors that influence the nature and (non-)application of
indigenous knowledge related to fire?
The perception of fire by local farmers specialized in the
cultivation of high-value cash crops very likely differs from those
who keep livestock or are specialized in thatching or basket-weaving
using local grass as the raw material. In addition there is the
government attitude towards fire, which is often unclear and does
not always follow scientific views. The latter is evident from the use
of fire for the improvement of range quality and quantity in
government projects combined with government-sponsored
activities in respect of reforestation using woody species sensitive to
fire damage.
Research into indigenous environmental knowledge has moved
from mere inventories of the cognitive elements of how much people
know about their environment in terms of plants, animals and soils
to systems of knowledge as well as to blind spots and elements of
ignorance within these systems (Hobart 1993). Increasing attention
is also paid to the application of this knowledge in daily life. In the
body of literature of mainly anthropological and ecological
176 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

background, we find numerous references about the value of the

adaptive knowledge of peasant and tribal societies contributing to
the conservation and wise use of fragile ecosystems, including
tropical forests, semi-arid grasslands as well as mountainous areas
(Brush 1993). Knowledge is not only restricted to knowing in the
cognitive sense but also to knowing in the practical and technical
meaning of the word, that is, knowing how to do something, how to
act in relation to the environment in order to achieve a particular
result. This knowledge combines ecological knowledge with
practical knowledge about the use of certain artefacts, techniques
or causal chains in ecosystems. Use of this knowledge is based on
the anticipated effects it might have but does not exclude certain
negative effects which are accepted as the unavoidable side effects of
the desired outcome of interventions. Some of the ecological fire
effects may be desirable while others are not, but because of a
differentiated value judgement of these effects, the former may
dominate over the latter. It is a matter of research to determine the
motivations for people retaining such preferences and the
knowledge and perception from which these motivations are
generated. The use of fire should be regarded as an intentionally
used management tool, in which theoretical and practical
knowledge are combined and which needs to be studied in the
context of its empirical environmental consequences (Lewis 1989).
In this paper we shall discuss these issues based on our
experience in Northeast Luzon (Philippines), an area traditionally
covered by rainforest and inhabited by hunters and gatherers. In
recent decades, however, large tracts of forest have been cleared by
commercial logging and subsequently by slash-and-burn
agriculturalists migrating to this area from various parts of Luzon.
The conversion to pasture land takes on a permanent character
because of extensive grassland fires which prevent natural forest
regeneration. In recent years, however, there seems to have been a
tendency to convert these grassland areas back into agricultural
land, including agroforestry. The use of fire in agriculture in this
zone is gradually diminishing and becoming more and more
controlled. We shall also discuss how biophysical scientists regard
the use of fire by forest-based and grassland communities. Their
views differ widely from those held by the communities. Finally we
shall discuss the view of the Philippine government on the use of
fire and what it has done to reduce the frequency and the assumed
negative impact of fires in forests and grasslands. In the discussion
we shall try to explain the differences between these bodies of
environmental knowledge and whether a connection can be made
between them.
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 177

THE CACAYAN VALLEY

The Cagayan Valley in Northeast Luzon (Plate 7.1) is bounded by
three mountain ranges, to the east by the Sierra Madre, to the west
by the Cordillera and to the south by the Caraballo Mountains. To
the north lies the Babuyan Channel, beyond which is the South
China Sea (Map 7.1). The area, officially Region 2 in the Philippine
administrative structure, has a total land mass of 26,838 square
kilometres and consists for the most part of mountainous areas.
The regional capital is Tuguegarao, about 485 kilometres from
Manila along the Maharlika Highway. The climate is tropical
monsoon (mean annual rainfall 1500–2000 mm), with a relatively
dry period from December to April and wet during the rest of the
year (Boquiren 1992). During the wet season, the area is often
struck by typhoons, which contribute significantly to the total
annual rainfall.
The population of the region was 2.34 million in 1990, with an
annual growth of 2% from 1980 onwards. Regional population
density is eighty-seven persons per square kilometres, which is far
below the national average of more than 200 per square kilometres.
This makes the Cagayan Valley one of the least densely populated
areas in the country. The population is predominantly rural and
lives in the countryside in small villages (barangay) and hamlets
(sitio). Capital towns and the major commercial centres are all
located along the national highway, which runs almost parallel to
the Cagayan river. The only exception is San Mariano, a boom town
close to the Sierra Madre, which grew extensively due to the logging
industry in the 1970s and 1980s.
On the eastern side of the Cagayan river, four kinds of land use
can be distinguished:

a) intensive agriculture on the fertile plains of the Cagayan river.

The dominant crops are irrigated rice, corn and formerly also
tobacco
b) extensive grasslands with cattle rasing and some agricultural
activities on the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains
adjacent to the fertile plains
c) the forest edge or logged-over forest between the grasslands
and the undisturbed forests. In this transition zone there is
limited logging and agriculture activities
d) the Sierra Madre mountains, which are covered by closed-
canopy rainforests and mossy forest and which reach in some
areas to the Pacific Ocean on the eastern side of this part of
Luzon.
178 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

MAP 7.1 TOPOGRAPHIC MAP OF NORTHEASTERN LUZON (adapted from

van den top 1998a)
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 179

FIRE IN THE CAGAYAN VALLEY: PEOPLE’S

KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION
Smoke fills the air above the slopes of the Sierra Madre each year
towards the end of the dry season. The sources of the smoke differ,
however. Most striking are the blazing and rapidly expanding fires
in the open grassland areas, some of which are used for cattle
raising, while others have only recently been reforested (Plate 7.1).
Smoke is also coming from recently cleared fields in the logged-over
forests and from small patches cleared inside the rainforests. And
finally smoke rises from agricultural fields and areas adjacent to the
large sawmills where charcoal is produced. In order to understand
the various origins of these fires, we shall take a closer look at those
who use fire for different purposes. We shall not consider the
domestic use of fire but focus on fires as they occur in the wildland
areas, that is, forest land, cleared agricultural fields, grassland and
scrubland. The domestic use of fire by the groups mentioned here is
of minor relevance to our main argument. Basically all fires (apoy)
in these wildlands are induced by human action. From the sheer
number of fires in the valley, it is obvious that fire is an important
environmental management tool. In spite of the uniform nature of
the tool itself, fire serves very different purposes.2 People use it to
deal with various aspects of their natural and social environment.
We shall now take a closer look at the main groups, moving from
the forest towards the intensive agricultural areas.

Indigenous People in Closed-Canopy Rain Forest

The indigenous people of the Sierra Madre Mountain range are the
Agta, a group of hunters and gatherers living in the foothills,
interior valleys and along the coastline facing the Pacific. They
belong to the original Negrito population of the Philippines. They are
organized in small bands and there is a great deal of mobility
between both sides of the mountain range. They hunt wild pig, deer
and numerous smaller animals. They gather wild tubers, fruits and
vegetables from the forest. Trading of forest products has taken
place already for hundreds of years, but in recent decades its
intensity has greatly increased. They have also recently adopted
shifting cultivation (Headland 1986; Griffin 1996).
The Agta use fire for various purposes, including the collection of
edible forest products, hunting of wild animals, cooking, heating,
lighting, repelling and killing insects, snakes and other unwanted
animals, land clearing and the rejuvenation of senescent forage.
They identify the fast clearing of land as the greatest advantage of
fire use but at the same point out the greatest disadvantage when
failing to keep forest fire under control: ‘no food will be left when the
forest is burned’. In general, the latter is not an immediate danger
for traditional Agta communities residing in the closed-canopy
rainforest, where fire does not easily spread during most of the year
180 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

given the relatively high moisture content of the biomass. The Agta
do slash and burn small fields within the forest for planting of food
crops and attracting wild animals to facilitate ‘garden hunting’
activities. However, the fields are scattered throughout the forest
and left for regeneration as soon as the Agta move to the next
dwelling in the forest. The environmental damage remains minimal
and is by no means comparable to that caused by pioneer shifting
cultivators who clear large tracks of land on the forest fringes (see
also Estioko-Griffin and Griffin 1981).
Some Agta communities have changed their practices and life-
style, due to new developments moving into the forest. When logging
business started in the 1960s, followed by encroaching farmers,
Agta communities became involved in more intensive trade
relations. In addition to the exchange of traditional forest products
such as rattan, bush meat and resin, the Agta became more and
more involved in wage labour relations with the migrant farmers.
After timber-lease agreements were cancelled, they lost their trading
partners and consequently some Agta communities moved towards
the forest fringe in search of new marketing outlets and, later on,
started cultivating rice and other crops. Over the years this process
of sedentarization was also greatly stimulated by missionaries and
governmental institutions (Headland 1985). Cultivation practices
are partly copied from pioneer shifting cultivators, including
burning as a means of land preparation. Fields are burned during
dry spells, usually in April or May when grass-covered areas are
also burned to produce green grasses for grazing of cattle and water
buffaloes (carabao).
The Agta use certain plant materials, and sometimes stones, for
making fire, for example, a certain rattan species referred to as
‘takal rattan’. Dried bamboo is also used by rubbing two bamboo
sticks against one another to generate heat and ignite dried,
flammable bark. Smoke is an important tool in hunting wild
animals. It is generated by burning different types of plant
materials. The smoke of these plants is very effective in taming wild
animals. Fire is also used for removing hair from the skin of
animals caught, such as wild pig, deer and monkey, before
preparing the meat for home consumption. The Agta collect honey
and the larvae and eggs of red ants, for which smoke is produced by
burning palm leaves. Similarly, lizards hiding in hollow trees are
driven out by smoke.
The surroundings of Agta settlements are cleared with the use of
fire, making the area free of snakes, insects, harmful plants and
grasses. The Agta reside in a lean-to or a hut which is left open on all
sides. During the rainy season, when nights can be rather cool,
small fires are made to produce heat while sleeping. At the same
time, the smoke will drive away the mosquitoes and small flies
which nestle in the Agta’s hair and bite the skin of their head.
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 181

Shifting Cultivators in Logged-Over Forest and

Grassland
Since the early 1960s, farmers from different cultural backgrounds
(Ilocano, Ifugao, Itawi and Tingguian) have been migrating to logged-
over forest to start shifting cultivation (van den Top 1998, 1998b).
They generally established themselves in permanent settlements,
whereas their fields were cleared, burned, cultivated and shifted to
newly opened up areas after a couple of planting seasons. Over the
years, the logging belt has moved eastward towards the Sierra
Madre, leaving behind vast tracts of residual forest which were
transformed into slashed and burned fields. Most of them have
gradually been converted into grassland due to repeated burning.
The earlier pioneer shifting cultivators have adapted to the new
environment by switching to permanent fields cultivated with
upland rice, corn and other vegetable crops like mongo beans. Some
irrigated rice fields are laid out in little valleys and lowland areas,
and the grasslands are used for grazing purposes. Lately, there has
been a strong tendency to further increase farming activities in the
grasslands. Many of these grasslands have been turned into plots
for sedentary agriculture, and people also invest in tree planting.
This is happening particularly in areas close to markets.
Like the Agta, the shifting cultivators and permanent farmers
identify the fastest way to clear land as one of the most
advantageous uses of fire. Towards the end of the dry season, all
vegetation (grasses and shrubs) is burned and whenever possible
the land is ploughed with the help of a water buffalo. In order to
start such a fire successfully, piles of previously collected and dried
grass are made. Once these are lit, the vegetation on the fields will
burn almost completely. Burning the vegetation makes ploughing
easier. Later rice and corn seeds are sown. Farmers indicate that
burning vegetation increases soil fertility and retards the regrowth of
weeds.
Grass-covered areas near farms and houses are burned to
produce young grassshoots which will keep cattle nearby and
prevent them from moving away to more distant areas in search of
better grazing sites. Fires are often spread due to loss of control.
Damage to settlements or isolated grass (cogon) roofed houses,
agricultural crops, poultry farms and even public facilities like
electric posts is done by these blazing fires.3
Farmers use fire for drying harvested crops like corn and upland
rice, particularly during the wet season. The corn or rice is put into
a basket with a small hole in it and attached to a tree, pole or roof
about two metres high. Then a fire is made under the basket to
speed up the drying process. Baskets are also hung above the
cooking area in houses in order to dry the rice or corn through the
heat generated during cooking.
182 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Like the Agta, these farmers consider fire and smoke as primary
tools in the collection of honey, ant eggs and larvae, and in hunting
wild animals that hide in the woody patches in grassland areas.
Smoke is generated to repel insects, ash is used as an insecticide on
tobacco plants, and fire to provide light at night. Resin is collected
from different trees in the forest and placed into a hollow bamboo
stick, after which the mouth or top of the stick is lit. A stick 0.5 m
in length and 0.10 m in diameter is needed to provide light for
about ten hours.

Cowboys in the Grasslands

Parts of the former forests are turned into permanent grassland.
These are often referred to as ‘idle grassland’ or ‘waste lands’, but
parts of them are used for livestock. Under certain conditions the
government issues permits for pasture areas. In practice mainly
wealthy people and politicians hold such permits. Grasslands with
extensive cattle-grazing are generally burned once or twice a year
during the dry season (in March, April and May). The timing and
the frequency of this activity depend on the dryness, and hence
palatability, of the grasses and on the length of the dry season
respectively. Not all grassland is burned at the same time: some
smaller areas are selected and fired, while other areas are protected
from burning and reserved for grazing. Moreover, local differences in
the moisture conditions of grasses will partly control the extent of
fire. The main reasons for grassland burning, as identified by the
cowboys, are to promote the growth of young grasses and to
increase accessibility to green forage by removing tall and senescent
grass. This type of management is locally referred to as ‘the system
of grass regeneration through match management’.
Most large and medium-scale ranches in the Cagayan Valley are
looked after and managed by cowboys, whereas the ranch ‘owners’
live in nearby towns such as Tuguegarao or in Manila. Most
grasslands are under pasture-lease agreements or forest grazing-
land agreements valid for 25 years and renewable for another 25
years if agreement rules and regulations are followed. Among the
latter regulations are the requirements for proper fire control and
protection.
The cowboys receive a meagre monthly salary together with
various benefits, among which are the right to cultivate some fields
within the ranch with cash or food crops and to keep one cow and
all her offspring, or keep one male carabao to assist with ploughing
in the field and to transport goods. The cowboys are also held
responsible for any losses of cattle stock. The latter implies that the
cowboys have a vested interest in keeping the herd in good
condition, for which proper grassland management is imperative.
However, due to lack of alternatives and financial inability, the sole
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 183

means of maintaining a green, palatable forage cover is through the

above-mentioned match approach towards grass regeneration. With
the absence of proper supervision and planning, the burning gets
often out of control, destroying adjacent areas. Likewise various
attempts to improve grass cover on well-financed and large-scale
ranches by introducing palatable grass species and legumes (e.g.
Stylosanthes sp.) failed, most likely because of the susceptibility of
species to fire and the low survival rate due to inadequate soil
moisture conditions.

Cogon Gatherers
Also settled in the grassland are the so-called cogon-gatherers,
people who make a living by cutting and selling cogon grass
(Imperata cylindrica). This grass is used as a cheap material for
roofing houses as well as other buildings such as sheds for animals
(e.g. chickens, pigs, carabaos, cattle and horses). It is also used for
sheds to dry tobacco. Cogon-gathering is not a full-time occupation,
although for some farmers it has turned into an important part of
the agricultural calender and is a major source of cash income.
The frequency and timing of burning in order to obtain the best
quality of cogon grass as roofing material are somewhat different
from those practised by the cowboys mentioned above. The cogon-
gatherers burn towards the end of the dry season with the aim of
rejuvenating and stimulating the growth of cogon, so that it will be
of the same length during harvest time. They also burn the fields
after harvesting the cogon to get rid of all remnants and to destroy
other weeds and shrub vegetation.
Because of the differences in optimal burning time and the lack of
measures to avoid fires spreading to adjacent areas, conflicts can
occur between cogon-gatherers on the one hand and cowboys and
ranch-owners on the other. Mention is also made of jealousy
amongst cogon-gatherers as a source of untimely burning of other
people’s fields (Zeegers 1992). As yet there are often no structures
at the local level to settle these kinds of disputes. Most of the fires
have been lit by unidentified persons.

Contract Workers and Farmers in Reforestation Sites

For many years the Philippines have put a great deal of effort into
reforesting denuded hills and mountains. Agencies like the Asian
Development Bank and the World Bank have put large sums of
money into reforestation projects. In preparing sites for
reforestation, burning of standing vegetation is often employed in
order to create ‘space’ for the new seedlings. Reforestation with new
species is generally preferred by donor agencies to natural
regeneration. In general these reforestation projects have not been
184 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

very successful. Apart from ill-planned projects and technical

deficiencies in their implementation, anthropogenic fire is
considered to be the main cause behind the failure of these
projects. In 1993, for instance, 595 grassland fires were reported
throughout the country which burned down tree plantations worth
PI60 million. These fires were all of human origin (Florece 1996).
Fires in the Cagayan Valley were a substantial part of this problem.
In these cases the use of fire cannot be explained in terms of a
lack of ecological or environmental knowledge but is mainly to be
understood as a form of social protest, a powerful ‘weapon in the
hands of the weak’ (Scott 1989). The background to this behaviour
is often to be found in the bad performance of project managers,
frustration about delayed payments, disputed ownership of
reforested land, the lack of compensation for the loss of agricultural
land, the lack of active involvement in the design and
implementation of projects and uncertainty about the distribution
of future benefits (Pasicolan 1996). Another reason might be the
small number of surviving seedlings which could lead to reduced
payments to the project’s workers. Destruction by fire, however, is
an external factor for which the workers cannot be held responsible.
Sometimes plantation workers also set fire to the plantation to
ensure renewed reforestation activities in the near future for which
they may be hired again. The immediate ecological effects are, of
course, the burning of the newly planted seedlings. The ultimate
aim, however, is to draw attention to the problems mentioned and
to hope for their solution one way or another.
Survey research on the reasons behind these fires discloses
unlikely or unsatisfactory answers. Florece (1996), for instance,
refers to 66% ‘unknown human cause’ in addition to intentional
burning and escape from neighbouring swidden farming. Magcale-
Macandog and Galinanda (1996) state that informants of one study
site put the blame for over 40% of the fires on lightning. These
statements must probably be understood as rationalizations of the
‘real’ causes.4

Farmers and Plantation Workers in Intensive

Agriculture
Another use of fire to be mentioned here takes place in rice, corn or
sugar-cane fields. Due to the high fertilizer inputs and good
irrigation networks, productive fields can be used almost throughout
the year. Because of this there is hardly any excessive vegetation to
be burned at the start of the planting season. It is usually only the
remnants of the harvesting process which are burned in a
controlled manner. Sometimes cattle are allowed to roam around in
those fields.
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 185

Somewhat different is the use of fire in sugar-cane plantations.

Here fire is used towards harvest time in order to drive out snakes
but also to get rid of the dead and withering leafs on the ground and
hanging down from the cane. The small quantity of this material
and the heat generated while burning relatively low, will not cause
serious damage to the content of the cane itself. This burning
greatly facilitates the harvesting and transporting of the yield. Some
workers also stated that the quality of the sugar is improved by this
kind of burning.

Charcoal Producers
Finally controlled use of fire takes place in the production of
charcoal, often in the neighbourhood of sawmills. The remains of
the timber logs are covered with sawdust, which is set alight. The
amount of sawdust is carefully regulated in order to limit the
amount of oxygen and hence to prevent the burning of the wood. The
incomplete burning results in the development of heavy smoke.
Since the logging moratorium was announced in a number of
municipalities and provinces in 1992, most of the sawmills in the
area were forced to close down. Logging was greatly reduced, though
some illegal logging still takes place (Geelkerken 1997). Production
of charcoal has also decreased and has become somewhat
decentralized throughout the region.

Conclusion: Why Fire?

Reviewing the motivations of people in the Cagayan Valley for using
fire, three main categories can be distinguished:

1) Fire as an ecological tool. This is related to the environmental

effects of burning and its assumed consequences for soil
fertility and the regeneration of grass and other vegetation.
2) Fire as an economic instrument. This is related to the time-
saving effects of using fire, to future possibilities for ploughing
the land and to ideas about ‘cleanliness’ and organic material
as rubbish.
3) Fire as a weapon, to combat injustice or release feelings of
revenge or jealousy.

Motivations for using fire in the Cagayan Valley vary widely, as does
the knowledge on which this use is based. Within the agricultural
slash-and-burn (kaingin) activities it is clear that fire is used to
clear the field of all vegetation (tree trunks, branches, scrub and
layers of decaying organic material on the forest floor) in order to
allow the cultivation of annual and other crops. It is widely believed,
although phrased in different wordings, that burning improves the
186 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

soil, adds to its fertility and retards the growth of weeds. This refers
to the first burning of a freshly cleared field in the forest, either in
the closed canopy forest or in logged-over forest after a long fallow
period.
To some degree similar motivations are given for subsequent
burnings in fields which have not been left fallow for a number of
years. In these cases the quantity of vegetation remaining is far
less. Second and third burnings of fields without fallow periods help
destroy the decaying tree trunks and stems further and burn shrub
and weed vegetation. Basically people maintain similar motivations
for these fires as in the case of the first ones, but add that burning
facilitates passing through older fields left fallow for some time. The
thick ground cover is easily removed, and burning is mainly
considered as a way to save time-consuming cutting and weeding
activities. In general people do not hold widely different views
regarding first burning on the one hand and subsequent burnings
on the other.
A big advantage of subsequent burnings is that it will gradually
become possible to plough the land with the help of a cow or carabao.
Once all major tree trunks, stems and superficial roots have decayed
—and fires are believed to quicken this process considerably—
ploughing becomes possible. On average people believe it takes
about six years and ten to twelve fires until a forest field can be
ploughed reasonably easily.
On rangeland, fires are also used to get rid of dead and unpalatable
grasses and to rejuvenate and stimulate the regrowth of green
leaves. Cowboys as well as cogon-gatherers are aware of the fact
that every fire further retards the process of natural reforestation
and regrowth of shrub vegetation. This, however, is not taken as a
major problem. These people are primarily interested in cattle
fodder and palatable grass and not at all in a natural tree cover.
Only few woody patches or isolated fire-resistant trees which have
survived years of logging and burning are left (Snelder and
Masipiqueña 1997), providing shade for cattle in the hot midday
hours.
Apart from motivations regarding the use of fire to stimulate the
productivity of forest fields and grassland, and the lack of
alternatives to achieve similar effects by other means (apart from
labour-intensive weeding, cutting and physically removing trees),
people also have clear perceptions of a type of cleanliness relating to
their fields and home yards. They look upon the remnants of
harvesting activities and the decaying organic material on the forest
floor as ‘waste’, ‘rubbish’ or—to use Mary Douglas’s description
—‘matter out of place’. The easiest way to get rid of this material is
to burn it. This practice is even maintained in rural settlements
where the home yard is swept daily, leaves, dead branches, fruit
peels, skins, seeds and other materials from the home garden being
collected and burned every day. Efforts by agricultural extension
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 187

workers pointing to the usefulness of this organic material meet

little support. Organic farming methods, like mulching, appeal
most to those who cannot afford the expensive fertilizer. Most
farmers prefer artificial fertilizers. Gradually, however, these ideas
gain some support in a number of these communities, and burning
is reduced as a method to cleaning up fields and home yards
(Payoga Demonstration Farm, personal communication).
Of a totally different nature is the use of fires not on the basis of
ecological arguments or knowledge but to influence environmental
processes in order to achieve a particular objective related to that
environment. We are referring here to fires which certainly have
ecological effects but whose setting are mainly motivated by social
circumstances like feelings of injustice, anger, disputes over land
rights and the like. Lack of other options to resolve these kinds of
conflict makes people turn to fire as a weapon. Fire is an attractive
option because it is powerful, destructive, anonymous, irreversible,
almost impossible to prevent and, once started, almost
unextinguishable by human hand.5

SCIENTISTS’ VIEW OF FIRE

In this section, we shall present the view of biophysical scientists
who generally consider the ecological consequences of fire. The
views of other scientists, in particular anthropologists, are often
related to views of the communities and their understanding of
ecological processes and will be mentioned in the discussion.

The Closed Nutrient Cycle of Closed-Canopy Rain

Forests
Humid forest ecosystems are distinct from ecosystems elsewhere in
the tropics in having most of their nutrients stored above the
ground in the biomass rather than below the ground in the soil.
They are characterized by their multi-layered, well-structured
canopies and generally occur on old (e.g. early Tertiary) land
surfaces composed of acid rock and low in base-rich minerals. The
latter include elements such as potassium, calcium, magnesium
and phosphorus, which are essential nutrients for plant growth.
The apparent contradiction of ‘a lush vegetation cover sustained
by a nutrient-poor soil’ can be explained by various conservation
mechanisms that control the release of plant nutrients in rain-
forest soils (Menaut et al 1985; Weischet and Caviedes 1993). Most
of the nutrients are concentrated in the topsoil and associated with
organic matter which protects them from intense leaching, i.e. the
downward movement of nutrients in the form of cations along with
the soil solution.6 Moreover, nutrient release through the
decomposition of dead branches, leaves, roots and other plant
188 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

residues, i.e. organic matter, takes place in a slow and steady

manner due to the controlling effect of various soil micro-
organisms, among which are bacteria and fungi. For example,
mycorrhizas (fungi that form a symbiotic association with plant
roots) function as so-called ‘nutrient traps’ and facilitate the uptake
of nutrients by trees by translocating captured nutrients to the tree
roots that serve as their host. Mechanisms like this protect the
ecosystem from the unnecessary removal of soil nutrients through
leaching and keep the nutrient cycle closed.
The soils under closed-canopy forest in Northeast Luzon most
likely have more favourable characteristics than those developed in
acid rock. Most soils are developed in predominantly hilly and
mountainous terrain composed of rock with relatively high
percentages of base-rich minerals, e.g. schists, metamorphosed
shales, marl, reef limestone, sandstone and siltstone (Bureau of
Mines and Geo-Sciences 1982). Moreover, in addition to the
conservation mechanisms described above, limited soil moisture
controls the removal of base cations by intense weathering and
leaching during the dry season at lower altitudes.7

Repeated Burning in Logged-over Forests

The ecological consequences of human-induced fires are paramount
in logged-over forests. Whereas fire is a natural phenomenon in
seasonally dry forests, most forests in high-rainfall areas have
evolved without the presence of fire. Environmental conditions in
tropical moist forests are generally not conducive to natural ignition.
The moisture content of the living biomass is generally high and the
accumulation of dead organic matter limited and localized,
preventing the spread of fire (Koonce and Gonzalez-Caban 1990).
Disturbance of closed-canopy cover will change these conditions,
as can be observed in logged-over forest and slashed-and-burned
areas where direct sunlight reaches the ground. Higher surface
temperature and lower soil moisture content promote the
development of a vegetation cover with a mixture of grasses, weedy
herbaceous plants and fast-growing vines, temporarily increasing
fire hazard. Then, usually within a year, woody pioneer species
begin to replace and dominate the herbaceous plant cover. Most
tree species endemic to virgin forests also occur in logged-over
areas, however, at lower densities and in different proportions.
Bamboo, for example may still be abundant in areas logged ten to
twenty years ago (Simons and Bacquiran 1992).
If forest land is frequently burned or grazed, pyrophytic grasses
will invade and replace fire-susceptible woody colonizers, causing
permanent fire hazard (Goldammer 1990). This process of grass
invasion into formerly forested areas is affecting large parts of
Northeastern Luzon, particularly the foothills of the Sierra Madre,
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 189

Cordillera and Caraballo Mountain Ranges. The conversion of forest

into permanent grassland, i.e. savannization, depends on the
frequency and intensity of burning and on the vicinity of forest
trees. The extent and composition of the seed bank (i.e. seeds stored
in the soil) are also of great importance. For example, Simons and
Bacquiran (1992) report that forest regeneration in kaingin areas in
the foothills of Tumauini depends on both the age (first or second
clearing) and location of these areas. Regrowth of trees is
pronounced in ‘young’ kaingin fields near forests, whereas trees are
virtually absent in ‘old’ kaingin fields which are mainly covered by
grasses such as Imperata cylindrica, Themeda triandra, and
Saccharum spontaneum. Forest regeneration also depends on the
areal extent of disturbances. Native woody colonizers usually
decrease in number and variety with increasing size of disturbed
area. The impoverishment of biodiversity may become a major
limiting factor in the recovery process and induce savannization
(Mueller-Dombois and Goldammer 1990).
With the removal of forest cover through burning, considerable
amounts of nutrients are withdrawn from the ecosystem (Nye and
Greenland 1960; Sanchez 1976).8 Plants, whether regenerated or
cultivated ones, cannot immediately benefit from the large
quantities of nutrients that are released after fires because of their
limited root systems at the early growth stage. Although burning is
a common practice for controlling weeds in shifting cultivation and
promoting the growth of palatable shoots on grasslands (Hoekstra
1992; Simons and Bacquiran 1992), it is by far the least effective
practice of nutrient recycling. For example, one fire event in a
kaingin field near Mansarong reduced the organic matter content
from 7.8 per cent to 5.9 per cent (Dros 1996).
Burning causes nutrient loss in various ways, through 1) ash
particle transport and volatilization of elements like nitrogen,
sulphur, calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus during
the fire event; 2) leaching of nutrients in ash residues and mineral
soil; and 3) increased surface erosion after burning (Bruijnzeel
1990). In addition, more solar radiation will reach the cleared forest
surface and increase soil temperatures, which in turn promotes
micro-biological activities. The latter results in rapid decomposition
of organic matter and, if the input of fresh organic matter is
minimized due to regular burning, the rapid decomposition will
cause a significant decrease in soil fertility. Likewise, recurrent
removal of vegetation cover will promote the leaching of nutrients in
the form of basic cations and induce soil acidification. Soil fertility
can be restored, but this requires fallow periods generally ranging in
the order of fifteen to thirty years. For areas near Mansarong, fallow
periods of six to ten years are already sufficient to maintain the soil
‘regenerating capacity for re-establishment of Dipterocarpus forest
after one or two cycles of kaingin’ (Dros 1996).
190 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Frequent and intense disturbance by fire can also cause the death
of soil micro-organisms like mycchorizas, which will affect the
protective mechanisms and open up the nutrient cycle, making the
system more susceptible to leaching of soil nutrients. Moreover,
after each clearing, significantly smaller quantities of nutrients are
in circulation. Less nutrients are stored in the initial successional
biomass or in planted crops and less nutrients returned through
litter fall or crop residues. The input of nutrients through crop
residues is, for example, estimated at only one-fifth of the natural
input of the original forest (Weischet and Caviedes 1993). Hence if
crop cultivation or grazing is practised on a more or less permanent
basis, large quantities of fresh organic matter or manure are needed
to keep soil fertility at a reasonable level. The latter seems to be an
impossible task when dealing with large areas.
Clearing of forest cover may further result in hydrological
disturbance and removal of nutrients through topsoil erosion.
Burnt surfaces are subjected to the impact of raindrops, which may
lead to the formation of a soil crust, particularly if high-intensity
rains occur soon after a fire event, when vegetation cover has not
been restored. Infiltration will be reduced and runoff may generate,
possibly followed by flash floods in downstream areas, causing
surface erosion. The latter will rapidly deprive the soil of its nutrient
reserve, which is mainly concentrated in the topsoil layer. About 43
per cent of the total area in Northeast Luzon is affected by moderate
rates of soil loss (36 t ha–1 on average) and about 16 per cent by
severe soil loss (54 t ha−1; ALMED 1993).

Repeated Burning in Grasslands

Grassland burning is mainly practised not to facilitate weeding or
the growth of annual crops, but to rejuvenate senescent grasses
and increase the accessibility of green forage for livestock grazing.
Burning increases the proportion of high-quality green leaf, which
may lead to better animal gains in the first few months following
burning. Other reasons for grassland burning are to control fire-
susceptible woody species, to stimulate out-of-season growth and to
minimize pests and diseases.
A more ecological argument often used in verifying the practice of
grassland burning is that, in contrast to forest fires, grassland fires
thrive on a small fuel load with superficial effects on soils and
causing less environmental damage. Burning will usually not
destroy the grass roots and, in some cases, even enhance the
tillering capacity, which explains why grasses like Imperata
cylindrica easily persist.
However, repeated use of fire causes damage to soil and to the
environment in general in various ways. In grasslands too, frequent
burning and biomass removal will eventually lead to the destruction
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 191

of organic matter in topsoil layers, to the depletion of nitrogen,

sulphur and base cations through the process of volatilization, and
to acidification through leaching and intense weathering. The rate
at which these processes of soil degradation take place varies with
soil moisture and temperature conditions and the type of parent
material underlying grassland soils. The grasslands in Northeast
Luzon are located on terraces with gravelly and sandy material poor
in nutrients and on calcareous sedimentary rock. Acidification
through intense leaching is unlikely to affect the soils in
sedimentary rock with abundant calcite and consequently high
buffer capacity. Acidification of coarse-textured terraces is very
likely to occur, particularly when leaching is increased after
repeated burning and grazing. Castillo and Siapno (1995), and
Helleman and Immerzeel (1997), report pH acidity values of between
3.8 and 5.5 for grassland soils in Nueva Vizcaya and Isabela. These
soils are also low in nitrogen and potassium, and sometimes in
phosphorus.9 Most phosphorus is probably not available for plant
uptake because of the high soil-acid conditions under which this
element is easily fixed. Hence, fertilizers are being applied at
increasing rates with ongoing grazing and cultivation. Zeegers
(1992), for example, reports an increase in the application of triple 4
or urea from 150–200 kg ha–1 to 300–350 kg ha–1 to permanently
cultivated fields in grassland areas near Ilagan, Isabela, within a
period of three years.
The replacement of forest by grass vegetation through regular
burning may have caused more incidents of mass movements
in mountainous and hilly areas. Evidence of mass movement is
particularly apparent in the rugged terrain of Nueva Vizcaya
Province. Less moisture will be re-circulated to the atmosphere by a
grass cover, causing rapid and frequent saturation of underlying
soil during rainstorm events. For example, an Andropogon virginicus
grass cover in a moist rain forest area transpires almost 50 mm per
month, while an Eugenia cumini tree cover recirculates about 150
mm per month under the same environmental conditions (Mueller-
Dombois 1973). The saturation of intensely weathered and deep
soils, accompanied by an increase in mass, may trigger a sudden
shift of soil slope-downward.
Surface erosion contributes to the rapid removal of nutrients in
regularly burned grassland (Costales 1980—Philippine study in
Goldammer 1990). The amount of soil loss measured at burned
sites in pine-grassland of the Central Cordillera, Luzon, were two to
three times the amount at unburned sites at the beginning of the
wet season (ibid.). Moderate soil loss is also common in 60 per cent
of all grasslands in Northeastern Luzon, and severe soil loss in 24
per cent (Concepción and Samar 1995). The eroded material is
deposited on land in downstream areas and in rivers, causing
damage to crops and filling up water reservoirs. Siltation in the
Cagayan river is estimated at 4.5 -9.0 cm y–1, which is sufficiently
192 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

high to increase the frequency and extent of flood events

(Oosterberg 1995).
Burning, combined with selective grazing, affects vegetation
composition and may result in the replacement of palatable
perennial plants by unpalatable annual grasses and weeds, or the
reverse may take place in the form of bush encroachment
depending on local soil conditions, whereas the complete removal of
ground cover and surface compaction by trampling may occur in
areas where animals are concentrated (e.g. near water reservoirs).

Burning: A Wasteful Practice

The above discussion explains the negative attitude of many
biophysical scientists towards the use of fire in humid tropical
regions. In general, ecologists condemn the burning of any biomass,
but particularly of primary and secondary forests, with statements
such as ‘the farmers of the tropics must be helped to understand
that any kind of biomass burning, whether forest, bush, grassland,
or crop residue, is a wasteful practice that sooner or later will
destroy the very foundation of their habitat’ (Weischet and Caviedes
1993).

GOVERNMENT VIEWS ON FIRE

In 1996 the newly completed regional head office of the Department
of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Tuguegarao was
entirely destroyed by fire. All important documents and files on
legal and illegal use of forest resources, court cases, computer files,
maps and equipment were lost. The cause of the fire has still not
been disclosed, though strong rumours persist that it was not pure
accident.
History tells us that forest fire protection and prevention in the
Philippines were already in place as early as 1863. This was the
year when the first forestry office was established under the
direction of the General Administration Civil of the Spanish
government. The order is popularly known as Inspection General De
Montes. The establishment of the office was the response to the
forest destruction at that time, caused by slash-and-burn methods
of agriculture.
More than hundred years later, the problem of forest destruction
became even worse. The rate of forest destruction during that period
was enormous. This was the effect of the declaration of Mindanao as
a ‘Land of Promise’ in the 1950s, when interested Filipinos all over
the country were given the right to occupy forested land.
Beneficiaries of this ‘clear a forest and own the land’ approach to
agricultural production were forced to use fire, as there were no
other ways to clear the land. Forest destruction was estimated to be
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 193

200,000 hectares per year. This was believed to be mainly caused

by kaingeros (slash and burn farmers), so that the Kaingin Law of
1963 (Republic Act 3701) was passed, which provide severe
penalties for kaingeros. This started the punitive approach to
fighting the kaingin method of raising crops. People who engaged in
this activity were considered criminals by the state.
In 1975, the Presidential Decree (PD 705), known as the Forestry
Code of the Philippines, was adopted to find remedies for the effects
of forest destruction in the entire country, which again was believed
to be mainly caused by kaingin or slash-and-burn agriculture.
Central Luzon was almost completely flooded in 1972 while
Mindanao was suffering from a drought, which brought even greater
misery to the Filipinos (Masipiqueña 1989).
In 1991 the National Master Plan for Philippine forestry was
adopted, which still serves as the mother of all development,
protection, conservation and utilization programmes to be carried
out in both private and public forests (DENR 1991a).
All regions of the country prepared and adopted their own regional
master plan, with the national master plan as the basic foundation.
The Cagayan Valley region was quick to respond to this challenge.
One of the objectives of the regional master plan was to strengthen
the forest protection activities of the Department of Environment
and Natural Resources (DENR) by adopting the integrated forest
protection and law enforcement strategy of the department in order
to improve the dismal forest protection performance. From 1988 to
1990, the regional annual forest destruction figure was 2,300
hectares and the main cause was plantation and grassland fires
(60%), followed by kaingin (32%), the remainder being caused by
logging and infrastructural development (DENR 1991b).
Forest protection, prevention and control in most of the revised
forest codes, including the master plan, are written in general terms.
However, these are spelled out in the terms and conditions of all
contracts signed between the Department, the People’s
Organizations and NGOs. Communities, families and individuals
could also become contractors in the government projects related to
forest utilization, development and conservation.
Participants or contractors are given training and workshops on
fire prevention, detection and control, quite different from the
education and information campaign through various media
concerning the good (using fire to stop or prevent fire), the bad and
the ugly about fire utilization as a tool in forest resource extraction,
vegetation renewal and agricultural land preparation. In general,
the government always emphasizes that burning is a bad practice
with regard to the environment, so that during training and
workshops, the positive aspects of burning from the point of view of
the farmers are not given much attention.
The Department has included precisely formulated policies in
neatly prepared and worded documents about forest fires in all its
194 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

forestry projects. Responsible units have done their best in taking

the necessary preparations before the projects are implemented.
However, DENR officials cannot be serious about enforcement of
these policies because it is very difficult for the officials concerned
to be wearing two hats, the development hat, and the regulatory or
policy enforcement hat.
In any case, there are a lot of factors affecting serious
enforcement of the law. These are: 1) the inadequacy on the part of
the government to deliver the basic goods and services to the people;
2) logistical problems and lack of interest by the DENR department;
3) the economic condi tions of the upland people; 4) the climatic and
biophysical characteristics of forest or grassland; 5) the immediate
impact not being directly felt by local people; and 6) lack of sufficient
support from the higher authorities during prosecutions
(Masipiqueña 1993).
With all these factors, large areas of old and new reforestation
projects, pasture land, grassland and even natural forest are still
being turned into ashes annually. The government was able to
monitor all fire damage and even presents extensive statistics on
this subject, but it fails to implement effective corrective measures
(see, for example, DENR 1996 Appendix 1).
A number of prosecutions were initiated by alleged violators, but
the government found it very difficult to pursue most of the cases.
Accusations are difficult to prove, and it takes a long time in court
before a final judgement can be rendered. Because of this,
complainants loose interest. Moreover, fire regulations are one area
of legal practice in the country which is subjected to a process of
‘humanization’, of allowing non-compliance with the regulations to
pass by unsanctioned for ‘social reasons’. Most of the violators are
said to be among the poor sectors of the society and therefore
violations are often tolerated.
Punishment is very effective in changing values. Without
convictions, people will just consider these policies a decoration,
and nobody will be afraid or appreciate the advantages of not using
fire indiscriminately.
Research findings reveal that, especially in the uplands, people
who are the beneficiaries of government programmes are fully aware
of fire policies, the negative environmental impacts and their
responsibilities (people are informed during the pre-implementation
stage of the project). However, they do not practise or follow the
regulations because most of the damage affects areas owned by the
government, which are therefore not their concern. But in areas
where the bad consequences of fire affect the private properties of
many individuals, they themselves group together and find ways of
preventing or minimizing the damage to private property caused by
indiscriminate burning. Through consensus by community
members, many upland areas have made an agreement or even
formal resolutions through their leaders, adopting measures for fire
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 195

prevention and control and for fire-fighting, including penalty

systems. One instituted preventive measure is to clean or remove
all combustible material within the boundaries of their farms and
houses during the dry season. One example of a penalty system
they have implemented is the payment of the value, assessed by
both parties together with the elders or barangay officials, of the
damage to crops or other private property. Payments can be in cash
or in kind, by replacing damaged property, or performing work for
the victim, or a combination of these. In most cases they settle the
problem amicably.

