Dear Friends, I wanted to share the following note with you and would like your feedback as I intend to prepare a proposal for study on this aspect of indic tradition by taking the case of Water and Trees in Indian Agroecosystems. I will gladly acknowledge your contribution. I guess, sustainability Science is going to be one of the most influential topic in policy and practice in next decade or so. Sincerely yours Deep Sustainability Science of Local Communities ********************************************************* Nature-society interactions confront a range of challenges including maintenance of ecosystems services, conservation of biodiversity, sustainability of the essential ecological processes and life support systems (1) in human dominated ecosystems at local and global scale (2, 3). This has often resulted in human ill-being and threat to the food security of the world's poorest. To avert these threats natural and social sciences have helped in creation, transmission and application of knowledge on ecosystem restoration and firming up of the policy and practice of sustainable development (4). Scientific research on human-environmental interactions is now a budding sustainability science (5). The concept has developed based on the recognition that the well-being of human society is closely related to the well-being of natural ecosystems. However, intellectual resource on which the proposed sustainability science is building on seldom takes into account the knowledge of the local people. The need, therefore, is to consider both formal such as proposed by Kates et al. (5), and ethnoscience (6, 7) to foster a sustainability science that draws on the collective intellectual resources of science and local knowledge systems. Local knowledge can contribute to sustainable development at local level through scenario analysis, data collection, formulation of management plans, designing of the measures of success to learn and take feedback and institutional support to put policies in to practice. Science, on the other hand, provides new technologies, or suggests improvement to the existing ones. It also provides tools for storing, visualizing, and analyzing information, as well as projecting long-term trends so that efficient solutions to complex problems can be obtained (8, 9). Local knowledge systems indeed have been found to contribute to sustainability in diverse fields such as natural resources, biodiversity conservation and maintenance of ecosystems services (10), management of agroecosystems (11), and can augment water supply for people (12). In my fieldwork as a practicing forester in Rajasthan local knowledge has proved useful for forest restoration and protected area management (13). This is one of the driest regions of India with scanty rainfall. Cultural landscapes and agroecosystems, created by the application of local knowledge, also support a variety trees and bird species (14). Local knowledge has often also paved the way for many discoveries in science. For example, progress of science in India has built on the foundations of knowledge and wisdom that was created in ancient times such as metallurgy, mathematical calculations and the first ever use of zero, medicine, surgery and natural resource management (15). Traditional skills, local techniques and rural craft provide a wide spectrum of knowledge in India, and since "knowledge cannot be fragmented" (16) we have to take the validated local knowledge into account together with science for evolving a robust sustainability science. What is, however, to be guarded is the danger of romanticizing the local knowledge, and guarding the tendency to draw general conclusions without validating the claims. Only that data, information, knowledge and wisdom which stands the rigours of scientific validity is the true knowledge held by the humanity. Collective wisdom of humanity, embodied both in formal science as well as local systems of knowledge, therefore, is the key to pursue our progress towards Sustainability. References and Notes 1. F.S. Chapin III et al., Nature 405, 234 (2000). 2. Richard Gallagher, Betsy Carpenter, Science 277, 485 (1997); P.M. Vitousek, H.A. Mooney, J. Lubchenco, J.M. Melillo, Science 277, 494 (1997); I.R. Noble, R. Dirzo, Science 277, 522 (1997). 3. D. Western, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98, 5458 (2001). 4. D.N. Pandey, Beyond Vanishing Woods: Participatory Survival Options for Wildlife, Forests and People (Himanshu/CSD, New Delhi, 1996). 5. R. Kates et al., Science 292, 641 (2001). 6. J.W. Harshberger, Science 36, 521 (1912); A.F.C. Wallace, Science 135, 351 (1962); B.N. Colby, Science 187, 913 (1975); P.A. Cox, Science 287, 44 (2000). 7. Madhav Gadgil, R. Guha, Equity and Ecology: The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India (Penguin, New Delhi, 1995); D. N. Pandey, Ethnoforestry: Local Knowledge for Sustainable Forestry and Livelihood Security (Himanshu/AFN, New Delhi, 1998); D.A. Posey, ed., Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity: A Complementary Contribution to the Global Biodiversity Assessment (Intermediate Technology Publications/UNEP, London/Nairobi, 1999); Fikret Berkes, Sacred Ecology: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Resource Management (Taylor and Francis, Philadelphia, 1999); V. V. Nazarea, ed., Ethnoecology: Situated Knowledge/Located Lives (Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1999); D.L. Medin, S. Atran, eds., Folkbiology (MIT Press, USA, 1999). 8. W.M. Getz et al., Science 283, 1855 (1999). 9. H.P. Huntington, Ecological Applications 10, 1270 (2000); R. Margoluis, Richard, N. Salafsky, Measures of Success: Designing, Managing and Monitoring Conservation Projects (Islands Press, Washington DC, 1998); D.N. Pandey, Measures of Success for Sustainable Forestry (Himanshu /IIFM/the World Bank-WWF Global Alliance for Forest Conservation and Sustainable Use, South Asia Program, Bhopal, 2000). 10. M.M.R. Freeman, L. Carbyn, eds., Traditional Knowledge and Renewable Resource Management in Northern Regions (University of Alberta, Canada, 1988); M. Gadgil, F. Berkes, C. Folke, Ambio 22, 266 (1993). 11. D.H. Janzen, Science 182, 1212 (1973). 12. D.N. Pandey, Science 293, 1763 (2001). 13. D.N. Pandey, Indian Forester 119, 521 (1993). 14. D.N. Pandey, D. Mohan, J. Bombay nat. Hist Soc. 90, 58 (1993). 15. J.S. Rao, Science 229, 130 (1985). 16. Indira Gandhi, Science 217, 1008 (1982). ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. 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