Gender, Biodiversity and Local Knowledge Systems (LinKS) to Strengthen Agricultural and Rural Development (GCP/RAF/338/NOR)
Selected Papers from the First National Workshop held in Morogoro, 22-23 June, 1999
In the broad sense, natural resource management can be defined as taking a firm decision about future of any area of resources, applying it and monitoring the application (Rietbergen 1993). It is widely accepted that natural resources should be managed to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations. Much of these benefits should be geared towards the local communities. Local communities surrounding natural resources should be the first hand beneficiaries to know the resource better than outsiders, and should have, therefore a great role to play in resources management.
Within natural resource management systems, Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) embraces people's knowledge of tools and techniques for the assessment, acquisition, transformation, and utilisation of resources which are specific to the particular location. ITK can encompass