DISCUSSION
An important element in the difference in perception of fire-use
between farmers, government and scientists is related to the value
and status of the forest. Farmers in search of arable land are
primarily interested in its conversion, and fire is an important
instrument in achieving this. The government may have classified
large areas as forest land and wants to keep it that way for reasons
like watershed protection or biodiversity conservation. Thus to a
certain extent differences in perception about the use of fire are
based on differences in the value attributed to forest land and all its
resources and ecological functions. But because fire is such a
paramount and powerful instrument, it has attracted a lot of
attention.
In addressing the ‘hazard of fire’ (Wirawan 1993), natural
scientists and governments mainly focus on the ecological effects of
all previously mentioned categories of fire-use. In their offices
pictures with smoking mountains are the symbol of local people
‘destroying their own future’. Emphasis is laid on the wrong
perceptions and the lack of knowledge among the forest users. In
general little attention is paid to the non-environmental reasons
behind the burning process. Proposed policy measures are all aimed
at reducing the use and frequency of fire and at taking preventive
measures to limit its environmental consequences. Most of these
measures require considerable input in time and attention and limit
some of the positive effects of burning as perceived by the local
farmers. Livestock management in the tropics is, however, evolving
in the direction of reduced burning as the area of planted pastures
and leguminous protein banks increase. Managers are becoming
more aware of the potential value of standing feed and of the
environmental damage arising from fires.
Burning grasslands is a controversial issue and generates heated
debates between government officials on the one hand, who oppose
fire-use, and ranchers and farmers on the other. The latter generally
support the use of fire, because cattle cannot graze efficiently when
196 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

stems and tree trunks are not removed from the land. (Humphreys
1991)
Thus here too the controversy is between the persistence of the
forest and other forms of land-use. If the expansion of agricultural
land is to take place (legally or illegally) on land presently covered by
forests, fire is a logical option, irrespective of its negative ecological
effects on the long term. In many cases it is part of the transition
process. After all, most of the productive agricultural areas in the
world were once covered by forests which were burned down to make
room for other types of land-use. Gradually a layer of organic
matter has to be created again through suitable farming methods.
In that respect land degradation following slash-and-burn
agriculture is, in some cases, a transitional phase towards a more
domesticated landscape. Soil fertility can be restored to some extent
and erosion can be controlled by taking adequate measures.
Whether farmers are able and willing to do so depends on a number
of factors like security of tenure, use of environmental knowledge
and its practical applications, market accessibility, the availability of
labour and sources for investment. States can play an important
role in stimulating these induced innovations (Henkemans et al.
1998). If these measures are not taken, however, the process of land
degradation may continue, and the area will virtually lose its
potential for cultivation in the long run.10
Anthropologists and agricultural economists seem to focus
primarily on the economic aspects of the use of fire, even though
they also speak out on the assumed environmental consequences.
They provide an emic perspective on the productivity of the labour
input in comparison with other forms of land-use. In general they
have little advice to give to local people, while they urge government
officials (and natural scientists) to take the local perspective more
seriously. Using fire seems a logical thing to do within the prevailing
circumstances, with limited labour available, lack of specialization
and a strong cultural preference for a diversified pattern of land-use
(farming, hunting, gathering of forest products or keeping cattle;
Dove 1985, 1986).
Anthropologists working among traditional forest-based societies
have time and time again argue that shifting agriculture among
these people is not bad by definition for the forest environment.
With long fallow periods and relatively small pieces of land cleared
in the forests, soil fertility could be restored within a couple of years,
and the cleared space may often even contribute to an increase in
the number of some animals as well plants at the local level. Others
just refer to sustainable land-use among these groups because
resource depletion simply did not seem to occur.
It is interesting, however, that Alvard (1993) believes that a
number of these statements lack empirical evidence. He argues that
they are based on impressionistic ideas of the characteristics and
productivity of tropical ecosystems. They sometimes lack historical
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 197

depth and sound ecological knowledge, in particular knowledge of

elements not easily visible like nutrient losses, decrease in fertility or
reductions of biodiversity. They are based on a superficial
understanding of ecological processes.
There are not only differences in fire perception between
government officials, scientists and local communities, but also
within each of the three groups. In the case of local communities,
the use of fire and its consequences are predominantly defined by
the type of land-use and related market products. The annual
frequency and areal extent of fires in areas with slash-and-burn and
permanent agriculture are lower than those in areas where
extensive cattle-grazing is practised. Fires on cultivated land with a
general discontinuous and often heterogenous vegetation cover are
more easily slowed down or arrested, particularly in areas with
intensive agriculture and obstacles such as dirt roads and small
ponds or reservoirs. Farmers with permanent fields minimize the
use of fire and put much effort into keeping fire under control in
order to limit damage to fields planted with durable crops (e.g.
mango, banana, timber, corn, rice). Fire is usually highly localized
and mainly related to the burning of harvest residues and
vegetation along roadsides and field boundaries. Cowboys, on the
other hand, favour the use of fire and, unlike cogongatherers, burn
during the dry season at least once or twice to produce green
palatable grasses which will keep their cattle in a healthy condition.
Moreover, fires in grasslands with a relatively homogenous and
continuous vegetation cover as fuel load tend to spread easily,
particularly towards the end of the dry season, and regularly affect
adjacent forests, plantations and cultivated fields. Grassland fires
are therefore often the subject of local conflicts between farmers,
foresters, forest-dwellers, cogon-gatherers and cowboys.
Efforts have been made to find a way out of the conflicting views
on fire-use. Suggested alternatives for grassland burning and
production of palatable forage are mainly aimed at improved
pastures and the replacement of native grasslands with planted
grass, leguminous forage species and possibly irrigated fodder
crops. The regional government of Northeast Luzon is striving to
reduce the area under grassland from 550,838 hectares in 1990 to
178,782 in the near future. The remaining grasslands will be
converted into well-managed pastures serving to increase regional
livestock production (Boquiren 1992). Such conversions and
alternatives require some investment in seed and plant materials,
fertilizers, machinery for land preparation and vehicles for
transporting harvested feed. These suggestions are outside the
scope of small-scale livestock owners.
Although most biophysical scientists have a negative attitude
towards burning, some of them also favour fire as a management
tool in grassland areas. For example, Florece (1996) suggests the
implementation of a strategy that ‘uses fire to eliminate fire’ in order
198 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

to enhance the reforestation of grasslands. He reasons that planted

trees are susceptible to high-intensity fires, which are most likely to
occur in areas with a progressive accumulation of fuel load over
time. The damage to young trees can be minimized by the strategy
suggested, in which fire intensity is lowered through regular
burning. The latter serves as a means of site preparation in the year
of establishment and as a means of fuel management in the years to
follow. Burning will reduce the fuel load and result in low-intensity
fires which are less detrimental to planted trees. The ‘use of fire to
eliminate fire’ is also practised near houses, settlements and farms,
where all combustible materials are cleared, collected and burned
as a fire-prevention measure during the dry season.
Some farmers and cowboys burn earlier in the dry season, when
adequate soil moisture is present to prevent the occurrence of high-
intensity fires, which they believe are more damaging to the soil
than low-intensity fires. However, scientists claim that the regular
burning of green and younger grasses and weeds will exhibit greater
losses than the burning of mature, dried plants, and that low-
intensity fires are less likely to kill unwanted woody species in farm
fields and native pastures (e.g. Humphreys 1991; Pressland 1982).
Hence one may question whether the regular use of fire as a tool
of fuel-load reduction contributes to less environmental damage.
Moreover, losses in plant nutrients could be prevented by slashing,
ploughing and mulching, instead of burning, the highly flammable
grass vegetation, a method which could also be followed for the
‘removal’ of crop residues on cultivated fields. The extra costs of
additional labour may counterbalance the costs of fertilizer
application, which are necessary if regular burning is practised. The
ploughing and mulching of grass and other vegetation may,
however, be a difficult task, as pointed out by local farmers.
The above discussion further emphasises the fact that the
decision whether, and if so how, to use fire is a mere factor in the
operation of vested interests in the type of market product (cattle,
roofing material, timber, lumber or durable crops) and
counterbalancing the advantage of labour and time-saving
techniques with the disadvantage of environmental damage and
additional costs for farm input. Intermingled with these
explanations are both a firm belief in the traditional and
accustomed practice of burning among local people and the lack of
alternative practices offered by scientists and government officials.
In this respect, the recently launched GEF/UNDP project on
Alternatives to Slash and Burn provides in interesting perspective.
Although mainly motivated by the ecological consequences of slash-
and-burn agriculture (visible and invisible) and by the loss of
biodiversity and the amount of land used per production unit, this
project actually pays attention to the other driving forces behind
slash-and-burn agriculture (social, cultural, economic) and to the
actors operating under different circumstances. Viable alternatives
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 199

to slash-and-burn cultivation will necessarily also address the

economic (labour availability, technology), social and cultural
aspects of shifting cultivation (Van Noordwijk et al. 1995).
The use of fire as a weapon has not received much attention in
the literature. Biophysical scientists naturally have little to say
about this kind of motivation apart from moral judgements. The
government in the Philippines has always been quick to condemn
this use of fire because of its undeniable impact on hundreds of
reforestation projects. But it was urged to take a serious look at this
matter because of the failure of so many of these projects. Gradually
a new generation of reforestation and social forestry projects was
designed, addressing some of the issues which gave rise to the
revengeful use of fire in the past (Pasicolan 1996). It is expected
that these projects will gradually reduce the use of fire because some
of the grievances have been taken away by newly designed projects.
To some extent, however, the use of fire is related to the political
climate in the rural areas with overlapping claims to the land,
competing ethnic groups on the forest frontier and non-
simultaneous use of fire as a management tool by various groups.
Within this context, fire will for some time remain a powerful and
threatening weapon in the process of arranging access to natural
resources and the distribution of their fruits.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper is based on research conducted within the framework of
the Cagayan Valley Programme for Environment and Development
(CVPED), a joint cooperative project between Leiden University
(Netherlands) and Isabela State University (Philippines). In addition
to fieldwork by the authors, we were also able to avail ourselves of a
number of student reports drawn up under this programme. They
are referred to in the text. Here we would particularly like to thank
Arnold [Link] for his assistance in the field. Gerhard van
den Top kindly made some useful suggestions.

NOTES

1. One of the exceptions can be found on the Indonesian island of

Siberut, where the local people expand their agricultural fields by
cutting down the trees after they have cleared the undergrowth and
planted seedlings of fruit trees and other crops. Only then do they
cut the trees, which are left to rot. Gradually the leaves, branches
and trees will whither while the seedlings start to grow. The
vegetation cover protects the seedlings from extensive sunshine and
heavy rainfall. Moreover, erosion is limited because the top soil is
never exposed directly to the heavy rains, wind and sunshine. The
micro-climate under the vegetation cover stimulates the growth of
200 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

the planted seedlings. Gradually these crops will start to dominate

the vegetation and a natural forest will be replaced by a
domesticated forest (Persoon 1994). A similar system has been
described from Papua New Guinea by Schieffelin (1975).
2. The common characteristic of fire is the process of oxidation of fuel
for which three elements are essential: fuel to burn, oxygen, and
heat to bring about ignition.
3. In 1995, for instance, the communication tower of the regional
capital, Tuguegarao, was destroyed by a grassland fire, causing
enormous damage.
4. Lightning is very rare during the months when most grassland fires
occur. ‘Lightning’ and ‘fire from neighbouring fields’ must probably
be understood in such a way that they bring about the desired effect
without anyone being responsible for their ignition.
5. We have the impression that fire in the Philippines is a much more
commonly used instrument for these social purposes than in many
other countries with similar ecological circumstances.
6. Organic matter has a high cation exchange capacity (CEC), i.e. a
soil property which refers to the ability of organic and also clay
particles to store nutrients temporarily in the form of cations, which
protects them from leaching. Once in the subsoil, which is generally
dominated by degraded clay minerals of low CEC, nutrients are
easily moved out of the system.
7. The dry season, which is particularly pronounced on the west side of
the Sierra Madre Mountain Range, varies with altitude from 0–1
month in forests at 1200 m.a.s.l. or above to 4–5 months at 500
m.a.s.l. or below.
8. For example, the nutrient content of biomass from evergreen forests
with a dry-matter content of 200–400 t ha–1 may amount to 700–
2050 kg N ha–1, 33–137 kg P ha–1, 600–1000 kg K ha–1, 650–2750
kg Ca ha–1, 400–3900 kg Mg ha–1; Sanchez 1976.
9. Nitrogen varies between 0.03 and 0.29 percent and potassium
between 0.03 and 0.58 meq 100 g–1, whereas phosphorus contents
vary from very low to medium (0.07–19.40 ppm) for Nueva Vizcaya
to medium and very high (7.31–181.0 ppm) for Isabela.
10. Efforts to restrict the use of fire while still allowing the conversion of
forest land to agricultural land and to plantations for industrial
crops are thought to entail great difficulties. In Indonesia, for
example, still with a vivid memory of the damage caused by the
enormous forest fires in Kalimantan in 1983, again in 1994/1995,
and in particular in 1997 in Kalimantan and Sumatra, efforts are
being made to restrict the use of fire by a wide range of measures. It
is stated, for instance, that no one is allowed to use fire in the
process of land conversion, whether farmers or companies charged
with clearing land to make room for either transmigration
settlements or estates for industrial crops. Alternatives to the use of
fire are very costly and labour intensive and therefore not attractive
(Riau Pos 1997).
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 201

APPENDIX 1

Presidential Decrees/PD. and Departmental

Administrative Orders (DAO)
PD 705, 1975, Forestry Code of the Philippines
Republic Act (RA); The Kaingin Law, RA No. 3701, 1963
DAO 24; August 23, 1986. Socialized Industrial Forest
Management Agreement (SIFMA)
DAO 60; 1993. Industrial Forest Management Agreement I and II
(IFMA I, II)
DAO 31; June 24, 1991. Contract Reforestation (CONREF)
Letter of Instruction (LOI) 1260; August, 1982. Integrated Social
Forestry (ISFP)
DAO 2; February 15, 1993. Certificate of Ancestral Domain
(CADC)
DAO 96–29; October, 1996. Community Based Forest
Management Strategy (CBFMS)
DAO 123; Nov. 25, 1989. Community Based Forest Management
(CBFM)

APPENDIX 2

Government Provisions About Fire

Some of the developmental programmes of the government with
specific provisions about fire protection, prevention, control,
responsibilities and accountabilities are enumerated below.

1. Socialized Industrial Forest Management Agreement (SIFMA):

Department Administrative Order No. 24 dated August 23,
1996.
Under condition 11 of the Terms of Reference (TOR)
provision says that SIFMA holder shall protect the SIFMA area
from FOREST FIRES and other forms of forest destruction, as
well as from encroachment.
Condition No. 20 also states that a SIFMA holder shall submit
to the DENR an Annual Report of activities which shall
include, but will not be limited to…the maintenance of
boundaries of SIFMA AREA; the maintenance of an ability to
PREVENT, DETECT AND SUPPRESS FIRES and other forms of
forest destruction.
2. Industrial Forest Management Agreement (IFMA I, II)
Section 7.8.1 of the Comprehensive Development Plan outline
of IFMA states that the holder should prepare a FIRE
PROTECTION PLAN for the entire project which should include
202 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

the location of FIRE TOWERS, EQUIPMENT needed and the

dimensions of FIRE LINES or FIRE BREAKS to be constructed.
Number seven of the 24 responsibilities of the lessee in the
contract states that the LESSEE shall protect the leased area
from FOREST FIRES and other forms of forest destruction and
to place his employees or workers under the direction of
foresters or authorized agents…whenever required.
3. Contract Reforestation. Department Administrative Order No.
31 June 24, 1991.
Section 18 (Site Preparation) of the revised guidelines says
that where the reforestation site contain cogon (Imperata
cylindrica), talahib (Sacharum spontaneum), bagokbok
(Themeda triandria and other FIRE-PRONE grasses, site
preparation shall include cultivation followed by removal and
or exposure of their roots.
Under the protection section of this programme, contractors
whether individual, family, community, corporate shall protect
the area from all forms of destructive agents and required to
make a FIRE MANAGEMENT PLAN.
4. Integrated Social Forestry (ISFP)
Letter of Instruction No. 1260, 1982.
Under its ‘Rights and Responsibilities’ of the Certificate of
Stewardship Contract Holders, on section 8.5 clearly stipulates
that CSC HOLDERS shall PREVENT and SUPPRESS
UNAUTHORIZED FIRES within the project area and other
areas immediately adjacent…they are not allowed to expand
their clearings or make another KAINGIN.
5. Community Based Forest Management (CBFM) Department
Administrative Order No. 123, November 25, 1989.
The number five responsibility of peoples organization (POs)
is to protect and rehabilitate and conserve the natural
resources in the CBFM area and assist the government in the
protection of adjacent forest lands.
Section [Link] of the Community Resources Management
and Development Plan requires the HOLDER to state how the
FIRE LINES and FIRE BREAKS are to be established. Section
12.3.a of the Terms of Reference (TOR) states that where
feasible, established and man a LOOK-OUT TOWERS at
strategic locations to DETECT, OCCURRENCE of FIRES and
other incidence of forest destruction.
6. Forest Land Grazing Lease (FLGL);
Terms and condition No. 15 of the contract: KAINGIN and
squatting are absolutely prohibited and the LESSEE, with the
assistance of the DENR, shall take the necessary measures to
secure the leased area against the entry and the occupancy of
the land by the KANGAROOS or squatters. Terms and
condition No. 18; When FIRE is used in disposing of dried
areas, the LESSEE shall schedule the time of burning such
 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 203

that a representative of the CENR Office concerned could be

present, who will supervise the CONTROLLED BURNING of the
section to be burned, in order to PREVENT the FIRE from
spreading to areas outside the scheduled section.
In the said contract burning is not allowed without approval
from the DENR and the presence of its representative. Burning
should be properly supervised and initiated, if grass is still
partially green, during the late afternoon when winds are low
and humidity is high. The fires should be set along firebreaks
opposite the wind direction or, if no wind, on the uphill site of
the area to be burned so that the fire will move down the
slope. Burning should be done only at the onset of the dry
season when conditions are still favourable for rapid regrowth
of grass. Violations resulting in the spread of fire to adjacent
areas shall be sufficient ground to cancel the lease agreement.
7. Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim (CADC)
DAO 02, series of 1993 dated February 15, 1993.
Under section 2. B.5 Rights and Responsibilities of Ancestral
Land Claims,…holders shall PREVENT and SUPPRESS
DESTRUCTIVE FIRES within and in the vicinity of the
ancestral land claim.
8. Community Based Forest Management Strategy (CBFMS), DA
No. 96–29, October 1996.
Under Contract Obligations 2.1: The CBFMA HOLDER shall
immediately assume responsibility for the protection of the
entire forest lands within the CBFMA area against illegal
logging and the other unauthorized extraction of forest
products, SLASH AND BURN agriculture (KAINGIN) FOREST
AND GRASSLAND FIRES, and other forms of forest
destruction, and assist DENR in the prosecution of violators of
forestry and environmental laws.
9. Survey Mapping and Planning (SMP)
Section 2.6.4 of the Components of the Resource Development
Plan under Forest Protection of the Maintenance and
Protection. A forest protection plan should include early
detection of destructive agents whether FIRE, insects, diseases,
animals or human.
10. Forest Land Management Program (FLMP) 1994.
Under letter C section IV of the Manual for Operation for
turned-over Contract Reforestation (CREF): Maintenance and
protection activities such as, establishment of FIREBREAKS,
patrol works, detection of occurrence of pest and diseases…
shall be conducted both by family and community FLMs based
on the approved Maintenance and Protection Plan which are
parts of both the FLP and CFLMDP.
204 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

PLATE 7.1 THE USE OF FIRE IN THE CAGAYAN VALLEY

 THE USE OF FIRE IN NORTHEASTERN LUZON (PHILIPPINES) 205

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 Chapter 8
THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS
KNOWLEDGE, AND THE CASE OF
NATURAL RUBBER PRODUCTION
Michael [Link]

How is it that at certain moments and in certain orders of

knowledge, there are these sudden take-offs, these hastenings
of evolution, these transformations which fail to correspond to
the calm, continuist image that is normally accredited?
(Foucault 1977:112)

Practically since its inception as a discipline, anthropology has

interested itself in the knowledge systems of indigenous peoples.
This interest can be traced from early ethnographic work on local
patterns of environmental relations and systems of resource-use to
more recent work in, for example, ethnoscience and ethnobotany.
Within the past two decades, however, the object of this interest has
been redefined and reified as ‘indigenous knowledge’.
Anthropologists have been joined in its study by other social
scientists, as well as development scholars, planners and activists,
and it has become the focus of newly established institutes and
publications (cf. Warren, Slikkerveer and Brokensha 1995). This
burgeoning interest in indigenous knowledge is premised on the
belief that many failures of development and under-development are
due to the privileging of modern, global, scientific knowledge over
local, traditional indigenous knowledge. A corollary premise is that
a reversal of this imbalance, based on the study and utilization of
indigenous knowledge, will have salutary effects. The challenge of
successful development, therefore, is seen as ethnographic and
pedagogical in nature: ignorance of knowledge that lies outside
modern scientific traditions is seen as the problem, which can be
remedied through the unearthing and study of this knowledge. This
critique of the dominant paradigm of development was initially
heralded as a great step forward, but within the past five years in
particular, questions have been raised regarding its genuineness.
210 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Both perspectives are reflected in a recent issue of Current

Anthropology, in which the lead author, Paul Sillitoe, refers to this
new study of indigenous knowledge as a ‘revolution’, whereas one
of the commentators, Carmen Ferradás, calls it just another ‘self-
privileging antinomy’ (Ferradás 1998:240; Sillitoe 1998:223, 246).l
My purpose in the present analysis is to consider the truth in both
these views of indigenous knowledge. I will base this analysis on my
own study of one system of indigenous knowledge, that of
smallholder cultivators of Pará rubber in Southeast Asia.
Smallholder rubber cultivation appears to be a quintessential
system of indigenous knowledge, in particular as it pertains to the
environment, and it has been heralded as such by scholars. Alec
Gordon writes as follows of the environmental virtues of smallholder
rubber cultivation in Asia in a 1993 volume entitled Asia’s
Environmental Crisis:

It is encouraging surely to find a large commercial smallholder

crop that is environmentally tolerable…. An appreciation of
why people in society do these things for reasons other than
environmentalism…is called for. (…)Were the research and
development programs and extension services based on
smallholder needs and practices, instead of the assumption
that what is good for estates should work for small farmers as
well, then an ecologically sound prospect would be in view.
(Gordon 1993:152, 145)

I have made similarly laudatory statements about smallholder

rubber cultivation in a series of articles written in recent years
(Dove 1993, 1994, 1996). In one I wrote as follows (Dove 1993:145):

The great value of the rubber-swidden combination is that it

achieves not just minimal competition for resources but
mutual enhancement of resource use. This, in turn, enables
politically and economically marginal farmers to participate in
the market economy to a remarkable extent on their own terms
as opposed to the market’s, thereby avoiding many of the risks
that the latter entails.

The apparent characteristics of this system of agricultural

knowledge and practice typify many of the systems that are labelled
and studied as systems of indigenous knowledge. It appears to be
age-old, local, functional in economic and ecological terms; and it is
also, almost by definition, largely unknown and largely invisible.
I suggest that this last characteristic, invisibility, is not merely
coincidentally associated with indigenous knowledge. In the
introduction of this volume Ellen and Harris note that ‘the epistemic
origins of much knowledge, whether folk or scientific, are hidden’. I
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 211

suggest that this is especially true of folk knowledge and that this
contributes to the perceived indigeneity of such knowledge. When
the actual origins of such knowledge are revealed, the validity of the
label ‘indigenous knowl edge’ becomes questionable. In the case of
smallholder rubber cultivation in Southeast Asia, closer study
shows that, whereas this is indeed an impressive system of
economic and ecological knowledge, it could hardly be less
indigenous in nature. Pará rubber itself, Hevea brasiliensis, is not
indigenous to the region: it is a new world exotic, introduced from
its native habitat in the Amazon (wherein lies the port city, Pará,
from which this rubber took its name). Moreover, the current system
for cultivating and exploiting this plant is a historic, hybrid product
of developments carried out by both smallholders and state-
supported plantations in both the Old and New Worlds. Such a
history is in fact not atypical even for what appear to be localized,
indigenous systems of resource-use.
This conclusion is supported by much of the recent ethnography
on systems of local resource-use. Thus, Frossard (1998) aptly
characterizes the admixture of local folk knowledge and extra-local
scientific knowledge in some modern Philippine systems of peasant
rice agriculture as ‘peasant science’. Gupta (1998) similarly calls
peasant theory and practice concerning the use of herbicides in
contemporary Indian peasant agriculture a ‘mix of hybridity, mis-
translation, and incommensurability’.2 In many cases, indeed, the
use of the concept of indigenous knowledge in the agricultural sector
is not supported by historic patterns of movement of plant genetic
resources and social construction of knowledge about their use. As
Agrawal (1995:422) writes:

Certainly, what is today known and classified as indigenous

knowledge has been in intimate interaction with western
knowledge since at least the fifteenth century. In the face of
evidence that suggests contact, variation, transformation,
exchange, communication, and learning over the last several
centuries, it is difficult to adhere to a view of indigenous and
western forms of knowledge being untouched by each other.

Scott (1998:331), referring to the spread of New World maize to

Africa in the nineteenth century, similarly suggests that ‘the term
“traditional”, as in “traditional knowledge”…is a misnomer, sending
all the wrong signals.’
The inadequacy of the concept of indigenous knowledge has to do
not just with hybrid histories, however; it also has to do with
contested histories. This analysis of smallholder rubber cultivation
in Southeast Asia will show that the actual indigeneity or even
validity of knowledge is in many cases less important than the
authority and authenticity that is publicly accorded it. The
212 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

relationship between smallholders on the one hand and agents of

the state on the other has been dominated for almost one century
by a contest over who knows how to manage this resource properly
and who does not, which is in turn part of a wider contest between
local communities and central bureaucratic authorities over who has
the right to manage such natural resources. Little light is shed on
this contest, or on the role of knowledge construction and
representation within it, by the concept of indigenous knowledge. In
this case, where knowledge came from (even if this could be
determined in any meaningful way) is less important than how it is
represented.
My purpose in this analysis is not merely to show that the
concept of indigenous knowledge is flawed, however, but also to
suggest that this identification of a flaw is itself part of a larger
intellectual process. No one involved in current debates about the
utility or lack of it of indigenous knowledge has accorded any
significance to the fact that this concept was first welcomed and
then only subsequently critiqued—yet this fact may be the most
important part of the debate. I will suggest that the concept of
indigenous knowledge has gone through a sort of developmental
cycle, in which it was first more useful and then subsequently less
useful-not atypical but just the reverse in this respect. Many recent
conceptual innovations in rural development have experienced
similar cycles. Examples include ‘sustainable development’,
‘community-based conservation’ and ‘participatory development’, all
of which were originally conceived as radical conceptual
breakthroughs, but all of which seemed to succumb over time to
appropriation by the interests they initially opposed. I have two
distinct but related purposes in this analysis, therefore: the first is
to critique the concept of indigenous knowledge, and the second is
to try to locate this process of critiquing in a wider intellectual
process. The premise that underlies the latter purpose is that the
way we conceive of indigenous knowledge also tells us something
about the way we conceive of knowledge.
In this analysis, I will draw on data I have gathered in Kalimantan
(Indonesian Borneo) over the past twenty-five years, plus
comparative and historical data I have drawn from the literature. I
will begin my analysis with some background on the history of the
rubber market and rubber production in South America and
Southeast Asia. I will then discuss the historical construction of
rubber knowledge in South America and then Southeast Asia, by
smallholders and then the contemporary state. Next I will discuss
three aspects of this construction: the separation of the knowledge
system from its origins, the diversification of the knowledge system
and experimentation in the knowledge system. In the succeeding
section I will discuss the disutility of the concept of indigenous
knowledge for understanding the history of smallholder rubber
production in Southeast Asia, especially given the role of chance in
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 213

this history. I will conclude by suggesting that the concept of

indigenous knowledge originally had heuristic value, which has
fluctuated during a conceptual ‘life-cycle’, and I will explore the
significance of this history for modern conceptions of the west and
western knowledge.

RUBBER IN SOUTH AMERICA AND SOUTHEAST

ASIA
Beginning with the discovery in 1839 that the elastic properties of
natural rubber could be fixed by the application of heat and
sulphur (i.e. ‘vulcanization’), what had previously been a minor
tropical forest product became the focal point of a global boom. The
best source of natural latex eventually proved to be Pará rubber
(Hevea brasiliensis [Willd. ex Adr. de Juss.] Muell.-Arg.), a tree
occurring naturally in the tropical forest on the right bank of the
Amazon, in Brazil, northern Bolivia and Eastern Peru. With the
nineteenth-century boom, rubber eventually accounted for nearly
40 percent of the Brazilian economy and brought a level of
prosperity to the Amazon not seen before or since (Dean 1987:4).
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Pará rubber was
successfully transplanted to Southeast Asia, with the result that, as
Dean (ibid.: 4–5) writes, ‘Brazil, the original and major supplier of
wild rubber, suffered disaster. Its economic growth diminished and
its vast Amazon region relapsed into stagnation and despair.’

EXPLOITATION OF NATURAL FOREST RUBBER

Hevea or Pará rubber grows wild in its native forests of South
America, at maximum densities of 1–2 trees per hectare. The
boomera native tappers or seringueiros cleared winding paths
several kilometres in length through the forest to 100–200 trees,
which they tapped every 1–3 days in season (Barlow 1978:17;
Romanoff 1992: 124). The tappers worked under traders or patrons,
whose authority was based variously on land rights, coercion, or
credit and debt, especially for food (Murphy and Steward 1956;
Romanoff ibid.; Weinstein 1983: ch. 1). The lot of the seringueiros in
this system was sufficiently bad to have drawn critical comment
from outside observers almost as soon as the system developed in
the mid-nineteenth century (Weinstein ibid.).3
There was a historic counterpart to this system of gathering Pará
rubber (albeit of somewhat less importance to global trade), which
involved the gathering of the indigenous rubbers of Southeast Asia
(Dove 1994). A major element in this region’s ancient trade in forest
products has been plant ‘exudates’, including gums and hard and
soft resins (intra-regional trade in which may date back to neolithic
times according to Dunn 1975:120–37), and latex.4 Within the
214 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

trade, the latex gathered in Borneo were divided into three

categories: 1) caoutchouc (India rubber, or simply rubber), which
refers to rubber from Willughbeia spp. (Apocynaceae) in Borneo and
Ficus elastica Roxb. (Moraceae) in the rest of Southeast Asia (Burkill
1966, 2:2300–4; Purseglove 1968:146–47); 2) gutta percha, which
refers largely to latex from trees of the family Sapotaceae, especially
the genus Palaquium (in particular [Link] (Hook.) Burck.), whose
native habitat ranges from India to the Central Pacific, and Payena,
which ranges from Burma to New Guinea (Burkill 1966, 2:1651,
1708); and 3) jelutong, or gutta jelutong, referring largely to latex
from trees of the genus Dyera (Apocynaceae), in particular
[Link] (Miq.) Hook.f., which are native to Malaysia and
Indonesia (Burkill 1966, 1:889–90; Eaton 1952:63). Gathering of all
of these native rubbers experienced booms during the latter half of
the nineteenth century.

Rubber Cultivation and the Plantation-Smallholder

Contest
The extent to which these booms stimulated efforts to cultivate
natural forest rubbers varied. Very little cultivation of South
American rubbers in South America took place historically. Some
observers argue that biological factors (primarily the native rubber
disease, South American leaf blight, Microcyclus ulei ([Link].) v.
Arx.) were completely limiting (Dean 1987:5; Purseglove 1968:165);
whereas others argue that political-economic factors suppressed
any possibility of cultivation long before the biological factors could
have become relevant (Bunker 1985:68–9; Weinstein 1983:32).
Much more cultivation of Southeast Asia’s own native rubbers was
carried out, primarily by state and state-supported entities, but
even this was insignificant compared with the cultivation that
eventually developed in Southeast Asia based on the cultivation of
the transplanted Hevea. The transfer of Hevea to Southeast Asia was
so successful that, whereas Southeast Asia produced just one
percent of the world’s rubber in 1906, it produced 75 percent just
fifteen years later, in 1921 (Keong 1976:181).
Rubber was initially an estate crop in Southeast Asia. Estates
held a commanding share of (e.g.) Indonesia’s rubber production
during the industry’s early years in the second decade of this
century, but they have steadily lost ground to the smallholders ever
since. In the past decade, with 2.6 million hectares being held by
over 1 million households, smallholders were responsible for three-
fourths of total production (CPIS 1993:3; GOI 1992:230–2).
Moreover, the smallholders’ historical success has been attained
without support from successive central governments in Indonesia
and often in spite of active government hindrance. Until recently,
the Indonesian government directed all its technical, material and
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 215

regulatory support to the estate sector (see Booth 1988:206, 225);

the only attention that it gave to the smallholder sector was punitive
in nature.
The historic competitiveness of the smallholders is based on the
‘composite’ character of their economies, in which they cultivate
food crops—usually by extensive swidden agricultural technology—
to meet their subsistence needs, while cultivating rubber to meet
their market-oriented needs (Dove 1993).5 In the case of the Kantu’,
an Ibanic-speaking Dayak people of West Kalimantan (Indonesia)
whose agricultural system I studied in depth, the primary
subsistence crops are dry rice (as well as some swamp rice) and a
wide variety of non-rice cultigens, including a second cereal, maize,
a number of different cucurbits, and a number of different tubers,
including cassava and sweet potato and, to a lesser extent, taro.
When the rice crop fails to meet subsistence requirements (as it
may three years in ten), the market crops are sold to buy rice. Pará
rubber is the most important market or cash crop for the Kantu’,
with pepper (Piper nigrum L.) being a distant second.

THE HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION OF RUBBER

KNOWLEDGE
The history of rubber exploitation in the New and Old Worlds as
just summarized is also a rich history of the migration, alteration,
invention, combination and contestation of knowledge, a history that
aptly illustrates the problem with the concept of indigenous
knowledge.

South America
In the 1870s, England made four separate attempts to ship rubber
plants out of the Amazon Basin, involving three different species
(Hevea, Castilloa, and Ceara). The most successful attempt was
made in 1876, by an Englishman by the name of Henry [Link].
He collected 70,000 Hevea seeds and brought them to the Royal
Botanic Gardens in Kew, England, where 2,700 were successfully
germinated, 2,500 of which were then shipped to England’s colonies
in Asia and became the literal foundation of the region’s rubber
industry. Wickham became famous (in some quarters infamous) for
this one deed.6 Less well-known is the fact that he spent much of
the rest of his life trying to ensure that what was transferred to Asia
was not just the genetic resource, Hevea, but also the characteristic
New World system of knowledge for exploiting this resource, about
which Wickham claimed to be an expert and on which he wrote a
book in 1908 (entitled On the Plantation, Cultivation, and Curing of
Pará Indian Rubber). This book—which represented Wickham’s
effort to adapt the native system of forest gathering to a plantation
216 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

system—already represented not the South American reality,

therefore, but a reinter-pretation and reinvention of that reality.
Wickham lists a number of points in his book that he deems
critical to the success of Hevea in Asia. First, he points out that
Hevea is a forest tree and thus it should be cultivated (‘on lines of
forestry’) in a forest-type environment, not, for example, in a garden
(Wickham 1908:3–4, 33).7 He was critical, however, of attempts
simply to plant Hevea (as a ‘self-elimination forest product’) in
standing natural forests (ibid.: 57–8, 63), as was the practice of the
Netherlands Indies Forest Service, with both Hevea and Ficus, till
1912 (Cramer 1956:257).8 Wickham (ibid.: 64) objected to this
practice because he said that Hevea took at least three times as
long to mature under forest shade as out in the open, so he
recommended managing Hevea in plantations instead (which is
indeed how all Hevea came to be managed). His specifications for
plantations included wide spacing (which came to prevail on estates
but not smallholdings), and also a no-till, no-burn policy (which was
partially followed, in different ways, by both estates and
smallholders; Wickham ibid.: 12–23, 65, passim). He also claimed
(ibid.:56–7, 61) that Hevea plantations should not be established on
swampy lands, an admonition that was widely ignored during the
early years of the industry in Southeast Asia and then subsequently
embraced when it was found that Wickham was right. His chief
failure involved his advice for tapping Hevea: he insisted that Hevea
should only be tapped by means of a chisel and a mallet, following
the native Amazonian system then in use (ibid.: 24–8). A far
superior V-shaped or ‘herringbone’ style of cut, using a modified
farrier’s knife, was developed by Henry Nicholas Ridley while he was
director of Singapore’s Botanical Gardens.9 Although Wickham
(ibid.: 37–8) insisted that this ‘excision instead of incision’, as he
put it, would lead to root failure and possible pest infestation,
Ridley’s system prevailed and was eventually universally adopted,
causing his fame to surpass that of Wickham’s (Purseglove 1956,
1957). Wickham’s final recommendation (ibid.: 29, 38–39) was for
the latex product to be preserved by an ‘antiseptic smoke cure’,
which met with a varied response, being followed by most estates
but only some smallholders (for example, I have observed
smokehouses among Banjarese in South but none among the
Kantu’ of West Kalimantan). The transfer of rubber from the New to
Old World illustrates, in short, a significant disjunction between the
material resource and the attendant knowledge system for
exploiting it.

Southeast Asia
It has been suggested that the colonial programme of transplanting
Hevea to Southeast Asia was stimulated in part by the observation
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 217

by colonial officers of the abundance of native rubbers in this region

(Wolf and Wolf 1936:152), and the colonial powers did experiment
with a number of them before committing themselves exclusively to
Hevea. Cramer (1956:226) lists the species experimented with as
including Castilloa, Ficus, Funtumia and Manihot spp., and even
lianas like Willughbeia firma Bl.10 Cramer (1956:264) also suggests
that a plantation of Ficus elastica in Java—established no later than
1864, and thus well before the introduction of Hevea—may be the
first rubber plantation in the world.
Whereas the presence of indigenous latex may have exerted an
influence on the colonial transplantation project, there is no
evidence that the indigenous systems for exploiting them did so.
Nor is there much more evidence of influence from the South
American boom era system of exploitation, Wickham’s book
notwithstanding. This is not to say that there was no feedback from
New World to Old, as, for example, is reflected in the fact that Ridley
began his tapping experiments with the same mallet and one-inch
chisel that Wickham recommended (Purseglove 1957:137). But the
fact that Ridley did not finish there indicates that there was no
compulsion to take that feedback to heart. Indeed, Wolf and Wolf
(1936:166) write:

Had the British Government’s botanists at the Eastern gardens

and experimental stations and their planter constituents been
well versed in Amazon lore, had Wickham’s report to the
Government of India been broadcast as a Bible instead of
bureaucratically being filed away to gather dust, things would
have started off on a Brazilian basis. This would have meant a
moderate success, and the heavy odds are that widely spaced
trees and reckless and wasteful slashing in seringuero style
would have prevailed….

The result was that the colonial states did a great deal of
reinvention. Wolf and Wolf (ibid.) continue:

Needed was the very plantation system that came into being in
the East, and it came into being because men, knowing
nothing whatever about the Hevea, blundered and
experimented and tested through failure after failure until they
hit on the methods of planting, of tapping, of coagulating, that
gave the sort of results we know today.

The results of some of these experiments were successfully passed

on from the estate system to the smallholder system in Southeast
Asia. Most notably, the broad outlines of Ridley’s system of tapping
—involving a spiral, V-shaped cutting of the bark with the modified
farrier’s knife—were universally adopted among smallholders in
218 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Southeast Asia. Another notably successful transfer of technology

involves the use of mechanical rollers to press water out of the
coagulated rubber slabs. The five-nation, International Rubber
Regulation Agreement of the 1930s altered the tax structure to
favour rubber with lower water content (in an ultimately
unsuccessful effort to preserve the estate sector from the
competition of the smallholder sector [Dove 1996]), as a result of
which cast-iron ‘rubber mangles’ spread in a few years into even the
remote interior of Borneo. On the other hand, smallholders did not
adopt the system of clean weeding that was initially favoured on the
estates. (The estate sector eventually reversed itself and followed the
smallholders’ lead on this). Perhaps even more importantly, the
smallholders did not adopt the economics of the estate system (and
this helped to give them their historical advantage vis-à-vis the
estates). Thus, most smallholders adopted rubber cultivation as
part of a portfolio of activities and not as their sole source of
livelihood. In part as a result, their production of rubber tended to
be more consumption- than production-driven. That is, they tended
to produce as much rubber as they needed to produce, not as much
as they could produce.

SOUTHEAST ASIAN SMALLHOLDERS

Contrary to widespread belief (e.g. Cramer 1956:292; Keong 1976:
182), the smallholders of Southeast Asia did not simply model their
systems of rubber management after the estates (Missen 1972:
214; Pelzer 1978:282–3). The smallholders drew to some extent on
their experience of exploiting the region’s indigenous forest rubbers
(which was part of the indigenous knowledge base of smallholder
rubber development in Southeast Asia). I have suggested elsewhere
(Dove 1994) that the linkage between the cultivation of Hevea and
the earlier gathering of wild rubbers was in effect one of
‘domestication’: a trade based on gathering wild rubber became a
trade based on cultivating rubber, albeit not of the same species.11
Whereas the smallholders engaged in some cultivation of indigenous
species, they did much less than the estates did; nor did the
smallholders experiment with as many different species as the
estates did before settling on Hevea (Cramer ibid.: 294). In
important other ways, however, the smallholders engaged in a
considerable amount of independent reinvention, and the result is a
unique contribution to agricultural development.
A key, perhaps the key to this development was the linkage that
the smallholders developed between rubber cultivation on the one
hand and the swidden cultivation system on the other. Cramer
(1956:292–4) suggests that this was the main factor in the rapid
spread of Hevea in Indonesia after 1915 (cf. Pelzer 1978; Dove
1993). This linkage is based on both temporal complementarity
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 219

PLATES 8.1 KANTU’ SMALLHOLDER TAPPING ONE OF HIS RUBBER

TREES.

(smallholder rubber can be tapped during idle periods in the

swidden cultivation calendar, and during busy periods in the
swiddens it can be left alone to recuperate; Dove ibid.: 139–41) and
220 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

spatial complementarity (the relative intensity of smallholder rubber

ensures that it will occupy very little of an extensive swidden
territory, and even then it is usually possible to confine it to areas
less suited for swiddens; ibid.: 141–2). Spatial and temporal factors
combine in perhaps the most important complementarity of all:
multiple and dispersed rubber gardens can be made at little cost,
which allows the smallholders actively to tap only that one garden
in a given year that is nearest to that part of the swidden territory
that they wish to farm (Dove 1985:63–4). The colonial powers in the
region also invented joint swidden and cash crop systems—the
tobacco-swidden system of Deli Sumatra and the teak-swidden
(taungya) system of Burma are perhaps the most famous—but in
these cases it was the estate or forestry sector that profited from the
complementarity (treated as a subsidy of the state, not the
smallholders [Bryant 1994]), whereas in the case under discussion
it was the smallholders that profited from it. When the smallholders
profit from the complementarity, they are empowered by the
production system; but when the state (or parastatal sector) profits,
the smallholders are disempowered by the system.
A second, important aspect of the cultivation system devised by
the smallholders was its agro-ecology. The plantation sector
(especially in the British colonies [Cramer 1956:286]) spaced their
trees widely and clean-weeded their estates to maximize production
and minimize the threat from pests and disease, especially root
disease. In contrast, the smallholders planted their rubber two or
three times as densely (Bauer 1948:56; Cramer ibid.: 305) and
permitted natural secondary growth to spring up among the rubber
trees during periods of non-tapping. Even during tapping they only
lightly cut back this growth. We now know that these smallholder
practices raise the air temperature and humidity within the rubber
grove, which favours latex production and the quick recovery of
tapping scars and also inhibits pests and disease (which actually
found the clean and open character of the estates more to their
liking; Bauer ibid.: 58). Recollecting that Hevea is in origin a forest
species, it makes sense that it would find a forest-like environment
(which ‘mimicked’ the forest, as Wickham [1908:33] had
recommended) more hospitable.12 The smallholder practice of
encouraging natural secondary growth among the rubber trees has
another advantage as well: this growth includes naturally seeded
second- and successive-generation rubber trees, which thereby
extend the use-life of the rubber garden (viz., the new trees replace
old trees that cease to be productive).13
A third distinctive aspect of the production system devised by the
smallholders involved its socio-economic structure, which
encompassed a number of innovations.14 One was the participation
(in most parts of Indonesia and Malaysia) of women in production,
which contrasted with the global tendency for women to be
marginalized by the introduction of cash-cropping.15 Another
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 221

innovation was the transactional character of rubber production: as

suggested earlier, most smallholders adopted rubber as just one
element in a portfolio of economic activities. Rubber production was
typically distinguished from the other components of the portfolio in
being more monetized and focused on the market needs and short-
term reproduction of the household in contrast to the region’s
systems of rice production, which tended to be less monetized and
to focus more on the subsistence needs and long-term reproduction
of the group. A related innovation involves the intensity and timing
of production: given rubber’s role in the household economy,
smallholders could produce more, if they chose, when market prices
fell (i.e. an ‘inverse production curve’ [Boeke 1953:125–6; Lindblad
1988:71, 117]), or they could produce less, or they could not
produce anything at all and just live off their subsistence activities.
A final, related innovation consisted in the creation of a new and
distinctive set of tenurial rules for rubber gardens, which were also
oriented more toward household than community reproduction, and
which in addition addressed the need to be able to defend property
rights against the threat of appropriation by extra-local actors,
including the state.16
A fourth and final area of smallholder innovation involved the
ideology of production. The most important innovation of all may
have been the development of a mechanism for rationalizing the
combination of the two distinct transactional orders: on the one
hand market-oriented cash-cropping, and on the other hand
subsistence-oriented food production. The reconciliation of the two
orders is exemplified in the dream of the rice-eating rubber tree that
swept through the interior of Borneo in the 1930s, catalyzing an
effort by Dayak smallholders to balance their involvement in the two
types of agriculture (Dove 1996). The resultant ability of most
smallholders to weather a crisis like the depression in better fashion
than the estates shows that some of the most creative and
successful production of rubber knowledge took place among
smallholders, not estate managers. This fact has not been accepted
by the plantation sector, however.
On the contrary, during the colonial as well as post-colonial eras,
the estate sector focused its attention on protecting itself and
deprecating the smallholder sector. During the 1920s and 1930s,
for example, competition from the smallholder sector was regarded
as an unwholesome ‘survival of the fittest’, which was deemed
prejudicial to capital and empire, and against which the estate
sector invoked international regulatory protection (Dove 1996;
Drabble 1973: 167–9).17 The Dutch, British and other partners in
the International Rubber Regulation Agreement of the 1930s
claimed that they were only after a ‘reasonable return to the average
efficient producer’ (Bauer 1948:200), but they would not explain
how they defined this category (ibid.: 195), and in practice it was
clear that it excluded all smallholders by definition, notwithstanding
222 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

the fact that they produced the most rubber for the lowest cost. The
colonial estate sector justified its hostility to the smallholders by
interpreting the smallholders’ inverse production curve as a
disruptive phenomenon that belonged to an entirely alien system.
Boeke’s (1953) thesis of the dual economy of a European-dominated
plantation sector and a native subsistence-oriented sector
epitomizes this kind of thinking. The belief in a dual economy of
unlike and unmixable elements became state policy in Malaysia
during the first decades of this century, when the state actively tried
to keep Malays involved in rice production and uninvolved in rubber
production (Barlow and Drabble 1990:197).
Since it was potentially difficult for the estate sector to justify its
opposition to the smallholders on the grounds of the latter’s
competitiveness (given the fact that the rubber-poor and rubber-
hungry US was ever on the look-out for signs of price-busting
market manipulation), the colonial estate sector framed much of its
critique of smallholder agriculture in terms of various alleged
threats from smallholder cultivation practices.18 This included
threats to the smallholders themselves: thus, the colonial estate
sector claimed that the smallholders’ productivity and
competitiveness were due to over-tapping, which threatened the
long-term sustainability of their own resource-base (Bauer 1948:37,
68).19 When investigated in the field, however, this charge proved to
be without foundation.20 The estate sector also was concerned
about threats to itself, especially from the diseases that were
thought to be promoted by smallholder practices. Again, however,
field studies showed that this threat was without basis.21
Experience showed that the greatest threat of disease was posed by
the cultivation practices of the estates, such as clean-weeding. But
when the estate sector finally recognized this and adopted the
smallholder innovation of permitting the growth of natural ground
cover in the rubber groves, this innovation was not credited to the
smallholders but was appropriated by the estate sector. Thus, the
estate sector glossed its no clean-weeding ‘innovation’ as ‘rubber
forestry’ (cf. Pelzer 1945:78), while it continued to denigrate
smallholdings with related but more negatively-loaded phrases like
‘rubber jungles’.

