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Sacred Ecology: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Resource Management. By Fikret Berkes, 1999, Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia, 209 pp.
Fikret Berkes, Professor of Natural Resources at the University of Manitoba, has brought together his extensive fieldwork experience among native peoples, from subartic Canada to tropical Caribbean islands, in this richly detailed book. The title, `Sacred Ecology', highlights Berkes' concern with incorporating alternative (indigenous) ways of thinking into the mainstream of Western scientific theories of conservation and the maintenance of biodiversity.
The book is divided into three parts: `Concepts,' `Practice,' and `Issues.' In the first part, three chapters deal with the nature of traditional knowledge, and introduce readers to the `knowledge-practice-belief complex (p. 13). Chapter 1 addresses the context of traditional knowledge, in which `resource users themselves are the managers' (p. 9).
Chapter 2 provides examples of traditional knowledge and management in different ecosystems (tropical forests, grasslands, mountains, temperate ecosystems, tropical fisheries, and irrigation systems) in different parts of the world. Berkes lists international and national institutions that since the 1980s have supported studies based on ethnoscience and traditional knowledge, and documents association of traditional knowledge with intellectual property rights, conservation, management, and environmental ethics.
In Chapter 3 Berkes expands on his view that traditional knowledge is a `field of knowledge' in its own right, and not merely a subject for research in disciplines such as human ecology and ethnoscience. The arguments in this chapter parallel the debate in human ecology in the 1970s and 1980s concerning the boundaries of the discipline. Human ecology was seen as integrating ethnological studies and disciplines dealing with the interactions of people and natural resources, as well as addressing environmental ethics (see articles in Borden, 1986).
Part II of the book comprises four chapters...