Traditional Ecological Knowledge

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Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the conservation of natural resources

Nature as w e know it means different things to different people. To an economist, natural is often seen as a resource to be transformed and put in readiness for human use. An alternative view is that humans are stewards who should care for natural things as well as making use of nature’s bounty. Another view is that nature of animism, which sees nature as a living thing, something to be respected and not controlled. Some native American’s view the earth as a sacred place could be called animist. Another alternative view is that the entire planet earth is a self correcting system based on a symbiotic relationship between the earth and the living beings(Peacock, 1996). This symbiotic view is called, the Gaia Hypothesis. Some scientists view nature as something that is dangerous and disoriented, so it must be tamed by science.

Throughout history in North America, the indigenous peoples culture, tradition and religion have always differed from the western way of life. In this essay, I will explore three views of nature-indigenous people’s view of nature, western science view and the economist view. Second, I will take a look out how a more ecocentric view can be formed by amalgamating western science with traditional ecological view of nature. I believe that understanding why conservation of our natural resources is important will go a long way in helping us understand why our individual action affects the ecosystem.

About three years ago, I became interested in the indigenous people’s view of nature when I saw a documentary which explored the indigenous people way of culture and beliefs. What I was fascinated about was when the presenter of the documen...

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...hich? Are we learning about local people’s knowledge, indigenous knowledge or traditional knowledge? This can cause quite a dilemma when trying to present traditional ecological knowledge to the western society. As we all know that generally speaking, the secular western society prefers clear cut definitions. For example, each branch of western science like biology, chemistry, physics are defined in a very orderly and neat fashion.

Recently, there have been a lot of literature that compares western science and traditional ecological knowledge. I believe that both western science and traditional ecological knowledge have similarities as well as differences. Western science as stated already is more concerned with is more concerned with analytical and reductionist method compared to the more practical and holistic associated with traditional ecological knowledge.

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