Contemporary Southeast Asian Estates

The contemporary plantation sector in Southeast Asia, especially in
Indonesia, persists in this pattern of locating all innovation,
knowledge and value in itself as opposed to the smallholder sector.
The stakes in the competition between plantation and smallholding
are at least as high as they were during colonial times, affecting as
they do not just market share but the wider issue of control of rural
land and labour resources. This competition is most evident when
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 223

smallholdings are physically cleared to make way for parastatal

plantation projects. Smallholdings are regularly appropriated today,
typically without choice and with inadequate compensation, for
timber concessions, pulp plantations and nucleus estates. It is far
from rare—and is probably the norm in the case of rubber
plantations—for the parastatal enterprise that appropriates the land
to plant the same cash crop that had been growing there on the
erstwhile smallholding. (For example, in 1993 I was told by the
managers of a combined nucleus estate/transmigration project in
West Kalimantan that most of the land that they cleared for their
plantation had been hutan karet/hutan sekonder [rubber jungle/
secondary jungle].)22
The state’s principal development programme for smallholders
has been the so-called ‘nucleus estate’, which consists of
smallholdings (the so-called plasma) surrounding a central
parastatal nucleus. This spatial design reflects the explicit premise
of the programme that the ‘repository of experience’ of the parastatal
plantation is critical to smallholder development (Barlow 1991:100).
The possibility that other, more relevant repositories of expertise
exist, as among the rubber smallholders themselves, is thus denied
out of hand. This spatial design also reflects the perduring estate
desire to ensure that any smallholdings in its vicinity are under its
control. Smallholdings not under estate control, which are called
‘enclaves’, are seen as a threat to estate management and the
control of processing and marketing. The nucleus estate is yet
another reinvention of the system of rubber cultivation, therefore,
and one that privileges the model of (and control by) estates as
opposed to smallholders.
There are additional bureaucratic mechanisms that achieve the
same end by making smallholdings appear insignificant, if not,
indeed, invisible. These include government bureaucratic structures
that prioritize the gathering of data on rubber products as opposed
to rubber production (i.e. smallholder rubber exports are carefully
tracked and taxed, but smallholder rubber acreage is under-
counted in national statistics23) and the use of language like ‘rubber
jungle’, which, as previously noted, deprecates the quality of
management involved in smallholder cultivation. The impression of
primitiveness associated with smallholdings is preserved and
enhanced by a policy of focusing government research and
development resources on estates or estate-like hybrids such as tha
nucleus estate (Gouyon, De Foresta and Levang 1993:199). The
clonal rubber that has been the focus of so much Indonesian
research, for example, is not well suited to conditions on
smallholdings (ibid.: 199–200). Occasional experimental projects
have shown that it is in fact relatively easy to address smallholder
conditions and needs, but that it is very difficult to win government
support for anything that does not favour the parastatal sector.24
224 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

The Dayak smallholders of Borneo actively contest this denial of

the importance of their system of rubber cultivation. A recent
publication by a prominent Dayak NGO in Pontianak reports the
following assertion made by a Dayak leader in Pontianak to the vice-
Governor of the province:

Ada ratusan calon sarjana dari Simpang Hulu. Mereka bukan

karena perusahaan HPH atau HTI atau PIR melainkan karena
karet. Jadi tidak ada alasan jika kami mau menerima HTI atau
PIR atau sejenisnya di Simpang Hulu.… There are hundreds of
holders of Bachelors’ degrees from Simpang Hulu. This [is] not
because of logging concessions or pulp plantations or nucleus
estates but rather because of [smallholder] rubber. Thus there
is no reason for us to accept pulp plantations or nucleus
estates in Simpang Hulu…. (IDRD 1994:24)

Dayak assertiveness regarding the value of their system of

smallholder cultivation is reflected in their demands for
compensation whenever their rubber gardens are appropriated for
government projects and in their continued planting of rubber, all
of this negative feedback notwithstanding. Indeed, continued
planting and the resultant increases in the amount of land under
rubber have enabled Indonesian smallholders to match the
research-driven increases on productivity in the parastatal
plantations and so maintain their share of national rubber
production: smallholders held at least 85 percent of Indonesia’s
rubber acreage in 1993 (probably more, given the chronic under-
recording of smallholder rubber acreage [Gouyon, De Foresta and
Levang 1993:182]) and produced 75 per cent of its rubber (GOI
1994:231–4).

KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION
This history of the construction of knowledge of rubber cultivation
is not consistent with the concept of indigenous knowledge. This
history shows movement, invention and contest that are
inconsistent with the whole idea of indigeneity. This inconsistency
stems, in particular, from three critical ‘realignments’ involved in
the transplanting of Hevea from South America to Southeast Asia:
first, the separation of rubber not just from its biological but also
from its cultural environment; secondly, experimentation with the
system of rubber production; and thirdly, the diversification of
rubber stake-holders.
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 225

Cultural Versus Biological Constraints on Production

It has long been known that removing a plant from its native
habitat confers the advantage of freeing the plant from the pests
and diseases with which it evolved, and this advantage is often
invoked to explain why so many tropical crops were developed
outside their natural ranges. As examples of such crops, Purseglove
(1957:128) mentions, in addition to rubber, cocoa, quinine, coffee,
cloves, nutmeg, sugar, bananas, lime and vanilla. Some rubber
scholars, most notably Dean (1987) in recent years, have thus
attempted to explain why efforts to cultivate Pará rubber were so
much more successful in Southeast Asia than in South America in
terms of the fact that Southeast Asia is free of rubber’s most serious
native pest, namely leaf blight (Microcyclos ulei).25
However, I believe that this explanation overly privileges biological
variables at the expense of equally if not more important political
and economic ones.26 Whereas market-oriented tapping of South
American trees dates from the 1840s and the first private
plantations in Southeast Asia from the turn of the century, the first
large-scale attempt to establish rubber on plantations in South
America was not made until 1928, by the Ford Motor Company
(Purseglove 1968: 147–8, 150–1). The fact that this first effort
succumbed to leaf blight—and gave prominence to the leaf blight
explanation—does not explain why it took over three-quarters of a
century to make the effort in the first place. Nor does it explain why
no efforts at cultivation were made in the latter half of the
nineteenth century, when a number of different trees were being
exploited for rubber, including two members of the genus Hevea
that are naturally resistant to leaf blight (namely Hevea
benthamiana Muell.-Arg. and Hevea nitida Mart, ex Muell.-Arg.;
Hevea brasiliensis was not established as the premier source for
rubber until the turn of the century [Purseglove ibid.: 147].) As
Weinstein (1983:32) writes:

These ‘ecological’ factors cannot be cited as actually having

discouraged hevea planting, since it was only after the decline
that they were widely acknowledged by the scientific
community. […]Their ‘discovery’ would have come much earlier
if a concerted attempt had been made during the rubber era.

Other obstacles to cultivation—including the development of a more

productive and sustainable system of tapping—were successfully
overcome in Southeast Asia. The contrasting failure to overcome the
problem of leaf blight in South America suggests that different
incentives were at work.27
I suggest that the benefits of removing a plant from its biological
environment may be no more important than the benefits of
removing a plant from its social, economic, political and conceptual
226 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

environ ments. I have already suggested that this removal made

possible the development of a far more efficient technology of
exploitation. Wolf and Wolf (1936:166) claim that it was historical
good fortune that resulted in the Southeast Asian system of rubber
being created from scratch instead of being modelled along
Amazonian lines. I suggest that this removal also made possible
additional, subtler innovations that were key to the future success
of its cultivation by Southeast Asian smallholders. One of the
foremost of these was in tenurial regimes. The possibility of tenurial
innovation (mentioned earlier) was raised as soon as Pará rubber
was transplanted out of its native habitat. Within this native
habitat, Pará rubber could be planted but it did not have to be (nor
was it often);28 outside of its native habitat, in contrast, as in
Southeast Asia, it had to be planted. This distinction is significant
because in general in Southeast Asia, as in South America,
‘Cultivated crops, not wild rubber trees, served as proof of
possession’ (Weinstein 1983:35). Pará rubber was a wild rubber tree
in South America; it became a cultivated crop in Southeast Asia. By
planting or not—and thus by raising or not issues of public versus
private domain and of nature versus culture—the potential for
control by state elites versus smallholders is very different.29 The
fact that smallholders in Southeast Asia planted their Pará rubber
trees empowered them in a way that was not true for their prior
exploitation of native rubbers or the prior exploitation of Pará
rubber by the native seringueiros in South America.30

Experimentation
The second and related type of ‘realignment’ associated with the
transplanting of rubber from the New World to the Old involved
prolonged experimentation in rubber cultivation. Because Hevea
was transferred to Southeast Asia largely without reference to the
South American experience (Wolf and Wolf 1936), a good deal of
experimentation was necessarily carried out (cf. Dean 1987:7).
Indeed, the introduction of Hevea itself was preceded by
considerable experimentation with other species, as noted earlier.
Even once the choice of planting stock had narrowed down to
Hevea, the introduction still had a very experimental character.
Ridley initially had little success in persuading Malaysian planters
even to consider planting Hevea. Indeed, his continued promotion
of Hevea earned him the sobriquet of ‘Mad Ridley’ among the
planters. Even his own government was dubious: according to
Ridley himself, he was ‘carpeted by the Governor [of Malaya], Sir
Frank Swettenham, who admonished him to waste less time on an
uneconomic product such as rubber’ (Purseglove 1957:135). This
situation did not change until cyclic disease outbreaks and market
reversals led planters to become disillusioned with coffee and tea
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 227

and more willing to experiment with rubber (Davidson 1927:677–9;

Keong 1976: 35–6; Purseglove 1957:135).31 In addition, as
cultivated rubber spread out into the smallholder population in
Southeast Asia, a separate tradition of experimentation was begun
and carried on. Just as the system of estate rubber in Southeast
Asia was created from the nearly ‘clean slate’ that was brought from
South America, the Southeast Asian system of smallholder rubber
was created from the nearly ‘clean slate’ that was taken from the
estates.
The biggest experiment of all in the transplanting of rubber to
Southeast Asia was an unexpected one, to determine whether the
estate or the smallholder would be more competitive—and the
answer was the latter. In essence, the smallholders did to the
estates in Southeast Asia what Southeast Asia as a region did to
South America. In both cases the loser of this experiment was
associated with the status quo (and in both cases it was similarly
unappreciative of the outcome). This experimentation therefore
seemed to privilege the new versus the old. Indeed, each reinvention
of the rubber system of production was associated with a politico-
economic realignment (first between South America and Southeast
Asia, and then again between Southeast Asia estates and
smallholders), and each reinvention was inimical to the status quo.
The process of reinvention is obviously highly sensitive to
competitive factors, the ‘survival of the fittest’ for which the estate
sector wisely professed such distaste (Drabble 1973:167).
The experimental character of the transplanting of rubber, the
sundering of the material resource from the body of knowledge
previously associated with it, is reflected in the angst this
engendered in the colonial figure most associated with the material
resource—Wickham, the initial agent of the transplanting. His
writings are laced with criticisms of the ‘experimenting’ being done
with Hevea: he writes that the transfer of Hevea to Asia ‘can hardly
be called an experiment [and] is calculated to be of the greatest value
to practical planters in all the Equatorial colonies’, who can be
furnished (presumably by Wickham himself) ‘with authoritative
data…of a nature to be depended upon’ (Wickham 1908:71). He
even (ibid.: 59) supports his opposition to experimentation with the
claim that South American natives had already carried out the
necessary experimenting and already perfected Hevea (which is an
unexpected invocation in this context of indigenous knowledge).32 He
writes:

There is really nothing experimental about ‘fine Pará.’ It is, and

was (probably generations before the advent of the Spaniard
into North America), made more durable—of more climate-
resisting quality—than any factory-made, by certain of the
Indian forest tribes (such as the Guyangomo and the Piaroa).
228 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Wickham’s (1908:58–9) criticism of experimentation has a self-

aggrandizing quality about it: ‘Much time, doubtless, has been lost
in “experimenting”, and it would seem a pity that experience and
recommendations, as set forth in my India Office Reports, was not
made effective and available for the practical man—the man on the
spot.’ It seems clear, therefore, that Wickham’s antipathy toward
experimentation was based on the fact that experimentation is
inimical to the South American status quo, including its cultural as
well as its biological aspects, to which his status was tied. The truth
of this linkage is reflected in the fact that whereas Purseglove (1956:
17) credits Wickham among others for the introduction of Hevea to
Asia, he states that ‘its exploitation and establishment as a
plantation crop was due almost entirely to Ridley’. The separation
between the material resource and the knowledge of the resource
that is implicit in Purseglove’s observation was inimical to
Wickham’s authority, and Wickham appears to have anticipated
and lobbied against it.

Diversification
The third ‘realignment’ involved in the transplanting of rubber to
Southeast Asia pertains to a re-shuffling between the major
stakeholders. My effort in the preceding section to separate
knowledge from indigeneity helps to break down an overly simplistic
local-extra-local dichotomy, helping us to see that the actors in this
game are not monolithic. One major axis of differentiation that I
identified was between the New and Old World industries.33 Another
dimension of the Old World-New World division involved the
differences that have been described between Wickham and the
Southeast Asian plantation establishment over how to grow rubber.
The other major axis of differentiation described in the preceding
section was between the estate and smallholder sectors in Southeast
Asia. On the other hand, some divisions that might have been
expected to exist did not. Kew gardens included in the distribution
of Wickham’s rubber seedlings not just the British colonies in Asia
but some non-British ones as well, including Indonesia (Cramer
1956:237; Dove forthcoming).
Some unexpected related alliances also were formed. Wickham’s
arguments with the Southeast Asian estates led to his unlikely
alignment with native Amazonian tappers, who, he insisted, had
already done all of the experimentation that needed to be done.
Similarly, Wolf and Wolf (1937:237) say that the Asian smallholder
became the greatest ally of the rubber-hungry US in its battle
against the Southeast Asian estate rubber cartel.34 And whereas the
estate sector presented a largely united front during the 1920s and
1930s (the era of international rubber regulation), this is less true
today. For example, Malaysia raised the average yields of its
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 229

smallholders by 126 per cent between 1965 and 1980 by means of a

simple low-cost programme of technological assistance (cf. Barlow
and Tomich 1991:50). This greatly altered the dynamics of its
estate-smallholder relationship compared with Indonesia, where no
such assistance was provided and where yields rose just 17 per
cent during the same time period (Booth 1988:211–12).

DISCUSSION: KNOWLEDGE AND POWER

The three ‘discontinuities’ central to the historical production of
rubber knowledge, which were discussed in the preceding section
(that is, separation from its origins, experimentation and changes in
production technologies, and diversification of stake-holders), are
all inconsistent with the concept of indigenous knowledge,
undermining its premises of localization, continuity and
homogeneity. By the same token, the concept of indigenous
knowledge ‘writes over’ the aforementioned historical
discontinuities. The purpose of this section is to ask what the
implications of this over-writing are for relations of power.

‘Dividing Practices’
The concept of indigenous knowledge implies that the system in
which knowledge is embedded is isolated and outside history, which
does not hold even for the most remote of the smallholder groups
(for example, the tribal Kantu’) that have been discussed here, who
have been engaged with the wider world for a century now (just in
terms of rubber) in both the reception and reciprocation, adoption
and adaptation, of genetic materials and technological systems. The
concept of indigenous knowledge not only suggests that there is no
outside knowledge in the indigenous community, it also suggests
that there is no indigenous knowledge in the outside community—
an unreal dichotomy that, again, is not illuminating (since it
obscures not only the fact that smallholders are using a tapping
technique developed in the government estate sector, for example,
but also that the latter sector is itself following a ground-cover
strategy developed in the smallholder sector). The history of rubber
production suggests that both sides of this equation are false and
that all knowledge systems always represent a confluence of local
and extra-local experience.35
The vision of a chasm instead of a confluence between local and
extra-local systems of knowledge is not sociologically neutral: it
creates conceptual space for the exercise of central bureaucratic
authority in ‘bridging’ imaginary divides, which thus privileges such
authority (cf. Ferradás’s [1998:240] earlier cited comment that
indigenous knowledge is a ‘self-privileging antinomy’). The
constructed division between indigenous and non-indigenous
230 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

knowledge is an example of what Foucault (1982:208) calls ‘dividing

practices’, referring to the many ways by which societies objectify the
other and privilege the self (for example, by distinguishing between
the mad and the sane, the sick and the healthy, criminals and law-
abiding citizens). The concept of indigenous knowledge is self-
privileging not only because it emphasizes the positive things that
extra-local bureaucracies can do, but also because it draws
attention away from the negative things that they might be doing.
By problematizing the division between the local and the extra-
local, the concept of indigenous knowledge obscures existing
linkages between local and extra-local systems; and by emphasizing
the need to bridge the divide, this concept obscures the possibility
that the divide may actually need to be not bridged but negotiated
(that is, the vision of a non-relationship makes it difficult to
recognize the presence of a contested relationship). In short, the
separation of local and extra-local knowledge systems implicit in the
concept of indigenous knowledge leads to the eliding of interaction
and contestation between them.
Such interaction and contestation was integral to the history of
rubber knowledge surveyed in the preceding section. This survey
revealed a history rife with struggles over power and authority,
many of which encompassed a struggle over knowledge (of rubber),
and in particular over public representations concerning who had
knowledge and who did not. Historically (and still today, to some
extent), the rhetoric of the Southeast Asian estate sector concerning
smallholders has been dominated by a contest over knowledge. The
estate- promoted debates concerning good versus bad practices of
tapping, weeding, and so on all represent an attack on smallholder
knowledge and an explicit privileging of estate knowledge. These
debates turn not on the indigenous versus non-indigenous nature
of knowledge, but on its authority—whether estates or smallholders
know best how to exploit natural resources and, therefore, which
has the greatest right to do so.
This suggestion, that knowledge systems are not so much
separate and different as they are competing and contested, runs
counter to one of the major premises of the concept of indigenous
knowledge, which is that local communities (like the Southeast
Asian rubber smallholders) hold autonomous bodies of knowledge
that are unknown to the wider society, and that the study of this
knowledge by the wider society is a key to local empowerment and
development. The data presented here on the historical production
of knowledge about rubber suggest, to the contrary, not only that
the knowledge system of Southeast Asian smallholders has not been
autonomous, but also that the wider society (that is, the state-
supported estate sector) has not been interested in studying it
because it has had its own competing system of production and
knowledge. What we see in the rubber case is therefore not a case
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 231

of misunderstanding or ignorance of indigenous knowledge, but a

case of unwillingness to accord any validity to it.
In this and similar cases, the concept of indigenous knowledge
glosses what are actually differences in self-interest as differences in
knowledge, it glosses what is largely a political challenge to accept
indigenous knowledge, authority and rights as a pedagogical
challenge to reveal the unstudied indigenous knowledge. Whereas
the concept is predicated on the belief that recognition of
indigenous knowledge will promote local development and
empowerment, these goals are likely to prove elusive in the absence
of a recognition of indigenous authority and rights. The concept
overly privileges the power of knowing versus doing and the
authority of scientific versus political projects.

Discontinuity and ‘Mad Ridley’

The political implications of perceived continuity versus
discontinuity in knowledge systems can be further illuminated by
examining the way that different actors perceive the role that
chance versus determinism has played in the history of rubber.
Historic accounts of the development of the Southeast Asian rubber
industry tended to empha size the role in it of chance. For example,
Allen and Donnithorne (1962:106–7) report a 1910 observation
within the industry to the effect that ‘the chances that existed in
cultivated rubber were chances “which exist only once in a hundred
years and very likely…once in a thousand years”’. This ‘millenarian’
tone was set by the initial accounts of Wickham himself, with his
overweening (and indeed, as subsequent research has shown,
highly inventive) emphasis on the challenges, risks and dangers of
his expedition to gather the seeds upon which the Southeast Asian
industry was founded. In an explicit counter to this quixotic image
of the rubber transplanting, Dean, the rubber historian has
critiqued the idea of a ‘sudden, dramatic transfer’ of rubber to Asia
(1987:7). In an explicit effort to replace the ‘myth’ of Henry Wickham
(as ‘hero and rogue’, ‘bestower and thief of rubber seeds) with a
more prosaic image (cf. Dove forthcoming), he writes: ‘Alas, it was
not so much an adventure as it was a complex bureaucratic project,
some fifty years in the execution’ (Dean ibid.). I suggest that the
transplanting of rubber was both more and less than this, and that
Dean’s revisionist view, while purporting to diminish the authority of
the state, still greatly overprivileges its authority. Whereas at one
level Dean takes power away from the colonial regime by saying that
this great project of rubber transplanting was not instantaneous, at
another level he returns power to the colonial regime in that he
represents it as a project at all. To characterize the complex,
contested and multi-faceted rubber history that was summarized
earlier as the ‘project’ of just one of its participants is to impose a
232 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

post-facto teleology that privileges the role of some (that is, the
colonial regime) and not others (that is, the local Southeast Asian
smallholders).
A good example of the need to resist this teleological tendency is
provided by the case of the father of the modern system of tapping,
the above-mentioned Henry Nicholas Ridley. As noted earlier,
Ridley’s pioneering work on rubber cultivation initially earned him
the derisive epithet of ‘Mad Ridley’. This sort of deprecation is, of
course, not unusual in the early history of pioneering technological
advances, but neither is it without relevance for the nature of these
advances. We cannot treat as simply amusing the fact that what
eventually proved to be a hugely successful endeavour (for at least
some of the parties involved) was nonetheless first seen as ‘mad’.
This epithet suggests that there was not historic continuity here but
discontinuity; and as Foucault (1977) notes in the epigraph to
this chapter, discontinuities are illuminating—and so, I would add,
are the ways that discontinuities are represented.
Representation of continuity in rubber history privileges the
aforementioned colonial (and to some extent post-colonial) estate
project at the expense of local smallholder projects. It also privileges
the estate project at the expense of individual ‘heroic’ projects like
that of Wickham. This helps explain the many differences of opinion
between Wickham and the Southeast Asian plantation
establishment: Wickham’s representations were all about self-
aggrandizement.36 What it does not explain is the fact that the
colonial society as a whole seems to have preferred Wickham’s
version of history; although this preference only developed in later
years, ironically precisely at the time that the vision of the Southeast
Asian plantation establishment established its final ascendancy
over Wickham’s vision (see Dove forthcoming for further analysis of
the perceptions of Wickham and his ‘theft’).

CONCLUSIONS
I began this analysis by questioning the premises of the concept of
‘indigenous knowledge’, based on my case study of a seemingly
exemplary system of indigenous knowledge, contemporary
smallholder rubber cultivation in Southeast Asia. Analysis of this
system shows that it is, like many other such systems, neither
indigenous nor exogenous but rather hybrid in character and,
further, that representation of this hybridity is strongly contested by
the parties involved. I proposed not just to critique the concept of
indigenous knowledge, however, but to examine its ‘life-cycle’ of
initial reception and utility followed by subsequent rejection and
disutility. I summarized the historical development of the
technology of rubber cultivation, looking first at the exploitation of
natural forest rubbers, then at the transplanting of Pará rubber
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 233

from South America to Southeast Asia, and finally at the subsequent

cultivation of Pará rubber on the region’s estates versus
smallholdings. Next I examined the construction of knowledge of
rubber cultivation both during and following this transplanting, in
the Old and New Worlds, on estates and smallholdings, and
historically and in contemporary times. This examination illustrates
a pattern of strategic mixing of the local and the exotic by
smallholders, problematizes the notion of indigeneity in knowledge
systems and demonstrates that the most critical—and contested—
dimension of knowledge between local communities and over-
arching political-economic structures pertains not to the
authenticity of knowledge but to its authority and to the way that
this authority is publicly represented or misrepresented. I suggested
that this history of knowledge construction was characterized by
three critical discontinuities, involving the separation of the rubber
plant from its original conceptual context, extensive
experimentation with rubber production technologies and
diversification of the number and type of rubber stakeholders. In
light of this history, I concluded that the concept of indigenous
knowledge is a type of self-privileging ‘dividing practice’, which
posits much more continuity in this knowledge tradition than there
has in fact been.

Heuristic Use of the Concept of Indigenous Knowledge

I have not always viewed the concept of indigenous knowledge in
the way I have presented here. Earlier in my career, I utilized the
concept of indigenous knowledge myself, notably in writings in
which I attempted to contest the then-orthodox deprecation of the
ecology and economy of marginal peoples (for example, Dove 1985).
The subjects of these writings were local systems of interpreting and
exploiting local natural resources. Today, along with a number of
other scholars (as reflected in the genesis of this volume), I am re-
thinking the implications of the concept of indigenous knowledge.
For the purpose of this re-thinking in the present paper, I selected a
seemingly quite different sort of subject from my earlier studies.
Whereas my earlier studies emphasized more static analyses of
more localized systems of resource-use, the present study
emphasizes a diachronic view of a transnational project. This
distinction may be more apparent than real, however, since even
seemingly localized systems of resource-use like swidden
agriculture, the subject of my earlier studies of indigenous
knowledge, incorporate extra-local genetic resources (for example,
new world cultigens like maize), show evidence of continuous local
borrowing and experimentation (for example, with dry rice varieties)
and are responsive to outside factors (including the introduction of
Pará rubber). On the other hand, my emphasis of some aspects of
234 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

these data over others is an inescapable part of ethnographic

description: on any given occasion, we cannot tell all of the possible
stories contained in our data. The present analysis of the concept of
indigenous knowledge may shed some light on how we decide to tell
one story as opposed to others. Whereas in my earlier use of the
concept I emphasized data that I thought it would illuminate, in my
current critique I emphasize data that I thought would be difficult
for the concept to accommodate. This personal about-face is partly
explained, I suggest, by the fact that use of the concept of
indigenous knowledge is in part heuristic—a dimension that is
missing from some current discussions of the concept.
Agrawal (1995), in his pioneering critique of the concept of
indigenous knowledge, likens the dichotomy between indigenous
and non-indigenous to dichotomies drawn a generation ago in
anthropology, notably by Lévi-Strauss (1966). Agrawal (1995: 414,
424) writes:

Taking Lévi-Strauss as an exemplar, I suggest that the

contradictions in contemporary writings about indigenous
knowledge echo those in earlier attempts of anthropologists to
study ‘savage minds’ and ‘primitive cultures’. […] Neo-
indigenistas seem to have advanced little beyond Lévi-Strauss.
In an enduring image dividing science from the knowledge
systems of the primitives, Lévi-Strauss described the difference
between the engineer and the bricoleur.

Agrawal’s analogy is an apt one, and it illuminates many of the

problems with the concept of indigenous knowledge that I raised
earlier in this analysis. Left unanswered, however, are the further
questions whether constructed dichotomies like that of engineer-
bricoleur or indigenous-non-indigenous may play productive (as
well as unproductive) roles in scholarship and whether they are, in
any case, not inevitable? These additional questions are raised by
Derrida’s work on this same subject in particular.
In Derrida’s commentary on Lévi-Strauss’ work, he concludes,
like Agrawal, that the distinction between savage and civilized
minds, or bricoleurs and engineers, is a ‘myth’. He writes that The
notion of the engineer who supposedly breaks with all forms of
bricolage is therefore a theological idea; and since Lévi-Strauss tells
us elsewhere that bricolage is mythopoetic, the odds are that the
engineer is a myth produced by the bricoleur’ (Derrida 1978:285).
Derrida is not dismissive of such myths, however, because he sees
them as the product of a fundamental and universal
epistemological problem, which he characterizes as ‘the problem of
the status of a discourse which borrows from a heritage the
resources necessary for the deconstruction of the heritage itself
(ibid.: 282). Derrida is suggesting that there is a fundamental
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 235

contradiction at the heart of all deconstruction or criticism, which he

examines with respect to some of the conceptual dichotomies
employed by Lévi-Strauss, like that between the engineer and the
bricoleur or between nature and culture. Referring to the latter, he
writes that ‘Lévi-Strauss simultaneously has experienced the
necessity of utilizing this opposition [between nature and culture]
and the impossibility of accepting it’ (ibid.: 283). Lévi-Strauss’s work
is exemplary, according to Derrida, because he does not simply
elide this contradiction. As Derrida (ibid.: 284) admiringly writes,
‘Lévi-Strauss will always remain faithful to this double intention: to
preserve as an instrument something whose truth value he
criticizes.’

Life-Cycle of the Concept

The contradiction between a conceptual ‘heritage’ and its
‘deconstruction’, as illuminated by Derrida, has implications for the
way that concepts are transformed over time. Just as this
contradiction encompasses the deconstruction of the heritage, so it
also encompasses the incorporation of the deconstruction into the
heritage. The contradiction contributes, in short, to what amount to
conceptual ‘life-cycles’. We intuitively know, from the serial faddism
of current scholarship, that such cycles exist. I suggest that the
intellectual history of the concept of indigenous knowledge, which
has traversed the conceptual space from innovative tool to
hackneyed dichotomy in two decades, is an example of one such
cycle. (The cyclic dimension of the concept is aptly summarized in
Ellen and Harris’ ironic comment in the introduction, that
‘indigenous knowledge is dead, long live indigenous knowledge.’)
In short, I suggest that it is not just that I have changed since I
first employed the concept of indigenous knowledge in my studies of
local systems of resource-use, but that the concept itself has
changed—in part as the intellectual context in which it is employed
has changed. When the concept was first developed, it represented a
useful counter to the customary denial of any such possibility (that
is, the possibility that indigenous knowledge could even exist). To
the extent to which the concept succeeded in this counter-
discourse, however, the intellectual context was transformed and
the concept was transformed with it. Whereas the concept was
initially a deconstruction of a heritage in Derrida’s sense, it later
became less deconstruction and more heritage. (Some such
transformation explains why almost as soon as concepts come into
use, they seem to outlive their usefulness.) This conceptual
routinization and retrenchment eventually sets the stage for
another cycle of deconstruction, and so on.
The life-cycle of the concept therefore consists of a sort of
dialectic, and one of the keys to its dynamics is conceptual ‘excess’.
236 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Excessive denial of the possibility of indigenous knowledge set the

stage for the development of the concept of indigenous knowledge.
The development of this concept in turn erred in the opposite
direction (that is, excessive affirmation of indigeneity), which set the
stage for the backlash and critique that led to the present analysis
and the wider conference that produced this volume.37 Conceptual
excess at each stage of the dialectic is therefore reproduced at
subsequent stages. Such excesses should be regarded as important
revelatory and diagnostic tools.
This discussion of the conceptual life-cycle, including the
dialectical role of excess, has so far assumed that it is a monolithic
process, operating similarly for all of the actors involved. This is an
over-simplification: the cycle does not take place in the same way or
at the same time for all actors, and this difference is another key to
its dynamics. In particular, there is often a time-lag in the cycle
between different actors. For example, as a conceptual innovation
begins to wane in academia, it may still be waxing in the policy
arena or among activists; or a concept may be abandoned by
Northern scholars just as it is being taken up as a useful tool by
Southern scholars. The latter discontinuity surfaced during the
conference that produced this volume, with some Southern scholars
objecting to the critiques being levelled at the concept of indigenous
knowledge on the grounds that the concept can still serve them well
in representing indigenous communities to national bureaucracies
(cf. Cooper and Packard 1997:28). The irony of Northern scholars
concluding that concepts like indigenous knowledge are
disempowering, at the very moment that these concepts are being
embraced as an empowering weapon by (or on behalf of) indigenous
peoples, merits our attention (Brosius 1999; Dove 1999). This irony
should focus critical attention both on the relations between North
and South and, more generally, on the relationship between the
academy and the rest of the world.

Implications of Indigenous Knowledge for Knowledge

The existence of conceptual life-cycles suggests that the meaning of
a concept like indigenous knowledge will be intimately bound up
with the meaning of the concept in opposition to which it was
originally defined, namely non-indigenous knowledge or simply
knowledge. And indeed, post-structuralists like Foucault suggest
that a concept often can be best understood through opposition,
resistance or antagonism to it. He writes:

I would like to suggest another way to go further towards a new

economy of power relations, a way which is more empirical,
more directly related to our present situation, and which
implies more relations between theory and practice. It consists
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 237

of taking the forms of resistance against different forms of

power as a starting point…. Rather than analyzing power from
the point of view of its internal rationality, it consists of
analyzing power relations through the antagonism of strategies.
For example, to find out what our society means by sanity,
perhaps we should investigate what is happening in the field of
insanity [etc.]. (Foucault 1982:210–11)

Just as the study of crime/illness/insanity can illuminate law/

health/ sanity, then, following Foucault, our study of the concept of
indigenous knowledge may be most important for what it tells us
about knowledge. A similar sentiment is expressed in Derrida’s
analysis, discussed above, of Lévi-Strauss’ distinction between the
engineer and the bricoleur, and between the scientific mind and the
savage mind. Derrida regards these distinctions as ‘myths’; he
suggests that the bricoleur is in fact like the engineer and that the
savage mind is in fact like the scientific mind. In the mythologized
or imagined distinction, however, the essence of the engineer and
the scientific mind may be better captured than is otherwise the
case. The concept of the bricoleur and the savage mind thus
potentially tell us something important about the concept of the
engineer and the scientific mind. In similar fashion, I suggest that
our conception of indigenous knowledge may tell us something
about our conception of knowledge.
As to what the concept of indigenous knowledge tells us about
our concept of knowledge, another way to ask this question is,
What sort of a concept of knowledge would produce (in opposition) a
concept like that of indigenous knowledge? And why, as Agrawal
(1995:419) asks, would it produce such a concept now? In fact, the
concept of indigenous knowledge is only the most recent in a long
line of concepts constructed in polar opposition to the concept of
western, scientific knowledge.38 The antiquity and ubiquity of these
constructions suggest a persisting tendency in this knowledge
tradition to imagine the ‘other’; as well as a persisting tendency in
western society to use knowledge as a focal point for reiterating the
myth of itself (that is, the west) in contradistinction to the other
(that is, the non-west).39 What is distinctive about this current
reiteration, using the concept of indigenous knowledge, is its
emphasis on locality, on the boundary between the local and the
extra-local. This suggests in its turn first, that this boundary (read
as the boundary between ‘the west and the rest’) is central to the
current, western myth of itself, and secondly, that it is currently
being severely challenged (as is in fact suggested from what is
currently being written about transnational relations and
processes).
This view of the construction of knowledge and indigenous
knowledge opens up novel and potentially productive areas of
238 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

study. It helps us, for example, to understand better the differences

cited above in conceptual cycles between Northern and Southern
scholars. It offers, in general, a greater likelihood of transcending the
circular debates that characterize so much of the scholarly activity
in our field today and that have afforded us little else than
‘reciprocal destruction’ (Derrida 1978:280–1).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I first carried out research in Borneo from 1974 to 1976 with
support from the National Science Foundation (Grant #GS-42605)
and with sponsorship from the Indonesian Academy of Science
(LIPI). I gathered additional data during six years of subsequent
work in Java between 1979 and 1985, making periodic field trips to
Kalimantan, with support from the Rockefeller and Ford
Foundations and the East-West Center. A recent series of field trips
to Kalimantan, beginning in 1992, has been supported by the Ford
Foundation, the United Nations Development Programme and the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The author is
grateful to an anonymous reviewer for Harwood Publications and
especially to Carol Carpenter for insightful comments on an earlier
draft of this paper. The author is particularly grateful to Roy [Link]
for his invitation to the stimulating conference for which this paper
was initially prepared. The author alone is responsible for the
analysis presented here.

