local knowledge
The Inuit residents of Sachs Harbour, Canada, are struggling to maintain their way of life in the face of climate change. Their lifestyle and culture depends on their ability to adapt to this new challenge.
Given the dramatic changes that local people have observed, IISD and the Hunters and Trappers Committee of Sachs Harbour initiated a year-long project to document the problem...
The Hima is a traditional system of resource tenure that has been practiced for more than 1400 years in the Arabian Peninsular. With the numerous deteriorations that came and halted advancement in the Arab world, and at times for different reasons, the Hima also declined. The progressive concepts of the Hima became hav been masked by the general regression suffered in the region and the recent...
Forest areas in Nepal decreased at a rate of 1.7 percent every year between the end of the 1970s and the mid 1990s. Land degradation leads to soil erosion spelling disaster for poor rural households who are forced to spend more time collecting fodder and fuel which in turn leads to a drop in agricultural labour supply, agricultural production and food security. However, leasehold forestry, an...
This research proposal is aimed at raising awareness of women’s and men’s knowledge related to use and management of the agricultural biological systems they depend on for food security. The research will be carried out in Southern Highlands and Central Tanzania. The research will emphasise local seed diversity and management practices. This is of particular interest because of the...
The local resources in different areas of India are declining and linked to the loss of local knowledge and social support structures. The farmers in different areas of India express their views by committing suicide, groups of people migrating to cities, destruction of unsold fruits and vegetables, riots at the grain markets as prices collapse because the...
In 2000, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) began experimenting with new ways of linking research and development. The research has been carried out in a way which extracts knowledge from local communities and provides little in the way of useful feedback. Through discussions with several NGO partners in Central America, the conclusion obtained was that there had to be...
Global agricultural production has increased, but at an environmental and social cost. All over the world, some 800 million people are still undernourished, most of them in rural areas. At the same time, a similar number of people globally are overweight with obesity rates on the increase. Currently, 1.9 billion hectares of land is affected by significant land degradation. Agriculture today...
The southern Mexican state of Chiapas is the country’s largest producer of coffee. It is grown mostly by small scale farmers, with land holdings of two hectares or less, and more than 90 percent of the total production is exported to the United States and Europe. During the last two decades, more than 10,000 of these farmers have opted for organic production systems and have since...
Characteristics and processes of natural ecosystems can be used as the basis for designing sustainable farm systems. This is, however, conditional to proper observation and collection of information for learning about the beneficial features of nature, as well as in understanding the various natural processes. The international development organisation VECO collaborates in Indonesia with more...
Most of the eggs in Uganda are produced by commercial poultry farmers by using the ordinary metal charcoal stoves, but after the introduction of charcoal briquettes, many farmers have changed their practices. They use clay pots and charcoal briquettes which are cheap, less time consuming and readily available.
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