Critical issues related to forest traditional knowledge and culture

1. Critical issues related to forest traditional knowledge and culture Liu Jinlong Centre for Forest, Environment, and Resource Policy Study Renmin University of China Dialogue on Forestry in the Context of Eco-Civilization July 192013 1

2. Buyi people

3. Fengshui forest at Buyi ethnic community • Fengshui forest at Tong ethnic community

4. Table of contents • What is TFRK • Highlights of role of TFRK • A glimpse of traditional forests and culture • OUR action

5. 20th+ century developments: beyond timber. Increased recognition of importance of forests, and increased public demands for: • Water resource management • Soil conservation • Biodiversity conservation • Recreation and health • Non-timber forest products • Forest-based livelihoods • Cultural values

6. What is traditional forest-related knowledge? “a cumulative body of knowledge, practice and belief, handed down through generations by cultural transmission and evolving by adaptive processes, about the relationship between living beings (including humans) with one another and with their forest environment” United Nations Forum on Forests 2004

7. Glimpses on TFRKs Europe Africa

8. Glimpses on TFRKs Mid Asia Asia

9. Unique features of traditional forest-related knowledge • Sustainability: the goal - maintaining the sustainability of the system. • Relationships: peoples’ connections among themselves and to their territory are not severed by the use of new knowledge, ideas or techniques. • Identity: people maintain their distinct identities. • Reciprocity: people maintain their system of benefit sharing among themselves, and • Limits on exchange: while people may engage in market exchange of products from the land, the fundamental productivity of the system itself is not viewed as capital to be exchanged.

10. Conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity • Sacred sites: religious, social, ecological roles • Culturally significant species • NTFPs: wild foods, traditional medicines, craft materials, etc….

11. Food security and agricultural productivity • Traditional plant breeding • Agroforestry • Permanent & shifting cultivation systems

12. Monitoring environmental change • Long-term observations of climate and weather forecasting based on plant and animal species distributions, phenologies, migration patterns …. • Value of traditional knowledge increasingly recognized in climate change assessments :

13. Climate change mitigation and adaptation • High energy-use efficiency of many traditional agro-forest and shifting cultivation systems relative to “modern” high-input agriculture • Adaptation of traditional forest and agriculture management to low and/or uncertain rainfall regimes

14. Role of Fengshui forest and holy trees • Making the village beautiful • Soil and water conservation • Tombs for forefathers, keeping forefather’s spirit quiet and well

15. TFRK is about how people manage forests traditionally • Forest classification/category – more then materialized productions • Fengshui forests / holy trees / closed forests / temple forests • Waterhead forests • Fuelwood forests • Belt for fire protections and community boundary

16. TK is a part of local eco-system, and local cultures, people’s life world,– Harmonized features between human and environments

17. Challenges for the preservation and development of TFRK • Erosion of traditional lifestyles, belief systems &traditional institutionsgoverning traditional forest management. • Vanishing traditional knowledgeof forest ecosystems, species and their management. • Loss of traditional local controlover forest resources and use. Weak or non-existent land rights and protection of forests from encroachment or expropriation.

18. Challenges for the preservation and development of TFRK • Degradation of forest ecosystemsin regions where traditional forest knowledge is concentrated: deforestation and forest degradation • Commercialization of traditional knowledgeby scientists and business interests without prior informed consent or adequate sharing of benefits (with the holders and users of this knowledge (e.g., medicinal plants) • Impacts of climate changeon forest ecosystems (changing species compositions, changing animal migration patterns, increased natural and anthropogenic disturbance …) and CC mitigation measures (large-scale forest conversion for production of biofuels. e.g., oil palm, sugarcane …)

19. Some critiques • Plantation + (China Tropical + Indonesia + PNG + Cambodia + Vietnam + …) = new (+ new) colonization (Human domination to motherland) • Plantation + (Germany + Norway + New Zealand + Finland) = Success of forestry

20. Why? • The same philosophy, sciences, technologies and likely similar forest governance regime, but total different outcomes between the south/north. • Then we should question: • Philosophy (individualism, rationalism, world master)? • Sciences is absolute “sciences”

21. Some reflections • Modernization = rationalization of traditional knowledge + dismissing religion • 150’s Forestry history = migration (colonization) of European forestry sciences to the rest of the world. • Recalling the masters of Germany philophy (Johann George Hamann、Frederich von Schelling, J.G. von Herder, Justus Moser) in 1800s’ • To France and UK where enlightening occurred, Germany is located in the east

22. Forest transition CIAS, Kyoto University

23. Nature of East Asia Wisdoms Satoyama, Satoumi – Japan; Maeulsoop – Korean; Fengshui Forests, Holly trees -China Philosophy: holistic and integration / simplification and segmentation Governance: Collective / individuals; customary rules / legislation Practices: a sort of lifestyle and attitude / property rights and trade-off for benefits

24. Remarks • The history of scientific forestry in China is only hundred years. We should not totally deny the colorful forestry related traditional knowledge that had been created and practiced by 5000 years. • Our East Asia recognized we have been in background in terms of sciences and technology in the past 150 yrs. • Colonization of western wisdom (advanced or modern knowledge and way of think and livelihoods)

25. East Asia Network on Forest Tradition and Culture

26. 农村调研

27. 中国生态脆弱带综合社区发展模式 • Version：天、人、地和谐美满，生产、生活与自然浑为一体（可视的两型社区） • 核心目标： • 重塑市场化、全球化背景下的农村社区结构 • 分合互补的自然资源利用 和管理系统景观和人-生态系统概念下生物多样性、草原和水保护 • 低碳社区（零排放社区） • 学习型社区

28. Thanks！ 28