REDISCOVERY OF TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AS ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT

2000/10/01 by Fikret Berkes, Johan Colding, Carl Folke · 70 citations
Environmental Science · #Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management #Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond

paper · doi:10.1890/1051-0761(2000)010[1251:roteka]2.0.co;2

openalex publication_date 2000/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

Indigenous groups offer alternative knowledge and perspectives based on their own locally developed practices of resource use. We surveyed the international literature to focus on the role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in monitoring, responding to, and managing ecosystem processes and functions, with special attention to ecological resilience. Case studies revealed that there exists a diversity of local or traditional practices for ecosystem management. These include multiple species management, resource rotation, succession management, landscape patchiness management, and other ways of responding to and managing pulses and ecological surprises. Social mechanisms behind these traditional practices include a number of adaptations for the generation, accumulation, and transmission of knowledge; the use of local institutions to provide leaders/stewards and rules for social regulation; mechanisms for cultural internalization of traditional practices; and the development of appropriate world views and cultural values. Some traditional knowledge and management systems were characterized by the use of local ecological knowledge to interpret and respond to feedbacks from the environment to guide the direction of resource management. These traditional systems had certain similarities to adaptive management with its emphasis on feedback learning, and its treatment of uncertainty and unpredictability intrinsic to all ecosystems.

Citations

• Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems
• Kaitiakitanga: Maori perspectives on conservation

