#traditionalknowledge — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

DoomsdaysCW @[email protected] · 2026-08-15 · 18:34 UTC

#Biocultural families: Study centers #Indigenous priorities in connections to #environment

by Seth Truscott, August 11, 2026

"Washington State University horticulturist #JeffreyWall partnered with members of the #Mikmaq #FirstNations people of #Canada to create a new, #IndigenousCentered model of the connections that link humans with plants, animals and the environment.

"Wall interviewed over a dozen traditional knowledge keepers in Unama'ki, the #CapeBreton Island homeland of the Eskasoni Mi'kmaq. He asked tribal elders and allies to describe #BioculturalConnectivity — the relationship between human cultures and local #ecosystems — as they see it. The findings were published in Environmental Science & Policy.

" 'I wanted to show the connective forces that the Mi'kmaq prioritize,' Wall said. 'The goal was to be in tune with their deep #CulturalHeritage, traditions and the #indigenization of the future that they want to promote.'

"With more than 66,000 registered members, the Mi'kmaq are a resilient people native to the U.S. Northeast and Canada's Atlantic provinces who are revitalizing their language and growing their landholdings. Wall's work can guide future mapping and inform the institute's land acquisition strategy.

"The project reflects the concept of #TwoEyedSeeing — understanding the world from both #Indigenous and #Western approaches — introduced by Mi'kmaq elders Albert and Murdena Marshall.

" 'There is a growing understanding that environmental conditions can improve if we bring more Indigenous ways of knowing and being into the conversation,' said Lisa Young, executive director of the Unama'ki Institute of Natural Resources. 'Maintaining a #reciprocal relationship with the land is in itself a way to protect and preserve it.' "

#SolarPunkSunday #EnvironmentalAwareness #EnvironmentalStewardship #TraditionalKnowledge #Technology #TraditionalEcologicalKnowledge

#biocultural #indigenous #environment #jeffreywall #mikmaq #firstnations

DoomsdaysCW @[email protected] · 2026-08-15 · 17:14 UTC

The #Indigenous Roots of #RegenerativeAgriculture

“All flourishing is mutual.”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

August 9, 2023

"While a new wave of enthusiasm has crested in recent years, regenerative agriculture is an ancient concept that originated with #IndigenousPeoples around the world more than a thousand years ago. In many Indigenous world views, humans and nature are not separate forces, but parts of a whole that need each other to thrive. Regenerative agriculture supports this by promoting farming methods that enrich the land—so it can continue to provide for present and future generations.

"Embracing #TraditionalKnowledge

"Due to the long and horrific history of #StolenLand and #colonization, the Global North often refers to #IndigenousPeoples’ culture and knowledge in the past tense. Yet today, Indigenous peoples are indisputably the best guardians of our world’s most precious #ecosystems. When you take into account that the few remaining Indigenous lands are home to 80 percent of the world’s #Biodiversity, while modern #IndustrialAgriculture is responsible for 80 percent of global #deforestation, it’s clear that Western society still desperately needs to learn what Indigenous people have known for millennia: that human beings must live in a reciprocal relationship with the Earth.

"Around the world, Indigenous peoples have long practiced the key elements of regenerative agriculture. Here are just a few examples:

The art of #agroforestry

Some Indigenous communities, like the #Lenca people in #Honduras, know agroforestry simply as 'traditional technique.' Agroforestry—or the concept of growing crops in a way that mimics the forest and offers shade, protection, and nutrients—is such common practice there is no special name for it.

"Our lead for sustainable forest management, Emmanuelle Bérenger, explains the importance of Indigenous growing methods: 'By using #sustainable practices taught from one generation to another, [Indigenous peoples] actively safeguard forests, preserving biodiversity and keeping a delicate balance essential for both the environment and their own sustenance.' "

Learn more:
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/insights/the-indigenous-roots-of-regenerative-agriculture/

#SolarPunkSunday #Intercropping #FoodForests #ProtectNature #ProtectBiodiversity

#indigenous #regenerativeagriculture #indigenouspeoples #traditionalknowledge #stolenland #colonization

DoomsdaysCW @[email protected] · 2026-08-15 · 15:04 UTC

Nutrition programs work better when they include #Indigenous food knowledge

Researchers found nutrition programs work better when they include Indigenous food knowledge, local languages, and traditional practices.

By Raquel Brandao, July 24, 2026

Excerpt: "Cameras, cooking and conversation

"Some things worked. #Storytelling, #workshops, and #CookingDemonstrations turned up again and again across the 39 studies, alongside #TalkingCircles, #ShortFilms and #SmartphoneApps.

"The common thread is direction. Each of these methods lets people speak in their own words rather than sit and receive instruction.

"In #NewZealand ( #Aotearoa ), researchers built a mobile health app together with #Māori and #Pasifika partners. The language, the stories, and the pictures all came from the communities the app was meant for.

"Speaking with Earth.com, Rao described a project she led. 'In my own work, and one of the papers reviewed, I have used cameras and #DigitalTools with young women and men in an Indigenous community in #India to document their traditional food knowledges by speaking to the elders, visiting the forests and local markets, talking to women engaged in #foraging and #FoodPreparation.'

"That project is one of the 39 studies in the review. An earlier paper followed ten Santhal young people in eastern India who were trained to make films.

"They made nearly 50 films and screened them in their own villages. Older relatives supplied much of what went into them.

Elders as teachers

"Who holds the knowledge matters as much as what the knowledge is. #Elders, #healers, #farmers, and #women each carry different parts of it.

"None of it arrives as a curriculum. It moves between generations through cooking, gathering and long conversation, which is exactly what a nutrition leaflet cannot carry.

" 'Reclaiming and recognising #IndigenousKnowledge , values and practices to address the different elements of nutrition and health involves recognising intergenerational and wider social relations, and engaging everyone from the elders, healers, educators and farmers to service providers, policymakers and academics, to together raise issues and find solutions,' said Rao.

"Traditional foods carry knowledge of the local landscape in a way nothing else does. The review treats them as practical resources rather than heritage."

#SolarPunkSunday #Technology #IndigenousCommunities #TraditionalKnowledge #TraditionalDiets #FoodForests #Foraging #SharingKnowledge #PreservingCulture #TraditionalEcologicalKnowledge #FoodKnowledge #TraditionalFoods