Despite the demonstrated value of Indigeous and local knowledge and practices in conservation and natural resource management, these are not often respected nor integrated in a meaningful way into the work of many multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs).
As a result, the benefits of inclusive and equitable decision-making processes in landscape governance are too often lost, to the detriment of conservation and the well-being of all involved, says researcher Malaika P. Yanou, citing her recent research into MSPs in the Kalomo District of Southern Zambia, particularly focused on the Tongo people.
That’s a significant problem, given the increasing recognition that Indigenous and local communities (ILC) and their knowledge systems play an important stewardship role in biodiversity conservation and environmental sustainability, said Yanou, in her recently published PhD thesis: Exploring the politics of luzibo kusangana: The potential of Tonga local, integrated and hybrid knowledge for equitable landscape approaches in Southern Zambia. (Luzibo kusangana is the Tonga term for integrated knowledge.)
Ignoring Indigenous Local Knowledge (ILK) damages not only local development and policy decisions, but also threatens elements of Agenda 2030, especially work aimed at achieving several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including SDGs 1 and 2 (no poverty, no hunger); SDG 6 (safe water and sanitation); SDG 10 (equality); SDG 14 (climate action); and SDG 16, (sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, including protecting biodiversity).
Instead, stronger efforts must be made to integrate ILK with the dominant conservation approaches brought by the Global North, said Yanou, a team member with the initiative Collaborating to Operationalize Landscape Approaches for Nature, Development and Sustainability (COLANDS). The initiative, hosted by CIFOR-ICRAF, aims to engage, facilitate, and promote collaboration among multiple actors from various sectors and disciplines, working with partners and engaging multiple stakeholders in innovative research related to integrated landscape approaches (ILAs).
“It is time to go beyond the ‘seat at the table’ rhetoric and reconstruct assumptions behind integrating the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) with other knowledge systems,” said Yanou.
“There are opportunities for ILAs to be used in natural resource mangement in Kalomo, but first there are serious hurdles that should be overcome.”
Yanou’s research included combined photovoice and walking interviews methods recorded with smallholder farmers and villagers in three communities in and around the Kalomo Hills Forest Reserve. These showed local Tonga conservation and natural resource management practices are resilient and still in use. This includes tree planting, cattle manure application, and water, soil, seed, and grass management. Other practices relevant to ILAs include conservation strategies, taboos and beliefs, sacred landscapes, livelihood traditions, and climate indicators that together, demonstrate how local knowledge and practices contribute to conservation efforts in and around Kalomo Hills.
“Tonga local knowledge and environmental ethics can strengthen the principles for integrated landscape approaches through its sharing ideology, strong bond with ancestors and nature, and a commitment to balanced human-nature relations,” said Yanou.
However, the value is minimized when ILK is ignored, as was the case in two MSPs in Zambia studied by Yanou: one organized by government and the other by NGOs. Additionally, influential actors – the private sector in particular – were frequently disengaged from the MSPs, she said.
As a governance approach, an ILA may coordinate work to reconcile such local and global challenges as climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and poverty while generating multiple benefits for people in the landscape. ILAs can also enhance resilience and inspire change.
Understanding how actors interact and share knowledge is important when implementing ILAs in the Global South, said Yanou. MSPs are an important element because they can bring together various landscape actors to negotiate environmental governance, agricultural development, and sustainable development more broadly. As a result, MSPs are becoming a widespread strategy for enhancing collaborative processes, knowledge sharing and co-production, and identifying innovative ways of resolving sustainability issues and conflicts, she said.
But it’s not yet enough. Decision-making process are power relations, and that power tends to remain in the hands of specific actors that have more resources and authority.
“Despite having a ‘seat at the table’ in the MSPs, ILK holders remain the most marginalised and least powerful knowledge holders with a limited voice in the decision-making processes,” said Yanou.
“That is why there is a need to analyse knowledge production and productivity processes, moving away from applying the logic of uniformity and towards the logic of diversity.”
Many of Yanou’s findings, some produced in collaboration with COLANDS colleagues, have been published in academic journals, including a paper under review by Ecology and Society titled: “The dynamics and politics of integrating local knowledge systems in multistakeholder platforms”. That has been developed with COLANDS team leader James Reed, and colleagues Mirjam Ros-Tonen, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies, University of Amsterdam; Freddie Siangulube, COLANDS team member; and Terry Sunderland, professor of Tropical Forestry at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and CIFOR senior associate.