NOTES

1. Ferradás (1998:240) writes: ‘Indigenous knowledge is a contested

concept. “Indigenous knowledge” here is the knowledge of an other
who becomes defined in opposition to an authoritative ‘we’, vaguely
presented as scientists from the west…. Even though anthropology
and other social sciences have been addressing for some time the
problems entailed in thinking of the world in terms of antinomies
such as the one presented here—scientific (Western) knowledge
versus indigenous knowledge—this paper is a good example of how
well-entrenched these dichotomies are. Each pole is assumed as a
totality with an internal logic and independent of the other.’
2. I disagree with Gupta’s suggestion, however, that this ‘hybridity,
mistranslation, and incommensurability’ characterizes ‘postcolonial
modernity’. Rather, as I shall show in this analysis of the history of
rubber, hybridity is equally a characteristic of much earlier,
colonial-era traditions of knowledge. I suggest that a view of
hybridity as uniquely characteristic of the contemporary era, with
its corollary implication that non-hybridity or homogeneity has been
lost from this era, is an example of misplaced ‘nostalgia’ (cf. Derrida
1978:292).
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 239

3. The boom-era system for exploiting rubber in the Amazon was a

modern invention. Prior to the nineteenth-century boom, an older
system of exploitation was in place, which focused less on trade and
more on local subsistence uses of the latex as well as the fruit of the
rubber tree, and which shared none of the brutal, exploitative
character of the modern system (cf. Schultes 1956).
4. Indonesia is still today one of the world’s largest exporters of these
products: in 1993 it exported almost 42,000 tons of natural gums,
resins and latexes with a value of almost $25 million dollars, and an
additional 1.3 million tons of natural and semi-processed Para
rubber with a value of more than 1.1 billion US dollars (Coppen
1995:1,9; GOI 1994:233–4; GOI1996:153).
5. This combination of market- and subsistence-oriented agricultural
activities is quite common in Indonesia (and indeed among forest-
dwellers throughout the tropics). Other examples are swidden
agriculture and rattan gathering/cultivation in East Kalimantan
(Lindblad 1988: 59–60; Weinstock 1983), and sago palm and spices
in the Moluccas (Ellen 1979).
6. Sir Clements Markham of the India Office actually credits another
Englishman, Robert Cross, with first collecting Hevea seeds
(Davidson 1927:674–5), which were subsequently sent to Ceylon
and reportedly ‘throve well.’ Cramer (1956:266) also reports that four
trees originating from Cross’s seedlings were discovered on a private
estate in Java. (All of this is contra Burkill [1966:15], who says that
none of Cross’s seedlings survived.) Wickham (1908:45)
characteristically claimed credit not just for gathering the seeds but
for the very idea of cultivating Hevea: ‘I was at that time as one
before my time—as one crying in the wilderness. Dead weight of
inertia, not to say opposition, prevailed. The idea of cultivating a
‘jungle forest tree’ was looked upon as not less than visionary.’
Wickham even discounts the fact that all such transfers of plant
genetic material were modelled after Markham’s successful transfer
of the quinine-producing cinchona tree (Eugenia caryophyllus) from
South America to India. Thus, Wickham writes, ‘The Cinchone tree,
productive of the valuable drug quinine, was introduced for the
Government of India by Sir Clements Markham some time before Sir
Henry Wickham’s introduction of the Hevea; but as Wickham knew
Sir Clements well he took occasion to benefit from his adverse
experiences’ (cited in Davidson 1927:676). Wickham also
conveniently ignores the fact that the initiative for his own seed-
gathering came from the India Office: Markham asked Joseph
Hooker, Director of Kew Gardens, to ask Wickham to gather rubber
seed. And this initiative was in any case preceded by other efforts
along similar lines, including two different collecting trips by Cross
under Markham’s direction, and at least one prior collection that
was coordinated by Markham and Hooker (Davidson ibid.: 675–6;
Purseglove 1957:134). Moreover, the idea of transplanting Hevea to
Asia and cultivating it there had been in print for over three-
240 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

quarters of a century by the time of Wickham’s collection. Wolf and

Wolf (1936:154) write: ‘It was an old dream, this idea of
transplanting and cultivating the American rubber tree, a dream as
old as Europeans’ knowledge that caoutchouc was yielded by plants
native to the eastern hemisphere. In writing we encounter it for the
first time in the March 23rd, 1791, issue of The Bee or Literary
Weekly Intelligencer of Edinburgh.’
7. Wickham (1908:3–4) writes: ‘It does not seem to have been
sufficiently remembered that this Hevea is by nature a large forest
tree, and therefore should be treated on lines of forestry rather than
those adapted to tea or garden cultivation.’
8. Wickham (1908:63) writes that Hevea should ‘be regarded as a
plantation—a cultivated product rather than as one to be planted
with view [sic.] of being widely disseminated under canopy of an
area covered by primitive standing forest.’
9. The common English term ‘tapping rubber’ actually better describes
the machete-based ‘incision’ of South America than the knife-based
‘excision’ of Southeast Asia. The common Indonesian/Malay term
for tapping rubber, motong/mutong, which translates as ‘to cut,’
more accurately represents the Southeast Asian technique (Echols
and Shadily 1992:434; Richards 1981:293; Wilkinson 1959/11:913–
14).
10. Cramer (1956:267–8) maintains that the British committed to Hevea
sooner than did the Dutch, which he attributes to ‘the British
tendency to simplify—I would almost say to schematize things….’
11. Smallholders in most of Borneo call rubber getah, which is derived
from the colonial trade name getah or gutta (i.e. gutta percha) for
the native latexes (Dove 1994:385; Wilkinson 1959/II:885).
12. Wickham (1908:33) writes: ‘If a plantation crop is from forest or
jungle, then its plantations conditions should mimic forest or
jungle.’ And Gouyon, De Foresta and Levang (1993:187) write: ‘The
structure of old jungle rubber is similar to that of a secondary
forest, with rubber trees holding the ecological place of pioneer trees
found in spontaneous secondary forest in the area….’
13. This natural replication does not make the effective use-life of the
rubber grove open-ended, however, because the effect of shading
lowers tree-density in each successive generation, gradually moving
it toward the natural but uneconomic density of rubber in the
Amazon (cf. Gouyon, De Foresta, and Levang 1993:194).
14. Cf. Murphy (1978:177), on the incompatibility between traditional
social structure and the exploitation of natural rubber in South
America.
15. Colonial Dutch observers suggested that the involvement of women
‘is generally not favourable for the plantings’ (Cramer 1956:301). Cf.
Murphy’s (1978:142) comment, that rubber-tapping was largely a
male activity among the Mundurucu of Brazil.
16. Additional smallholder innovations involved development—in
collaboration with downstream traders—of means of monitoring
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 241

market prices, transporting their product to market, marketing it,

managing credit and payment-in-kind in only partially monetized
economies, etc.
17. Drabble (ibid.: 168–9) writes that ‘The main fear in commercial
circles was that laissez- faire would lead to loss of labour and
perhaps the entire capital investment.’
18. Ghee (1974:109–10) describes the baseless stories spread by
government officials regarding problems of disease and
abandonment on smallholdings. These charges were being repeated
in print as late as the 1950s. Thus, Cramer (1956:303), completely
reversing the empirical association between disease and conditions
in the rubber groves, writes: ‘One sees everywhere the ‘mouldy rot’,
a disease which on estates can be kept under control by
applications of desinfectants [sic] on the tapping panel, but against
which the native does nothing, while the exaggerated density of his
plantings, which creates a moist atmosphere between the trees
favorising [sic] the development of the disease, would make
appropriate measures against the disease still more urgent than on
estates.’
19. This was a repetition of the earlier attack by the colonial regimes on
the purported over-exploitation of forest rubbers by local natives
prior to the introduction of Hevea (Dove 1994:386–7). In the
contemporary era too, the parastatal plantation sector exhibits a
perduring concern for over-exploitation of rubber by smallholders
(as noted, for example, during a visit to a combined nucleus estate/
transmigration project in West Kalimantan [Field notes 29/9/93]).
This history suggests that the intensity of tapping/exploitation has
been a continuing lightning rod for fears in the parastatal estate
sector concerning smallholders.
20. When Malaysan smallholdings were surveyed in 1931–33, the rate
of bark usage was found to be well in line with the rate of bark
production (Bauer 1948:36).
21. The Malayan smallholder survey concluded that only eight out of
nine thousand smallholder trees examined had succumbed to root
disease (Bauer 1948:58).
22. When I asked for a definition of hutan karet, the managers told me
that it is old rubber planted tanpa peraturan (without regulation).
The managers added, ingenuously, that hutan karet/hutan sekonder
was locally called kebun karet (‘rubber garden’; field notes, 29/9/
93).
23. Gouyon, De Foresta and Levang (1993:182) write that ‘No accurate,
reliable census of jungle rubber exists to date in Indonesia….’
24. This is exemplified by the government’s reaction to one potential
alternative to the nucleus estate projects, the North Sumatra
Smallholder Development Project. This project was carried out on a
pilot basis in the mid-1970s. It differed from the nucleus estate
projects in that it was not tied to a government estate, management
was more decentralized and there was more scope for farmer
242 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

decision-making; it was also very successful. It was nonetheless

terminated by the government after its pilot stage, with the
admonition that The government-owned estate groups…should be
used for future smallholder development’ (Dillon 1985:121).
25. Dean (1987:5, 163) writes: ‘Why did the Brazilians not take up
rubber cultivation themselves in response to the Southeast Asian
threat? […] Essentially, as rubber specialists are well aware, the
problem is ecological. There is a certain plant fungus that attacks
the rubber tree within its native range. Up to now, adequate and
economical defenses against this fungus have not been devised. […]
Thus did a fungus deflect the course of a nation’s history. And yet,
of course, it is not the case, nor is it the thesis of this book, that it
was the fungus itself that prevented rubber cultivation. Rather, it
was human ignorance of a means to prevent or attenuate fungus
attacks that rendered rubber cultivation uneconomic.’
26. It is interesting that contemporary Brazilians lean in this direction
themselves. Dean (1987: 164) writes: ‘Brazilians, who possess
collectively the admirable trait of daring to express openly their self-
doubts, have…examined themselves for character flaws to account
for their [own] failure to cultivate rubber.’
27. It suggests that the attractions of exploiting natural rubber through
the seringueiros were—for the elites involved in the industry—so
great as to inhibit movement toward the cultivation of rubber. The
political economic basis of this attraction also is attested to by the
observation of some rubber historians, that the reproduction of this
labouring class on the plantation was not easy: thus, Melby (1942:
465, 467–8) argues that the difficulty in procuring a ‘large supply of
fairly efficient and cheap hands’ was the chief obstacle to rubber
plantation development in the Amazon (surpassing in seriousness
disease, even on the Ford plantation mentioned in the text). It seems
no accident, therefore, that the first serious South American
interest in cultivating Pará rubber coincided with the explosion of
competition from cultivated Pará in Southeast Asia (Weinstein 1983:
219–30) nor that contemporary interest coincides with efforts to
empower the seringuieros (Cowell 1990). Note too that today over
one-half of Brazil’s domestic demand is met by rubber from
cultivated plantations, albeit located in eastern Brazil, outside of
Pará rubber’s native range in Amazonia (Browder 1992:176).
28. Cf. Schultes (1956:140–1): ‘I have never seen a Hevea tree growing—
either planted or as a survival from felling—in the garden of the
house of any primitive Indian anywhere in the Amazon valley,
including the northwestern part. Here, we must distinguish between
the primitive aborigine and the civilized rubber tapper (be he pure
Indian, white or half-breed), who, in felling a few square feet of
virgin jungle for his temporary shack, where he lives in the dry
season only whilst tapping rubber, will almost never sacrifice a wild
Hevea tree.’
 THE LIFE-CYCLE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 243

29. The act of cultivation would have had other consequences as well.
As Weinstein (1983:31) writes: ‘The entire system of production [in
South America] would have undergone basic changes if the
aviadores and seringalistas had invested in the cultivation of rubber
instead of relying on the natural source’, but this investment was
not made.
30. The act of planting on its own does not, of course, explain all of the
differences between resource-use histories in South America and
Southeast Asia. For example, a recent comparison of sites in
Southeast Asia (West Kalimantan) and Latin America (Peten,
Guatemala) attributes differences in patterns of exploitation of
rubber and other forest products to differences in ecological factors
(i.e. tree density, fruiting phenology and sustainability) as well as
socioeconomic and political factors (i.e. tenurial patterns and
incentives for conservation, physical and social infrastructure,
product demand and political pressures for alternate uses;
Salafsky, Dugelby and Terborgh 1993).
31. Keong (1976:35–6) writes that indecision about which species of
rubber was best, uncertainty whether Hevea was suited to Java and
planters’ preference for coffee delayed the introduction of Hevea into
the Netherlands East Indies.
32. It is unclear what Wickham thinks the ‘forest tribes’ actually did
with Hevea, but it was probably not cultivation. Schultes (1956:142)
says that cultivation of a magnitude sufficient to affect the evolution
of Hevea did not occur: ‘The unadorned facts about cultivation are
these: a) primitive Indians have not cultivated and do not now
cultivate or care for rubber in any special way in their farms; b) what
little cultivation there is has been done by civilized
inhabitants engaged directly or indirectly in rubber tapping; and c)
such cultivation on the Rio Negro is of relatively recent incipience
and is extremely limited and localized.’
33. Even this distinction between South American donor and Southeast
Asian recipient is rendered more complex by the fact that Brazil
itself ‘stole’ plants from others, for example, coffee from Cayenne
(Dean 1987:23).
34. Wolf and Wolf (1936:237) write: ‘It is, then, the native of the tropics,
exploited since the birth of the caoutchouc industry, who looms
today as the controlling figure in the market, an act of poetic justice
long delayed but now particularly welcome to the American
consumer to whom the brown man represents his best guarantee
against highway robbery prices in the future.’
35. For an example of this confluence in the field of crop pest
management, see Winarto 1996.
36. It is ironic that, in Wickham’s efforts to privilege his individual
project against the institutional project of the colonial regime, his
interests became at least partially aligned with those of the native
Amazonian rubber-tappers, as reflected in his earlier cited statement
244 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

that the latter had done all of the experimentation with rubber that
needed to be done.
37. Another example of such excess is the ‘frenzy’ of interest in sasi
described by Zerner, which provoked a similar backlash. Another
example involves the romaticization of ‘primitive environmentalists’
by global activists, as discussed by Ellen and Harris (Introduction).
38. Contemporary examples, in addition to the concept of indigenous
knowledge, range from Lévi-Strauss’s (1966) bricolage to James
[Link]’s (1998) métis.
39. I am grateful to Carol Carpenter for this insight.

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 Chapter 9
ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE: INDIGENT
AND INDIGNANT REPRESENTATIONS
OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
AND DEVELOPMENT AMONG THE
KALASHA OF PAKISTAN
Peter Parkes

‘NO MORE NGOS!’

The main problem that we are facing right now are those
actions taken above our heads, without asking the people: for
example, when well-wishing foreigners create their own NGOs
for the ‘protection’ of our people and our valleys…. These
outsiders just involve a few people [in their projects], so the rest
of the people stay away. They just say: ‘There is an NGO at
work, so why should we do anything for nothing?’ Or when
political groups [i.e. factions] are involved in a project, they say:
‘We don’t belong to that party, so why should we do it?’ So the
unity is gone…in this way, the people stop working together.
(Saifullah Jan n.d)

Saifullah Jan is an indigenous activist and spokesman for over

three thousand non-Muslim Kalasha (‘Kalash Kafirs’) inhabiting
three mountain valleys in the Chitral District of northern Pakistan.1
His words cited above opened a polemical speech to regional
specialists attending a session on Developmental and
Environmental Issues at the Third International Hindu Kush
Cultural Conference, held at Chitral in August 1995. After
criticizing several projects for needlessly interfering with Kalasha
religious culture, Saifullah Jan targeted a range of related ‘well-
wishing’ programmes aimed at local education in the Kalasha
language on topical issues of hygiene, local medicine, indigenous
tradition, and environmental understanding. His wry rejoinder was
again: ‘We don’t need to be told what we already know ourselves! We
don’t need to be shown pictures of what we can see every day! We
need no more NGOs!’
250 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

The Kalasha have indeed suffered a surfeit of such projects and

programmes for their cultural protection or economic improvement,
which have recently concentrated on issues of local environmental
management.2 One of several such organizations, for example, is
the Kalash Environmental Protection Society (KEPS), instigated by
an energetic British environmental campaigner in collaboration with
regional government and development officers.3 Focusing attention
on imminent environmental catastrophe, Kalasha are typically
represented in the promotional rhetoric of such NGOs as the
innocent, childlike victims of outside exploiters:

First came the roads, then the merchants, the hunters, the
woodcutters, the entrepreneurs. …The Kalash, although wily
and resilient, were uneducated, innocent of modern ways, and
they were easy prey for the unscrupulous. Walnut trees were
mortgaged, land was lost to outsiders who wanted to open up
the valleys to tourism, and the great cedar forests plundered….
The hillsides became vulnerable with the increase in soil
erosion, and the fields constantly in danger of being washed
away…. Aid agencies through ignorance brought in fertilisers
and pesticides, endangering the natural organic methods,
posing dangers to the unsophisticated inhabitants. Tour
groups proliferated, exploiting their naivety and
vulnerability…. Afforestation, protection of the environment,
better medical facilities, and simple latrines: these are the
priorities! (Lines n.d.)

Kalasha leaders might endorse such diagnoses of environmental

devastation being made on their behalf, albeit scorning some of the
prioritized remedies. But they are more strategically preoccupied
with prior questions of legal entitlement and the assertion of
customary rights to control local resources. Beyond simply decrying
a culture of dependency created by ill-conceived interventions, and
far from dismissing all development encounters, their underlying
preoccupation rather concerns the local organizational implications
of such development schemes—their effects on communal ‘unity’ or
‘disunity’. A barely euphemized subtext is that development funding
has become insinuated with Kalasha factional politics, feeding into
the competitive political ambitions of local leaders, while
undermining their broader campaigns to wrest communal control of
environmental resources. Saifullah Jan has himself been engaged in
such a long-term struggle to mobilize collective support for Kalasha
forest rights. His career therefore offers a privileged personal
perspective on a relatively neglected issue of indigenous
environmental knowledge: that is, how practical or habitual
knowledge may be evoked, translated or variously transformed
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 251

through adversarial debate into local environmental consciousness,

and even further implemented as collective action.
I shall therefore concentrate on intentional policies of Kalasha
resource management, including its acknowledged failures or
apparent mismanagement. Yet I also address broader problems of
the intentional miscommunication of Kalasha customary
knowledge, whose various interpretations by insiders and outsiders
are rhetorically deployed by all parties in the legitimation of
environmental control. Under situations of ‘enclavement’
characteristic of small minorities, local resource management
necessarily entails a practical political knowledge of outside
interested parties (non-indigenous claimants, local government
officers, development agents, foreign advocates), as well as of
internal dissensions and the adversarial tactics of political
opponents within any community. Beyond noting and deploring a
common mismatch of indigenous ‘rhetoric’ and ‘practice’ (Ellen
1993; cf. van den Breemer 1993), we might therefore further
examine the actual political speeches and mobilizing practices of
representative indigenous leaders—including their failures of
persuasion, and their voiced apprehensions of the causes and
consequences of such failures—together with the external
discourses of their developmental assessors (cf. Grillo 1997).

KALASHA ENCLAVEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

Despite increasing concern with the global-political implications of
development intervention (e.g. Escobar 1995, Ferguson 1990,
Hobart 1993), rather less attention has been paid to its variable
micro-political reception as a resource for internal competition
within indigenous communities.4 Here ‘indigenous knowledge’—
comprising rhetorical representations of local subsistence practice—
also becomes an internally contested resource for political
mobilization, especially within minority communities enclaved on
the periphery of dominant polities. Some of the recurrent
institutional predicaments faced by such communities are vividly
conveyed in Mary Douglas’s ideal-typical depiction of what she calls
an ‘enclave culture’:

Neither smallness nor intimacy is enough to explain the

peculiarities of enclave culture…. I ascribe its distinctive
culture to its egalitarian organization, which in turn I see as a
result of its weakness in holding its membership and resisting
the seductions of the larger society…. An enclave starts to
polarize its world when it has to worry about the defection of
its members. The big organizational problem and the
distinctive anxiety of the enclave is about defection; yet there
can be no show of power, and authority has to be exerted with
252 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

great care…. Equality plus weak leadership make for poor co-
ordination…[and] the main disadvantage of the enclave is that
it is prone to internal factions…with difficulty in ensuring
support for long-term policies. (Douglas 1996: xx–xxii; cf. also
Douglas 1987:38–43).

Several of these features of enclavement seem evident as underlying

symptoms of organizational problems alluded to in Kalasha political
discourse concerning communal ‘unity’ and ‘disunity’ (Saifullah Jan
1996). A chronic preoccupation with defection, for example, is
experienced in conversions to Islam, entailing a relentless attrition
of local communities, once subject to common ritual and moral
rules, which become less enforceable as the majority Muslim
population expands (Ahmed 1986). Kalasha leaders can only weakly
attempt to stem the tide of such defections, either by relaxing
customary sanctions, or else occasionally reinforcing ritual rules of
purity and pollution that at least symbolically demarcate their
embattled constituencies. In a broader context of outside
encroachments, suspicions of treachery are inherent in all personal
relations established beyond the community, fuelling mis-trust of
political leaders mediating with outside authorities. As Douglas
indicates, factionalism is thus a corollary of enclavement, where
such resentments tend to accumulate in response to any strong
assertion of personal authority. For most of this century, Kalasha
communities have indeed been riven by periodic factional
antagonisms, although one should note that such political
animosities are contextually circumscribed and only episodically
manifest in everyday life.5 In this essay, I shall explore the manner
in which such political conditions appear to have structured both
institutional practices and discourses of environmental
management, also examining their effects on the miscommunication
of local environmental knowledge to outsiders. This requires an
initial consideration of Kalasha historical experience of enclavement
and development over the course of this century.
After the legendary conquest of Kalasha kingdoms in southern
Chitral around the sixteenth century, conversions to Islam reduced
the indigenous non-Muslim population to its present refuge of three
valleys (Rumbur, Bomboret and Birir; see Map. 9.1). Non-Muslim
Kalasha were then enserfed, as well as regularly ‘farmed’ for their
yield in children and young widows sold into slavery (Müller-
Stellrecht 1981:415–17). Each community was also subject to heavy
tributary taxes in subsistence goods and arduous corvée labour
services, levied through a locally appointed ‘headman’ (asakal). This
oppressive regime of serfdom and tributary extraction persisted
until the early 1950s, still bitterly recalled by Kalasha as ‘the time
when the rulers were eating the very skin off our backs’.
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 253

MAP 9.1 THE KALASHA VALLEYS IN CHITRAL, NORTHWEST PAKISTAN

Factional alignments had already been apparent in local

competition for the lucrative office of asakal ‘headmanship.’ But an
eruption of opposed ‘parties’ (dala, patti) especially marked the end
of the feudal era in the early 1950s, when the principality of Chitral
began to be absorbed into the new nation of Pakistan. Each valley
community was then riven by opposed ‘royalist’ and ‘populist’
factions, who alternatively argued for the maintenance of reduced
feudal dues, or for their replacement by Islamic tithes (Saifullah Jan
1996:240). Enmeshed with contemporary national and district party
politics, Kalasha factionalism then became so intense that
attendance at funeral feasts, and even the daily grinding of grain at
village water-mills, was dichotomized according to party allegiance.
Repercussions of this dichotomy have persisted with periodic
eruptions until the present. A major reorganization of local politics
in Rumbur valley, for example, occurred during my fieldwork there
254 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

in the mid-1970s, when the increasingly tyrannical authority of a

successor of the last asakal ‘headman’ of the valley was opposed by
a rival politician. Rallying resentment against the former leader’s
monopolization of new development contracts, and inflaming
rumours of his alleged corruption, this rival leader accumulated an
oppositional following under the nativist banner of recovering
‘Kalasha tradition’ (Kalasba dastur), clinched by his own lavish
sponsorship of a traditional feast of merit (Darling 1979; Parkes
1992). But despite his success in wresting power, the lingering
allegiances of these factions still underlie contemporary political
competition. They have even expanded into opposed coalitions or
‘parties’ embracing all three valleys, whose leaders compete as
distinct lobbies for development contracts.
Enfranchisement from feudal servitude in the 1950s was also
accompanied by the onset of forced conversions to Islam and the
appropriation of Kalasha property by outsiders. With the protective
authority of the Chitrali rulers in eclipse, zealous mullahs organized
proslytizing raids into the valleys, from whose forced conversions
the majority of Muslim Kalasha now derive.6 Debts owed to nearby
store-keepers for loans of grain, extended at exorbitant rates of
interest, also led to the widespread mortgage or sale of walnut trees
and of some plots of land to outsiders (as discussed below). But from
the early 1970s, these adversities began to be ameliorated through
national government action becoming aware of the growing visibility
and value of the Kalasha for foreign tourism. Taxes were then lifted,
medical dispensaries and primary schools founded, and rough jeep-
roads built into all three valleys. Development aid was also initiated
through the personal intervention of President [Link], who
twice visited Kalasha by helicopter in the early 1970s, distributing
welfare donations and inaugurating several minor projects. Under
the Ministry for Minority Affairs, fifteen newly created posts of kazis
or ‘traditional ritual experts’ were established on small stipends
equivalent to those paid to village mullahs elsewhere. Appointed by
valley leaders as much to reward factional allegiances as for their
traditional knowledge, several of these kazis have subsequently
established themselves as quasi-‘priests,’ who are presented to
outsiders—tourists, anthropologists and development agents alike—
as representative authorities on Kalasha indigenous knowledge
(Kalasha dastur).
Development intervention further escalated under Zia ul Haq’s
military regime during the 1980s. Provincial and district level
funding for local community projects—mainly irrigation channels,
bridges, and flood-protection walls—was administered through
Kalasha representatives on the Chitral District and Union Councils,
which became open to local election (and hence intense factional
competition) from 1982. In response to calls to safeguard Kalasha
from the zealous excesses of his Islamization policy, Zia also
arranged for their separate electoral enrollment within a national
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 255

minority constituency of non-Muslims, thus divorcing them from

normal participation in district political elections. Although this
crippled the local bargaining power of Kalasha leaders within Chitral,
the Ministry of Minority Affairs otherwise proved a cornucopia of
development funding for their disbursal, amounting to some ten
million rupees by the end of the 1980s (Alauddin 1992:25–7).
The most important development intervention of this period,
however, was the arrival of the multinationally funded Aga Khan
Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) in Chitral in 1983. This
established several ‘showcase’ minority projects in the now easily
accessible and well-visited Kalasha valleys.7 As part of its strategy
for encouraging the formation of cooperative village organizations,
Kalasha were first invited to propose ‘Productive Physical
Infrastructures’ that would demonstrably enhance income
generation. After demonstrating the formation of a cooperative
society with a small savings fund, such projects are discussed and
approved through a series of ‘diagnostic dialogues’ between
programme officers and participants, after which a survey and
estimate is made of the project, which is then awarded to the group.
By 1990 over twenty Kalasha village organizations had been
formed, almost all for the construction of new irrigation channels,
amounting to a total donation of over four million rupees.8 A
distinctive aspect of AKRSP’s policy is the budgeting of generous
daily wages for labour (a primary incentive for the initial formation
of many Kalasha village organizations), as well as an allowance for
surplus profits to accrue to each organization’s savings fund.
Indeed, these initial donations are calculated ‘catalysts’ intended to
entrench village organizations as essential ‘mediating structures’ of
collective self-management, which should then apply for further
development credit on more strictly accountable conditions of loan
repayment (Husain 1992:677; cf. Dani 1988). A second phase of
intervention (initiated in 1987) was thereby intended to galvanize
such groups into a more ambitious programme of entrepreneurial
training, with a further emphasis on instilling ‘gender equitability’
and ‘integrated resource management’ with reference to local
cultural institutions and knowledge (AKRSP 1987; Husain 1992:
677–78; World Bank 1996). Among Kalasha, this included the
foundation of several women’s organizations for the market
gardening of vegetables and tree-planting or ‘social forestry’ (Clark
1995), as well as technical assistance and credit supplied for
chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the introduction of new high-
yielding varieties of wheat and maize, and various innovations of
livestock breeding or pastoral range management (Khan and Khan
1992:95–112).
While the initial productive projects were enthusiastically
embraced by Kalasha, these latter ‘environmentalist’ innovations
have as yet been limited to a small coterie of ‘model farmers,’ largely
from one factional party. A similar scheme instituted as part of the
256 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Chitral Area Development Programme (CADP 1990), funded by the

Asian Development Bank, has also suffered problems of
implementation beyond initial projects sponsoring irrigation
channels and flood protection walls (Babar Jamal n.d.).9 I shall
suggest that most such environmentalist projects misapply
remedies, more appropriate to other farming communities of the
Hindu Kush, to the peculiar cultural economy of the Kalasha. Yet
outside ignorance of Kalasha environmental knowledge has also
been a peculiar product of ‘enclaved’ conditions of
miscommunication operating from within Kalasha communities.

EVERYDAY FORMS OF ‘INDIGENOUS IGNORANCE’

Within less than half a century, Kalasha have thus experienced a
remarkable reversal of fortune: from abject feudal servitude to ever-
increasing patronage through government subsidies and NGOs.
These now compete eagerly to establish rival projects among their
fifteen hamlets, which are prominent destinations on the scheduled
itinerary of development tourism provided for foreign aid agencies in
Pakistan. Despite some adverse effects in further inciting factional
competition, all Kalasha have without doubt benefited very
substantially from opportunities to gain local employment through
such projects.10 But many of these projects are recognized to have
been less successful in their actual implementation: irrigation
channels are discovered to be so misaligned as to conduct little or
no water by gravity-flow; pipes for drinking water have been buried
insufficiently deep and are ruptured by winter frosts; suspension
bridges are washed away with the first summer floods; and flood
protection walls have subsided within a few months of construction.
Yet Kalasha were formerly employed for their exceptional engineering
skills in building irrigation channels, aqueducts and cantilever
bridges throughout Chitral. Many other ‘religious minority’ funded
projects are further-more felt to be both unneccessary and
undesirable, such as the needless rebuilding of altars with dressed
stone and cement, or the construction of new concrete ‘clan temples’
or tin-roofed ‘dancing pavillions’, which both flout ritual tradition
and even impede ritual performance (Saifullah Jan 1996:241). Yet
all these projects were specifically requested by Kalasha leaders or
local contractors. Environmentalist programmes, such as
‘afforestation’ through planting exotic broadleaf sapplings along
irrigation channels, are similarly disparaged as either useless or
harmful to traditional subsistence, although these were again
apparently introduced through a series of ‘participatory dialogues’
with village and women’s organizations. As a deputy commisioner of
Chitral lamented, ‘tens of lacs [i.e. millions] of Government money
have been wasted in Kalash valleys alone as I have seen myself
(Durrani 1981:2).
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 257

Many of these problems or misconceptions of local needs

undoubtedly stem from the personal ambitions of factional leaders,
whose political support now crucially depends on gaining maximal
financial contracts for development projects, irrespective of their
practical outcome (cf. Butz et al. 1991; Sahibzada et al. 1992). Yet
examination of particular cases also indicates intentional
miscommunication occuring in consultations concerning Kalasha
subsistence needs—a tendency to misrepresent local conditions,
sometimes for no very obvious personal advantage. Such
dissimulation is apparent in household census records collected for
development assessment, wherever these can be identified, as well
as in some very odd proposals for programmes apparently derived
from group consultation.11 But a similar miscommunication of
Kalasha indigneous knowledge, including mischievous ‘inventions
of tradition’ for foreign consumption, is also familiar to
anthropological fieldwork.
As an oppressed minority, disparaged by their dominant Muslim
neighbours, Kalasha have in fact long depended upon an
intentional cultivation of misleading knowledge about themselves.
This has served as a basic tactic of survival against exploitation,
employing that sly repertoire of ‘everyday forms of peasant
resistance’ documented by James Scott:

dissimulation, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance…

the slow grinding, quiet struggle over rents, crops, labour, and
taxes in which submission and stupidity are often no more
than a pose—a necessary tactic. (1985:xvi, 37)

Such is the ploy of cunning (chalaki) celebrated in oral traditions

concerning the feudal era, where an enactment of stupidity—the
‘simpleton Kalasha’ (sada Kalasha)—is hilariously shown to have
out-witted creduluous and greedy Chitralis (Parkes n.d.). As
another observer noted:

The Kalash generally are very aware of the need for techniques
specifically intended to beguile outsiders…. Kalash language is
particularly rich in idiomatic expressions of the type which
describe these subterfuges. An example is [a] pejorative word
which means someone who outwardly is as sweet as ‘candy’…
and inwardly is manipulative and inquisitive in intent. In this
same vein is an expression…meaning a person who, being
unnoticeable as ‘water flowing between the roots of wheat
plants’, works his or her way into another’s good graces.
Similarly, someone…who cleverly works himself into favour
with an unsuspecting person [is] like ‘water being blown
through the coiled intestines of a slaughtered animal’. (Darling
1979:10)
258 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Such habitual strategies of dissimulation undoubtedly served to

protect Kalasha material interests in the past, as well as ensuring
that a hidden sense of dignity survived beneath an obligatory facade
of servility. Presentations of a persuasive appearance of wretched
indigence and ignorance have also served to attract lucrative
subsidies, having a complicity with the promotional programmes of
NGOs concerned with ‘redistributive justice’ and the economic
‘uplift’ of disadvantaged minorities. Yet with more active
intervention in Kalasha subsistence and local resource
management, such continuing miscommunication of indigenous
knowledge as ignorance entails unforseen collective consequences,
whose adverse implications are only now beginning to be grasped by
a younger generation of educated leaders such as Saifullah Jan.

INDIGENOUS INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE:

KALASHA RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND ITS
TRANSFORMATIONS
Despite their cultural distinction as a non-Muslim minority,
Kalasha subsistence is comparable with that of the majority of other
(Muslim) peoples of northern Pakistan, who all practise a classic
‘mixed mountain economy’ of small-scale agriculture combined with
transhumant livestock husbandry.12 Grain crops, together with
fruit and walnut trees, are cultivated on tiny irrigated and terraced
fields at an altitude around 1800 metres, while herds of goats are
taken to high mountain pastures in summer, returning to winter
stables around evergreen oak woodland above their villages. A wide
range of natural resources at different altitudes is thus exploited,
enabling most households to be largely self-sufficient with half a
hectare of arable land and a few score goats.
Compared with neighbouring regions, the Kalasha valleys seem
well endowed with natural resources for this agro-pastoral
subsistence. Most noticeable to visitors are the thick forests of holm
oak (Quercus baloot) covering the scree slopes above Kalasha
villages, which elsewhere in Chitral are largely denuded. These
provide essential winter fodder for goats, as well as firewood for
households, and they are therefore carefully harvested by
pollarding. Kalasha are thereby able to maintain far larger herds of
livestock than most of their Muslim neighbours, which in turn make
a vital contribution to cereal production through the regular
application of manure to fields. Combined with a highly labour-
intensive tillage of hoeing, weeding and watering, performed
exclusively by women, Kalasha crop yields are thus many times
higher than those reported of other small farmers in Chitral, despite
comparable average holdings of cultivated land (ca. 0.6 ha).13 The
valleys are also adequately furnished with arable terraces and
alluvial fans occuring at altitudes below 2000 metres, where double-
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 259

cropping is feasible, within easy access of irrigation channels fed

from the rivers. At higher altitudes, from around 2,300 metres,
occur dense forests of pine and Himalayan cedar (Cedrus deodara),
comprising perhaps half of the total conifer forests remaining in
Chitral (Haserodt 1989:66; Sheikh and Khan 1983). Beyond these
forests are alpine pastures of rough grasses and sedges, which
easily provide sufficient browsing for Kalasha goats. Despite
frequent reports of their destitution, Kalasha subsistence thus
appears to be more productive than that of many of their
neighbours, as well as being associated with an unusually richly
resourced natural environment. The dense concentration of current
development projects concerned with ‘sustainable resource
management’ among Kalasha thus seems objectively (in
comparative economic or ecological terms) ill-justified, especially in
view of genuinely acute problems of agricultural viability and
environmental degradation long recognized elsewhere in Chitral
(Haserodt 1989: 134–41; Israr-ud-din 1967).
The isolation of the valleys prior to road building in the 1970s,
combined with meagre population growth until then, evidently
facilitated a subsistence economy placing low demands on natural
resource consumption. Yet this has also been a product of
intentional collective management, organized through traditional
institutions. Most prominent is the annual appointment of a
‘constabulary’ of youths, the roi (see Plate 9.1), responsible for
coordinating ritual offerings and subsistence activities throughout
the year.14 Among their duties are the supervision of household
contributions to the clearing of irrigation channels in spring, the
regulation of the ascent and descent of the goat herds, and the
imposition of a ‘closed season’ on fruit and walnut harvesting in
summer. The roi constabulary were also formerly responsible for
overseeing communal oak forests on upper valley slopes. In the
1970s, however, visible overcutting of these forests in two valleys
(Bomboret and Rumbur) encouraged elders there to innovate a
stricter rotational system of ‘bans’ (den) on cutting in specific
regions for four to six years. This more rigorous supervision was
entrusted to a senior constabulary of older youths, the den-wal,
adopted from a comparable regulatory institution of Nuristani neigh-
bours.15 Similar communal arrangements also regulate access to
alpine pastures through the use of cooperative herding companies,
who pool their resources to form a joint camp, sharing the tasks of
herd management and dairy production among their male
members.16
It is significant that most of these collective institutions are
related to goat husbandry, a sacred activity, restricted exclusively to
men, which underpins a ‘pastoral ideology’ inherent in Kalasha
religion (Parkes 1987). The culturally distinctive ‘indigenous
knowledge’ of male Kalasha is indeed focused almost exclusively on
goats.17 Development programmes purporting to reorganize their
260 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

pastoral economy rationally, including repeated attempts to

encourage the optimal slaughter of young goats for commercial sale,
have been notably unsuccessful. Kalasha herdsmen continue to
accumulate livestock for a primary goal of sacrificial feasting,
maintaining mature bucks up to an age of nine or more years
(Parkes 1992:44, Table 2), even though they fully recognize that
these prestige animals may adversely compete with reproductive
and immature stock for scarce winter fodder. Development agencies
lament such an irrational ‘ritual attitude’ towards goats (Cossins
and Rehman 1990:14), which vetinerary experts find themselves
powerless to correct—despite concerted attempts to delimit funerary
feasting or to instill efficient marketing skills through exemplary
‘model farmers’ (usually educated factional youth leaders, who tend
to be inexperienced and incompetent herdsmen).
The regulation of pastoral resources has been more seriously
hazarded by the encroachments of other ethnic groups, who cannot
be controlled by Kalasha ritual sanctions or communal fines. In
upper
Bomboret and Rumbur valleys, these include the large
‘Sheikhanandeh’ villages of Kati-speaking Bashgalis, settled as non-
Muslim refugees from Afghanistan in the 1890s, who have since
encroached on Kalasha pastures (see Map 9.1). In mustering
support against these encroachments, Rumbur leaders in the 1960s
invited other Muslim Chitralis from the nearby bazaar village of
Aiun to join their herding companies. But this turned out to be a
rash decision, since subject to bitter factional accusations, which
subsequently enabled these more distant Aiuni neighbours to
litigate as ‘local rightholders’ to all forest resources in Rumbur (as
discussed below). Further incursions of Gujur professional
herdsmen employed by these Aiuni neighbours have also rendered
the reallocation of pastures among herding companies more
difficult, while the Gujurs are accused of overgrazing pastures.18 In
Bomboret valley, where such outsiders predominate, the harvesting
and pastoral regulations of the roi constabulary proved
unenforceable by the 1980s, and their role has since been limited to
ritual services.
According to a ritually enforced sexual division of labour, Kalasha
agriculture is largely undertaken by women. Kalasha men plough
and sow fields with grain, and male household heads usually decide
what crops should be cultivated in consultation with their wives,
who are otherwise responsible for organizing field labour. Kalasha
have extensive knowledge of many local varieties of cereals, adapted
to microclimatic variations of their scattered fields at different
altitudes; but they have also adapted quickly to new varieties of
grain (probably introduced unwittingly through the purchase and
re-seeding of government subsidized cereals). Up until the late
1970s, several local varieties of millet, maize and winter wheat were
grown in equivalent proportions. By 1990, however, maize had
PLATE 9.1 RITUAL APPOINTMENT OF THE ROI CONSTABULARY DURING THE SPRING JOSHI FESTIVAL IN
RUMBUR VALLEY, MAY 1989. SAIFULLAH JAN (CENTRE RIGHT) ASSISTS THE DEHAR SHAMAN (LEFT)
DISTRIBUTING PORTIONS OF A CONSECRATED ‘CHEESE OF THE ROI' AT THE SANCTUARY OF THE GOD
MAHANDEU. FIVE SELECTED YOUTHS ACCEPTING THIS CHEESE ARE THEREBY INSTALLED AS
ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 261

ROI OFFICIALS, RESPONSIBLE FOR COORDINATING RITUAL OFFERINGS, CONTROLLING THE

HARVESTING OF FRUITS, AND REGULATING SEASONAL SCHEDULES OF AGRO-PASTORAL
SUBSISTENCE. (PHOTO: [Link])
262 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

almost entirely displaced millet, being grown at altitudes where it

had never before been feasible, where it was now regularly double-
cropped with wheat.19 Supposedly improved new varieties of wheat
and maize seeds, introduced by the AKRSP, have as yet been
restricted to ‘model farmers’, while the use of chemical fertilizers,
allowing perpetual maize and wheat double-cropping without fallow,
has been similarly restricted to a few village organizations granted
agricultural credit. But many Kalasha remain sceptical about the
supposed higher yields of these new grain varieties, as well as having
sufficient livestock to be less dependent on chemical fertilizer.20
Apart from cereal tillage, Kalasha women cultivate several
varieties of beans and pulses, often intercropped with cereals, as well
as gourds planted around the terraced walls of fields. The.
encouragement of further specialist vegetable growing by women,
pioneered by a Women’s Organization nursery in Bomboret in 1989,
is still limited by scarcity of arable land, as well as some
understandable resentment by husbands that their wives are
thereby encouraged to neglect their normal field cultivation.21
Kalasha women are also responsible for harvesting and drying fruit
and walnuts, which form a substantial part of the winter diet. Both
fruit and walnut trees may also be transferred to daughters as
dowry (jez-mut). Being thus lineally ‘alienable property’ (unlike
arable land), many walnut trees have also been sold or mortgaged to
Chitrali traders in the past, particularly for grain in years of famine.
As we shall see, the sponsored redemption of such trees in the
1980s plays a crucial narrative role in contemporary developmental
representations of Kalasha indigence, ignorance and irrationality.
The most important transformation of Kalasha subsistence in
recent decades, however, has been the sponsored construction of
new irrigation channels. The subsidizing of some thirty major
channels from the 1980s, many of two to three kilometres in length,
potentially offers a huge increase in landholding, forseeably
accomodating an annual population growth of over three per cent
nowadays. However, few of these channels have as yet been
completed, and, as mentioned earlier, many have encountered
problems with construction. Despite programmatic intentions to
employ ‘culturally relevant skills and institutions’ (AKRSP 1987), all
of these channels have been built according to an outside engineer’s
survey and use roughly dressed stones set in poor cement rather
than the traditional dry-stone walling constructed by gradual trial-
flow, for which Kalasha were renowned artisans. As Saifullah Jan, a
major contractor for government sponsored channel-building
throughout the 1980s, ruefully explained:

We all know that the old dry-stone channels worked well; they
even got stronger year by year, bound by the roots of trees and
grass. But for a contractor there is no profit. So we call in the
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 263

engineer, and we make it pokhta (‘pukkah’) with cement, even

if it may collapse in a year or two. But then, there will be
another contract….

Large profits have thus been made by a handful of factional leaders

through such projects, subsequently invested in the purchase of
jeeps and the building of tourist hotels. The membership of village
organizations also appears frequently to be aligned by factional
allegiance around such leaders (typically including sons and
grandsons within single households as independent members), thus
further fuelling enclaved animosities. In Saifullah Jan’s (1996:241)
regretful words: ‘Some of our senior elders…hold attitudes as if they
were still living under the Kator rulers. And so, together with
progress, new problems have also appeared.’ But these new
problems of development have equally emerged through a curious
dialogical complicity of enclaved indigenous presentations and
exogenous representations of Kalasha ‘indigent knowledge’.

INDIGENT KNOWLEDGE: ARCHAIC WISDOM,

CONTEMPORARY IGNORANCE

Kafiristan, the land of Kalash, romanticized by the visiting

foreign researchers and tourism promotion agencies in the
country, has been fast moving towards the brink of
bankruptcy. (Alauddin 1992:217)

Contemporary accounts of the Kalasha, including ethnography,

development prospectuses and travel journalism, reiterate a
handful of stock romantic motifs: mysterious ‘Aryan’ origins, or
legendary Greek descent from Alexander the Great, ancient
shamanic mysteries, prehistoric ‘children of nature’ and an arcadian
‘lost world’ (cf. Jettmar 1975:327–8). These familiar tropes of
Shangri-la, earlier applied to the Afghan Kafirs or the Burusho of
Hunza (Frembgen 1989), are in fact recent configurations for the
Kalasha. George Scott Robertson, one of the first European visitors
to their valleys, wholly disparaged what he called ‘an idolatrous
tribe of slaves’ (1896:50–2); and similar perjorative comments on
Kalasha subjugation and servility, reflecting conditions of abject
serfdom as well as local Chitrali prejudices, characterize other
frontier memoires of the colonial era (e.g. Biddulph 1880:132–3). But
after the conquest and conversion of the neighbouring Afghan Kafirs
at the turn of the century, European representations of the Kalasha
were gradually redeemed. They now replaced the Afghan Kafirs as a
pagan foil for anti-Islamic irritations and as a specular vitrine for
fantasies of archaic (Indo-) European origins. Carleton Coon (1951:
68–73) even went so far as to suggest the survival of Eurasian
‘Bronze Age’ conditions here, ‘if the reader will overlook a few iron
264 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

tools’. This romanticization was already tentatively developed in

Colonel Reginald Schomberg’s travel book Kafirs and glaciers
(1939). But its florescence emerged with Fosco Maraini’s (1964:242–
71) grandiloquent Epilogue on the Kalash Kafirs, ‘On the Trail of
Dionysius in Asia’, since much emulated in travel literature and
tourist documentaries.
As Frembgen (1993) disturbingly suggests, contemporary
anthropological treatment of Kalasha culture has also ambiguously
drawn upon these archaizing themes; and such scholarly
amplifications have then been fed back again into ethno-touristic
literature, sometimes to be re-enacted as a ‘staged authenticity’ by
Kalasha:

If the Kalasha live up to the expectations of travel agencies and

tourists such as these, then they are on their way to
degenerating into a collection of odd people. This is what most
tourism planners apparently would like for marketing
purposes…. The foreigners are fascinated by the ‘paradise
experience’ of a jointly performed ritual in which the mythical
prehistoric times become present again…. [And] to the
inhabitants of a paradise on earth, where people live together
happily, naturally, simply, and in harmony, belong the
shamans. (Frembgen 1993:50, his manuscript translation from
the original German)

Like the beguiling ‘simple Kalasha’ of the feudal era, there are
indeed staged ‘shamanic Kalasha’ ready to become entranced for a
fee, as well as elders prepared to arrange extra-seasonal
performances of women’s festival dances. Anthropological
representations of Kalasha traditional knowledge have also
developed a peculiar life of their own through semi-scholarly and
popular redactions, which are now sensed and reproduced by kazis
or ‘wizards’ as revealed tradition (cf. Fussman 1991). Such
complicity of popular anthropological accounts with exploitative
tourism has been even more angrily denounced by Rovillé (1988:
158):

academic descriptions of the Kalash are basically false…a myth

of the Kalash noble savage has been created which has fuelled
the tourist agencies looking for exotic material to provide for
their clients.

