Traditional knowledge for sustainable forest management and provision of ecosystem services

Issue Date

4-2016

Abstract

Forests, and the people who depend on them, are under enormous pressure worldwide. Deforestation in many parts of the world continues at an alarming pace, the result of agricultural conversion for food and industrial crops such as oil palm, livestock production, mining, and energy and industrial infrastructure development. Forest degradation is even more widespread, leading to more gradual losses of biodiversity, forest structure, ecological functioning, and provision of ecosystem services. Biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, water shortages, and environmental conflicts lessen the capacity of forest landscapes to provide the environmental goods and services that underpin food security and other basic human needs. Faced with these problems, and considering their origins, many question whether the science and technology that currently shapes our lives and the management of natural resources is up to the task of building a truly sustainable future. Perhaps, as Albert Einstein suggested: ‘The world as we have created it, is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.’ Fortunately, there are other sources of knowledge and wisdom to draw on in our collective quest for sustainable natural resource management. Long before the development of modern forest science and ‘scientific’ forest management in Europe in the early nineteenth century, local and indigenous communities throughout the world managed forests and associated landscapes in countless ways that sustained their livelihoods and cultures, without jeopardizing the capacity of these ecosystems to provide goods and services for future generations.

Source or Periodical Title

International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Services and Management

ISSN

2151-3732

Volume

12

Issue

1

Page

1-4

Document Type

Article

Language

English

Subject

traditional ecological knowledge, food security, shifting cultivation, forest inventory, nontimber forest products, Brazil, Ghana, Philippines, Indonesia, tropical forest

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.1080/21513732.2016.1169580

Digital Copy

yes

Link to Full Text

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