Cited by

• Characteristics of animal movement and environmental data for dynamic ocean management: Insights and guidance
• Connecting Science to Indigenous Knowledge: kaitiakitanga, conservation, and resource management
• Developing Management Practices to Support Joined‐Up Governance
• Historical perspective of artisanal encircling gillnet use at the Brazilian coast: Changes in fishing behaviour is mirrored by dwindling stocks
• New migration and distribution patterns of Atlantic walruses (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) around Nunavik (Québec, Canada) identified using Inuit Knowledge
• Combining social, ecological and economic approaches in knowledge co‐production enables the identification of sustainable farming options
• A collaborative approach to marine species tracking: Insights from the Fish Intel Acoustic Telemetry Network
• Enabling cross-sectoral transformation for coastal climate adaptation in Europe: Four directions for interdisciplinary efforts
• Applying the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology to classify, describe, and map ecosystems based on regional data and Indigenous knowledge
• Biocultural Geographies: Stewardship, Indigenous Territories, and Conservation in Ecuador’s Amazon
• Reciprocal Inclusion of Microbiomes and Environmental Justice Contributes Solutions to Global Environmental Health Challenges
• EthnoHERBS: Harnessing traditional herbal knowledge for biodiversity conservation and innovative health solutions
• Traditional agroforestry systems in Europe revisited: a systematic review
• “This Whole Town Used to Look Like This”: The Uses of Nostalgia in Establishing Claims to Place and Practice in Northern California’s Forests
• Biocultural Refugia: Combating the Erosion of Diversity in Landscapes of Food Production
• Aboriginal settlements of arid Patagonia: Preserving bio- or sociodiversity? The case of the Mapuche pastoral Cushamen Reserve
• Weaving Indigenous and sustainability sciences to diversify our methods
• Living with floods: risk and resilience in Nepal’s Koshi River communities
• Detecting social-ecological resilience thresholds of cultural landscapes along an urban–rural gradient: a methodological approach based on Bayesian Networks
• Predicting and forecasting disasters: A global scan of traditional and local knowledge
• Climate change adaptation: Raising fisherwomen’s voices to policy making
• Sustainability: We need to focus on overall system outcomes rather than simplistic targets
• Stewardship practices enhance nature’s contributions to people
• Opportunities and barriers identified during the co-creation of a sustainability index for small-scale fisheries
• Food forests and forest gardens: Definition, practical application and role in sustainable development
• Sustainability Concepts in Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Cultures
• Community resilience and land degradation in forest and shrubland socio-ecological systems: Evidence from Gorgoglione, Basilicata, Italy
• Fisheries decision-makers’ perspectives on the use of historical data to inform assessment and management
• Toward a more inclusive conservation actions classification: Lessons from restoration practice and conservation social science
• Nature-based solutions for coastal erosion protection in a changing climate: A cutting-edge analysis of contexts and prospects of the muddy coasts
• Climate change adaptation needs a science of culture
• Adapting to climate change in Sámi reindeer herding: the nation-state as problem and solution
• A Global Estimate of Seafood Consumption by Coastal Indigenous Peoples
• Summer Bridge Program Establishes Nascent Pipeline to Expand and Diversify Hawai‘i’s Undergraduate Geoscience Enrollment
• Assessing Biocultural Diversity Across Scales Using Ecological Indicators
• The Importance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge for Palm-weevil Cultivation in the Venezuelan Amazon
• Challenges and strategies when mapping local ecological knowledge in the Canadian Arctic: the importance of defining the geographic limits of participants’ common areas of observations
• West African Shea Processors in a Changing Global Market: Effects of Market Integration on Traditional Knowledge Resilience
• Relational ontology and more-than-human agency in Indigenous Karen conservation practice
• “These Trees Have Stories to Tell”: Linking Dënesǫłıné Oral History of Caribou Use with Trample Scar Frequency on Black Spruce Roots at Ɂedacho Kué
• A framework to guide future farming research with Indigenous communities
• Governance challenges for commercial exploitation of a non-timber forest product by marginalized rural communities
• Diversity and Ecological Factors Influencing Medicinal Plant Use Among Ethnolinguistic Groups in the Philippines
• Toward a Generalizable Framework of Disturbance Ecology Through Crowdsourced Science
• Ethnoprimatology of the Shipibo of the upper Ucayali River, Perú
• International business is contributing to environmental crises
• ADAPTIVE GOVERNANCE OF SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
• Value of species and the evolution of conservation ethics
• Identifying potential causes of fish declines through local ecological knowledge of fishers in the Ganga River, eastern Bihar, India
• Ecosystem management as a wicked problem
• Observations of a Nuclear–follower Foraging Association between Spiny Softshell Turtles (Apalone spinifera) and Fish in an Urban Drainage Canal in Louisiana
• Perception and Interpretation of Climate Change among Quechua Farmers of Bolivia: Indigenous Knowledge as a Resource for Adaptive Capacity
• Indian time: time, seasonality, and culture in Traditional Ecological Knowledge of climate change
• Western science and traditional knowledge
• Participatory Conservation Approaches for Satoyama, the Traditional Forest and Agricultural Landscape of Japan
• GOVERNING THROUGH TIMESCAPE: ISRAELI SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE POLICY AND THE PALESTINIAN-ARAB CITIZENS
• Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Europe: Status Quo and Insights for the Environmental Policy Agenda
• A ETNOECOLOGIA EM PERSPECTIVA: ORIGENS, INTERFACES E CORRENTES ATUAIS DE UM CAMPO EM ASCENSÃO
• Effects of understory fire management treatments on California Hazelnut, an ecocultural resource of the Karuk and Yurok Indians in the Pacific Northwest
• Managing California Black Oak for Tribal Ecocultural Restoration
• Integrating ethnobiological knowledge into biodiversity conservation in the Eastern Himalayas
• Total Environment of Change: Impacts of Climate Change and Social Transitions on Subsistence Fisheries in Northwest Alaska
• Permaculture for agroecology: design, movement, practice, and worldview. A review
• LEARNING FROM LOCAL KNOWLEDGE: MODELING THE PASTORAL‐NOMADIC RANGE MANAGEMENT OF THE HIMBA, NAMIBIA
• Knowledge Loss and Change Between 2002 and 2017—a Revisit of Plant Use of the Maasai of Sekenani Valley, Maasai Mara, Kenya
• Integrating local and scientific knowledge for environmental management
• Medicinal plant diversity and uses in the Sango bay area, Southern Uganda
• Flavor or Forethought: Tuhoe Traditional Management Strategies for the Conservation of Kereru (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae novaeseelandiae) in New Zealand
• The impact of agricultural policies on agrobiodiversity management in a pre-Rif farming system in Morocco: what implications for resilience?
• Disaster resilience of traditional societies from Small Island Developing States: The 2015 tropical cyclone Pam in Vanuatu

Related

• Contributions of Indigenous Knowledge to ecological and evolutionary understanding
• Understanding Indigenous knowledge of conservation and stewardship before implementing co-production with Western methodologies in resource management: A focus on fisheries and aquatic ecosystems
• Evolving wildlife management cultures of governance through Indigenous Knowledges and perspectives
• The Importance of Land-Use Legacies to Ecology and Conservation
• The contributions of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to ecological restoration