Yet even if ethnographers have unwittingly contributed to such

romanticized ‘ecosophical’ representations (cf. Brosius, this
volume), they have at least indicated that Kalasha traditional
subsistence is evidently quite situationally efficient and ‘sustainable’
within a comparative regional context.22 Development and
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 265

government agencies, on the other hand, pressed by their sponsors

to intervene with environmentalist minority programmes,
alternatively need to justify their showcase projects in the Kalasha
valleys. Romantic representations, also richly evoked to advertise
their programmes and solicit sponsorship, thus need to be counter-
balanced by a more sobering apprehension of indigenous
helplessness. Here again, enclaved conditions of Kalasha knowledge
and self-presentation may have well served the immediate political
and financial interests of factional leaders, in collusion with
philanthropic NGO and government benefactors, while their less
desirable long-term consequences were not so readily forseen.
Reviewing a substantial grey literature concerned with Kalasha
development programmes, one encounters a familiar ‘apologetic’
acknowledgement of the verdant appearance of well-wooded valleys
and a seemingly sufficient subsistence, often combined with lyrical
evocations of rustic and exuberant festival celebrations. To quote
from a well-researched UNDP-FAO project identification mission:

Within these valleys live [people who] follow the rites and
celebrations of an ancient religious culture…. Life is hard for
all in Chitral, and to single out the Kalash for special
treatment may seem unfair. The Kalash may even seem
environmentally advantaged, particularly when compared with
the bleak landscapes of upper Chitral…. Even the least
favoured of the three Kalash valleys seems no worse, and may
even be better than many other village niches in Chitral…. The
Kalash appear to be good farmers…. (Cossins and Rehman
1990:1, 12, 19)

The necessary sobering antithesis, however, is an ‘invisible cultural

wall’ comprised of both external prejudice and indigenous
ignorance, where ‘an additional helping hand is required.’ But such
helplessness, which crucially justifies intervention, still needs to be
demonstrated through identifiable cases of ‘indigent knowledge’:

Shakil Durrani, now Commissioner Malakand Division, argued

in a paper in 1982 [Durrani 1982; see Deputy Commissioner
Chitral 1982] that the lot of the Kalash in times past was
pretty miserable…[but] is the situation any better now than it
was at the turn of the century? Many Kalash scholars and
observers believe it is not…. Whatever happened to the ‘Kalash
Foundation’ formed at the urging of Shakii Durrani to buy
back rights to the now valuable walnut trees from Muslim
neighbours who had bought these for a song a generation ago?
Have the Kalash also again been exploited by clever cash-rich
businessmen who have purchased for small payments future
royalty for trees to be logged by the F[orest] D[evelopment] C
266 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

[orporation]? Indeed, how could they be so foolish as to again

sell such rights in the first place, or is it simply that for hungry
people the lure of immediate cash to buy food or other goods is
irresistable? (ibid.: 12–13)

The proposal then presents a portfolio of urgently needed remedies,

based upon ‘Kafir Kalash priorities’ who ‘seemed very sure in
drawing up a list of the most important shortcomings of life within
their valleys’ (p. 23).23
A critical explication of these exemplars of Kalasha indigence and
ignorance will be a major task of the remainder of this essay. The
latter reference to Kalasha forestry royalties is our concluding topic
(treated in the following section); but the earlier reference to the
mortgage and redemption of walnut trees is arguably more
significant, occurring repeatedly as an exemplification of Kalasha
indigence in Alauddin’s gloomily dystopic compilation Kalash: the
Paradise Lost (1992), as well as in other recent writing concerned
with Kalasha development problems. This case refers to a survey of
mortgaged walnut and fruit trees undertaken by a deputy
commissioner of Chitral in 1982, who subsequently arranged a
Minorities Welfare Fund interest-free loan for their redemption
(Alauddin 1992:26, 32–3). Although the expropriation of such trees
had long been recognized as a Kalasha grievance, its extent and
inexplicable persistence had not been so apparent before this
survey. The report itemized 493 walnut trees (Birir 191, Bomboret
201, Rumbur 101) mortaged over a period of five to eighty years.
Items reportedly taken by Kalasha on the security of a tree range
from quite substantial sums of money to such trivial items as ‘one
bread’, ‘one shirt’, ‘one packet of tea’, ‘one cap’, or (not infrequently)
‘nil’ (Durrani 1981; cf. Alauddin 1992:234–6). On face evidence,
Kalasha thus appear to have let themselves be persistently swindled
for over a century, posing perplexing problems for any reasonable
understanding of individual or collective rationality, and hence
perhaps irrefutably confirming their ‘indigenous ignorance’. But this
easy inference requires ethnographic scrutiny.
Many of these mortgaged trees were undoubtedly expropriated
through the usurious imposition of rates of double or more annual
interest, demanded on loans of food in times of acute shortage,
causing irretrievable debts for subsistence farmers that are also
widely documented elsewhere in this region (e.g. Edleberg and
Jones 1979: 106; Jones 1974:246; Kreutzmann 1996:275f.). But one
should recall that, in contrast to arable land, which is subject to
residual lineal claims, walnut trees are considered alienable
personal property. The total extent of mortgaged land claimed for
redemption in fact amounted to just ‘two fields’ of altogether less
than half a hectare. So Kalasha seemed at least sufficiently sensible
to hock their alienable assets rather than their productive arable
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 267

base whenever possible.24 Furthermore, walnut trees are quite

plentiful, and their escalating value (due to market demands created
through international export from Peshawar) is relatively recent.25
Only with hindsight is a tree valued at Rs 5000 in the early 1980s
exploitatively stolen ‘for a song’ for a typical loan (or sale) of a few
hundred rupees in the 1960s. Yet this still leaves the bizarre ‘caps’
and ‘loaves of bread’ unaccountable. A conceivable solution is
simple: that the trees rendered in many of these ‘exchanges’ were
contractual gifts, donated to customary bond-partners in Aiun, who
were thereby tied to visit their fictive kin in order to harvest their
walnuts, while the latter might reciprocally expect basic board and
lodging in an otherwise hostile Chitrali environment. Such bond
partnerships have been notoriously exploited by their Aiuni
partners, as Kalasha are well aware; yet they have been an
indispensible strategy of survival, ensuring islands of hospitality
and networks of allegiance beyond the enclave.26
If this rationalized reconstruction is plausible—and this is
apparently confirmed by Baig (1994:106–12) on Aiuni perspectives,
corresponding with Kalasha accounts in Parkes (1983:67–8)—then
many quite ‘reasonable’ gifts and sales have been wittingly
misconstrued for purposes of redemption as instances of ‘brutal
expropriation’ that also entail an exaggerated depiction of Kalasha
gullibility. This depiction of victimization may well have been
confabulated with the connivance of both Kalasha mortgagor and
Aiuni mortgagee, who could easily settle a mutually inflated price
for the sponsored ‘redemption’ (or actual repurchase) of mortgaged
or sold property.27 In any event, while the loans were supposed to
be repaid through subsequent commercial sales of walnuts, forming
a revolving fund to sponsor further repurchases, many Kalasha
reportedly defaulted, while others apparently pocketed their ‘loans’
without any attempted ‘redemption’ of sometimes barren old trees
(Alauddin 1992:32–3; 234–5). A few years later, the Chitral Area
Development Programme even proposed a further Rs. 2 million for
more repurchases of these trees.28
Hence traditional cunning under a guise of ‘simplicity’ may have
again served its immediate strategic purposes, i.e. a further welfare
distribution for factional leaders to disburse to their supporters. No
doubt former Kalasha destitution had been unfairly exploited, so
that ‘affirmative restitution’ (albeit more substantially rewarding the
alleged exploiters to sell old trees at any price they wished) was
considered justifiable. Yet the ultimate cost of this materially
profitable ‘redemption’ has been arguably the symbolic legitimation
of a renewed serfdom—to be instituted under specific environmental
as well as cultural government protection—where the old human
farming of slaves may now be replaced by a more ‘developed’
cultivation of human assets for commercial tourism. For the deputy
commissioner, distressed by this now documented evidence that the
‘Kalash were poor and this poverty was further impoverishing
268 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

them,’ subsequently campaigned for a ‘Kalash Foundation’ to be

established with foreign philanthropic funding, but under strict
government supervision:

It is felt that the Kalasha people can only be guaranteed their

rights and their economic plight can only be ameliorated if a
high powered Foundation/Trust is set up on their behalf. Such
a Foundation would be their only way out. It could be presided
over by the Federal Minorities Affairs Minister and could
comprise senior officials of the NWFP Government and Tourism
Division, the Deputy Commisioner Chitral and a couple of
enlightened Kalash, specially men like Saifullah Jan, Kalash of
Ramboor (sic). The function of the proposed Foundation would
be to help find remedies to the pressing problems the Kalash
face and to act on their behalf. (Durrani 1982:3)

The inclusion of tourism development officers as presiding patrons

is explained by an initial argument that ‘on the more pragmatic
level we must recognize that the unique Kalash people are a foreign
exchange resource of the country. Nothing in Pakistan, not even the
Khyber, holds the fascination for the western or the Japanese
tourist as the Kalash Kafirs.’ Hence, with subsistence immiseration
and economic incompetence evinced in those litanies of mortgaged
walnut trees, ‘the best way to improve the economic conditions is to
encourage them to profit from the foreign and the local tourists to
the valleys’ (ibid.: 1).29
A further proposal was then sent to scholars and journalists,
evidently appealing to postcolonially troubled consciences:

You will appreciate that in the past tens of thousands [of]

tourists and hundreds of other experts/scholars have visited
and studied the Kalash people…. [But] they continue to live in
misery. The reason for this is obvious. Most of the foreigners
have only wanted to use the Kalash for their own purposes,
displaying a superficial concern for them…. I think it is high
time the people who are genuinely concerned about the welfare
of the Kalash should do something positive in this regard with
the approval of the Government. (Durrani 1990)

The proposal was initially for ‘Community Centres’ to be established

in each valley:

These Centres would also be utilized by adult Kalash people,

particularly the women, in imparting adult literacy, hygiene,
basic health course, use of fuel-efficient cooking-stoves,
community development, priorities and awareness of the
environmental issues. A lady Social Organizer…would be
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 269

appointed to organize and operate the programme. She would

liase with the Deputy Commissioner and the Kalash
Foundation and the regular line departments of the
Government to help resolve the problems faced by the people
thereby mitigating their hardships. She would require a
Suzuki jeep to tour the valleys, to transport the sick of all
communities to Chitral, etc., etc. The Deputy Commisioner
Chitral would coordinate the programme and would look after
the disbursement of the money collected for the Kalash funds
from tourists, (ibid.)

Despite a reluctant response from many of its addressees, this

proposal was precisely adopted with the foundation of the Kalash
Environmental Protection Society, with a duly appointed foreign
lady social organizer, and with Saifullah Jan an enlisted indigene.30
Ironically, it was Saifullah Jan himself who had personally
campaigned for the redemption of Kalasha walnut trees—and who
would later indignantly denounce all such ‘well-wishing’
protectionist programmes.

INDIGNANT KNOWLEDGE: THE STRUGGLE FOR

RUMBUR FOREST RIGHTS

In those times [of President Ayub Khan in the 1960s] the

appointed [Basic Democracy] Members did good work for us.
Yet some were still ignorant and mistaken. Their fault was
this: outsiders were coming and taking our property, yet they
did not say a word against it. People took our trees, and they
did not say a word. Because of that we now have serious
problems. And with outsiders entering our valleys, our
customs began to get weak, becoming mixed with theirs. With
this mixing of customs, even our Members began to think:
‘Perhaps our custom is wrong, since other people say it is bad!’
Like that our customs became endangered, even until now.
(Saifullah Jan 1996:241)

Saifullah Jan belongs to a generation of emerging elders and

leaders, born after feudal enfranchisement, who sometimes harshly
criticize their predecessors (and factional opponents) for too weakly
defending or betraying Kalasha interests in the past, a past of
oppressed compromises difficult for them now to comprehend.
Stirred by the socialist rhetoric of [Link]’s Pakistan People’s
Party in the early 1970s, it was young members of this generation
who actively mobilized factional opposition to earlier leaders, whom
they accused of gross treachery and corruption, ‘eating the wealth
of the people’ and dishonouring Kalasha dignity. Adopting a more
militant stance, newly educated members of this generation keenly
270 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

assimilated and disseminated radical discourses of ‘people’s rights’

and of the distinctive ‘indigenous rights’ of the Kalasha as
Pakistan’s ‘aborigines’ (as once rather unwisely proclaimed by
Bhutto himself in Muslim Chitral). This potentially aggressive
assertion of indigeneity was prominent in Rumbur valley (perhaps
emboldened by the sympathetic interests and ideals of visiting
young anthropologists such as myself in the 1970s). Here it
combined a concerted revival of traditional institutions, such as
feast-giving, with a rallying of collective defensive action against
further outside encroachments on Kalasha natural resources,
especially the forests.
Prior to the late 1970s, the cedar forests were not considered a
particularly valuable resource by Kalasha. Until the dissolution of
the principality of Chitral in 1969, all forests were claimed by the
State’s rulers, who contracted forestry work to Pakhtun timber
merchants, while local communities had customary rights only to
cut down trees for housebuilding and other subsistence needs,
supervised by a local ‘forest guard’ (jangalwal).31 After Kalasha
enfranchisement from serfdom in the 1950s, previously forced
labour in logging became open to paid employment, and throughout
the 1960s and 70s, such state forestry work was a welcome source
of small income to many households. In 1977, however, the
settlement of a Pakhtun tribal insurrection over forest rights in
nearby Dir Kohistan (Keiser 1991: 69) led to an amendment of
provincial law concerning state forests, whereby ‘local rightholders’
who could demonstrate customary usage of forest resources would
be entitled to a 60 percent ‘royalty’ of the commercial value of any
timber extracted (Knudsen 1996:7–9). By 1980, when a newly
instituted Forest Development Corporation started commercial
logging in southern Chitral, many local communities there became
embroiled in legal disputes over claims to ‘local rightholder’
entitlement (Masud-ul-Mulk 1994). In the Kalasha valleys, this was
signalled by an onslaught of many jeep-loads of Aiuni neighbours,
who began cutting down oak forests in the lower valleys as an
assertion of their right-holding status, which they claimed on the
grounds of their ‘traditional’ usage of pastures in these valleys.
Kalasha leaders in Birir and Bomboret were persuaded to reach an
accomodation of variously shared royalty rights with these
neighbours, enabling extensive commercial logging of the cedar
forests to begin. In Rumbur valley, however, concerted resistance
was organized by Saifullah Jan together with his father-in-law, the
‘progressive’ factional leader and feast-giver:

The work was like this, brother: we saw from the very
beginning that people from Aiun were coming here and they
started cutting down our oak forest [for firewood]. When they
did that, with a few other elders I started to talk about it. I went
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 271

down to Gombayak [at the junction of the Acholgah side-valley]

and arranged a ‘check post’ there: it was the responsibility of
people from every household to take turns, like the den-wal
oak-forest guards; they would not allow timber to be taken
down from there. Then the real dispute started…. I called my
father-in-law together with all the others who are elders [i.e.
leaders of both factional parties]. I said, ‘We must make plans.
Those Aiunis are ready to make a dispute with us. First we
must go and look at the documents [royal land deeds of the
former principality]; and once we get those we can begin.’ So
later we went [to Chitral] and we got out those documents…
and they clearly showed the interests of Kalasha there. Those
Aiunis were at fault. So I took a lawyer, and then the case
began…. (Saifullah Jan, Granada Transcripts 1990:272)

The case persisted for over seventeen years, entailing more than
twenty hearings in three separate courts within Chitral, referred
thrice on appeal to the Provincial High Court at Peshawar and twice
to the Supreme Court in Islamabad, where a decision in favour of
Rumbur was eventually reached in February 1997. Adopted by
Islamist political parties in Chitral as a test case of the
government’s Muslim credentials, its prosecution became
increasingly violent from the late 1980s. Demonstrations of mullah-
inspired Chitralis angrily intimidated the Deputy Commissioner’s
office and campaigned outside the courts of Chitral, whose record
office was even set on fire. The Kalasha of Rumbur valley were also
attacked on several occasions by heavily armed mobs from Aiun,
with exchanges of gunfire ensuing before police intervened. In
March 1993, a grenade-bomb attack on Saifullah Jan’s guest-house
injured several Kalasha youths and tragically killed his younger
brother.
But such brutal intimidation only confirmed Kalasha solidarity,
where earlier factional grumblings—that Saifullah Jan and his allies
were ‘eating the wealth of the people’ through the subscriptions they
were perpetually demanding for legal costs—were silenced by a
stunned recognition of the risks and sacrifices they had undertaken.
After the imposition of an emergency ‘stay order’ on all disputed
property within the valley, which rendered any new cultivation of
fields illegal, Saifullah Jan and his father-in-law even orchestrated a
collective ban on all government development projects in the valleys
as a public protest to embarrass the Deputy Commissioner into a
reversal of his arbitrary legislation. For organizing this successful
protest, they were twice jailed in Chitral prison.
With collective solidarity thus fusing in the face of external
adversity, this concerted struggle against outsiders temporarily
united Rumbur factions. At communal meetings I witnessed in
1989, it was surprising to hear senior factional leaders admitting
272 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

their mistaken policies in the past, such as allowing Aiuni villagers

original access to Kalasha pastures, and even competing in
rhetorical self-censure to persuade their followers to continue
collective support of this campaign. As Saifullah Jan’s father-in-law
announced to the male ritual congregation of the community during
the Joshi festival in May 1990, echoing Bhuttoist (PPP) popular
political rhetoric as much as conventional Kalasha oratory:

Being worried about our problems, perhaps thinking about our

difficulties, I now ask of you a request: that we should all agree
together. With the grace of God, up to now the whole
community has agreed together…and you have generously
rolled up your sleeves [to fight] for our dispute with outsiders.
Within the valley also, you have kept peace with anyone
making a noise [in factional disagreement]…. When God
showed you this difficulty, he was testing your faithfulness,
and he will fully return your rights, even in excess…. This is a
poor, ragged country, and we are very backward. Yet we stand
shoulder to shoulder with other men, even those [in Aiun] who
are great landlords and wealthy people. We may be just poor
Rumbur folk, simple mountain people, but we have God [on our
side] to thank…and with this community [united], honour and
justice will be given to us. (Granada Transcripts, 1990:195–7;
filmed with subtitles in Sheppard and Parkes 1990)

Similar if more opaque calls for moral unity and greater respect for
ritual regulations characterized shamanic revelations during this
period, accompanied by concerted efforts by the debar shaman and
kazi ‘priests’ in Rumbur to restore customary rules of ritual purity
and pollution. Political speeches also began to debate explicitly
environmental issues: the forests were part of the ‘earthly roots’ of
Kalasha, which had to be safeguarded for future generations;
pastures needed to be protected against further Gujur
encroachments; while traditional conservational institutions, such
as the roi ‘constables’ and the denwal ‘forest guards’, already
novelly invoked for protection of the cedar forests, were to be
reinforced. As Saifullah Jan is reported to have stated in
anticipation of his victory:

The government has cut 2 percent of the forest [for obligatory

‘local supply’ of timber in Chitral], but I will allow them to cut
no more than 5 percent of the total. Then I will explain to the
people of the valley that they must use some of the royalty
money to re-create the forest that has been lost. But it will be
their money, so they must decide…. (quoted in Rose 1992:12)
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 273

Grumbling concern about environmental damage caused by

deforestation had already been voiced by Rumbur Kalasha during
my earliest fieldwork in 1972, when timber logs left by the side of the
river would be swept along by the first summer floods, causing
escarpments to collapse and fields to be lost. The subsequent
building of a road into the valley was also contested by several
factional leaders as an inducement to further Chitrali depredations
of the oak forests, but it was then felt that little effective resistance
could be made against an agreed government policy. In Bomboret
and Birir valleys, there is similar concern about the excessive logging
currently operating there. Yet extensive deforestastion in Birir has
continued for over a decade with the apparent complicity of its
leaders, who have sold their royalty rights on speculation to timber
contractors, sometimes at a fraction of the estimated value of the
timber logged (Lines 1992, 1996).
Again, such apparent irrationality might be ascribed to
indigenous environmental ignorance or ‘indigent knowledge,’ in
contrast to the provocatively evoked ‘indignant knowledge’ of
Rumbur Kalasha. In the earlier cited words of development
consultants, ‘How could they be so foolish as to again sell such
rights in the first place, or is it simply that for hungry people the
lure of immediate cash to buy food or other goods is irresistable?’
(Cossins and Rehman 1990:13). Like those mortgaged walnut trees,
blatant stupidity seems irrefutably documented in so many grubby
thumb-prints that have signed away rights to an environmental
heritage that no amount of ancient cosmological wisdom could
mundanely insure against short-term greed. Hence a seemingly
justifiable demand for further imposed government foundations or
foreign NGOs to ‘protect Kalasha’ against their own apparently
misguided economic intentions. And no doubt again there are Birir
elders simulating the old ‘simple Kalasha’ of doleful ignorance,
gravely shaking their heads with extension workers about
environmental devastation, while lining their pockets with encashed
royalty monies. But again, such persuasive enactments of indigence
and ignorance may be ethnographically deceptive.
One should recognize, for example, that the speculative sale of
royalty rights to timber contractors is widespread throughout
southern Chitral (Masud-ul-Mulk 1994), as well as elsewhere in
northern Pakistan (Treacy 1994). As Knudsen (1996) has argued,
there are sound economic reasons for negotiating an immediate
cash compensation for royalty dues in an institutional context of
very high risk due to the maladministration of Pakistan’s Forest
Development Corporation (FDC) regulations:

The reasons for selling royalty rights to forest contractors seem

to be a combination of poverty (high discount rate), the
uncertainty which afflicts logging operations, combined with
274 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

the risks associated with future compensation. If the locals

were to comply with FDC’s harvesting regulations, they would
neither be paid in advance nor assured of being paid later.
(Knudsen 1996:12–13)

Hence to blame such environmental mismanagement on the

‘environmental illiteracy of the population’ (Dixon and Perry 1986:
304) is ‘a distortion of facts and based on a superficial
understanding of the situation facing rural people…[which] also
perpetuates the mistaken view that people are not interested in
conservation of natural resources’ (Knudsen 1996:22).
It remains to be seen whether Saifullah Jan’s ultimately
successful campaign to claim full royalty rights in Rum bur will
result in a more collectively rational indigenous management of
Kalasha forests. In the short term, Rumbur Kalasha probably need
to collude with timber contractors to ensure sufficient logging
permits to cover the huge banking debts that have acrued in
prosecuting their case over seventeen years. In the longer term,
there are some hopeful indications that this costly struggle has
evoked an ‘indignant knowledge’ of the persisting value of traditional
institutions of conservation management and of coordinated action,
which have elsewhere been hazarded more by the imposed
encroachments of outsiders and ill-conceived schemes of developers
than by any intrinsically ‘indigent knowledge’ of Kalasha themselves
—however they may have thus willingly misrepresented their
indigenous knowledge as compliant ignorance. Grounds for guarded
optimism are also suggested by a similar struggle for local control of
forest resources waged by another small community in the lower
Hunza valley, which resulted in temporary government acquiesence
in a system of dual (local and state) control over forestry, organized
through traditional institutions ensuring a strict conservational
regime of collective management.32 This appears close to Saifullah
Jan’s envisaged ambitions for Rumbur, and those of perhaps many
equivalent indigenous leaders throughout South Asia. In his
indignant words again, ‘We don’t need money or technology from
the outside, we need legal protection’ (cited in Rose 1992:1), as yet
seemingly forthcoming only through collective protest and lengthy
litigation.

CONCLUSIONS: KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE

BEYOND THE ENCLAVE
Readers of this volume may be disappointed that I have managed to
say so little about the culturally distinctive environmental and
subsistence knowledge of the Kalasha. This is partly because it has
been dealt with elsewhere (Parkes 1987; cf. Snoy 1994; Sperber
1995). But this chapter’s particular neglect of Kalasha ritual ecology
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 275

was also motivated by an awareness that it is irrelevant to most

practical issues of technical development that circumscribe the
discursive domain of ‘indigenous knowledge’ (Marsden 1994; cf.
Sillitoe 1998). Kalasha ritual attitudes towards livestock, or
competitive feasting for renown, or the religious principles
underlying sexual purity and pollution, which both orchestrate and
motivate subsistence, are rather apprehended as irrational
impediments of ‘indigent knowledge’ preventing enlightened
economic and social planning; or else they are more respectfully
consigned to a festive and folkloric dimension of cultural
performance suitable for tourist development.
I have been equally apprehensive about a more sophisticated
developmental embrace of practice theory, also filtering into NGO
discourse: i.e. where ‘indigenous knowledge’ is represented as an
improvizational habitus of ‘skilled’ but subliminal subsistence
techniques, innately adjusted to practical or cultural reason.
Bourdieu himself cautioned against the romantic aestheticization
inherent in such phenomenological perspectives of what he termed
‘participant’ anthropology (1977:115; 1990:96). Yet subsequent
anthropologists and development theorists, inspired by a
Heideggerian mystical valorization of sensual praxis, rather easily
slip into such an aesthetics of indigenous knowledge in properly
combatting its dismissal or denigration by technical science.
Practical knowledge, reduced to skilled reflexes of habit, is then
redignified through aesthetic metaphors of athletic virtuosity,
choreography, musical performance, social poetics or other ‘blurred
genres’ of spectator connoisseurship, sometimes eerily recalling
early modern nostalgia for rustic arts-and-crafts apprenticeship.33
While it is imperative to appreciate and respect intrinsic skills of
traditional subsistence, including the situational rationality of
indigenous farming regimes (e.g. Netting 1993), this neo-romantic
valorization of embodied, tacit, subliminal or situationally embedded
knowledge—in contrast to indignantly debated or argued knowledge
concerning resource management—ultimately consigns Indigenous
Knowledge to another cognitive limbo of ‘enskilled’ indigent
ignorance (cf. Hobart 1993). An international seminar on
‘Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Biodiversity Management in
the (Hindu Kush-Himalaya) Region’ even definitively pronounced
that ‘IK is what people do unconsciously’ ([Link]-Mundy in
Gurung 1994:30). And so this buried nescience needs to be
disinterred with a battery of ‘participatory appraisal’ techniques, in
order to demonstrate, somewhat perversely, that ‘poor people…have
a far greater capacity to map, model, diagram, estimate, rank,
score, experiment and analyse than outsider professionals have
believed’ (Chambers 1994: xv).
Like Sundar (this volume), I am yet to be convinced that outsider
professionals really need this kind of interrogatively produced
‘ethno-developmental’ knowledge, inherently subject to distortions of
276 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

miscommunication and compliant echo-formations that we have

witnesssed among Kalasha. And like Saifullah Jan, I doubt whether
indigenes need to be told and shown (or ‘empowered with’) what
they already know and see, and debate. In thus struggling against
the grain of conventional representations of IK as ‘indigent
knowledge,’ I have therefore alternatively emphasized issues of
intentionality and rationality, as well as the unintended
consequences of strategically motivated action, and the role of
individual agency exemplified in the political career of Saifullah Jan
—including the emergent ‘indignant knowledge’ of environmental
consciousness that this has helped to evoke among Rumbur
Kalasha. Although scarcely developed in this chapter, I hope to have
indicated the pertinence of such ‘rationalist’ interpretive
perspectives in constructing a critical-analytical anthropology of
developmental communication, embracing both indigenous and
exogenous knowledge dialogues.
In employing Mary Douglas’s notion of the ‘enclave culture’ in
attempting to reconstruct the sociogenetic conditions of Kalasha
knowledge and (mis)communication, I should also endorse her
systemic functional analysis of institutional cognition, one that
includes analytical comprehension of counterfinalities (entailing
self-entrenched dysfunctions) as much as the harmonic
reproduction of communal solidarity or consensual consciousness
(Douglas 1987: ch. 3). I must acknowledge, however, some
reservations about her apparently adverse ideological colouring of
the egalitarian enclave as a somewhat ‘pathological’ societal and
cultural type of fractious sectarianism (Douglas 1993). Factional
conflict might alternatively be defended as a necessary mechanism
for enclaved minorities to ensure their cultural survival against
internal tyranny allied with dominant external powers, otherwise
easily constructed upon ‘proto-hierarchical’ frameworks of
traditional authority.34 This is certainly how indigenous leaders like
Saifullah Jan interpret their local political struggles; and he would
also vigorously defend factional debate, for all its institutional
predicaments, in terms of a ‘customary’ communitarian democracy:

It is also our custom to gather together and freely give our

opinions about such matters [as concern the community],
saying, ‘We will do this!’ or ‘We won’t do that!’ In our custom
we gather in one place to argue about what is good or bad for
the community. (Saifullah Jan 1996:240)

It is perhaps largely through such adversarial debate, publicly

invoking and questioning habitual practices, that ‘indigent
knowledge’ (IK1) is actively transformed into ‘indignant knowledge’
(IK2). Such indignant debate certainly has a long history attested in
Kalasha oral tradition, including occasional protests against unjust
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 277

rulers and internal rebellions against tyrannous local headmen

(Parkes n.d.). Contemporary struggles for forest rights and debates
about development thus rhetorically draw upon and feed back into
earlier indignant memories of Kalasha narrative, oratory and song
(Parkes 1994)—another vital dimension of IK as discursive
consciousness that tends to be neglected (as in this essay) by a
narrow focus on environmental or developmental praxis.
In conclusion, I might be expected to offer some constructive
opinions on the subject of indigenous knowledge, anthropology and
development policy, at least with application to Kalasha experience.
But I would rather first reveal my discomfort in calumniating those
who have been more actively and passionately engaged with
Kalasha welfare—particularly since I well recognize my own
ineluctably ‘romantic’ sentiments concerning Kalasha traditional
culture, a shared disgust at the indignities of exploitative tourism,
as well as sharing a common concern about irreversible
environmental devastation stemming from commercial forestry (see
KRC 1996). Adopting the internal perspective of Kalasha friends like
Saifullah Jan, I also recognize the local value of responsible
development initiatives such as the Aga Khan Rural Support
Programme, while having obvious doubts about other well-
intentioned NGO or government conservation projects.
From a more detached anthropological perspective, however, I feel
obliged to conclude that, for such enclaved indigenous
minorities, perhaps all imposed development programmes
unwittingly amplify—with entrapped indigenous connivance—the
socially deleterious processes outlined in Douglas’s ‘pathological’
depiction of an enclave culture. That is:

• they tend to retrench indigenous knowledge as ‘indigent

knowledge’ and conversely inhibit an ‘indignant knowledge’
demanding self-determined development
• they inevitably incite further acrimonious factional conflict and
resentments over the political control of lucrative financial
resources
• and they thereby instigate a socially corrosive economic
differentiation of local factional leaders (as profitable project
contractors), which ultimately undermines extant institutions of
collective resource management and reciprocal support (Parkes
1997:58–9).

It is an unwelcome duty of an unapplied ethnography of

development to point out these unwanted processes, which nobody
ever intended, rather than further collude in the benevolent
dissolution of organizationally fragile local communities, with
socially fragile yet functioning institutions of resource management,
and with cognitively fragile local cultures of situationally quite
278 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

efficient—and intrinsically valuable—conscious indigenous

knowledge.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This essay owes its inspiration to Nandini Sundar, its analytical
insights to Mary Douglas and its substance to Saifullah Jan. I am
also grateful for frank and friendly exchanges of different opinions
on Kalasha welfare policy with Shakil Durrani (former Commissioner
of Malakand Division, now Additional Chief Secretary of NWFP) and
Maureen Lines (KEPS, HKCA). Fieldwork among Kalasha has been
sponsored by the SSRC (3930/2) and the ESRC (R000 22 1087). I
am grateful to the following for critical comments and helpful
corrections to earlier drafts of this essay: Alberto Cacopardo,
Mohsin Farooque, Are Knudsen, Rodney Needham, Laura Rival, Paul
Sillitoe, Birgitte Sperber and Akiko Wada.

NOTES

1. Saifullah Jan of Rumbur, born ca. 1958, was the first Kalasha to
complete a high-school education. After his matriculation in 1975,
he was employed as my research assistant for fifteen months, and
he has since worked with many subsequent anthropologists and
writers visiting the Kalasha (see Denker 1981; Lines 1988; Loude
and Lièvre 1984:60–61; Sperber 1995:143 n.15). In the early 1980s,
he was appointed personal assistant to the Minority Member of
the National Assembly, being locally responsible for most
development projects introduced in this period. In November 1987,
he was elected Member of the District Council of Chitral,
representing all three Kalasha valleys. Saifullah Jan was a focal
subject of Granada TV’s Disappearing World film on the Kalasha
(Sheppard and Parkes 1990), which visually complements this
essay. It is also an expanded commentary on, and critical dialogue
with, Saifullah Jan’s (1996, n.d.) own indignant accounts of Kalasha
development problems.
2. Cf. Babar Jamal n.d., Klimburg n.d., Sperber 1993. Alauddin (1992:
259–90) conveniently reprints several of the mimeographed
development reports discussed here.
3. KEPS is sponsored by a ‘Hindu Kush Conservation Association’
based in London (HKCA 1997). Its constitution as a registered
charity has the objectives of ‘protection of the environment,
particularly the forests; preservation of the socio-cultural life
traditions of the Kalash; and providing health and education
facilities to the people of the valleys’ (KEPS 1993). See n. 30
4. Comparative ethnography of the local politics of development was
raised prograrnatically by Curtis (1985). See now Grille and Stirrat
1997; Quarles van Ufford 1993; Li 1996.
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 279

5. Douglas’s provocative model of the self-entrenched ‘enclave culture’

is an intentionally exaggerated caricature of an extreme ‘cultural
bias’ perhaps better exemplified by schismatic religious sects than
by minority communities (cf. Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Douglas
1993). Its modified application to Kalasha political culture is treated
in Parkes (forthcoming; cf. 1994: 159–60).
6. Observers of this period even predicted the imminent demise of the
non-Muslim population, which had apparently reached a critical
threshold of 1,391 people compared with 2,230 Muslims (Graziosi
1963).
7. The majority of AKRSP projects in the Kalasha Valleys have been
funded by the UK Overseas Development Agency (now DIFD). On
AKRSP’s policy, see Husain 1992; Khan and Khan 1992. For an
evaluation of recent programmes, see World Bank 1996. Since the
completion of Phase Two of its programme in 1996, no new AKRSP
projects have been inaugurated in the Kalasha valleys.
8. AKRSP Voluntary Organization Chitral Quarterly Report, March
1991, cited by Alauddin (1992:259–60).
9. Notably the lUCN-Sarhad Provincial Conservation Strategy for
Chitral (Fuller and Mohammad Rafiq n.d.) and related regional
programmes funded by the Asian Development Bank (1995), which
all have environmentalist projects planned for the Kalasha valleys.
10. E.g. making redundant seasonal labour migration to lowland cities,
a problematic trend of the early 1970s (Parkes 1983:635–36).
11. On misrepresented household data, cf. Alauddin 1992:53–74 with
Parkes 1983:237, 611–14 on Rumbur. For odd project
recommendations derived from consultation (e.g. rice-and-fish
farming, poultry-raising and rabbit-breeding, onion and garlic
cultivation—all inedible or polluting substances in Kalasha religion),
see Naveed-e-Rahat 1988, cited in Alauddin ibid.: 279–82.
12. Cf. Edelberg and Jones 1979:31–40; Haserodt 1989:64–71; Staley
1982:10–15. Developmental misperceptions of the rationality of
mixed farming strategies in this region are treated by MacDonald
(1998).
13. Cf. Parkes 1983:75–82 with Masood-ul-Mulk 1992a: 52–3; 1992b:
490. The comparatively high productivity of Kalasha yields of wheat
and maize is also recognized by Cossins and Rehman (1990:19).
14. On comparable institutions of collective resource management in
the adjacent Nuristan region of Afghanistan, see Edelberg and Jones
1979:62; Jones 1974:40–59.
15. The den-wal or ure was first instituted by the Kalasha village of
Krakal in Bomboret valley around 1970, modelled on the former ure
institution of their Kati-speaking neighbours of ‘Sheikhanandeh’
(originally from Bashgal Valley in Nuristan) in upper Bomboret, and
subsequently adopted by Kalasha in Rumbur. Cognate with Kalasha
roi, the Kati ure institution had far broader executive powers. See
Robertson’s (1896:435–8) classic account of the ‘Urir’ magistrates of
Kamdesh in Bashgal, and its discussion by Strand (1974:62–3).
280 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

16. On Kalasha palawi herding companies, see Parkes 1983:124–43.

Equivalent palai companies in Nuristan are described in Edelberg
and Jones 1979:74–5; Nuristani 1973; and Strand 1975. Cf. Snoy
1993.
17. This includes a large vocabulary of colour-and-horn terms, an
extensive memory of breeding pedigrees, detailed classification of
browsing resources (compared with indiscriminate knowledge of
most other wild plants) and seemingly more elaborate diagnostic
techniques and natural remedies for treating goat diseases than for
human illness (Parkes 1983:96–103).
18. Such pastoral encroachments of Gujurs (or Gujars) are documented
in Nuristan (Edelberg and Jones 1979:100–1; Strand 1975), as well
as elsewhere in Chitral (Haserodt 1989:130–3; Masood-ul-Mulk
1992a:41).
19. This displacement of millet by new fast-maturing varieties of maize
is documented elsewhere (Allan 1987; Haserodt 1989:115–18), but
Kalasha farmers denied adopting new seed grain and ascribed these
changes to an unprecedented (and perhaps implausible) local rise in
summer temperature from the 1980s.
20. Reported yields of improved and artificially fertilized crops elsewhere
in southern Chitral (Masood-ul-Mulk 1992a:53) are barely more
than average for Kalasha in Rumbur, and well below those
estimated for properly manured fields (Parkes 1983:76, 75).
21. I regret that I cannot treat developmental misperceptions of Kalasha
gender relations here (Maggi 1998; Parkes 1997:53–7). Alauddin, for
example, describes Kalasha women as ‘ritually prescribed near-
slaves’ (1992:3) or ‘beasts of burden’ (ibid.: 247) whom development
projects should determinedly ‘liberate’; cf. Magrath n.d.
22. e.g. Cacopardo and Cacopardo 1977, Darling 1979, Loude 1980,
Loude and Lièvre 1984, 1989, Parkes 1997.
23. i.e. ‘irrigation systems, electricity, education, hospitals, hygiene,
women’s centres, handicrafts, communication and marketing,
agriculture and livestock, forests and the environment [including
ecotourism]’—all at an estimated cost of $1,275,000. I should state
that this preliminary (two-week) survey seemed well conducted and
no doubt reflected the perceived needs of Kalasha. It was submitted
to me for review in September 1991 (UNDP Pakistan, Ref. PRO/300/
Kalash).
24. No doubt many fields now cultivated by outsiders were similarly
appropriated; yet there were no further claims for the redemption of
mortgaged land. The purchase of Kalasha land by outsiders was
formerly forbidden by a decree issued by Mehtar Shuja-ul-Mulk at
the beginning of this century.
25. In 1975, mature walnut trees in Rumbur were being exchanged
internally for two to three goats or an equivalent cash value of Rs.
500–1,000 (Parkes 1983:83), when prices of walnuts had already
more than doubled over the previous decade (Mohammad 1972). By
 ENCLAVED KNOWLEDGE 281

1990, such trees were worth Rs. 5,000, with a typical two-maund
annual yield of walnuts worth Rs. 400–500.
26. Kalasha dari, Khowar bruk-brar ‘kidney brother’, thus named after
the partnership rite of being mutually fed with pieces of a goat’s
kidneys. Equivalent bond-partnerships are reported of the Afghan
Kafirs (Robertson 1896:30–1) and contemporary Nuristanis (Jones
1974:139–40). Baig (1994:111–12) presents a candid account of the
manipulative material interests of the Aiuni bond-partners of
Kalasha.
27. As reported by Alauddin (1992:234–35): ‘The Deputy Commissioner
in his note in late 1981 estimated that on average if Rs. 500 per tree
is paid to the mortgagees, they may be prevailed upon to settle…
[but] in actual practice, some of the mortgagees refused to sell back
for less than Rs. 5000 to Rs. 8000.’
28. Commenting on this passage in December 1998, Saifullah Jan
vehemently denied that there had been any instances of Kalasha
default in the installed repayment of loans for redeemed walnut
trees as alleged by Alauddin (1992). Indeed, he challenged the
author to scrutinize the official accounts of the Minorities Welfare
Fund in Chitral in order to verify that such allegations were
unfounded. These he ascribed to a concerted campaign by
government officers in Chitral to portray Kalasha as ‘irresponsible’
development partners, the motive being to divert project funds to
other (electorally valuable) regions. While this interpretation
seems plausible, it remains puzzling that so many of the accounts
of default reported in Alauddin (1992) appear to be the verbatim
self-confessions of his Kalasha informants—pointing to even more
involuted degrees of miscommunicated ‘indigenous ignorance’ or
‘indigent knowledge’ in self-representations to outside enquiries.
29. As a subsequent deputy commissioner stated in a filmed interview:
‘the Kalash have a sort of mystery about them. The whole world is
fascinated with them…and this potential needs to be exploited’ (in
Sheppard and Parkes 1990). In another DC’s development report, it
is curiously stated that while ‘Kalash culture is slowly dying in the
face of modern trends…a cultural development project [would]…
evolve a method of packaging and marketing them to tourists so
that locals benefit economically, thereby providing continuity to the
ancient culture’ (CADP 1990:18).
30. The Board of Governors of KEPS is an impressive muster of
authorities presently governing Kalasha welfare, viz.: the
Commissioner of Malakand Division; the Deputy Commissioner of
Chitral; the General Manager and District Program Officer of AKRSP;
the Head of Agricultural Coordination of the Chitral Area
Development Programme (CADP); the Programme Officer of
Development (CIDA) at the the Canadian High Commission; Ms
Maureen Lines (KEPS); and Saifullah Jan, Kalash of Rumbur.
Article 4.5 of its Constitution specifies that The Society shall
function independently of any government department’; but the
282 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

registered address of the Society is c/o Deputy Commissioner

Chitral (KEPS 1993). Saifullah Jan subsequently filed a signed
statement of resignation and disassociation from KEPS.
31. A report from the 1890s already mentioned that the Chitrali ruler’s
‘greatest source of revenue is from timber which is floated down
[from Kalasha territory to] the Oyun [Aiun] and Shishikuh streams
and the Kunar…[ultimately to] Nowshera’ (O’Brien 1895:ix).
32. On this Chalt-Chaprote forestry case, see Ali 1989; Dani 1988:480–
4; 1989; Knudsen 1995; Mumtaz and Durr-e-Nayab 1992. The
subsequent outcome of this case is unclear.
33. I should emphasize that these misgivings are not addressed to the
heuristic employment of such performative metaphors by Bourdieu
or, for example, Richards (1993).
34. Factionalism is also by no means distinctive of Kalasha political
culture. Similar factional coalitions are reported of the minority
Wakhi of upper Hunza (Knudsen 1995:115–18) and among the
Nuristani neighbours of the Kalasha (Jones 1974:254–65), which
suggests that processes of ‘enclavement’ may be more generally
characteristic of this region. Husain (1992:691ff.) explicitly alludes
to organizational problems of factional conflict in AKRSP projects
throughout northern Pakistan.

