Project Contributor: Yasuyuki Morimoto For the Kamba people in the Kitui District of Kenya, the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) and its estimated 50 landraces are part of a rich cultural history, having been cultivated for approximately 10,000 years. Known locally as kitete, this plant is central to the material culture of the region and has

Project Contributor: Jeanine Pfeiffer with the Tado Community, the Waerebo Community and Elizabeth Gish Tado and Waerebo are Manggarai ethnic communities located on Flores Island in East Nusa Tenggara province, eastern Indonesia. Despite being linguistically, culturally, and ecologically rich, East Nusa Tenggara is perhaps the most neglected region of Indonesia. Manggarai traditional knowledge and practices

Project Contributor: C. Manjula Irular people inhabiting the southern part of India are one of the 635 Indigenous tribal communities of the country. The population of Indigenous tribal peoples in India, known collectively as Adivasis (original inhabitants), is estimated to be over 84 million people. Despite these high numbers, these communities usually live on the

Project Contributor: Anvita Abbi Project Website: www.andamanese.net The Andamanese represent the last survivors of the pre-Neolithic population of Southeast Asia. Genetic research (Thangaraj et al., 2005) indicates that the Andamanese tribes are the remnants of the first migration from Africa that took place 70,000 years ago. Of the 50 remaining Great Andamanese people who live

Project Contributor: Yogesh Gokhale India is rich in biodiversity resources and the associated traditional knowledge of the properties and uses of these resources. However, the social, political, economic, technological, and cultural milieu is changing rapidly, and this is significantly affecting the way in which India’s living resources are being used. Further, India is lacking in

Project Contributor: Laxmi Pant Nepalese “rice culture” has provided important options to address the needs of ecosystems and local communities together, particularly in areas that are diverse, complex, and resource-poor. The cultivation of diverse landraces of rice has advantages over “improved” rice varieties, both ecologically and culturally. Despite the greater economic value of improved varieties,

Project Contributor: Xu Jianchu The opening up and success of economic reforms in recent decades in China have produced high and sustained economic growth rates and lifted millions of people out of poverty. Concurrent political reforms have decentralized many decision-making processes and created new democratic institutions, especially in rural areas. These changes, however, have placed

Project Contributor: Nathan Cardinal In Canada, both the inherent value and the lawful recognition of Aboriginal people’s traditional knowledge (ATK) are written into the Species at Risk Act (SARA). The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) is the organization responsible for evaluating the status of species in Canada and is now

Project Contributor: Ingrid Kritsch The Gwich’in are one of the most northerly aboriginal peoples on the North American continent, living at the northwestern limits of the boreal forest. Many families still maintain summer and winter camps outside their communities. Hunting, fishing, and trapping remain important both culturally and economically, with caribou, moose and whitefish being

Project Contributor: Sekagya Yahaya Hill The traditional African culture that acted as a social security system for the weaker sectors of society has greatly eroded. In Uganda, the use of herbal medicine was labeled as “backward, uncivilized, and unholy” during the colonial era, and traditional healers suffered much humiliation. However, the knowledge of herbal medicine