The indigenous knowledge project I reviewed was Viable institutional innovations with respect to community based natural resource management in developing and transitional economies which can be found here
http://srdis.ciesin.org/cases/kenya-005.htmlThis case seemed like a great success on multiple fronts.
They were able to regain local control over their food choices. The power of a central government often can mean that crops for export are preferred and land is bought up by businesses for this purpose leaving the local populace without the means to forward a local agenda of food security.
This gave them considerably more local control over crops and by adding biodiversity into their diets they added another crucial layer of resilience to their food supply.
Interestingly enough this also made them more able to consider commercial exploitation of their crops as they were seen as coming from a native source which incorporated indigenous values so could be marketed to socially conscious concerns such as Body Shop and Free trade U.K.
By helping the locals to regain control over how they would use the land and allowing them to use their own knowledge over how to have sustainable food practices they were not forced to destroy their habitat in order to meet globalization needs of the country and the world.
This idea of local first and utilizing the knowledge gained over millennium gave me hope that there can be much more prosperity even in poor countries. The idea that some of the most fertile land in the poorest countries is not utilized by indigenous concerns for the good of the people is abhorrent. Projects like this give great hope that they can be reproduced and help to end the hunger that plagues even fertile countries and the devastating impact of habitat loss which come from those who do not have sustainable options available to them.
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