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development: the growth of ignorance. London and New York: Routledge.
Richards, P. 1993. Cultivation: knowledge or performance? In M. Hobart
(ed.), An anthropological critique of development. London and New York:
Routledge.
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Bullen.
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and Israr-ud-Din (eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Hindu
Kush Cultural Conference. Karachi: Oxford University Press, pp. 239–42
(Kalasha language text, transcribed by P. Parkes, pp. 242–45).
——n.d. Development and self-determination: a Kalasha point of view.
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resistance. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
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[Link] (ed.), Neue Forschungen im Himalaya. Stuttgart: Franz
Steiner Verlag.
——1994. Von der Umwelt der Kalasch. Studien zur Indologie und
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 Chapter 10
ENDANGERED FOREST,
ENDANGERED PEOPLE
ENVIRONMENTALIST
REPRESENTATIONS OF
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
[Link] Brosius

Dawat took a deep breath and came wondrously alive. His eyes
and arms almost danced as he made an impassioned plea for
his forest and his people. For nearly an hour the power of the
forest spoke through him, and when he ended there was an
abrupt silence. For a few moments all of us sat quietly as the
jungle sounds of distant birds and drumming cicadas filled the
air. Although the details of what he said came only several
months later when the interview was translated, we all sensed
in our hearts that we had heard something both poetic and
profound. (Henley 1990:94)1

In the early 1980s, timber companies in the Malaysian state of

Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, began moving into interior
upland areas inhabited by various groups of Penan hunter-
gatherers. In 1987 the Penan began actively to resist these
incursions by establishing a series of blockades. Since that time the
Penan have become the focus of a broad-based international
environmental campaign to assert their land rights and preserve the
Sarawak rainforest. This campaign has been a very high profile one
indeed, covered widely in the media and supported by numerous
political figures and celebrities.2 Environmental organizations in the
United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, England, Germany,
Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium
and elsewhere have been involved in various aspects of the Sarawak
campaign. What is perhaps most remarkable about this campaign
is that it is not the product of central coordination, but instead
developed almost spontaneously as the situation of the Penan
became more widely publicized.3 In a series of interviews I
conducted with European and American environmentalists, Penan
resistance to logging was repeatedly cited as exemplary of how
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 291

indigenous peoples can assert control over their own destinies and,
in the process, halt the loss of global biodiversity. In short, the
Penan have become icons of resistance for environmentalists
worldwide.4
In the present discussion I consider the rhetoric of this campaign.
In particular, I examine the ways in which western
environmentalists have constructed Penan land rights with
reference to Penan knowledge of the landscape and of the biotic
elements which exist there. Further, I consider how
environmentalists have drawn on ethnographic accounts in the
process of constructing or describing certain domains of indigenous
knowledge and how those accounts are transformed in the process
of generating images deployed in the campaign. I focus on one text
in particular, a book entitled Penan: Voice for the Borneo Rainforest,
by ethnobotanist Wade Davis and environmental activist Thorn
Henley (Davis and Henley 1990b).5 Though focusing on the work of
Davis and Henley and to a lesser extent on other works by Davis
(1992 1993), this discussion applies to environmental and
indigenous rights rhetoric more broadly: the Penan case is but one
instance of a more general discourse.6

THE PENAN, BLOCKADES AND THE GROWTH OF

THE INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN
The Penan of Sarawak are divided into two distinct populations, the
Eastern and Western Penan (Needham 1972:177).7 The Eastern
Penan comprise all those groups living to the north and east of the
Baram river, as well as on the upper Limbang watershed. The
Western Penan include all those in Belaga District, as well as
communities on the Silat River watershed and at Leng Beku.
Though in broad outline the forest adaptations of Eastern and
Western Penan are similar, there are significant differences between
these two groups with regard to subsistence technology, settlement
patterns, social organization and the tenor of social relationships.8
Western Penan communities are characterized by long-term
stability and a strong sense of internal cohesion. Eastern Penan
bands, on the other hand, are much more fluid with respect to
composition and much more ephemeral with respect to long-term
historical identity. Western Penan communities tend to be much
larger than those of Eastern Penan, with 60 to 200 members:9
Eastern Penan communities average only 20 to 40 members.
Western Penan bands occupy much larger foraging areas than
Eastern Penan, of the order of 1500 square kilometres as opposed
to 400 square kilometres for Eastern Penan. Both Eastern and
Western Penan conceive of their territories as a shared corporate
estate over which all members of a community have rights.
292 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Logging has a dramatic effect on the lives of Penan, both nomadic

and settled.10 The most immediate effect has been on the
forest resources upon which they depend for subsistence and trade.
Sago palms (Eugeissona utilis) are uprooted by bulldozers, fruit
trees felled and rattan destroyed, and severe river siltation occurs.
It is this situation, and the blockades that have resulted from it,
that have attracted world-wide media attention.
Almost without exception, all the communities that have resisted
logging with blockades have been Eastern Penan. Western Penan by
comparison have been conspicuous in their acquiescence in the
activities of the logging companies. The reasons for this contrast are
complex and derive from a mix of political, historical and social
factors. One such factor has been that the Baram and Limbang
Districts—those areas occupied by Eastern Penan—have been
visited by numerous Malaysian and western environmental activists.
This began in 1982, when the Malaysian environmental
organization Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM, Friends of the Earth
Malaysia) set up a field office in the up-river town of Marudi. Then,
in 1984, Swiss artist Bruno Manser took up residence with a group
of nomadic Eastern Penan in the upper Tutoh River area, remaining
with various nomadic groups for over six years. It is Manser, along
with Sahabat Alam Malaysia, who is mostly responsible for bringing
the Penan’s situation to world attention. Beginning in 1985, Manser
began sending letters out to a range of environmental organizations,
and it was not long before reporters, film-makers and
environmentalists began to seek him out in the forest. As Manser
was making the situation known outside of Sarawak, he was
simultaneously acting as an instrument encouraging the normally
retiring Eastern Penan to resist. Manser travelled widely throughout
the Baram and Limbang areas and arranged large meetings which
were attended by representatives from numerous communities.
Along with SAM, Manser provided Penan with an opportunity to
internationalize their cause.
It was after striking images of the Penan blockades began to
circulate in 1987 that the Penan began to become better known,
and a concerted international campaign began to be waged, both by
Manser and by SAM.11 The first Penan blockades were established
not long after the founding of the Rainforest Action Network, which
highlighted the plight of the Penan in its earliest campaigns.
Numerous other rainforest groups were also forming in Europe, the
United Kingdom, Australia and Japan in response to a more general
awareness of the scale of tropical deforestation.12 The Penan
became iconic of forest destruction for many of these organizations.
Associated with the acceleration of the international Sarawak
campaign were efforts by numerous individual environmentalists to
visit Eastern Penan in order to gain first-hand information about
their situation and document it for international distribution. A
number of western environmentalists managed to sneak into what
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 293

had become a closed security zone. In their visits to Penan

communities, these individuals frequently told Penan of the efforts
being made on their behalf in Europe, Australia and the United
States. Their mere presence (and in many cases it was indeed
merely a presence, since Penan describe numerous visits by
persons with whom they were unable to communicate) confirmed
for Penan the legitimacy of their cause.
Davis and Henley were two such visitors. Henley travelled to
Sarawak twice in 1989 in order to visit Penan. It was on his second
visit that he was joined by Davis. Davis and Henley stayed with both
settled Eastern Penan living in the vicinity of Long Bangan, Long
Iman and Batu Bungan, and with nomadic Penan in the Ubung
River. During this visit, Davis collected information on medicinal
plants, and it was his wish to conduct further ethnobotanical
research. This proved impossible because of the tense political
situation in the area. In early 1993, Davis travelled to Sarawak
again with a screen-writer from Warner Brothers in conjunction
with plans to produce a film telling the story of Bruno Manser. On
the basis of these brief trips, Davis and Henley published a series of
items on the Penan (Davis 1992, 1993, Davis and Henley 1990b).13

THE REPRESENTATION OF PENAN KNOWLEDGE:

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, LANDSCAPE AND
MEDICINAL PLANTS
In examining environmentalist discourse on the significance of
indigenous knowledge, it is necessary to consider precisely what is
meant by the word ‘knowledge’ itself. In fact, we can identify two
rather distinct conceptions of indigenous knowledge, one which we
might term the objectivist conception, the other the environmentalist
conception.
As used by ethnoecologists, the word ‘knowledge’ is generally
applied to discussions of indigenous understandings of the natural
world: systems of classification, how various societies cognize or
interpret natural processes, what such groups know about the
resources they exploit, and so forth. Brush has suggested that the
forms that the study of indigenous knowledge has taken have
changed considerably and that four distinct, historically situated
approaches can be discerned: descriptive historical particularism,
cultural ecology, cognitive anthropology and human ecology (1993:
658). Each of these presupposes a different set of starting
assumptions regarding the nature of indigenous knowledge and the
purposes and epistemological bases for studying it. Central to the
latter two approaches in particular has been a concern with the
structural or systemic nature of indigenous knowledge (ibid.: 658)
and its utilitarian or adaptive significance (ibid.: 659). Such is the
objectivist notion of knowledge.
294 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Brush also describes how, after 1980, the addition of the word
‘indigenous’ produced a more politicized discourse concerned with
the issue of rights, which has culminated in contemporary
controversies over indigenous intellectual property rights (ibid.: 659–
60).14 Politicized though it was (and is), the discourse of indigenous
intellectual property rights has adhered strongly to the objectivist
conception of knowledge. This is necessary, given the goal of
defining indigenous knowledge as an entity subject to statutory
recognition and framed with reference to metropolitan forms of legal
textualization.
In certain other forms of environmentalist discourse, on the other
hand, ‘knowledge’ is transformed into something quite different. My
purpose here is to focus on the nature of that transformation by
examining what it is that writers such as Davis and Henley have
defined and represented to their audience as ‘indigenous
knowledge’.
In order to understand how this transformation occurs, it is first
necessary to recognize the sources from which such representations
of indigenous knowledge emerge. For the most part they derive from
two sources. First, environmentalist representations of indigenous
peoples and the landscapes they inhabit are often based on travel to
these areas by activists, generally for periods of weeks or months.
Such individuals often lack knowledge of local languages and are
thus not able to communicate effectively with indigenous peoples.
They are nevertheless able to document current conditions and,
perhaps with the help of a translator, to record local perceptions
and concerns and collect accounts of abuses by government
authorities.15 Secondly, environmentalists frequently draw upon
available ethnographic information in order to enrich their accounts
and lend them an aura of authority. In point of fact,
environmentalist texts very often seem to result from a combination
of personal and ethnographic accounts, producing a textual
interweaving of personal travel narrative and ethnographic
minutiae. This is the strategy employed by Davis and Henley.
Such texts and images, once produced, are dispatched. The
course they may take thereafter is quite variable: they may go
through numerous transformations as they are repeatedly produced,
reproduced and at last distributed to a larger audience through the
internet, faxes, documentaries picked up by television networks,
fund-raising letters and books such as that by Davis and Henley.16
These are not texts or images produced for mere aesthetic
appreciation: They are deployed to make an argument and mobilize
support and are intended to empower those they represent. They
are, in short, tools of persuasion: they may be asking us to write
letters, send money or provide some other form of support. In order
to serve as such tools of persuasion, they must present the Penan
(or the Kayapó or the Asmat) in ways that make us care and want to
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 295

do something. They must also connect them to that other thing that
is endangered: the forest.
There are any number of ways of achieving these ends.
Arguments have been made about the value of the rainforest in
terms of global warming, the preservation of biodiversity and the
potential for discovering new medicines. This is still evolving: new
arguments are continually emerging. Perhaps the most prevalent
argument—the one in which the most direct linkage is made
between the fate of forests and peoples—stresses the importance of
indigenous knowledge in preserving biodiversity and raises the
spectre of its loss. According to activist Alan Durning, indigenous
peoples

possess, in their ecological knowledge, an asset of incalculable

value: a map to the biological diversity of the earth on which
all life depends. Encoded in indigenous languages, customs,
and practices may be as much understanding of nature as is
stored in the libraries of modern science. (1992:7)

Another observer argues that

The extinction of biological diversity is inextricably linked with

the destruction of cultural diversity. With the loss of native
cultures, there is also disappearing the vital and important
knowledge of a way of living in balance with the earth and the
value system in which it is encoded. To approach the process of
restoration, it is essential to learn to see the earth through
native eyes. (Ausable 1994:211)17

A second strategy is to link indigenous knowledge to the sacred or

ineffable, partaking of a semantic shift that transforms ‘knowledge’
into wisdom, spiritual insight or some other such quality. This sort
of shift is evident in a 1991 Time magazine cover story entitled ‘Lost
tribes, lost knowledge’ (Linden 1991). The subtitle of this story is,
‘When native cultures disappear, so does a trove of scientific and
medical wisdom’. According to Linden,

The prevailing attitude has been that western science…has

little to learn from tribal knowledge. The developed world’s
disastrous mismanagement of the environment has somewhat
humbled this arrogance, however, and some scientists are
beginning to recognize that the world is losing an enormous
amount of basic research as indigenous peoples lose their
culture and traditions. Scientists may someday be struggling
to reconstruct this body of wisdom to secure the developed
world’s future, (ibid.: 48)
296 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Likewise, in Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World,

anthropologist David Maybury-Lewis states that

Western science…is only now beginning to understand that

peoples who had no ‘science ‘of their own could nevertheless
have developed a profound knowledge of their corner of the
natural world. This is nowhere more true than in the
rainforests, yet it is in the rainforests that the clash between
Western arrogance and traditional wisdom is most violent.
(Maybury-Lewis 1992:46)18

Both these valorizing strategies—the one linking indigenous

knowledge to the preservation of biodiversity, the other
transforming ‘knowledge’ into ‘wisdom’—require the deployment of a
discourse that places indigenous knowledge at its centre. It is the
latter strategy in particular that I shall examine here, by providing
several examples of the transformation that occurs as ethnographic
texts are transformed into environmentalist texts, showing how the
substantive properties of indigenous knowledge are transformed in
the process. In doing so, I focus on three examples: 1) Penan
resource management, particularly as it applies to the molong
concept; 2) knowledge of the landscape; and 3) the rhetoric of
medicinal plants. I focus on these topics because, except in the case
of medicinal plants, I myself first documented much of this and
published it in a number of articles (Brosius 1986, 1988, 1990).
This material was subsequently picked up and elaborated on by
environmentalists, Davis and Henley among them, and incorporated
into campaign materials. With respect to the case of medicinal
plants, I provide this example because it illustrates the kind of
rhetorical traffic that occurs when indigenous peoples themselves
adopt and deploy transnational environmental rhetoric.

Resource Management and the Molong Concept

Sago, derived from the palm species Eugeissona utilis, is the carbo-
hydrate staple of both Eastern and Western Penan. The factor which
more than any other determines the nature of their distinctive
settlement systems—the location of camps and the frequency and
distance of movement—is the availability of sago. Penan have a
clear idea of the relative abundance and location of sago groves
throughout their foraging areas and locate themselves in proximity
to sago concentra-tions. Rather than simply harvesting Eugeissona,
Penan exploit it in a manner which maintains its long-term
availability.
I first described the principles underlying Western Penan resource
use in a 1986 article in the Sarawak Museum Journal entitled ‘River,
forest and mountain: the Penan Gang landscape’ (Brosius 1986).
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 297

When I first wrote about these principles, in particular the molong

concept, they had not yet been described. My primary purpose in
writing this article, at a time when an increasing number of Penan
communities were being dispossessed by the activities of logging
companies, was to demonstrate that they did not wander aimlessly
through the forest as was supposed by so many government
authorities, but rather had well-established principles of land
tenure and a sophisticated system of resource management. I
deliberately published this article in a local journal so that it would
be available to civil servants and government officials in Sarawak.
In this article, I described Penan conceptions of landscape,
particularly with respect to the role that rivers play in organizing
landscape knowledge. I also described the significance of trees, and
it was in this context that I first described the molong concept:

the Penan landscape is filled with particular trees which are

either the property of the whole community or which are
recognized as belonging to specific individuals. Of significance
here is the concept of molong, to preserve.19 This generally
applies to fruit trees of various types, to sago clumps, or, for
instance, to large trees which are suitable for boat-building.
Frequently when travelling in the forest a person will spot a
tree which has not been claimed and will then mark it in some
manner, thus reserving it for future harvest or use. In the case
of fruit trees, whether they are molong by an individual or by
the community is dependent on the particular species…. Even
young children actively claim trees and by adulthood may have
accumulated several dozen fruit trees and sago clumps.
Significantly, there are a large number of trees…which are
specifically named…. Many of these trees are recognized as
having been molong by long-dead ancestors and are thus a
further source of continuity between past generations and the
present. (1986:175–6)20

Having defined the molong concept, I then proceeded to describe the

process of sago production, contextualizing this with reference to
the reproductive ecology of Eugeissona. I described how Eugeissona
reproduces through both seeds and vegetatively and concluded
that:

while the processing of sago in a particular area over a period

of several months may lead to temporary depletion, this
harvesting strategy does not negatively affect it long-term
growth. It appears likely that the thinning of Eugeissona in the
process of exploitation may actually enhance the production of
starch and viable seed…. This is not to say that Eugeissona
cannot be over-harvested and thus depleted. Indeed it can,
298 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

particularly when the harvesting cycle in a particular sago

stand is too short and clumps are not allowed to sufficiently
recover before being re-harvested. For this reason the Penan
are concerned to maintain a sound harvesting strategy which
avoids a foreshortened harvest cycle. When the sago in one
area has been depleted, it is left to recover over a period of
years. The Penan attitude with regard to Eugeissona resources
is one of explicit stewardship, (ibid.: 177)

Finally, I discussed the implications of Penan resource use for

development policy. My purpose in doing so was to demonstrate ‘the
inadequacy of the notion of the Penan as a people without a sense
of place, existing in an anonymous landscape’ (ibid.: 179). I noted
that ‘a sense of stewardship constantly informs the manner in
which they exploit their environment’ (ibid.) and ended with the
statement that ‘the Penan are conscientious resource managers,
fully aware of sustained-yield principles. They exploit their
environment in a way that preserves its long-term ecological
integrity’ (ibid.: 182). Given the purpose of the article (which also
contained a number of specific policy recommendations and
suggestions for principles upon which Penan land claims might be
legally encoded), I felt it was important to make a clear case for the
validity of Penan principles of resource management. Whatever
shortcomings this article might have, the information provided is
firmly grounded in field research and constitutes an accurate
description of Penan landscape knowledge and principles of
resource use.
Let us now turn to the way that this description has been
transformed in the process of Davis and Henley’s (re)presentation.
The issue of Penan resource management is addressed in Davis’s
individual essays (Davis 1990, 1992, 1993a) and the essay co-
authored by Davis and Henley (1990a). In one essay, referring
generally to the significance of Penan botanical knowledge, Davis
states that ‘For the Penan all of these plants are sacred, possessed
by souls and born of the same earth that gave birth to the people’
(1990:98–9). In reference to the usage of Eugeissona, Davis and
Henley state that

If there is a pattern to the Penan migration, it is determined by

the sacred growth cycle of the sago palm. It is a journey that
may take twenty years to complete, an itinerary first described
by the ancestors at a time when the earth was young and still
wet with the innocence of birth (1990a:106).

Broadening this description to general principles of resource use,

they suggest that
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 299

Their biological adaptation, together with their spiritual beliefs,

demand that they exploit the forest in a sustainable manner.
Central to their worldview is a sacred obligation to bequeath to
the following generations a healthy forest fully capable of
providing life to its human inhabitants, (ibid.: 107)

Finally, Davis and Henley provide a rather embellished description

of the molong concept:

This Penan notion of stewardship is encapsulated in molong, a

concept that defines both a conservation ethic and a notion of
resource ownership. To molong a sago palm is to harvest the
trunk with care, insuring that the tree will sucker up from the
roots. Molong is climbing a tree to gather fruit, rather than
cutting it down, harvesting only the largest fronds of the rattan,
leaving the smaller shoots so that they may reach proper size
in another year. Whenever the Penan molong a fruit tree, they
place an identifying sign on it, a wooden marker or a cut of a
machete. It is a notice of effective ownership and a public
statement that the natural product is to be preserved for
harvesting at a later time. In this way, through time, the Penan
have allocated specific resources—a clump of sago, fruit trees,
dart poison trees, rattan stands, fishing sites, medicinal plants
—to individual kin groups. The Penan acknowledge these as
familial rights that pass down through the generations. In
many cases the identifying mark on a particular tree takes the
form of two parallel sticks—a sign that acknowledges
ownership while inviting the wayfarer to share at the proper
time in the bounty of the resource. It is the equivalent of a
private property sign that reads ‘please share wisely’ rather
than ‘no trespassing’, (ibid.: 114)

Close examination of the preceding statements reveals a number of

inaccuracies: the fact that Davis and Henley do not acknowledge
the distinction between Eastern and Western Penan, that they infer
a system of direct inheritance, and that they include such things as
fishing sites and medicinal plants in their discussion of the molong
concept. More disconcerting, however, is an apparent need to
embellish their description with reference to a form of ecological
etherealism that is derived entirely from the Euro-American
romantic tradition and has little relation to any set of ideas that
would be recognizable to Penan.

Concepts of Landscape
The same characteristics that are present in Davis and Henley’s
description of resource management are also evident in the way
300 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

they describe Penan concepts of landscape. Again this is derived

largely from material published by the present author. In my 1986
article, I described something of the depth of Penan knowledge of
the landscape: the richness of vocabulary for talking about
landforms and rivers, the way in which rivers form the skeleton
around which environmental knowledge is organized, and how river
names incorporate geographical, ecological, historical and
genealogical information. My intent was to demonstrate how Penan
encode ecological information in the naming of landscape features
and to demonstrate the coherence existing between the physical
landscape, history, genealogy and the identities of individuals and
communities. I described Penan landscape knowledge as follows:

A conspicuous feature of the Penan environment is rivers….

The importance of rivers to the Penan can scarcely be
underestimated. In an environment where visibility seldom
exceeds 200 ft., these rivers and streams form the skeleton
around which environmental knowledge is organized…. When
travelling in the forest, Penan are always cognizant of their
precise location relative to various rivers. This keen sense of
spatial relationships derives from an awareness of the relative
size of rivers, the angle of flow of one river to another, the
topography between particular rivers, the proximity of
headwaters of different rivers, and other sorts of
environmental cues…. To Penan, however, the landscape is
more than simply a vast, complex network of rivers. Above all
it is a reservoir of detailed ecological knowledge and a
repository for the memory of past events. (1986:174–5)

I then proceeded to describe how rivers are named—whether for

persons, for landscape features, for ecological features, or for
particular events—and how, in turn, the deceased are spoken of
with reference to rivers. I also described the significance of such
naming practices in establishing the ‘cultural density’ of the
landscape:

the landscape itself serves as an idiom for the maintenance of

historical and genealogical information. This idiom is more
than a trivial mode of expressing nostalgia…. It is an
important mnemonic device for the maintenance of social
relationships…. At the same time it serves to establish the
rights of Penan communities to exploit the resources of a given
area. The rivers in which the ancestors are buried are the
source of livelihood for their living descendants, (ibid.: 175)

This discussion of the nature of Penan knowledge of the landscape

is altogether transformed by Davis and Henley. Davis states that,
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 301

‘For the Penan this forest is alive, pulsing, responsive in a thousand

ways to their physical needs and their spiritual readiness’ (1990:
98). Trees are ‘blessed with spirits, the animals imbued with magical
powers’ (ibid.: 99). Discussing the Penan’s skill as ‘naturalists’,
Davis suggests that this exists because they identify ‘both
psychologically and cosmologically with the rainforest’ (ibid.).
Further, ‘For Penan, every forest sound is an element of a language
of the spirit’ (ibid.). Davis states that

To walk in God’s forest is to tread through an earthly paradise

where there is no separation between the sacred and the
profane, the material and the immaterial, the natural and the
supernatural, (ibid.)

Davis and Henley maintain that, ‘Fearful of the heat of the sun,
ignorant of the seas, insulated from the heavens by the branches of
the canopy, their entire cognitive and spiritual world became based
on the forest’ (1990a:106) Finally, in a more recent work, Davis
asserts that

The Penan view the forest as an intricate, living network.

Imposed from their imagination and experience is a geography
of the spirit that delineates time-honoured territories and
ancient routes that resonate with the place names of rivers and
mountains, caves, boulders and trees. (1993:25)

What we observe in the statements above is a strategy by which a

pattern of cognizing landscape and encoding knowledge about that
landscape is transformed into an obscurantist, essentializing
discourse which in fact elides the substantive features of that
knowledge. The implications of this will be considered in the
discussion below.

The Rhetoric of Medicinal Plants

A central element of environmentalist rhetoric on rainforest
preservation concerns the value of such forests for the potential
medicines they might provide for western science and the
importance of indigenous knowledge as a key to the discovery of
those medicines. In the film The Penan: A Disappearing Civilization
in Borneo, the narrator provides the following commentary:

The greatest reason for protecting this rainforest is perhaps

found in the Penans’ knowledge of forest products with
medicinal purposes. The stem of a certain leaf cures stomach
pains, the inner bark of a tree reduces headache and fever
within seconds of being applied to one’s forehead. When asked
302 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

if there are any plants nearby that are good for medicine, the
Penan will reach for a dozen or more where they stand and
explain their use.
With more than 40,000 years of experimentation and
observation, the Penan have enormous medical knowledge
which Western scientists cannot duplicate. Today less than
one percent of the world’s tropical forest plants have been
tested for pharmaceutical properties. Yet 25% of all our
medicine comes from the rainforest. Three-quarters of all anti-
cancer drugs are rainforest derivatives. As hundreds of
thousands of acres of Sarawak’s primary forests are
succumbing to chainsaws, the world is coming to realize that
this is the tragedy affecting us all.

Likewise, in a televised segment on the Penan from the programme

Primetime Live, narrator John Quinones says that

for the Penan all plants seem to serve a purpose. Often they
are life-saving. The bark from this shrub…heals snake bites.
The Penan have identified fifty medicinal plants here.
Scientists say there are thousands more. Like an Old World
pharmacist, Balandang had us tasting plants that he says will
cure all kinds of ailments.

Although these cases refer to the Penan, such statements are

common in contemporary rainforest conservation rhetoric more
generally.
Given his background in ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology,
Davis was particularly interested in documenting Penan knowledge
of medicinal plants. On his first visit to Sarawak, he devoted
considerable attention to collecting medicinal plants and to talking
with Penan about their uses. According to Davis and Henley,

Preliminary ethnobotanical surveys suggest that the Penan

employ over fifty medicinal plants which they harvest from the
primary forest…. The first challenge in assessing the potential
of the Penan pharmacopoeia entails understanding the belief
system that mediates their use of medicinal plants. (1990a:117)

The authors then proceed to expand on what they mean by ‘belief

system’:

In general indigenous medicine is based on a thoroughly non-

western conception of the etiology of disease in which health is
defined as a coherent state of equilibrium between the physical
and spiritual components of the individual. Health is
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 303

wholeness, which in turn is perceived as something holy….

(ibid.: 117)

They proceed to discuss a mélange of Penan and indigenous

theories of disease, again making a plea for the preservation of
Penan medicinal knowledge.

With a spirit world that is alive, the Penan quest for healing
and well being is rooted both in magico-religious belief and a
perspicacious knowledge of pharmacologically active plants.
Understanding their folk medicine and identifying those of
their plants that may ultimately serve the needs of all human
societies is a complex and time-consuming task. Unfortunately,
as in the case of indigenous societies throughout the world, the
traditional knowledge is being lost at a tremendous rate.
Logging activities are destroying the source of the medicines
even as the forces of acculturation disrupt the integrity of the
belief system itself, (ibid.: 118)

Finally, referring to the complaints of one Penan featured in their

1990 book about the ineffectiveness of medicines provided by the
government, Davis and Henley state that ‘What Dawat is saying is
that a synthetic drug cannot replace the spirit of the plants, imbued
as they are with the power to heal’ (ibid.: 118).
One of the more interesting consequences of the environmentalist
rhetoric of medicinal plants, evident in the preceding quote, is that
this rhetoric has itself suffused back to the Penan and been adopted
by them as their own. When one visits Penan today in those areas
where blockades have occurred, one of the consequences of forest
destruction they most commonly decry is the loss of medicinal
plants. As my data collection among Eastern Penan in blockaded
areas proceeded, I was struck by the frequency with which I heard
such statements. In three years with Western Penan in the 1980s—
in a non-blockaded area, and in a mostly pre-blockade era—I rarely
heard medicinal plants mentioned or discussed in any context.
Certainly Western Penan knew of several, but these tended to be few
and to be used for a very broad range of illnesses. I encountered
none of the non-stop commentary on the value of traditional
medicinal plants that is so evident today when one walks through
the forest with Eastern Penan. When I first began working among
Western Penan I fully expected that I would hear much more on this
subject. In 1980 I conducted fieldwork among Pinatubo Ayta in the
Philippines, who have an enormous knowledge of medicinal plants
(Fox 1952) and who constantly pointed them out. What struck me
about Western Penan in the 1980s is that they showed so little
interest in medicinal plants. In the 1990s, Western Penan in the
Belaga District still did not, yet Eastern Penan in the Baram District
304 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

—that is, in those areas visited by environmentalists—did so with

remarkable consistency.21
Davis and Henley are not alone in stressing the richness of Penan
knowledge of medicinal plants. Other environmentalists writing
about the Penan also frequently mention this. Part of the reason for
this is that they are told about such plants by Penan. I believe that
what we are observing here is what might be termed the
‘Plotkinization’ of the discourse of indigenous knowledge of
medicinal plants. Mark Plotkin, of course, has been a leading figure
in developing an awareness of the depth of ethnobotanical
knowledge of medicinal plants among indigenous peoples in
Amazonia.22 This awareness has diffused into the rhetoric of
rainforest conservation in many ways. It has now become standard
practice to describe the depth of knowledge of medicinal plants of
particular rainforest societies. Such knowledge may exist in other
indigenous societies, but it is much less significant among Penan
than recent statements would lead one to expect. This is a kind of
ethnographic hall of mirrors: drawing on rhetorics derived from an
Amazonian context, environmentalists have brought assumptions
derived from a familiarity with Plotkin’s work to the Penan, who
then repeat it back to other environmentalists, who take it as an
exemplar of the depth of indigenous knowledge. Precisely how this
has occurred is nearly impossible to reconstruct, but it would seem
that it occurs in the myriad conversations that have occurred
between Penan and the environmentalists who have visited them.
Penan take note of the Euro-American gaze on medicinal plants and
turn it back to them as commentary. One anecdote serves as an
illustration of this process. I was walking along a ridge with a group
of nomadic Penan when we passed through a small patch of
Belassan trees (Tristania sp.). One of the Penan I was with stopped,
pointed at these trees, and said that one environmentalist who had
spent some time with them had said that there were medicines in
trees like these and that this is one reason the forest should be
saved—to search for such medicines. Although this anecdote does
not refer directly to the question of Penan knowledge of medicinal
plants, it does reflect something of the kinds of conversation that
have fostered this element of Penan discourse.

DISCUSSION
Drawing mostly on the writings of Davis and Henley as an exemplar
of a more general phenomenon, I have tried to show how indigenous
‘knowledge ‘is represented and transformed in one ethnographic
context. It has not been my goal simply to provide a particularistic
critique of how one group of people have been portrayed and to
describe what Penan are ‘really’ like, nor is this discussion intended
as a critique of western representations of the ‘other’: that would
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 305

hardly be very original. Rather, this case raises several fundamental

questions about how objective conceptions of knowledge are
appropriated and deployed in environmental campaigns and what
the consequences of this might be.
There are, in fact, several ways in which the objectivist conception
of knowledge has been transformed in the texts I have provided. I
have focused on one in particular in the first two cases discussed
above: how indigenous ‘knowledge’ is linked to the sacred or
ineffable. As noted above, it is transformed into wisdom, spiritual
insight or some other such quality. This transformation serves a
certain purpose. In describing peoples such as the Penan, the
problem for environmentalists and indigenous rights activists is
twofold. First, how does one make a society narratable? That is,
what must one do to be able to talk about it? However one defines
indigenous knowledge, it is not easily accessible, not something
that can be picked up in a few short weeks, particularly for
individuals lacking linguistic competence. The problem for
environmentalists is how to create texts about peoples such as the
Penan nevertheless and how to talk about the knowledge which
they hold to be so valuable without actually comprehending much
about that knowledge. Secondly, how does one create value?
Environmentalist and indigenous rights campaigns are generally
concerned with peoples who are ‘endangered’ precisely because
they, their institutions and their systems of land-tenure are
devalued by national governments. The Malaysian government
considers the Penan a national embarrassment, a people who
represent precisely those things they are trying to overcome in their
national development efforts. The goal of environmentalists, then, is
axiological: to demonstrate both to the government and to western
audiences what is at stake if the forest, and the Penan, are
destroyed.
In reducing Penan knowledge to the sacred or ineffable, the Penan
are made both narratable and valuable. In linking knowledge to the
sacred, commentators are provided with a way of constructing meta-
commentaries about the meaning of a body of knowledge rather
than about that knowledge itself. The danger, of course, is that such
meanings may only be interpolated and may, in fact, be Euro-
American in origin.
In short, the discourse of the sacred serves to make Penan
narratable, all the while serving to elide gaps in understanding. At
the same time that it makes Penan narratable, it also imbues them
with value—a value that authors themselves feel in a most profound
way but cannot otherwise articulate. It makes land, resources and
people inviolable, and it does this by appealing to pre-existing
categories of value—the endangered, the last whisper of an ancient
past. As Suzuki said of one Penan, ‘Listen to Dawat. He is what we
once were’ (1990:8).
306 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

The metacommentary on the sacred or ineffable has a number of

pernicious effects. The most obvious is that it imposes meanings on
Penan ‘knowledge’ that may be quite imaginary. In imposing some
meanings, it expunges others. Penan certainly have some sense of
the ineffable, and this is expressed in a range of concepts relating to
power, avoidance, respect, and so forth (see Brosius 1992, 1995a,
1995b, 1995–96). But it is nothing like the obscurantized sanctity
Davis and Henley describe. Reducing the ineffable to ‘sacred’
transforms and distorts it.
Secondly, and paradoxically, it genericizes precisely the diversity
that it is trying to advance. Whatever else sanctity is, it is not a
universal category. In presenting Penan knowledge as wisdom or
insight having a sacred quality, one is imposing a falsely
universalized quality on a range of peoples, thus collapsing precisely
the diversity that defines them. The Penan are transformed into a
homogenous ‘indigenous people’ or ‘forest people’. This is a very
common—and often quite explicit—element in contemporary
commentaries on indigenous rights. For instance, Durning states
that, ‘Amid the endless variety of indigenous belief, there is striking
unity on the sacredness of ecological systems’ (1992:28–9).
According to Native American activist Winona LaDuke:

Traditional ecological knowledge is the culturally and

spiritually based way in which indigenous peoples relate to
their ecosystems. This knowledge is founded on spiritual-
cultural instructions from ‘time immemorial’ and on
generations of careful observation within an ecosystem of
continuous residence. (1994:127)

Suzuki describes ‘this ancient, culturally diverse aboriginal

consensus on the ecological order and the integrity of nature [which]
might justifiably be described as a “sacred ecology”…’ (Suzuki and
Knudtson 1992:18). Barreiro asserts that

Indigenous cultures are rich in ecological concept. ‘Our Mother

the Earth’ is a reality in the cosmologies of virtually every
native people in the world…It is one of the currents of thought
that make up Pan-Indigenous philosophy and a basic message
of the Indian peoples. (1991:200)

And Davis describes the Penan as ‘related in spirit to the Mbuti

pygmies of Zaire and the wandering Maku of the Amazon’ (1993:24).
The discourse on medicinal plants is something else again. I do
not mean to suggest that Eastern Penan lack knowledge of
medicinal plants. Rather, what is significant is the way in which
Penan presently emphasise and elaborate on this domain of
knowledge as a central element in their objections to logging, a
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 307

product of environmentalist involvement with Penan. Indigenous

knowledge of medicinal plants forms a highly narratable domain
and invests environmentalist statements about the Penan with an
aura of authority. As such, it becomes a locus around which
environmentalists and Penan can converse. One might argue that
those domains of indigenous knowledge that are most accessible,
and thus most narratable, are elevated to a particularly important
status in the discourse of endangered knowledge.
In the preceding discussion, I have attempted to show how, in an
effort to make a people narratable and to create value (all the while
essentializing them as ‘forest people’), environmentalist discourse
about indigenous knowledge has the potential to transform that
knowledge into something it is not. To save something, or to
mobilize an audience to want to save something, requires that it be
made beautiful or profound or that it has some transcendental
value. In creating that value, however, the thing itself is
transformed. In transforming the rich if generally mundane Penan
knowledge of the forest landscape into something that is sacred, it
is genericized. The thing to be valued, and thus to be saved, is
constructed in terms of categories that are Euro-American in origin.
We see here a hall of mirrors of representation—similacra—as
Penan knowledge is transformed into something that it is not, and
western discourses are transported to Penan who convey them back
to western interlocutors. The essential and diverse qualities of
indigenous knowledge are lost along the way. As the future of the
forests, other biomes and indigenous peoples are negotiated in the
years ahead in a plethora of post-Rio international fora, the issue of
who talks for whom and who constructs representations of whom is
critical.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This discussion is based on three years of research among Western
Penan 1984–1987), seven months of research among nomadic and
settled Eastern Penan in 1992 and 1993, and interviews with
rainforest activists in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Europe in 1993
and 1994. Support for the research on which this discussion is
based was provided by the National Science Foundation, the U.S.
Department of Education (Fulbright-Hayes), the Social Science
Research Council (which supported both my initial research and my
most recent research), the [Link] Fund, and the University of
Georgia Research Foundation. I wish to thank Tom Headland for
commenting on an earlier draft of this paper, and to my wife Ellen
Walker for her superb editing. Responsibility for all statements
herein is exclusively mine.
308 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

NOTES

1. I translated this interview in 1989 for the Davis and Henley volume
for which Dawat Lupung, the individual interviewed, was awarded
the Reebok Human Rights Award.
2. In the United States, for example, the issue of logging in Sarawak
has been covered in Newsweek, Time, the New Yorker, the Wall
Street Journal and Rolling Stone, on National Public Radio, NBC
Evening News and CNN, and on the programmes National
Geographic Explorer and Primetime Live. Figures as diverse as Al
Gore, Jerry Garcia and Prince Charles have spoken out on behalf of
the Penan.
3. In this sense, referring to it as a ‘campaign’ is inaccurate, since this
would seem to imply centralized coordination. Certain organizations
acted as clearing houses for information or promoted particular
strategies, but no single organization choreographed all the events
that have transpired over logging in Sarawak since the mid-1980s. I
refer to it as a campaign only as a matter of convenience. I must
also stress that although most environmental organizations have
focused their attention on the Penan, many environmentalists have
insisted that this not be seen as a Penan issue exclusively. They
argue that the concern should be for indigenous rights in Sarawak
in general.
4. In the following discussion, reference to environmentalists should be
understood to refer both to representatives of environmental
organizations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and
Greenpeace, and to representatives of indigenous rights
organizations such as Survival International and Cultural Survival.
Though these two types of organization have at times been at odds,
there has been some movement in recent years toward a
convergence of interests.
5. Davis received his PhD. in Ethnobotany from Harvard University
under the supervision of the prominent ethnobotanist Richard
Schultes, and is most well-known as the author of The Serpent and
the Rainbow (Davis 1985). In the late 1980s a controversy developed
around Davis’ work on Haitian voodoo (See Booth 1988; Yasumoto
and Kao 1986). Before he became involved in the Sarawak issue,
Henley was instrumental in organizing the campaign to protect the
Queen Charlotte Islands, one of Canada’s most historically
significant environmental campaigns. Within the context of the
Sarawak campaign, Henley’s most active role was in organizing the
1990 Voices for the Borneo Rainforest World Tour, a series of events
that brought two Penan and one Kelabit activist to Australia, Japan,
North America and Europe—some eighteen countries in all. Henley
and Davis, along with several other individuals, co-founded the
Endangered Peoples Project, a foundation ‘dedicated to the
promotion of biological and cultural diversity’ (Henley 1990:93).
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 309

6. In discussing how western environmentalists have represented the

Penan, it is not my intention to question the validity of the concerns
that motivate those within the environmental movement: I share
their concern with ecological degradation and its effects on
indigenous peoples. My comments are directed at particular
rhetorical strategies, not at the broader concerns that underlie them.
Moreover, whatever my misgivings about the forms of rhetoric
examined here, I feel it is important to acknowledge the positive
contribution that individuals such as Davis and Henley have made
in bringing the situation of the Penan to the attention of the
Euroamerican public.
7. Eastern and Western Penan in Sarawak together number some
7000 individuals. The Eastern Penan total some 4500 in
approximately 50 communities, while Western Penan total some
2500 in 18 communities. These figures are updated from figures I
have provided in previous publications and reflect estimations of
population growth since 1987, when I carried out a census of
Western Penan. In addition to Eastern and Western Penan, there
are also several small groups of Penan who have been settled for a
century or more and who have little interaction with either Eastern
or Western Penan. These include the Penan Nyivung, Penan Bok,
Penan Suai and Penan Jelalong. For more information on Penan in
Sarawak, see: Arnold 1958; Brosius 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991a,
1991b, 1992,1993a, 1993b, 1995a, 1995b, 1995–6, 1997,
forthcoming-a, forth-coming-b, forthcoming-c; Harrisson 1949;
Huehne 1959; Kedit 1978, 1982; Langub 1972a, 1972b, 1974, 1975,
1984, 1988, 1989, 1990; Needham 1954a, 1954b, 1954c, 1954d,
1965, 1972; Nicolaisen 1976a 1976b, 1978; Urquhart 1951, 1957,
1959.
8. See Brosius 1990, 1991a, 1992, 1993a; Needham 1972.
9. These figures refer to band size prior to settlement. Both Eastern
and Western Penan communities tend to experience growth once
settlement occurs. See Arnold 1958; Needham 1972; Urquhart 1951.
10. Among both Eastern and Western Penan, the trend toward
sedentarism has accelerated greatly since about 1960. I estimate
that in 1960 70–80% of all Eastern and Western Penan were still
nomadic. Of 7000 Eastern and Western Penan today, fewer than
400 Eastern Penan in the vicinity of the Magoh, Tutoh and upper
Limbang River areas remain fully nomadic, approximately 5% of the
total. The last nomadic Western Penan settled about1970.
11. In addition to SAM another local NGO, the Sarawak Indigenous
Peoples Alliance (SIPA), also played a key role in the campaign for a
short time. SIPA was forced to disband by the Sarawak government
in 1992 after its founder Anderson Mutang Urud was arrested.
12. Among the environmentalist and indigenous rights organizations
who have involved themselves in the Sarawak campaign are
Rainforest Action Network (US), Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace,
Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Japan Tropical Forest Action
310 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Network, Rettet den Regenwald (Germany), Robin Wood (Germany),

Society for Threatened Peoples (Austria, Germany, Switzerland),
ProRegenwald (Germany), Nepenthes (Denmark), Global 2000
(Austria), the Bruno Manser Fonds (Switzerland) and the Rainforest
Information Center (Australia). Their activities have ranged from
letter-writing campaigns to attempts at tropical timber boycotts,
protests at Malaysian embassies, ship blockades in Europe and
Australia, and direct actions in Sarawak itself.
13. There is a considerable degree of textual overlap in these accounts.
As this article was under review, I received from Davis a copy of his
most recent book on the Penan, co-authored with lan Mackenzie
and Shane Kennedy (Davis, Mackenzie and Kennedy 1995). Though
it retains some of the romanticized language that appears in
previous works by Davis and Henley, an effort is made to provide a
more realistic portrait of the Penan through a more balanced use of
ethnographic material and the inclusion of numerous Penan
commentaries in translation.
14. See Brush and Stabinsky 1996 for a comprehensive overview of
issues involved in establishing a legal basis for the recognition of
indigenous intellectual property rights.
15. Bruno Manser is a conspicuous exception here: having lived with
Penan for over six years, he became a fluent speaker of the Eastern
Penan language.
16. The process by which campaigns develop is extremely complex,
particularly with respect to the relationship between the initial
analysis of a particular context, decisions about how to proceed in a
campaign, and the representations that are ultimately produced and
deployed. Most environmental and indigenous rights organizations
are self-consciously aware of the contrast between the images they
purvey and the realities of a given situation, but they must also
necessarily provide persuasive images. In any event, it is a mistake
to equate the often bold simplicity of campaign images with the
processes of analysis and debate that both precede and follow their
deployment.
17. See also Barriero 1991; Brush 1996; Burger 1990; Gray 1991a,
1991b; IWGIA 1993–94; Kemf 1993; Suzuki 1990; Suzuki and
Knudtson 1992, Taylor 1990.
18. In a recent conference paper, Anna Tsing examines the emergence
of this paradigm, in which the concept of the tribe has reappeared
‘with a newly powerful international political valence’ (1995:2) and
in which ‘tribal wisdom’ is accorded privileged status.
19. Since providing this initial definition ‘to preserve’, I have further
clarified the semantic content of the term molong (Brosius 1991a,
1992, 1993a) as conveying a sense of fosterage as well as merely
preservation. The molong concept does not constitute ownership of
resources: rather, it encompasses a somewhat individuated
proprietary concept of stewardship. Other members of the
community may exploit resources which are individually claimed,
 ENDANGERED FOREST, ENDANGERED PEOPLE 311

but they must inform the individual who has claimed that resource.
The molong system does two things: 1) it serves as a way of
monitoring information on the availability of resources over vast
tracts of land, and 2) it prevents the indiscriminate cutting of fruit
trees and sago, resources which might otherwise be seriously
depleted. In one sense, the entire Western Penan settlement system
may be seen as a temporalized manifestation of the molong concept.
20. It should be noted that Eastern Penan do not molong resources to
the same degree as Western Penan. Eastern Penan do employ the
word molong (and the synonym mulah), but the concept plays a
relatively minor role in Eastern Penan notions of resource
management, particularly in its individual aspects. This is not to
say that Eastern Penan lack any sense of stewardship over the
resources in their foraging areas: it is simply that Eastern Penan
concepts of resource management are less formalized and
individuated than those of Western Penan.
21. I do not mean to imply that the Penan are lacking in ethnobotanical
knowledge. Indeed, their knowledge of forest plants is considerable.
However, this knowledge tends to focus on plants whose utility is
rather mundane: fruit trees, trees that are suitable for firewood,
varieties of rattan useful for making particular types of items, and
the like. It is for this reason that the contemporary Eastern Penan
emphasis on the threat to medicinal plants is so remarkable.
22. Like Davis, Plotkin was also trained by Richard Schultes. Long
before the theme of indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants
became an element of rainforest conservation rhetoric, Schultes
impressed upon his students the potential importance of studies
focusing on this topic among native Amazonians.

