What is the significance of traditional knowledge for sustainable development and indigenous technical knowledge in agriculture heritage?
First Nations communities in Australia also used "firestick" farming, also known as cultural burning, to manage the land. You might find Bruce Pascoe's book "Dark Emu" useful. see Dark Emu - Wikipedia
"In Dark Emu Pascoe draws on the writings of early British settlers and recent decades of scholarship to argue that traditional Aboriginal society was characterised by agriculture, aquaculture, elaborate engineering, villages of permanent structures, and other features which are incompatible with the view that Aboriginal Australians were only hunter-gatherers.
Pascoe acknowledges his debt to the work of Rupert Gerritsen, who in 2008 published Australia and the Origins of Agriculture, which argued that some Aboriginal people were farmers as much as hunter-gatherers. Pascoe also draws on the work of historian Bill Gammage, author of The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia (2012), which looks at how Aboriginal people used fire, dams and cropping to support themselves sustainably in their environment." see Dark Emu - Wikipedia.
If indigenous communities have managed the land sustainably to support themselves for thousands of years, then maybe they have something to teach us about sustainable agricultural practices.
Dear Rk,
If I understand your question, it sounds like what you have learned about "sustainable development" in your institution has distorted the meaning of it to replace "cultural survival" (which is part of international law and that specifically assures that traditional practices of each culture that have created a long term balance with their environment are preserved, such that they are of course already "sustainable" and "developed" for that environment) with some kind of illegal approach (violation of the UN genocide convention) that promotes some kind of top-down view of "sustainability" in which every culture must adopt one uniform approach that is being enforced on them. As long as a traditional practice, which of course includes agricultural practices and all other forms of technology, is in balance with the environment and is not a practice of destruction of the environment or of other cultures (taking their land or other resources or their labor), then of course it should be preserved (or restored) for that cultural group along with other cultural practices so that the system is in balance with the resources for the long-term. That is what the law says and what the definition of "sustainable development" is. Any approach that does otherwise is not legal and is probably not sustainable (including the UN's current "SDGs, which in fact are not sustainable development because they work to create uniformity and to urbanize). You can take a look at the "Treatise on International Development Law" on my ResearchGate page to look at the law, as well as individual "indicators" that I have published on requirements for sustainable development and development in several categories, including "sovereignty" and also my examination of the "SDG's" holding them to the test of international law. I published all of these pieces to answer questions like yours and to assure that we keep our approaches and our language consistent with international law and so that we can make sure that we hold those who are distorting the law and creating confusion be accountable.
Best,
David Lempert, Ph.D., J.D., M.B.A., E.D. (Hon.)