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Burger, J. 1990. The Gaia atlas of first peoples: a future for the indigenous
world. New York: Anchor Books (Doubleday).
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——1990. A way to stay. In [Link] and [Link] (eds.), Penan: voice for
the Borneo rainforest. Vancouver: Western Canada Wilderness
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——1992. Shadows in the sun: essays on the spirit of place. Edmonton:
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——1993. Death of a people: logging in the Penan homeland. In M. Miller
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——and [Link] 1990a. Beyond the images. In [Link] and [Link]
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——and Henley, T. (eds.) 1990b. Penan: voice for the Borneo rainforest.
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——[Link] and [Link] 1995. Nomads of the dawn: the Penan of
the Borneo rain forest. San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks.
Durning, A. 1992. Guardians of the land: indigenous peoples and the
health of the earth., Washington D.C.: Worldwatch Institute,Worldwatch
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conservations and its impact on indigenous peoples. Copenhagen: IWGIA
Document 70.
——1991b. The impact of biodiversity conservation on indigenous peoples.
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Penan: voice for the Borneo rainforest. Vancouver: Western Canada
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nomadic/settled Penan within the Gunong Mulu National Park Area,
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——1982. An ecological survey of the Penan. Sarawak Museum Journal,
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mother earth. London: Earthscan Publications.
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LaDuke, W. 1994. Traditional ecological knowledge and environmental

futures. In Endangered peoples: indigenous rights and the environment.
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——1972b. Structure and progress in the Punan community of Belaga
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——1974. Background report on potential for agricultural and social
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——1975. Distribution of Penan and Punan in the Belaga District. Borneo
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of the tropical rain forest. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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——1954d. The system of teknonyms and death-names of the Penan.
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——1957. Some Kenyah/Pennan relationships. Sarawak Museum Journal
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Toxicon 24/8, 747.
 Chapter 11
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE:
PROSPECTS AND LIMITATIONS
Arne Kalland

In recent years there has been a growing interest in ‘indigenous

knowledge’ and its relevance to the formulation of resource
management regimes, or the conservation of fauna and flora.1
Agrawal (1995) attributes this interest to the failure of grand
theories to account for the lack of state-sponsored development in
third-world countries. However, this is too narrow a perspective of
indigenous knowledge if we are to understand the rhetorical power
this concept has attained today. The interest is part of an
intellectual reaction against what Friedman (1992) calls the anti-
culture and anti-nature of modernism. It reflects the increasing
skepticism many people in the industrialized world have of the
heuristic power of the western, scientific paradigm—and of
economic development as such—which so far has been the
fundament of most management regimes designed and imposed by
national and international bodies (Bruun and Kalland 1995).
Moreover, it reflects the growing ability of some indigenous peoples
and their organizations to make their voices heard both in national
and international fora.
These two factors are interconnected. In their search for
alternatives to the crumbling scientific paradigm, people in the
industrialized world are increasingly looking elsewhere for
explanations for and solutions to environmental problems. People
active in the environmental movement have turned to indigenous
peoples, who are pictured as savage ecologists living in harmony
with nature. Some scholars have also contributed to this discourse.
This interest has not only given international legitimacy to
indigenous perceptions of nature but has also given them the aura
of great ecological wisdom, which has presented indigenous peoples
with the opportunity to acquire cultural significance and become
full members of the ‘global’ village, with important consequences for
their self-confidence and identity as peoples (Pedersen 1995).
 INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 317

This interest in indigenous knowledge should be welcomed for

several reasons. First, indigenous people possess extensive empirical
knowledge about their environment. Secondly, they offer
interpretations of empirical knowledge radically different from the
conventional scientific paradigm. Finally, there are important
lessons to be learnt by studying the workings of indigenous
resource management regimes.
However, there are serious limitations to the value of indigenous
knowledge, as there is to all types of knowledge. One limitation is
imposed by the concept itself. Indigenous knowledge might be
different from scientific knowledge—despite Agrawal’s
argumentation to the contrary—but how different is it from other
types of ‘local’, ‘traditional’ or ‘practical’ knowledge? By focusing on
indigenous knowledge, we may make the mistake of ignoring equally
revealing knowledge held by non-indigenous people (cf. Conklin and
Graham 1995).
Another limitation is the interrelationship between ideology and
practice. Can we, a priori, assume that people’s perceptions and
norms are mirrored in their actual behaviour? And if such a
connection is present, is this a result of ecological understanding
and conscious conservation or a mere coincidental side-effect of
something else?
One purpose of this paper is to discuss the above limitations. It
will be argued that the distinction between indigenous and non-
indigenous environmental knowledge has little heuristic value and
that the important dividing line is one between scientific and what I
shall call ‘local’ or ‘practical’ knowledge, with indigenous knowledge
seen as the politization of local/practical knowledge. Furthermore,
it will be argued that the connection between people’s perception of
nature and their behaviour in nature must be subjected to rigorous
analysis. The second purpose is, within the limitations indicated, to
discuss the merits of local knowledge, both as empirical observations
of natural phenomena and as paradigmatic knowledge through
which observations are interpreted and placed within a wider
context, or cosmology. However, since it is also argued that
knowledge at these two levels is not necessarily sufficient to bring
about conservation, it is also necessary to consider a third level of
knowledge, which I shall call institutional knowledge, i.e. how
people organize themselves in relation to an ecosystem. It will be
argued that local management regimes must rest on all three levels
of knowledge.

INDIGENOUS VERSUS LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

One of the roots for the present deep concern for nature in the
western world is apparently the growing awareness of the
inadequacies of the Cartesian worldview, in which an intensified
318 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

dichotomy of reality separated subject from object, mind from body,

culture from nature and cultural sciences from natural sciences.
With the challenged, some would say crumbling, western
paradigms, an entirely new ecological paradigm is frequently called
for (e.g. Dunlap and Catton 1980), a paradigm where ‘man’ and
‘environment’ are no longer seen as separate and opposite entities
but where ‘organisms and environment form part of one another’
(Dickens 1992:15).
As pointed out elsewhere (Bruun and Kalland 1995:2), scientists
and laymen alike have searched for new inspiration from outside
western traditions to correct these ills. A large body of literature
offers alternative world views to the prevailing western ones, usually
depicting man as an integral part of nature instead of being
separated from it and trying to dominate it. Asian societies figure
prominently in this literature. Man and environment are portrayed
as a harmonious unity of mutual respect, complementary and in
symbiosis; their views are seen as holistic-organic rather than
atomistic-mechanistic, as in the industrial west (Callicott and Ames
1989:5). In formulating alternatives one has commonly looked to
religion, tradition, and old values. Hence, Poul Pedersen (1995) has
termed this kind of paradigm ‘the religious environmentalist
paradigm’.
Indigenous knowledge of nature has undoubtedly provided us
with rich notions of alternatives to the scientific paradigm. However,
the concept is fraught with ambiguities, and uncontested definitions
are difficult to find, not least in Asia (Barnes 1995; Gray 1995;
Kings bury 1995). In the broadest sense, ‘indigenous’—often used
interchangeably with ‘native’ and ‘aboriginal’—pertains to the first
known inhabitants, or beliefs and practices, of an area, as when
world religions are considered to be indigenous to Asia. More
narrowly, the term has come to denote peoples—usually small tribal
peoples of non-European descent and without elaborate political
structures—who for decades, even centuries, have been oppressed
by invaders (cf. Gray 1995; Kingsbury 1995).
In this latter sense, concepts like ‘indigenous’, ‘native’ and
‘aboriginal’ are structural definitions through which people are
defined in relation to a state (Sejersen 1994). At present these
concepts are used rhetorically by indigenous peoples themselves in
order to gather support for their struggle to gain recognition as
distinct peoples with their own cultures and with just rights to self-
determination. However, ‘indigenous environmental knowledge’ does
not denote a specific type of knowledge about the environment
which sets it off from similar knowledge held by non-indigenous
people. The concept glosses over many similarities between
knowledge held by indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, with the
result that the former is often contrasted with western knowledge.
Such a dichotomy is untenable (Agrawal 1995).
 INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 319

Limiting our analysis to knowledge held by indigenous peoples—

as this term commonly is understood—causes another problem as
well: it easily becomes linked to, and even synonymous with,
‘traditional’ knowledge. Hence it gives an impression of knowledge
being static and rigid rather than dynamic and evolving, further
strengthening the outsider’s image of aboriginals as people with
simple technologies, with little economic sophistication and existing
largely outside the world market.
What makes knowledge valuable to conservation of fauna and
flora is not that it is held by a certain category of people but what it
has to say about an ecosystem and people’s place within it.2 Rather
than contrasting indigenous and non-indigenous knowledge, we
should focus on the differences, if any, between scientific and other
forms of knowledge, whether held by indigenous peoples or not.
Only then will we be able to appreciate the Multiple domains and
types of knowledges, with differing logics and epistemologies’
(Agrawal 1995:433).

PERCEPTION AND BEHAVIOUR

It has commonly been assumed that there exists a close
relationship between a society’s management of natural resources
and its perception of nature. White (1967), for example, gives the
Judaeo-Christian cosmology of ‘man’s mastery over Nature’ the
blame for environmental problems in the industrial west. Others,
like Callicott (1982), have put more of the blame on the Greek
philosophers. In contrast, it is widely believed that people living ‘in
nature’—particularly Native Americans and Oriental ascetics—have
developed a profound understanding of nature, which allows them
to live in harmony with their environment. The fact that this
understanding is usually phrased in religious rather than ecological
terms means that accidents and poor harvests can be interpreted as
divine punishment for behaviour which is believed to go against
nature’s orders. Many observers are of the opinion that this puts
strong pressure on people to handle their environment with care.
We need to tread cautiously when inducing ecological practices
from philosophical traditions. In Southeast Asia the land is being
stripped of its rainforests at an alarming rate, despite widespread
belief that spirits and ancestors reside in the trees. Infusing nature
with spirits is apparently no guarantee for the well-being of the
environment, at least not as long as spirits can be removed by ritual
means before trees are cut or localities developed. Nor has the
Japanese sensitivity towards nature, expressed in poetry, gardens
and miniature trees, prevented environmental disasters occurring.
The extensive use of natural metaphors in Japanese culture has
been taken at face value and interpreted as ‘love’, but metaphorical
use of nature depends more on the quality than the quantity of
320 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

nature. A Japanese poet needs a small garden or a bonsai pot, not a

national park, in order to observe seasonal changes (Kalland 1995).
Theory and practice may be far apart not only in Asia but
elsewhere as well. The G/wi bushmen in the Kalahari poison water-
holes and kill a number of animals they do not use, despite the
belief that all life forms belong to the God Nlodima and nothing
should be hunted without reason (Broch 1977). The Mbuti pygmies
in Zaire regard the forest as their parent but nevertheless burn it
down in order to drive out game (Turnbull 1961). Despite a widely
held belief that animals give themselves up to humans and that this
places the latter in a position of indebtedness which has to be
repaid by showing respect and preventing waste, the Northwest
Coast Indians staged potlatches in which huge quantities of food
were destroyed in order to compete for social prestige. Berkes holds
that Cree environmental values are based on humanistic notions
and morality towards nature where animals have intrinsic value
(Berkes 1988:19) and that killing for fun is regarded as a
transgression (ibid.: 15). Nevertheless, Cree and other native
peoples in North America have been reported to kill indiscriminately
(Brightman 1987). There are even reports that some Native
Americans torture and kill small animals for fun (Broch 1977), and
the Nuaulu in Indonesia and the Kwaio in the Solomon Islands
deliberately cut all kinds of vegetation as they pass through the
forest for the same reason (Ellen 1986:11; Keesing 1976:116).
Although it is far too simplistic to explain such behaviour in
terms of cultural misfits, as Callicott does (1982:311), this
discrepancy between theory and practice should not surprise us.
First, knowledge is unevenly distributed through the population
(Keesing 1987). Young hunters, fishermen and farmers may have
other views and possess knowledge different from the religious
experts or local philosophers. Secondly, in any cosmology there
exist conflicting values. Among Native Americans, the values of
showing respect to the animal and avoiding waste co-exist with a
belief in incarnation where killed animals are reborn. Brightman
argues (1987:132) that ‘rather than inhibiting overkill, religious
definition of the human-animal relationship encouraged it in so far
as they premised an environment of primordial abundance in which
game could not be destroyed but only temporarily displaced.’
Similarly in Japan, whalers used to stage elaborate funeral rites for
whale foetuses so that they could be reborn and subsequently be
caught as mature animals. Thirdly, religion which is believed to
encourage people to conserve natural resources by giving moral
support to certain norms also provides people with the means to
circumvent the same norms. Spirits protecting trees and locations
can be pacified or removed through ritual. In Buddhist societies evil
deeds can be compensated for by merit-making; in Christian
societies confessions or prayers serve the same purpose. Its is
tempting to suggest that any religion is likely to support values that
 INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 321

inhibit over-exploitation of natural resources as well as values that

facilitate or legitimate such behaviour.3 Explaining behaviour from
ideologies tends therefore to rest on selective readings of the
evidence. Rather than norms determining behaviour, we find that
goal-oriented behaviour is legitimized by appealing to certain
norms.
Postulating a close fit between perceptions and behaviour has led
to a tendency to romanticism and idealization when it comes to
indigenous peoples—and local peoples in general—and their
relations with nature. The very fact that both indigenous peoples
and wildlife have survived is taken as a proof that the former are
conservationists (e.g. Feit 1988:76; Freeman 1994:156). It is
common both in the environmentalist and anthropological
discourses to read conservational motives into the practices of
indigenous peoples. When, for example, people go to distant
hunting or fishing grounds, leaving areas closer to home resting,
this is taken as a proof of their conservational ethics. That hunters
are reported to respect their prey and to frown upon waste—a
common theme among Native Americans as well as among
Japanese whalers—is also taken as proofs of their conservationist
behaviour (e.g. Berkes 1988; Riewe and Gamble 1988). But what
might work in the interest of conservation is not necessarily
motivated by such considerations at all. Hames (1987) argues that
the rotation of hunting and fishing grounds should not be
understood as a strategy of conservation but as a strategy of optimal
efficiency. In other words, people might maximize catch per unit of
effort in the same way as shifting cultivators in Southeast Asia do
when they choose to rotate their fields rather than use them until
they are completely exhausted. The larger harvests and reduced
labour input in weeding may more than compensate for time spent
on transportation.4

THE RELEVANCE OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE

These critical remarks should not be taken as a rejection of
indigenous or local knowledge. On the contrary, such knowledge is
too important to be turned into myths for environmentalist
consumption. And I think that local knowledge is particularly
relevant at three levels. First there is the empirical knowledge—
what Ingold (1993) calls ‘perceptions’—about the environment. To
this level belongs knowledge pertaining to the behaviour of plants
and animals, how these can be collected and captures, and for what
purposes they can be utilized. The second level I will call
paradigmatic knowledge—‘understanding’, in Ingold’s vocabulary.
At this level empirical observations are interpreted and placed in a
larger context. As paradigmatic knowledge influences peoples’
acquisition of empirical knowledge, there exists a dialectic
322 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

relationship between the two. Finally, the third level can be termed
institutional knowledge, which refers to knowledge embedded in
their social institutions. Each of these levels poses challenges and
opportunities.

Empirical Knowledge
Although both science and local environmental knowledge are based
on detailed empirical observations, their selection and use of
observations might be different. Whereas the scientist’s selection of
data is based on her or his desire to test the validity of theoretical
models, the local man of woman often selects data according to a
survival strategy. There is no model to falsify; knowledge is not true
or false, only more or less effective. Accumulation of information is
therefore not directed by pre-conceived theoretical models as in
science, but by a desire to have a pool of information which is
essential for the flexibility that real life situations require. In other
words, local knowledge at this level is practical. Rather than
studying how plants and animals are constructed and how they
evolved, local knowledge explores how they can be found, harvested
and used. This encourages the development of an intimate
knowledge about the environment: about climatical conditions, the
vegetation, how animals interact with each other and with plants
and climate, how they can be caught and how the meat can be
processed and stored. The knowledge which has been accumulated
over the centuries on the nutritional and medical values of herbs is
particularly impressive. Today this great reservoir of knowledge is
being not only recognized but used by the pharmaceutical industry.
The majority of medical components based on plants are gained
from information provided by indigenous peoples (Rural
Advancement Fund International 1989, cited in Gray 1991:45).
Posey (1990:4) estimates that ‘the annual world market value for
medicines derived from medical plants discovered from indigenous
peoples is $43 billion.’ Indigenous peoples’ intellectual property
rights to such knowledge has therefore become an issue of concern.
With the difference in focus between the empirical observations
guided by science and local knowledge, there ought to be fertile
ground for collaboration. As Freeman (1985) has pointed out,
scientific models require information and knowledge which is
commonly not available to them. Usually they have only
fragmentary knowledge about the plants and animals they are set to
manage, and their time reference is short. Local peoples may
possess much of the knowledge needed. The pharmaceutical
industry’s use of their knowledge is a case in point. Yet, it is not
always easy to get acceptance for local knowledge, for, as Freeman
argues (ibid.: 266), there is still a strong conviction among many
scientists that quantitative data is essential. As local people are
 INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 323

more concerned with qualitative data, it follows that it is difficult to

incorporate their knowledge into the scientists’ models. What are
needed are new models incorporating both quantitative and
qualitative data.

Paradigmatic Knowledge
Whereas the relevance of local peoples’ empirical or practical
knowledge to management is generally accepted—although there
remains the need to improve the dialogue and exchange of
information between the scientists and local people—the relevance
of local people’s paradigmatic knowledge, the ways they interpret
practical knowledge and construct more or less coherent
cosmologies, is more difficult to apprehend.
We are facing two different paradigms or ways of understanding
and interpreting the environment. Both are rooted in empirical
observations, but whereas the scientific based understanding is
heavily oriented towards quantification and one-dimensional
causations divided into disciplines, each with their own bodies of
theoretics and methodologies, local knowledge is behaviour-based
(Freeman 1985: 265) and contextual, or holistic (Dei 1993:105), a
feature it shares with many Oriental cosmologies (Bruun and
Kalland 1995). One cosmology is not easily translated into another,
and to many this task looks unsurmountable. Although I concur
with Booth and Jacobs (1990:42) that—given the tremendous
differences in technologies and population densities—Native
American relationship with nature does not provide a solution to
western problems, I disagree with their claim that ‘attempts to
borrow culture, whether it be wholesale or piece-meal, are doomed
to failure’. There are many examples to prove the contrary; Japan’s
selective import of elements from Chinese culture in the seventh
and eighth century and from western cultures in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries shows beyond doubt that successful borrowing
is possible.
Alternative paradigms are therefore more than ‘a reminder that
positive relationships can and do exist’ (ibid.); they can provide us
with important new insights which can stimulate us not only to
reflect on our own relationship with nature, but actively to
construct new understandings through a process of syncretism.
Cultures have always evolved in response to both internal and
external factors, but the important point to make is that borrowing
must be made on the borrower’s premises and not be imposed from
outside.
A word of warning is nevertheless in order here. Incorporating
elements from one culture into another locates these elements in a
totally new context. This might give very different and unexpected
outcomes. One particularly relevant example is how ideas from
324 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

Native Indian and Oriental philosophies have been appropriated and

merged with a western tradition of absolutism. This has produced
environmentalist and animal rights discourses which are quite alien
to the donor cosmologies. Not only has the animal rights discourse—
and to a lesser extent the environmentalist discourse—turned
respect for game animals into ‘intrinsic value’, but also their
missionary zeal stands in sharp contrast to the contextual
approaches of many local peoples. Ironically, then, the
environmentalist and animal rights discourses at times pose a
threat to the life-styles of local people who depends on the
utilization of animal resources.
Both scientific and local paradigmatic knowledge will benefit from
a dialogue. Science is facing a problem with its narrow focus on one-
dimensional causations and often does not have the empirical data
it needs. Local paradigms face problems with their holistic
approaches: that everything hangs together with everything else
makes it difficult to predict changes and to locate the sources for
such changes. Both paradigms imply only partial knowledge and
both are prone to making wrong diagnoses.

Institutional Knowledge
Although alternative paradigms are important sources of inspiration
and make it possible to reflect on one’s own understanding of the
world, experience has told us that empirical and paradigmatic
knowledge, whether scientific or local, is insufficient to secure a
sustainable use of natural resources. Knowledge is unevenly
distributed throughout the population, and people value various
alternatives differently for many reasons. It is naïve to assume that
everybody within a culture acts according to a fixed set of norms
and values. Moreover, such a conception ignores the contradictions
that exist in any culture. Local empirical and paradigmatic
knowledge might nonetheless give an aura of legitimacy to a
management regime which, rephrasing McGoodwin (1990:108), can
be taken to mean ‘any people’s practice, whether conscious or
unconscious, intentional or inadvertent, active or passive,
recognized as resource regulation or not, that has the effect of
limiting the mortality of natural resources resulting from harvesting
efforts’. Too often management regimes are imposed by national,
and increasingly international authorities and have no basis in local
environmental knowledge. Moreover, they are narrowly defined in
biological and economic terms. We should not forget that
management of natural resources is foremost a question about
social relations, a means of regulating people’s access to these
resources. We must therefore take a much broader approach and
consider the socio-cultural dimensions. Unless we do, management
 INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 325

regimes will most likely be regarded as an irrelevant, even illegal

imposition on local peoples’ rights to self-determination.
Fortunately, there is today a growing awareness that natural
resources are not only best regulated if local communities which
depend on these resources for their nutritional, economic, social
and cultural needs are brought in active participation, but that
local participation is essential to sustainable management. This
principle has been incorporated into the report Caring for the earth:
a strategy for sustainable living (IUCN et al. 1991), and ‘people’s
participation’ has been turned into one of the major issues of
Agenda 21.
In order to achieve this objective, we must formulate management
regimes based on the premises and priorities of the local people.
They should be built on local environmental knowledge on all levels,
using their language and idioms. Moreover, keeping in mind that
ecosystems are complex and might change in a chaotic fashion, we
need management regimes that are flexible and can be adjusted to
environmental changes. Monitoring is essential to any sustainable
management regime, and local, people are in an excellent position
to monitor the state of the environment, both because of their
proximity and because they are most directly involved and
dependent on its resources. And last but not least, we have to take
full account of the local social structure.
Local peoples have, in many cases, developed regulations which
have had a conservational impact on natural resources, although
these originally might have been motivated by other
considerations.5 However, in our quest for integrating local
knowledge and participation in management, we should not forget
the values of science, unless we repeat the mistake so often made in
resource management by ignoring alternative paradigms. A key
concept is co-management in which management is shared between
local communities and governmental bodies (Pinkerton 1989:4) and
which actively seeks to integrate local knowledge with that of
scientific studies.

CONCLUSION
There is a widely held notion, particularly among western
environmentalists, that civilization has alienated man from nature.
In its most radical form civilization becomes evil, and it follows that
primitive man, engaged in subsistence harvesting of ‘nature’s
abundance’, becomes an ideal. Many inhabitants of the
industrialized west subscribe to the idealization of indigenous
people as innocent, noble savages, who ought to be kept that way.6
Although there are undoubtedly many cases where local peoples
are known to have practised conservation consciously, their
perceptions of nature have in general not operated to prevent
326 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

pollution, the destruction of natural resources or environmental

disasters. It is too simplistic to assume that values and norms work
directly on individuals (Holy and Stuchlik 1983), nor should we take
environmental behaviour as evidence of specific values. We should
be careful not to fall into the trap of cultural determinism. When
people have not destroyed nature, this might have been the result
of low population density compared to the resources and
technologies available, rather than to conscious resource
conservation.
Moreover, we should not be deceived by people’s alleged
sensibility and love of nature but rather see this as a commonplace
use of natural metaphors, metonyms, analogies and euphemisms,
serving the needs of the social order rather than addressing the
physical environment. It might be argued that ‘nature’ in this sense
is an aesthetic abstraction with little relationship to the nature of a
real ecosystem (Bruun and Kalland 1995). Scholars have far too
often compared western realities with non-western ideals.7 It is time
to look at non-western realities as well, although it might eventually
lead to the dethronement of both the ecologically ‘noble savage’ and
the ecologically Oriental ecologist (cf. Broch 1977; Bruun and
Kalland 1995; Conklin and Graham 1995; Edgerton 1992; Ellen
1986; Headland 1997; Lohmann 1993; Redford 1990; Redford and
Stearman 1993).
Keeping these limitations in mind, there is much to learn from
local environmental knowledge. Environmental awareness, deep
concern for depletion of the resource pool and knowledge about
nutrients are among the elements in a people’s outlook that may be
valuable in the search for sustainable development strategies. They
are not enough to secure a sustainable utilization of natural
resources, however. It is necessary to formulate management
regimes which are based on local knowledge at the empirical,
paradigmatic and institutional levels, while at the same time not
ignoring the possible input from science.

NOTES

1. I will follow the IUCN/UNEP/WWF definition of conservation as ‘the

management of human use of organisms or ecosystems to ensure
such use is sustainable’ (IUCN et al. 1991:210).
2. Although indigenous and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge
might be equally relevant to conservation, one’s place in the political
hierarchy is important when it comes to the question of
disseminating such knowledge. It can be argued that indigenous
peoples long had a disadvantage vis-à-vis their non-indigenous
neighbours and that for this reason—and because indigenous
knowledge is embedded in what to the decision-makers is an alien
culture—they deserve special appreciation and interpretation in
 INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE 327

order to be understood. Things are changing, however, and today

some indigenous peoples have better access to decision-makers
than their non-indigenous neighbours who have not achieved full
recognition of their life-styles, as it is commonly assumed that non-
indigenous local people share the culture, and perceptions of nature,
of the decision-makers. The many conflicts over resource
management between the authorities and local communities in the
west too show that this assumption is false.
3. A case in point is how Confucianism has been used over the years.
It was long fashionable to blame this creed for the lack of
development on the East Asian continent, forcing scholars to explain
the Japanese success in terms of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism or
samurai ethics in which Confucianism only played a part. However,
with the rapid development of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and
Singapore (and more recently China), all that changed. The creed
which was said to inhibit development suddenly became the very
reason for development.
4. There are two main modes of shifting cultivation on the Southeast
Asian mainland. In one system the field is left fallow for about ten
years after being used for one or two years. In the other system the
field is used for several years until exhaustion, whereupon it may
take fifty years or more before it has recovered its fertility. It was long
taken for granted that the former was more ecologically sound than
the latter, but Geddes (1976) argues that the latter system must
also been seen in term of field-rotation, albeit with a longer time
reference.
5. When, for example, the feudal authorities in Japan divided the
coastal waters into small, exclusive village territories, the objective
was not conservation but to secure taxes and corvée labour for the
authorities, cheap food for the masses, tranquillity on the fishing
grounds and a minimum income for the fishermen. Only later was
the conservational value of the system acknowledged (Kalland
1990). See Polunin (1984) for a discussion on the situation in
Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
6. This discourse denies local people the right to develop on their own
terms. The 1931 Whaling Convention, for example, endorsed
aboriginal whaling only as long as whalers used traditional boats
without engines and did not use firearms (Freeman 1993:244). Even
today, at the annual meetings of the International Whaling
Commission (IWC), Inuit whalers must document that they have not
brought too much of the meat to market (Kalland 1993:5). In
Sweden, the Saami reindeer herders are under similar constraints,
and the protests are many and vigorous whenever they make use of
modern technologies (Beach 1993).
7. One rather extreme example is Sponsel and Natadecha-Sponsel
(1993), who in their advocacy of ‘Buddhist environmental ethics’
juxtapose ‘Buddhist’ and ‘western’ world views as follows:
328 INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS

One does not have to be a fervent Christian to object to this scheme!

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 INDEX

Acciaioli, G., 130, 147 Alcorn, J., 18, 19, 31

activists, 50, 107, 122, 127, 129– Ali, M.N., 141, 148
31, 133, 140, 142, 145, 213, Allan, N., 285, 287
242, 248, 295, 297, 308, 311 Allen, G.C., 237, 249
Afghanistan, 266, 285, 290–1 Alvard, M.S., 202, 209
Aga Khan Rural Support Amazonia, 36, 40, 53, 128, 144,
Programme (AKRSP), 86, 91, 94, 146, 149, 215, 217, 219, 221,
259, 266–7, 282, 284, 286–7, 225, 230–1, 249, 251, 307, 310
289 Amboina, 10, 75, 147
agency, 18, 19, 20, 84, 97, 129, American Indians, 153, 169, 171,
281 175;
Agenda, 21, 38, 124, 126, 147, 328 of the northwest coast, 323
Agrawal, A., 16, 18, 26, 31, 82, 84, Ames, R.T., 321, 333
90, 99, 121, 147, 215, 240, 243, Anderson, A.B., 37, 44, 53, 295
249, 319–20, 322, 333 Andhra Pradesh, 83, 86, 95–6, 99
agriculture, 31, 35, 108, 115–6, animal rights discourses, 327
118, 124, 141, 147, 177–80, 182, animal welfare, 171
184, 197, 201–2, 204, 207, 211, animism, 98,
215, 219, 226–7, 239, 249–51; Ankave-Anga, 29, 32
double-cropping, 263, 266; Aoyama, H., 156, 173
profitability of, 116; Apfel-Marglin, R, 83, 99
viability and, 263; Arima, T., 170, 173
credit and, 266 Arnold, G., 119, 205, 251, 294,
agro-ecology, 224 312, 315
agroforestry, 14, 179, 250 Aru, 23, 55–6, 58–60, 62–4, 67–71,
Agta, 182–5, 209–10 73–7
Ahmed, A.S., 256, 287 Asian Development Bank, 187,
Ainu, 151, 153–8, 164–71, 173–5; 260, 284, 287
indigenism, 154, 168 Atran, S., 5, 7, 31
Akibe, T., 171, 173 Ausable, K., 298, 315
Alauddin, 259, 268, 271–2, 284–90

332
 INDEX 333

Australia, 37, 56, 77, 168, 171, Bhattacharya, N., 102, 119
174, 210, 249, 293–6; Bhutto, Z.A., 258, 274, 277
Australian National University, Bicker, A.J., 75
32, 147, 251 Bierhorst, J., 36, 53
Australian Aborigines, 153 Biggelaar, M. van den, 75, 77
Austria, 293, 295, 312 biodiversity, 18, 32, 37–9, 42–3,
Awa (Ecuador), 40, 44 50, 53, 105, 112, 124–6, 128,
Ayurvedic medicine, 1, 21, 33, 90, 143, 193, 200, 202, 204, 293,
93, 193–5 298–9, 316, 330, 334–5;
Azadirachta indica; conservation, 105;
see neem management, 125
Biodiversity Action Plan for
Bailey, F.G., 81, 99 Indonesia , 123
bakti, 64, 139 Biodiversity Convention, 38
Balée, W., 36–7, 43, 53 biology, 7, 103, 112
Balick, M.J., 43, 53 bioprospecting, 35, 41–2
Bamba, J., 145, 147 biotechnology development, 35
Banuri, T., 3, 99 blockades, 293, 295, 306, 312
Baquiran, N.D., 192–3 Boeke, J.H., 225–6, 249
Barakai, 59 Bondt, J., 8
Barbault, P., 191, 210 Bontius, J., 29
Barlow, C., 217, 227–8, 234, 249 Booth, A.L., 219, 234, 249, 327,
Barnes, R.H., 3, 31–2, 147, 321, 333
333–4 Booth, W., 294, 311, 315
Barnes, B., 84, 99 Boquiren, C.S., 180, 203, 209
Barnes, G., 170, 173 Borneo, 216, 218, 222, 224, 226,
Barriero, J., 298, 313 229, 244, 246, 250–1, 293–4,
Bastar, 79–82, 88, 94, 98, 100 305, 315–17
Bates, C, 81, 99 Bosscher, C., 59, 77
Bates, D., 21, 31, 33 Boster, J., 7, 31
Bauer, P.T., 225–7, 246, 249 botany, 8–9, 10, 35, 82–3, 114,
Baviskar, A., 23, 118–9 302;
Beach, H., 331, 333 botanical gardens, 8–9, 221
bears, 157, 159, 162, 167, 171; boundaries, 15, 18, 26, 73, 77,
ceremony of, 157, 164; 92–3, 104, 108, 125, 128, 135,
gall bladder of, 161 140, 199, 202, 206
Bebbington, A., 26, 33 Bourdieu, P., 121, 147, 280, 286–7
beech, 155, 162, 164 Boyle, J., 40, 53
Beekman, E.M., 10, 31 Brazil, M., 49, 81, 146–7, 168, 173,
Begishe, K., 83, 100 217, 230, 233, 247, 249–50
Belem Declaration, 38, 44 Breemer, [Link] den, 255, 291
Bellagio Declaration, 40 Breman, J., 87, 99
Beltubur, 56, 59–63, 65–7, 71–2 Brightman, R.A., 323–4, 334
Benda-Beckmann, von, F. & K., 71, Broch, H.B., 323, 331, 334
76, 146–7 Brokensha, D., 16, 31, 33, 36, 43,
Berkes, R, 29, 31, 53, 323–4, 333 53–4, 213, 251
Berlin, B., 5, 31, 77, 210, 249
334 INDEX

Brosius, J.P., 24, 146–8, 209, 242, Caviedes, C.N., 191, 194, 196, 211
249, 269, 293–4, 299–300, 309, Cayenne, 233, 248
312–3 cedar forests, 254, 275, 277
Browder, J.O., 230, 247, 249 Chadwick, D.J., 35, 43, 53
Bruijnzeel, L.A., 193 Chalt-Chaprote forestry, 286
Bruno Manser Fonds (Switzerland), Chambers, R., 4, 11, 29, 31, 85–6,
295, 312 99, 142, 147, 281, 287
Brush, S.B., 179, 209, 296–8, 313, Chandran, A., 91, 94
315 Charcoal, use of, 160, 189
Bruun, O., 289, 291, 319, 321, China, 20, 31, 57, 77, 173, 180,
327, 330, 334–5 324, 330
Bryant, R.L., 224, 249 Chinese, 21, 56, 58–2, 64, 67, 69–
Buddhist societies, 324; 70, 72, 74–5, 77, 327;
environmental ethics, 330–1 medicine, 21;
Budiansky, S., 13, 31 traders, 58, 70, 75
Buffalo, water (carabao), 183, 186, Chipeweyans, 80
190 Chitral Area Development
buffer zone, 103 Programme (CADP), 260, 272,
Bugis, 56, 58, 71, 130–1, 136, 147 286
Buis, J.J., 177, 209 Christianity, 71, 130, 132
Burger, J., 298, 313, 315 cinchona tree (Eugenia
Burkill, I.H., 11, 31, 218, 220, 245, caryophyllus), 220, 245
249 civic integration, 157
Burma, 218, 224, 249 civilization process, 177
burning, 72, 177–96, 198–200, Clark, J., 260, 287
202–4, 207, 209; class, 55, 83, 86, 89, 95–6, 130,
see also fire 136, 140, 230
Butonese, 56, 71 classification, 6, 9, 10, 31, 32, 82,
89, 125, 127, 138, 296
Cacopardo, A., 283, 285, 287 clay figurines, 156, 222, 225,
Cagayan Valley, 180, 186–7, 189, Clifford, J., 81, 96, 99
198, 205, 209–10 codification of indigenous
Callicott, J.B., 36, 53, 321–3, 334 knowledge, 6, 8, 11, 15, 18–19, 21–
Canada, 293–5, 311–2, 315–7 2, 25
Canberra, 32, 147, 249, 251 coffee, 62, 95–6, 133, 230, 232–3
Cannon, L.R., 75, 77 cogon grass (Imperata cylindrica),
Caraballo Ranges, 180, 193 186;
Carpenter, C., 243–4, 248 -gathering, 186, 187, 190, 202
Carter, P., 88, 99 Cohen, A., 135, 147
cash, 62, 133–4, 178, 186–7, 200, Cohn, B., 81, 97, 99
219, 224–6, 228, 249 Colchester, M., 146–7, 149
cashew, 95 colonialism, 11, 21, 32, 59, 81, 97,
caste, 81, 87 99–100, 127, 135–6, 215, 221–2,
Castillo, E.T., 195, 209 224, 226–7, 232, 237–8, 249–50
Castilloa, 219, 221 Commonism, 152, 168
Catholic, 68, 72 common-property management, 70
Catton, R., 321, 334 community-based participation, 35
Concepción, R.N., 196, 209
 INDEX 335

conflict, 49, 71, 72, 118–9, 125, Cultural Survival, 3, 293, 311, 315–
140, 143, 166, 187, 202, 322, 6, 334
Confucianism, 324, 330 Curtis, D., 284, 287
Conklin, B.A., 13, 31, 320, 330, customary knowledge, 127–8, 255;
333 law (adat), 130, 132, 136, 145;
Conklin, H., 177, 209 practices, 128, 136;
conservation, 2, 22–3, 35–9, 41, resource-management, 128;
43, 48, 50, 53, 74, 77, 100–1, see indigenous customary
105, 111–12, 119, 123–8, 133, rights, 77, 92, 110, 124–5, 127,
144, 146, 177–9, 191, 192, 197– 254, 275;
8, 200, 209, 216, 231, 250, 302, (adat) rights, 92
305, 307, 316, 319, 320, 322, cypress plantations, 164
324, 329, 334–5;
ethics, 36; D’ Ecluse, C. (Clusius), 8
discourse on, 111 Da’a, 141, 143
constabulary of youths (Kalasha Dalits, 116
roi), 264, 266, 277, 285; Darner Islanders, 69
constabulary of older youths Dani, A.A., 259, 286–7
(Kalasha den-wal), 264 Darling, E.G., 258, 262, 285, 287
Convention on Biological Diversity, Darwin, C., 7, 31, 33, 37;
38, 39, 42 Darwinian fitness, 4
Coombe, R., 145, 147 Davidson, Sir L., 220, 232, 245,
Coon, C., 268, 287 249
Cooper, F., 242, 249 Davis, K.P., 209
Coppen, J.J.W., 218, 245, 249 Davis, W., 293–4, 296–9, 301–13,
coral, 56, 61, 65–6 315–7
Cordillera, 180, 193, 196 Dawat, 293, 306, 309, 311, 316
Cornish, W.R., 41, 53 Dayak, 137, 141, 145, 219, 226,
cosmetics, 35 229, 251
cosmology, 33, 73, 288, 320, 322– De Foresta, H., 225, 228–9, 246,
3, 327 250
Cossins, N., 264, 270, 278, 285, Dean, W., 217–8, 230–1, 233, 237,
287 247–9
Costales, 196 decision-makers, 21, 322, 330
cottage industries, 105 Declaration of Belém, 49
Cotton, C.M., 6, 31 deconstruction, 240–1
cowboys, 185–7, 190, 202–3 decontextualization, 25
Cowell, A., 230, 247, 249 degradation, environmental, 74,
Cramer, P.J.S., 220–2, 224–5, 227, 91–2, 95, 101, 103, 111, 118,
234, 245–6, 249 183, 195, 200–1, 203–4, 263,
Cree, 323, 334 294, 329;
Croll, E., 20 of ecosystems, 103, 111;
crop diversity, 37, 266 discourse on, 111
cropping patterns, 116, 266, 285 dehar shaman, 265
n19 (Plate), 277
culture, 32, 99, 132, 137, 147, 149, Dei, G., 327, 334
251, 335 Delhi, 79, 99, 100, 116, 119
336 INDEX

democracy, 85, 127, 144, 147 Douglas, M., 190, 255–6, 281, 283–
demons, 154, 167 4, 288
Denevan, W.M., 37, 53 Dove, M.R., 12, 24, 31, 122, 141–2,
Denmark, 291, 293, 295, 312 147, 201, 209, 213–4, 218–9,
den-wal (Kalasha) oak-forest 222–4, 226, 227, 231, 234, 237–
guards, 276–7 9, 242, 249
Department of Environment and Drabble, J.H., 226–7, 232, 246,
Natural Resources (DENR), 197–8 249–50
Department of Forestry Draft Declaration on the Rights of
(Indonesia), 73, 123 Indigenous Peoples (DDRIP), 38,
Department of Social Affairs 98
(Indonesia), 122, 126, 138 Dros, J.M., 193–4, 209
Depopulation, 157, 161 Dugelby, B.L., 231, 247, 251
Derrida, J., 215, 240–1, 243–5, 249 Dumont, L., 81, 99
Desmond, A., 7, 31 Dunlap, W., 321, 333
development, 1–2, 4, 6, 11, 13–26, Dunn, F.L., 218, 250
31–3, 35, 41–2, 44–5, 47–51, 53– Durel, 61, 65–6
4, 77, 79–80, 82–7, 90, 92, 94, Durning, A., 298, 309, 316
96–7, 99, 100, 122, 125–7, 133– Durrani, S., 261, 270–1, 273, 283,
4, 137–40, 142, 147–9, 163, 175, 287–8
192, 198, 209–10, 213–14, 216, Durr-e-Nayab, 286, 290
223–4, 226–8, 230–1, 236, 238, Durrenberger, E., 8, 31–2
242, 249–51, 258, 270, 283, 290, Dutch, 8–10, 22, 29, 32, 59, 75, 82,
301, 308, 315, 319, 324–5, 330– 130–1, 136, 145, 221, 225–6,
1, 33–4; 246, 249, 251
top-down approaches to, 11, 19, Dutfield, G., 35–8, 40, 43–4, 49, 53
22, 35;
rural development tourism, Earth Charter, 38
142, 151 East India companies, 9–10
Development agencies, 101–19 Eaton, B.J., 218, 250
passim, 259–60, 264, 282–3 Echols, J.M., 221, 245, 250
dhoop (Jurinea macrocepbala), 109– ecodevelopment, 23, 101, 105–8,
10, 112 110–9
Dhurwa, 86, 98 ecological balance, 107, 164, 251;
Diamond, J., 13, 31 change, 111;
Dickens, P., 321, 333 knowledge, 32, 144, 179, 215;
diet, 37, 113–14 paradigm, 321, 334;
Dillon, H.S., 228, 247, 249 principles, 107;
disease, 29, 37, 111, 118, 195, processes, 112, 191, 202
207, 225, 227, 229–30, 232, 246, ecology, 31, 33, 35, 90, 100, 125,
247, 306 144, 209–10, 224, 239, 249–50,
Dixon, R.K., 279, 288 297, 301, 310, 315, 333–5
Dobo, 56, 58, 60, 67, 70 economic differentiation, 116, 283
dog-breeding, 6, 156, 166; Ecopolitics IX Conference in
dog-boar fights, 171 Darwin, 37
Donnithorne, A.G., 237, 249
donors, 24, 85, 121, 122–3, 126,
128, 143–5, 187, 233, 327
 INDEX 337

ecosystems, 36, 50, 69, 179, 191– epistemologies, 18, 322

3, 202, 210, 309–10, 319–20, equitable sharing, 39
322, 329–30 Escobar, A., 255, 288
Ecuador, 36, 40, 44 essentialism, 304, 310
Edelberg, L., 271, 284–5, 288, 291 estate sector, 124, 126, 219, 222,
Ehrentraut, A., 170, 173 224, 226–8, 232, 234, 238, 245–
Eijbergen van, H.C., 75, 77 7, 250, 294
elders, 40, 47, 71, 87, 140, 200, ethnobiology, 41, 50, 53, 114
274, 317 ethnobotany, 4, 9, 18, 22, 41, 101,
Ellen, R.F., 1, 7, 12, 27, 31–2, 41, 114, 213, 296, 305, 307
75, 82, 145, 147, 214, 219, 241– ethnoecology, 2, 41, 296
2, 244–5, 248, 250, 255, 288, eucalyptus, 94–5
311, 323, 330, 333 Eugeissona utilis, 250, 295, 300
employment, 47–8, 83, 91, 96, Europe, 1, 2, 6–11, 21, 33, 81–2,
103, 116; 100, 174, 177, 210, 226, 293–6
opportunities for local people, 321, 311, 333
103 exemplars, 13, 128, 142, 164
empowerment, 13, 19, 43, 236 Eys, S. van, 60, 77
enclavement, ‘enclave culture’, 24,
255–6, 281, 283–4, 286, 290 factionalism, 253–8, 256, 259, 260–
Endangered Peoples Project, 294, 1, 267, 270, 272, 276–8, 283,
312 286
endangered species, 102–3, 111 Fairhead, J., 14, 19, 31, 83–4, 99
energy, 59, 87, 126, 171 fallow, 189–90, 194, 201, 266, 325,
England, 33, 210, 219–20, 293 331
English, 10, 29, 33, 129, 133, 155, ‘farmer-first’, 13
175, 221, 250–1 Farquhar, J., 21, 31
entomology, 35 fauna, 35, 48, 319, 322
Enu, 68, 70, 76 Feit, H.A., 324, 333
environmental assessment, 131; Ferguson, J., 255, 288
campaign, 24, 293; Fernandes, W., 80
consciousness, 254, 281, 333; Ferradás, C., 201, 214, 235, 244,
disasters, 323, 329; 250
knowledge, 1, 24, 29, 32, 83, fertilization, 23, 111, 163
121–2, 124, 128–9, 137, 140–3, fertilizers and pesticides, 260, 266;
170, 178, 180, 187, 201, 303, chemical and synthetic, 118,
320–1, 325, 328–9, 330–1; 285
management, 132 Ficus elastica, 218, 220–1
environmental degradation, see field studies, 7, 227
degradation, environmental Finnegan, R., 27, 32
environmentalism, 15, 32–3, 99, fire, 178, 184, 189, 191, 198, 202,
118, 123, 148, 153, 165, 168, 206, 210;
214, 249, 261, 334; grassland, 178–9, 182, 184–8,
discourse, 296–7, 310, 327; 190, 193, 195–6, 198, 202–3,
and religion, 321; 205, 209;
Environmentalists, 24, 50, 94–5, repeated use of, 195;
140–2, 145–6, 242, 248, 260–1, wood, 96, 307;
293–7, 299, 307–8, 310–12, 329
338 INDEX

perceptions of, 178, 200; forestry royalties, 271;

use of, 37, 177–9, 182, 184, non-timber forest products
187–90, 195–6, 200–4 (NTFP), 93–6;
First International Congress of secondary forest, 165–6, 225;
Ethnobiology in Belém, 49 social forestry, 204, 260
fisheries, 38, 56, 131, 334; Forest Development Corporation
fishing (FDC), 270, 279
rights, 132 Foucault, M., 213, 235, 237, 242–
Florece, L.M., 187–8, 203, 209 3, 250
fodder, 36, 96, 105, 108, 111, 190, French, 10, 75
202 Freeman, M.M.R., 324, 326, 329,
Fokkinga, J., 177, 209 331, 333, 335
folk, 1–3, 6–8, 10, 12, 21, 23–4, 26– Frembgen, L., 268–9, 288
7, 53, 82, 138–9, 155, 171, 173, Friedman, J., 319, 334
175, 214–15, 306 Friends of the Earth, 147–8, 295
folk classifications, 10 Frossard, D., 215, 250
folk knowledge, 2, 6–8, 12, 21, 24, Fuller, S., 284, 288
26–7, 214–5 functionalist anthropology, 29
food, 32–3, 36–7, 56, 58, 61–2, 110– Funtumia, 221
1, 114, 118, 125, 160–1, 178, Fussman, G., 269, 288
183, 186, 217, 219, 226, 323, G/wi, 323
329;
poisoning, 161; Gaddis, 102
wild, 37 Gadgil, M., 36, 44, 53, 105, 119
foraging, 56, 170, 210, 315 Galeano, E., 79
forestry, 19, 24, 32, 35–7, 53, 71, Galinanda, W., 188
79, 83, 88, 89–96, 99–100, 102, Gamble, L., 324, 336
104, 107, 110–11, 119, 123–6, game, 38, 80, 162, 170, 233, 323–
132–3, 140, 142, 145, 147–8, 4, 327
153, 155–66, 173–5, 177–9, 182– Garcia, J., 293, 311
6, 189–202, 204, 206–7, 209–10, Garcia da Orta, 8, 29
217–20, 223–5, 227, 231, 233, gardening, 6, 59, 64
238, 245, 249–51, 260, 271, 275, garlic, 115, 118,
279, 282, 286–7, 293–5, 298, Garson, P.J., 103, 119
300, 302–10, 315–16, 323, 334– Gaston, A.J., 103, 119
5; Geddes,W., 325, 331, 334
anti-logging protests, 165; Geelkerken, N., 189, 209
artificial conifer forests, 156; Geertz, C., 55, 77, 86, 99
commercial forestry, 165, 179, Geisler, C., 165, 174
282; gender, 5, 65, 83, 86, 95–6, 99,
commercially valuable timber 100, 285; n21
species, 96; equitability, 259
community forestry, 79–100 Genpei Wars, 170
passim, 126; Geo-Sciences, 1982, 192, 209
labourers, 160, 167; Germany, 10, 293, 295, 312
protection, 90–1, 198; Gesadombu, 129
regeneration, 179, 193; Ghee, L.T., 227, 246, 250
rights, 254, 275;
 INDEX 339

Global 2000 (Austria), 312 Gujarat, 86–7, 91–4, 99

Global Environment Facility (GEF), Gujurs (or Gujars), 266, 277, 285
106, 204 Gupta, A.K., 83, 99, 215, 244, 250
‘glocal’, 28
Gluck, C., 154, 173 habitus, 121, 280
gnostic knowledge, 21 Hafild, E., 140, 147
Goa, 8, 116 Hames, R., 324, 334
goats, 102, 108, 113, 117, 119, Hanazaki, K., 153, 168, 171, 173
262–4, 285 Hardacre, H., 165, 173
Goldammer, J.G., 193, 195–6, 209– Harris, H., 1, 12, 15, 32, 41, 75, 82,
10 214, 241–2, 248
Gomez-Pompa, A.& A., 36, 53 Harrisson, T., 294, 312, 316–7
Gonzalez-Caban, A., 192 Haserodt, K., 263, 284–5, 288
Gorada, P., 94, 96, 99 hathpanja (Orchis latifolia), 109,
Gordon, A., 173, 214, 250 112
Gore, A., 293, 311 Hayakawa, 170
Goto, N., 156, 173 Hazumi, T., 171, 173
Goudsblom, J., 177, 210 Headland, T.N., 183, 210, 311,
Gouyon, A., 225, 228, 229, 246, 331, 334
250 Healey, C, 22, 32
Graham, L.R., 13, 31, 53, 320, Helleman, H., 195, 210
330, 333 Henkel, H., 89, 99
Granada Television, 276–7, 284, Henkemans, A., 201, 210
288, 291 Henley, T., 293–4, 296–9, 301–9,
grassland, 178–9, 182, 184–8, 190, 311–12, 315–17
193, 195–6, 198, 202–3, 205, herbalism, 8, 21;
209; herb-collectors, 111;
fires, 187, 195 farming, 162
Gray, A., 3, 31–2, 35, 36, 43, 53, Herbarium Amboinense, 10, 32
121, 147, 298, 313, 316, 321, hermeneutics, 96, 250
326, 333–4 Hevea brasiliensis, 215, 217–22,
grazing, 91, 102–3, 108–9, 111–12, 224–5, 227, 229–33, 245–7, 250–
114, 116–19, 132, 178, 183–6, 1
194–6, 202, 207, 210 Himachal Pradesh, 101–3, 117, 119
Graziosi, P., 284, 288 Himachal Wildlife Project, 103, 119
Great Himalayan National Park Himalayan cedar (Cedrus deodora),
(GHNP), 101–3, 105–6, 114, 117– 263
19 Hinduism, 81, 97–8
Greenland, J., 193, 210 Hindu Kush, 253, 260, 284, 287–
Greenpeace, 293, 295, 311, 312 91
Griffin, M.B., 183, 210 Hobart, M., 5, 14–5, 19, 31–3, 55,
Griffin, P.B. and Estioka-Griffin, 77, 82, 99, 122, 151, 179, 210,
A., 183, 209 255, 281, 288, 290
Grillo, R.D., 255, 284, 287–8 Hobsbawm, E., 5
Grove, R., 9, 10, 29, 32, 82, 99 Hoekstra, S., 193, 210
Guha, R., 91, 99, 105, 119 Hokkaido, 153, 155, 165, 168
Guinea, 14, 32, 56, 78, 177, 218, Holla-Bhar, R., 12, 33
329
340 INDEX

Hollis, M., 27, 32 1, 231, 233, 245, 250–1, 310,

holothurin, 75 327, 333;
Holy, L., 329, 334 government of, 90, 220, 245
Hong, W., 57, 60, 70, 152–3, 156– indigeneity, 23, 214–15, 229, 233,
63, 165–7, 169–71, 173, 324 238, 242, 275
Hong Kong, 57, 60, 70, 324, 330 indigenism, 168
horticulture, 115–16 indigenous, 1–33, 35–50, 53–5, 74–
Horton, R., 27, 32 5, 77, 79–84, 97–8, 100–1, 107–
Hortus Indicus Malabaricus, 8–10 12, 114–15, 117, 121–35, 137–
Huehne, W.H., 294, 312, 316 47, 149, 153–5, 157, 165–75,
Humphreys, L.R., 53, 200, 203, 178, 182, 201, 211, 213–19, 221,
210 223, 229, 233–36, 238–44, 249–
Hunn, E., 4–5, 11, 15, 32 51, 293–99, 305–10, 315, 316,
hunter-gatherers, 209, 293, 315 319–22, 324–6, 329, 333–4
hunters, 156–7, 159–61, 166–7, indigenous and traditional
169–71, 179, 182, 209, 315, 317, technologies, 39
323, 324 indigenous institutional
hunting, 16, 19, 24, 36, 59, 80, knowledge, 262–8
108, 110, 114, 118, 132, 155–62, indigenous knowledge, 1–6, 8, 10–
166–7, 170–1, 174, 183–5, 201, 29, 31–3, 35, 40–44, 53–5, 70,
324, 334 80, 82, 83, 84, 97, 100, 101, 107–
Hunza, 268, 279, 286, 288–9 11, 113–15, 117, 121–2, 124,
Husain, T., 259, 284, 286, 289 126, 130, 140–2, 147, 174, 178,
hybridity, 215, 238, 244–5 201, 209–17, 219, 223, 229, 233–
hydroelectricity, 130, 134, 142, 145 6, 238, 239–44, 251, 255, 264,
280, 293–4, 296–9, 305, 307–8,
Ichikawa, T., 156, 173 310–1, 315, 319–22, 334;
idealization, 154, 324, 329 meaning, 2;
identity, 22, 24, 40, 45, 50, 117, characteristics of, 4–5;
123, 129–31, 134, 137, 139–40, as discursive consciousness,
142–3, 147, 152–9, 162, 165–6, 255, 282
175, 210, 294, 319, 334 see ‘indignant knowledge’;
Ifugao, 184 documenting, 140;
ignorance, 11, 23, 26, 31–2, 77, environmental, 121, 142–3;
84, 99, 113, 147, 171, 179, 210, recording of, 16;
213, 230, 236, 260–2, 280–1 anthropology and development
likubo, R., 152 policy, 282
IK, see indigenous knowledge Indigenous Knowledge and
International Labour Office (ILO), Development Monitor, 16
98, 144 indigenous people, 3–4, 13, 20–1,
Immerzeel, W., 195, 210 28, 35, 38–9, 46–7, 49, 53, 74,
Imperata cylindrica, 186, 193, 195, 79, 81–2, 84, 97–8, 121–3, 126–
206 35, 137–9, 142, 144, 153, 168,
India, 8–11, 23, 29, 32–3, 79–83, 175, 182, 242, 293, 297–9, 307,
87–90, 97–101, 105, 118–19, 309, 311–12, 315, 319–22, 326,
146, 148, 170–1, 215, 218, 220– 329, 330;
aboriginal peoples, 37, 274;
adivasi, 80, 98,
 INDEX 341

indigenous science, 25 Jackson, C., 83, 99

‘indigent knowledge’, 268–74, 281, Jacobs, H.M., 327, 333
283 Jakarta, 75, 127, 129–31, 142,
‘indignant knowledge’, 274–9, 281– 145, 147–8, 249–50
3 Japan, 24, 57–8, 151–8, 161–2,
Indonesia, 3, 8, 10, 20, 22–4, 33, 164–8, 170–1, 173–6, 293–5,
56, 59–62, 64, 67, 69–70, 72, 74– 312, 323–4, 327, 329, 331, 334
5, 77–8, 121–4, 126–30, 133–4, Japan Tropical Forest Action
137, 140–9, 177, 201, 205, 209, Network, 295, 312
211, 216, 218–19, 221, 224–5, Java, 10, 127, 135, 145, 209, 220–
227–9, 234, 244, 249–51, 317, 1, 232, 244–5, 247, 251
323, 329, 334; Jeffery, P., 91, 97, 99
Government of (GOI), 218–9, Jettmar, K., 268, 289, 291
229, 245, 250 Johannes, R.E., 12, 13, 32, 36, 43,
Ingold, T., 27, 32, 55, 325, 334 53, 334
innovations, 36, 39, 92, 97, 201, Johnson, M., 29, 32
216, 220, 225–6, 231 Joint Forest Management (JFM),
Institute of Dayakology, 145, 229, 88, 90–2, 94, 96–7, 99–100
250 Jones, S., 81, 100,
institutional knowledge, 262–8, Jones, Schuyler, 271, 284–6, 288–9
320, 325
integrated resource management, kadu (Picrorhiza kurroa), 109, 112
259 Kafirs (Afghanistan), 253, 268,
intellectual property rights (IPR), 273, 285, 287–91
22, 39–43, 50–1, 53, 209, 297, Kalash Environmental Protection
313, 315, 326 Society (KEPS), 253, 274, 283–4,
intentionality, 254, 281 286, 289
international environmental lobby, Kalash Foundation, 270, 273, 274
128, 144 Kalasha, 24, 253–91 passim;
international law, 35–54 passim, agriculture, 266;
334 gender relations, 285;
International Society of indigenous knowledge (Kalasha
Ethnobiology, 50 dastur), 258;
International Union for the shamanic, 269;
Conservation of Nature (IUCN), tradition (Kalasba dastur), 258
32, 112, 319, 328, 334 Kalimantan, 125, 137, 140–1, 148,
International Whaling Commission 201, 205, 209–10, 216, 219, 221,
(IWC), 168, 175, 329, 331, 333 227–8, 231, 244, 249–51
International Work Group for Kalland, A., 1, 25, 35, 168, 174,
Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), 3, 53, 319, 321, 323, 327, 329–30, 333–
298, 313, 316, 334 4
Inuit, 329, 331, 335 Kamino, S., 163, 174
irrigation, 258–61, 263–4, 267 Kanger National Park, 88
Isabela, 77, 195, 205, 209–10 Kantu, 141, 219, 221, 234, 249
Israr-ud-din, 263, 289 Kanzaki, N., 170, 174
Ivy, M., 151, 173 Kao, C.Y., 294, 311, 317
Iwahashi, K., 162, 174 Kapferer, B., 171, 174
342 INDEX

Karey, 59, 71, 73 of indigenous peoples and

Kataoka, M., 151–2, 174 ‘indigenous knowledge’ , 23;
Kaus, A., 36, 53 of local situations, 82;
Kayano, S., 155, 174 paradigmatic, 320, 325–6, 328;
Kayapó, 25, 144 practical, 121, 179, 320, 326;
Keck, M., 146–7 representation of knowledge,
Kedit, P.M., 294, 312, 316 115;
Keesing, R., 323, 334 types of knowledges, 322;
Keiser, L., 275, 289 see also local knowledge,
Kemf, E., 298, 313, 316 ‘indigent’ and ‘indignant’
Kennedy, S., 296, 312, 316 knowledge
Keong, V.P., 218, 222, 232, 247, Knudsen, A.J., 275, 278–9, 286,
251 289
Kew, Royal Botanical Gardens, Knudtson, R, 298, 313, 317
220, 233 Kobayashi, T., 170, 174
khair (Acacia catechu), 93 Koentjaraningrat, 122, 148
Khan, M.H., and S.S., 284, 289 Koike, H., 156, 174
Khan, S.M., 263, 291 Kompas, 133, 145
Kiddell-Monroe, S. & R., 145, 149 Koonce, A.L., 192, 210
Kii Peninsula, 152, 160, 162, 165 Kothari, A., 102, 105, 117, 119
Kingsbury, B., 3, 31–2, 147, 321, Kreutzmann, H., 271, 289
333–4 Kulu, 102, 104, 110, 115, 117, 119
Kishuken, 162, 171 Kumano conference, 158
Knight, J., 7, 24, 32, 151, 158, 165, Kuna of Panama, 40, 44
170–1, 174 Kurile Islands, 168
knowledge, 2–12, 14–29, 31–3, 35– Kyoto, 154, 174
6, 38–44, 48–51, 55, 61, 66, 69–
70, 74–5, 77, 80–7, 90–7, 99– LaDuke,W., 309, 316
101, 108–15, 117–8, 121, 122– landraces, 35, 38
30, 133, 138–9, 141–4, 153, 158, land rights, 122, 127, 145, 293;
163–4, 166, 168–70, 178–9, 189, tenure, 124–5;
191, 200–2, 210, 213–6, 219–21, squatters, 127
226–7, 229, 232–6, 238, 239–44, landscape, 53, 56, 77, 82–3, 88, 99,
250–1, 294, 296–310, 315–6, 105, 111, 118, 132, 137, 139,
319–23, 325–329, 331, 334–5; 145, 156, 163, 177, 201, 210,
aphoristic, 7; 294, 299–301, 303–4, 310, 315
as performance, 17; land-use practices, 104–5, 211
superior, 115; language, 10, 39, 47, 50, 67, 86,
Traditional Ecological (or 129, 131, 133, 135, 137, 143,
Ecological) Knowledge (TEK), 2, 153, 170, 175, 228, 296–7, 304,
36; 329
embedded, 16, 27, 29, 87, 96, Langub, J., 294, 312, 316
110, 138, 234, 280, 322, 325, Latin America, 40, 44, 231
331; Lattas, A., 171, 174
empirical, 320, 325; Lauje, 135–40, 142–3, 146, 148
exogenous, 55, 70; Lavelle, P., 191, 210
experimental, 26, 36, 217, 229, Leach, M., 14, 19, 31
231–4, 238–9, 248, 305;
 INDEX 343

leaf blight (Microcyclos ulei), 230 MacKnight, C.C., 75, 77

Leiden, 8, 33, 55, 151, 205, 209–11 Madhya Pradesh, 86, 91
Lemonnier, P., 29, 32 Magcale-Macandag, D., 188
Lepage, M., 191, 210 Maggi, W., 285, 289
Levang, 225, 228–9, 246, 250 Magrath, P., 285, 289
Lévi-Strauss, C., 240–1, 243, 248, Maharashtra, 106
251 Makino, K., 156, 174
Lewis, H.T., 33, 179, 210, 299, 316 Maku, 310
Li, T. Murray., 24, 121, 135, 137, Malay, 10, 31, 57, 78, 221, 249,
139, 145–49, 250, 284, 289 251
Lièvre, V., 284–5 Malaysia, 24, 57, 218, 225–6, 234,
life-cycle, 110, 217, 238, 241–2 249, 295, 315
life-styles, 84, 104, 116, 127, 322, Maluku, 33, 56, 71, 77–8, 125,
327 143, 149
Lindblad, J.T., 219, 225, 245, 251 Mamar, S., 141, 148
Linden, E., 299, 316 management, 11, 14–6, 18, 20, 22,
Lindu, 129–35, 140, 142, 145, 147– 24, 31, 36, 38, 44, 48, 50, 53, 70,
8 72–3, 77, 88, 90, 95, 100, 123–6,
Linnaeus, 7, 10 128, 130, 132, 144, 147–8, 158,
local knowledge, 1–2, 6, 11, 14–15, 163, 178–9, 182, 186, 200, 203–
18–19, 22–3, 26, 28, 33, 38, 42, 4, 209–10, 222, 228, 235, 251,
55, 74, 80, 82, 85–6, 90, 92, 94– 299–303, 319–20, 322, 326, 328–
7, 123, 129, 140, 161, 235, 315, 9, 331, 334–5
320, 325–6, 329, 331 Mandelbaum, D., 81
local management practices, 107; mango, 94, 202
traders, 70, 107, 110, 116 Manihot spp., 221
locality, 18, 24, 90–1, 101, 157, Manila, 180, 186, 209
169, 243 Manser, B., 295–7, 312–13
logging, 24, 125, 140, 145, 156, Maoris, 153
163, 165, 178–80, 182–4, 189– mapping, 61, 77, 85–9, 100, 108,
90, 198, 207, 209, 229, 275, 278– 126, 128, 137, 143, 145, 148,
9, 293, 295, 300, 310–11, 315– 197;
16; community mapping, 143
logged-over forests, 182, 192 Maradindo, 132, 135
Lohmann, L., 149, 331, 334 Maraini, F., 268
London, 29, 31–3, 54, 77–8, 85, 99– Marcus, G., 96, 99, 147, 149
100, 147–8, 173–5, 210–11, 249– Marsden, D., 280–90
51, 316, 333–5 Masipiqueña, A.B., 24, 177, 190,
Long, N., 28, 96, 100, 296, 307 197, 199, 210
Loude, J.-Y., 284–5, 289 Masood-ul-Mulk, 285, 290
Lucidophyllous forest, 155, 164 Masri Singarimbun, 145
Ludwig, N.A., 171, 174 Masud-ul-Mulk, 275, 278, 290
Lukes, S., 27, 32 masyarakat terasing, 122, 127,
Lyotard, J., 5, 32 133, 137–8, 141
Matagi, 170, 174
MacDonald, K., 284 materia medica, 8, 9
Mackenzie, I., 296, 312, 316 Mathias-Mundy, E., 281
Maybury-Lewis, D., 299
344 INDEX

Mbuti, 310, 323 Murphy, 217, 225, 246, 251

McGoodwin, J.R., 328, 334
meat, 108, 159, 161, 173, 183–4, Noordwijk, [Link], 204
325, 329 Nakagami, K., 154, 168, 176
media, 22, 28, 47–8, 129–31, 133– Nanda, B., 84, 100
5, 137, 144–5, 151, 198, 293, national identity, 152, 158;
295 integrity, 168;
medical knowledge, 7, 41, 51, 305 nationhood, 127, 334;
medicinal plants, 35–7, 47, 54, see also identity
101–2, 107–10, 112, 115–6, 118, national parks, 101–20 passim,
132, 296, 299, 302–3, 305–7, 131–3, 148, 323;
310 relationship with people, 111;
Mehra, 117–8, conflicts with people, 107;
Melby, J.F., 230, 247, 251 natural history, 7, 9, 10, 29, 31;
Menaut, J.C., 191, 210 regeneration, 90, 95, 187;
metaphors, 111, 323, 330 resource conservation, 105;
methodologies, 9, 42, 326 selection, 7;
métis, 243, 248 treasure (tennen kinenbutsu),
Milton, K., 28, 32, 334 162
Minangkabau, 147 nature, concepts and cultural
Mindanao, 197 construction of, 12, 27, 31–3, 36,
mining, 79, 126; 71, 74, 83–4, 88, 99, 111–13,
bauxite mining, 92 116, 118–9, 127, 129, 131–2,
miscommunication, 24, 255–6, 135, 137, 141, 145, 148, 152,
260–2, 281 155–6, 162, 164, 168, 171, 173–
Mishima, A., 162, 174 4, 177–8, 182, 191, 209–10, 213,
Mishra, A., 92, 100 215, 219–20, 231–2, 236–7, 240–
Missen, G.J., 222, 251 1, 245, 268, 289, 291, 297–8,
Mitsuda, H., 165, 174 300, 304, 310, 317, 319–24, 327,
Miyao, T., 171, 174 329–31, 334–5;
modernity, 3, 11–12, 29, 84, 127, revival, 7, 24;
169, 173, 215; survival, 3, 293, 311, 313–6,
anti-nature of modernism, 319 334
modernization, 134, 153, 157, 166, Naveed-e-Rahat, 284, 290
169 Nebuka, M., 157, 167, 174
Moeran, B., 168, 174, 334 Needham, R., 283, 294, 312, 317
Moluccas, 10, 20, 22, 69, 77, 219; Needham, J., 27
see also Maluku neem, 12, 33
Moniaga, S., 145, 148, Neeson, E., 177, 210
Moore, J., 7, 31 Negrito, 182, 210
Mori, K., 154, 156, 164, 167, 170, Nepali, 110
174–6 Netherlands, 10, 151, 177, 205,
Mosse, D., 87, 94–5, 97, 100 209, 220, 232, 247, 293
Mueller-Dombois, D., 193, 196, Netherlands Indies Forest Service,
210 220
Müller-Stellrecht, I., 256, 290 Netting, [Link]., 280, 290
Mumtaz, S. & D., 286, 290
Mundurucu, 225, 246, 251
 INDEX 345

New York, 33, 53, 54, 77, 82, 99– Pabla, H.S., 113, 119
100, 147, 209, 249–51, 315–7, Pacific, 77, 170, 182, 218, 249, 334
334–5 Packard, R., 242, 249
Non-Governmental Organizations Pakistan, 24, 253–91 passim
(NGO), 1, 3, 15, 20–5, 85–6, 91, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), 274
94–5, 101, 103, 105–10, 115, Pálsson, G., 8, 31, 32
118, 121–3, 126–9, 131, 133, Panama, 40, 44, 81
140–3, 145, 198, 229, 253–4, panchayat, 106–7, 118
260, 262, 270, 278, 280, 282, Pannell, S., 69, 73–4, 77
295, 312, Papua New Guinea, 56, 205, 331
Nicolaisen, J., 294, 312, 317 Parbati valley, 117,
Niigata, 162 Parkes, P.S.C., 24, 75, 253–91
Nilgiris, 106 passim
Nlodima, 323 participatory approaches, 13, 80,
‘noble savage’, 137, 269, 329 89, 97, 105, 125, 261;
non-indigenous, 2, 23, 47, 81, 84, participatory rural appraisal
121, 235, 236, 240, 242, 320, (PRA), 84–7, 89–91, 94, 106,
322; 114, 281
knowledge, 84 Pasicolan, P.N., 188, 204, 210
North American Indians, 169; pastoralism, 82;
Northwest Coast Indians, 323 ideology, 264;
Nourse, J., 135, 148 range management, 260;
Nuaulu, 288, 323 resources, 264;
Nueva Vizcaya, 195–6, 196, 205 alpine pastures, 102, 263–4
Nur AH, 141, 148 pearl oysters, 56, 58, 60;
Nuristan (Afghanistan), 285, 288– diving, 56, 69, 72, 73, 75;
91 virus, 59
nutrient cycle, 192, 194 Pedersen, P., 319, 321, 334
Nye, P.H., 193, 210 Peeters, A., 10, 32
Peluso, N., 145, 148,
O’Brien, D.J.T., 286, 290 Pelzer, K.J., 223–4, 227, 251
oaks, 96, 162, 164; Penan, 24–5, 293–319 passim
see also holm oak Perry, J.A., 279, 288
Ojibwa, 80 Persoon, G.A., 24, 75, 77, 174, 177,
Omoto, K., 153, 174 205, 210
Oosterberg, W., 196, 210 Peter, N., 75, 92, 99–100, 147–8,
oral tradition, 6, 7; 251, 293, 334
history and, 96, 282 pharmaceutical, 22, 35, 43, 305,
organic matter, 191–5, 201,, 326
manure 118 pharmacopoeias, 6
Orissa, 86, 91–2, 95, 100 Philippines, 24, 77, 146, 179, 182,
Oriya, 86 187, 191, 197, 204–6, 209–10,
Osseweijer, M., 23, 55, 74, 77 307;
Overing, J., 27, 32 north-east Luzon, 179, 180,
Overseas Development Agency 192, 195, 202
(now DIFD), 284 Piaroa, 233
Pinatubo Ayta, 307
Pinkerton, E., 329, 334
346 INDEX

planning, 41, 100, 106, 119, 163, Rainforest Action Network, 295,
186 312
plant collectors, 40, 44 Rajasthan, 106
plant nutrients, 191, 203 Rangan, H., 96, 100, 146, 148
plantation sector, 224, 226, 227, Ranger, T., 5
246 rationality, 5, 26, 29, 281
Plotkin, M., 307, 313 reciprocal destruction, 244
poachers, 110 Red Data Book, 112
Polunin, N.V.C., 329, 331, 334 Redford, K.H., 331, 334
Portuguese, 8–9, 32 reforestation, 187, 206, 207, 211
Posey, D.A., 3, 23, 32, 35–8, 40, 43– regional revitalization, 162, 168
4, 49, 53, 98, 144, 326, 334 regionalism, 152, 168, 169
post-modernism, 28 Rehman, S., 264, 270, 278, 285,
power, 8, 22, 24, 41, 61, 68, 91, 94, 287
96, 99–100, 121, 126, 130, 132, Reid, W.V., 35, 43, 54
134–6, 138, 143–4, 147–9, 161, relativism, 27, 28, 32, 123
170, 171, 234–7, 243, 250, 293, resettlement, 131, 134, 137–8,
306, 309, 319, 334 146, 160
Pressland, A.J., 203, 210 resistance, 22, 125, 211, 237, 242–
Pretty, J., 85 3, 261, 275, 278, 291, 293, 295,
Primetime Live, 293, 305, 311 315
primitive, 12, 81, 132, 137, 141, resource catchment, 88, 108;
151, 154, 167, 169, 220, 231, conservation, 250, 329;
233, 240, 242, 329, 334 displacement, 104;
Prince Charles, 293, 311 non-domesticated resources
Principe, P.P., 35, 54 (NDRs), 37
ProRegenwald (Germany), 295, 312 resource management, 114, 147,
Protected Areas, 101–21 passim 178, 254–5, 259, 262–3, 280,
proto-hierarchy, 282 283, 285, 288, 296, 299, 300–1,
public domain, 40, 42 313, 329, 331, 334, 336
Pujol, R., 6, 32 Rheede tot Drakenstein, [Link], 9,
Purseglove, J.W., 218, 220–1, 230, 10
232–3, 245, 251 rhetoric, 1, 13, 15, 24, 80, 97, 100,
123, 126, 144, 235, 254–5, 274,
Quarles van Ufford, P., 284, 290 277, 294, 299, 305–7, 312–13,
Quercus, see oaks, 164, 263 319
quinine, 220, 230, 245 Rhoades, R., 26, 33, 250
Quinones, J., 305 rice culture, 154;
Quinton, A., 82, 100 dry rice, 219, 239;
swamp rice, 219
race, 80, 99, 155 Richards, P., 11, 15, 17, 18, 31,
Rackham, O., 177, 210 33, 286, 290
Rafiq, M., 284, 288 Richards, A., 245, 251
rainforest, 179, 183, 251, 293, Ridley, H.N., 221–2, 231, 233, 236–
295, 298, 304–5, 307, 311, 313, 7, 251
315–7; Riedel, J.G.F., 75, 77
crunch, 142 Riewe, R., 324, 336
 INDEX 347

rights, 3, 20, 22–3, 36, 38–41, 43– sacred, 36–7, 41–2, 46, 111, 132,
5, 47–9, 51, 53, 79, 92, 94, 103– 135, 158, 165, 176, 264, 298,
7, 111, 117–18, 121–4, 126–8, 302, 304, 308–10, 317
130, 132, 134, 140, 144–5, 149, Safitri, M., 145, 148,
191, 217, 236, 293–5, 297–8, Sago palms, see Eugeissona utilis
302, 304, 308–9, 315–6, 321, Sahabat Alam Malaysia, 295
327–8; Saifullah Jan, 253–4, 256–7, 261–
subsistence rights, 105; 2, 267–8, 273, 274–7, 279, 281–
property rights, 23, 51, 53, 72, 4, 286, 291
148, 226, 297, 334 Saigal, S., 90, 99
Rio de Janeiro, 38, 105 Saito, H., 156–7, 173, 174
Rio Negro, 233, 248 Saitou, N., 153
ritual, 5, 26, 37, 68–9, 71, 73–4, Sajise, P., 195
132, 146, 157, 164–5, 167, 256, Salafsky, N., 231, 247, 251
258, 261, 264, 269, 277, 280, Samar, E.D., 196, 209
323, 324 Sanchez, P.A., 193, 205, 211
Robertson, G.S., 268, 285, 290 Sandinistas, 81
Robertson, J., 151, 174 Sangadji, A., 131–5, 145, 148
Robertson, R., 28, 33 Sarawak, 293–6, 300, 305, 311–2,
Romanoff, S., 217, 251 315–7
romanticism, 144–5, 268–9, 282, Sarin, M., 96, 100
296, 312, 324 Sasaki, K., 166, 175
Rose, C., 277, 279, 290 sasi, 20, 22, 66, 71, 74, 77, 143–4,
Rovillé, G., 269, 291 242, 248
royalties, 270, 275, 277–9 Schiefferlin, E.L., 205, 210
rubber, 24, 61, 65, 147, 214–22, Schultes, R.E., 217, 231, 233, 245,
224–39, 249–51; 247, 251, 294, 307, 311, 313
caoutchouc, 218; Schuurman, F., 139, 148
disease, 218; Schweithelm, J., 133, 148
tapping, 146, 245; science, 1–9, 11–7, 19, 21–2, 24–9,
wild, 217, 224, 231; 31, 33, 35, 37, 41–3, 50–1, 81–2,
native rubbers, 218, 221, 231; 84, 90, 99–100, 121, 143, 147,
native tappers, 217; 163, 178, 201, 213–5, 230, 236,
over-tapping, 227; 240, 243, 249–50, 298–9,
Pará, 215, 217, 219, 230–1, 315, 319–22, 325–9, 331, 334–5;
238, 245, 247; people’s, 2, 5;
see also Hevea brasiliensis technical, 280;
Ruddle, K., 36, 43, 53, 334 western, 2, 8, 11, 14, 16, 299,
Rumbur, 256–7, 264, 266, 271, 305
275–9, 281, 284–6 scientific data banks, 42;
Rumex, 109 experts, 101, 114–5;
Rumphius, G., 10, 31, 32 hegemony, 115;
Rural Advancement Foundation knowledge, 1, 6–7, 14, 16, 31,
International (RAFI), 35, 43, 54 35, 147, 213, 215, 243, 249,
320, 334
Saberwal, V., 118, 119, Scoones, I., 5, 16, 31, 33
348 INDEX

Scott, J.C., 31, 33, 89, 100, 187, Singh, N., 91

211, 215, 243, 248, 251, 261, Singh, S., 91, 105, 112, 117, 119
268, 291 Sinha, 146, 148
sea cucumbers, 5, 23, 55–67, 69– Sivaramakrishnan, K., 93
73, 75, 77; slash and burn agriculture, 124,
collecting, 60–1, 73; 177, 179, 189, 197;
depletion of, 72, see also shifting cultivation
regeneration of, 64 slavery, 256
seagrass, 63, 66 Slikkerveer, L.J., 31, 33, 54, 213,
seed, 17, 35, 41, 51, 94, 193, 203, 251
220, 301 smallholders, 214–7, 219–29, 231–
Sejersen, L.E., 321, 336 8, 246–7, 249–50;
Sengupta, N., 81, 100 rubber, 214, 217, 223–4, 228–9,
seringueiros, 217, 230, 231, 247 232, 249
serow (kamoshika), 102, 161, 171 Snelder, D.J., 24, 177, 190, 211
Settlement Report, 104, 107–8, 111 Snoy, P., 280, 285, 291
Shadily, H., 221, 245, 250 Society for Threatened Peoples
shamanism, 28, 33, 139, 171, 269, (Austria), 312
277 Sodiki, A., 145,
Shangri-la, 268, 288 soil fertility, 38, 194, 201
sharks’ fins, 56, 58 Solomon Islands, 77, 323
sheep, 102, 108, 111, 113, 117 South America, 216–21, 225, 229–
Sheikh, M.I., 263, 291 33, 238, 245–48, 250
shepherds, 102–3, 108–9, 111 South Korea, 324, 331
Sheppard, J., 277, 284, 286, 288, Southeast Asia, 24, 57, 99–100,
291 148, 178, 211, 214–23, 227, 229–
Shidei, T., 156, 175 33, 238, 245, 247, 249–51, 317,
shirting cultivation, 12, 36, 98, 322, 324
178, 183–4, 193, 204, 209–10, sovereignty, 38–39, 42, 87
324–5; specialization, 83, 201
see also swidden cultivation Sperber, B.G., 280, 283–4, 291
Shintoism, 171 Spurr, D., 81, 100
Shioji, Y., 170, 175 stakeholders, 43
Shirahata, Y., 156, 175 survival of the fittest, 226, 232
Shiva, V., 12, 33, 96, 100, 316 Staley, J., 284, 291
Siapno, F.E., 195, 209 Stearman, [Link]., 128, 144–
Siberut, 177, 205 6, 149, 331, 334
Siddle, R., 153, 171, 175 Steward, J., 217, 251
Sierra Madre, 180, 182, 184, 192– stewardship, 144, 300–2
3, 205, 210 Stirrat, R.L., 89, 99, 284, 288
Sillitoe, P., xi, xiii, 213–4, 250–1, Stocking, G., 81, 100
280, 283, 291 Strand, R.F., 285, 291
Silver, H., 75, 77 Strathern, M., 27–8, 33
Simmoons, F.J., 75, 77 Strong, [Link]., 171, 175
Simons, H.P., 192–3, 211 Stuchlik, M., 329, 334
Singapore, 57–8, 60, 70, 221, 249, Sulawesi, 77, 122, 125, 129–30,
251, 324, 331 138, 141, 147–8
Singapore Botanical Gardens, 221
 INDEX 349

Sumatra, 201, 205, 224, 228, 249, tenure, 40, 48, 124–5, 127–8, 201,
250 226, 231, 300, 308, 334
Sundar, N., 23, 79, 81, 91, 98–100, Terborgh, J.W., 231, 247, 251
281, 283 Themeda triandra, 193
surface erosion, 193–4 Thompson, J., 5, 16, 31, 33
Survival International, 3, 293, 311 Thrukral, E.G., 80
sustainability, (including Tingguian, 184
environmental), 1, 35, 38, 43, 53, tobacco, 62, 68, 135, 180, 185–6,
115, 124, 209–11, 227, 231, 250, 224
263, 269, 331 Tojo, Y., 171, 175
sustainable use, 38–9, 53, 110, Tomich, 234, 249
125–6, 328, 334; Top, [Link] den, 184, 205
forest management, 125; tourism, 92, 117, 121, 133, 142,
utilization of natural resources, 151, 153–4, 161–3, 166, 170–1,
331 173–5, 254, 258, 260, 267–9,
Suto, I., 156, 175 273–4, 280, 282, 286, 291;
Suzuki, D., 171, 173, 175, 274, ethno-touristism, 269;
298, 309–10, 313, 317 incorporation of hunting into,
Suzuki, T., 171, 173, 175, 274, 162;
298, 309–10, 313, 317 nature, 162
Sweden, 293, 329, 331, 334 traditional harvest restriction, 66;
swidden cultivation, 141, 188, 219, healers, 36;
224; knowledge, 2, 23, 35, 124–5,
see also shirting cultivation, 215, 258, 269, 306;
slash and burn agriculture law (adat), 136;
Switzerland, 293, 295, 312, 334 legal rights, 10;
symbolism, 5, 10, 13, 26–7, 29, 32, management practices, 107
40, 88, 117, 153, 168, 170 traditional resources, 41, 42, 103;
rights, 43;
Tadaki, M., 156, 175 use, 107;
Taira, K., 154, 167, 175 users, 124;
Taiwan, 57, 324, 331 management practices, 130;
Takada, 170, 175 sustainable resource
Takahashi, J., 168, 175 management, 144
Takahashi, S., 161, 175 Trangan, 56, 59, 67, 70–1, 75–6
Takaya, Y., 156, 175 transmigration, 124, 126, 134,
Takeshi, U., 158, 175–6 201, 227, 228
Tanba, A., 161–2, 171, 175–6 trepang;
Tanigawa, K., 170, 175 see sea cucumbers
Taussig, M., 81, 100 tribalism, 3, 13, 20, 23, 41, 50–1,
taxonomies, 4, 7 79–81, 84, 86, 96, 118–19, 123–
Taylor, K.I., 298, 313, 317 4, 130–4, 140–2, 149, 178–9,
teak, 93–5, 224, 249 234, 250, 299, 316, 321
teleology, 237 tropical rainforest, 146, 177, 209
television, 118, 298, Tsing, [Link]., 140, 141,
Telugu, 86 145, 148–9, 299, 313, 317
Tuguegarao, 180, 185–6, 197, 205,
209
350 INDEX

Tumauini, 193, 211 Werner, O., 53, 83, 100

Turnbull, C., 323, 336 West Kalimantan, 246, 247
West, 56, 58, 63–5, 71, 123, 180,
Ue, T., 160, 161–2, 164–5, 167, 192, 201, 205, 217, 243–4, 322;
171, 175 West and ‘other’, 28;
Umehara, T., 154–8, 160, 164–6, see also Western
168, 170, 175–6 western, 1–2, 6, 8, 10–16, 18–21,
United Kingdom, 177, 295 24, 26–8, 40, 43, 74, 81, 102,
United Nations, 38, 44–5, 49, 54, 104, 112, 114, 121, 123, 131,
98, 147, 210–1, 244, 249; 152, 155, 166, 177, 215, 217,
Indonesian Ministry for 243–4, 294–6, 299, 305–6, 308,
Environment and United 310, 319–22, 327, 329–30, 334–
Nations Development Program 5;
(KLH/UNDP) 1997, 124, 125; western and non-western elites,
UN Draft declaration on the 21;
rights of indigenous peoples, 44 western environmentalist
United Nations Commission for rhetoric, 13;
Environment and Development western
(UNCED), 38, 43, 105; environmentalists, 24, 294,
United Nations Development 296, 329;
Program and Food and western legal structures, 43;
Agriculture Organisation non-western realities, 330;
(UNDP-FAO), 204, 270 non-western systems of
United States, 168, 171, 293, 296 ownership, 40;
Urquhart, I.A.N., 294, 312, 317 traditions, 6, 321
Western Canada Wilderness
Valiente, 193 Committee, 312, 315–17
Vietnam, 81 whaling, 324, 329, 331
Visakhapatnam, 92 Whaling Convention, 329, 331
Vitebsky, P., 28, 33 White, H., 81, 100, 322, 336
Voices for the Borneo Rainforest White, L. Jnr., 322, 335
World Tour, 294, 312 Wickham, H.A., 220–1, 225, 232–4,
237–8, 245–8, 251
Wallace, A.R., 62, 75, 78 Wildavsky, A., 284, 288
walnut trees, 258, 262, 267, 270, wildlife, 103–5, 107, 111–12, 114–
271–3, 274, 278, 285, 286 15, 118, 153, 159, 161, 166,
Wana, 138, 146 173, 324, 334
Warren, D.M., 13, 16, 18, 25, 29, Wildlife Institute of India, 106, 117,
31, 33, 36, 43, 53, 54, 84, 100, 119
213, 251 Wildlife Protection Act 1972, 103–
Watt, G., 11 4, 112
Wear, A., 7, 33 Wilkinson, R.J., 221, 224, 245–6,
weeding, clean, 222, 225, 227 251
Weinstein, B., 217, 218, 230, 231, Wilson, B.R., 27, 33
247, 251 Winarto, Y.T., 235, 248, 251
Weinstock, J.A., 219, 245, 251 Winkle, [Link], 171
Weischet, W, 191, 194, 196, 211 Wirawan, N., 200, 211
 INDEX 351

wisdom, 1, 7, 13, 19, 22, 32, 81,

127, 130, 132–3, 140–4, 278,
298–9, 308–9, 313, 316, 319
Wokam, 56
Wolf, E., 80, 100
Wolf, H. & R., 220–22, 31, 234,
245, 248, 251
Wolpert, L., 27, 33
women, 47, 60–8, 70, 71, 73, 83,
94–6, 100, 167, 171, 225, 246,
260–1, 263, 266, 269, 273, 285,
289;
organizations, 260–1, 267
Wood, D., 87, 100, 295
World Bank, 84, 91, 100, 105–6,
118, 145, 187, 209, 260, 284,
291
World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF), 105, 293, 311;
World Wide Fund for Nature-
India (WWF-I), 118

Yang energy, 171

Yasumoto, T., 294, 311, 317
Yearly, S., 5, 15, 33
Yoneyama, T., 151, 176
Yoshii, 171, 173

Zeegers, M., 187, 195, 211

Zerner, C., 20, 22, 33, 71, 78, 132,
143–4, 146, 148–9, 242, 248
Zimmerman, F., 7, 9, 29, 33
zoology, 35