Abstract:
Long before BrundLland. the concept of words like stability. balance, hannooy. tJ1e
economics of narure, or performance had gained widespte.):f recognition. People
in the Pleistocene era lived sustainably. l)'iog their survival co the heahJ1 of tl1e el'.ivi.ron.ment. Environmental wisdom has become much more ingtai11ed in their life.
11wc.h like a scieruitic- understanding of lhe environine1n. Early men.. partic.ulatly naive peoples, had a more educated undetstanding of the fundamemals of ecological
ar.d evolmio,ui;• biology (MarshaU 1995. 200 I).
lltis was especially t.rue of America·s indigenous people. Early studies by Haming1on (1992), Aoderson (1996), Hughes (1996), Berke,; (1999). Krech ( 1999a. b), Pieroni, and \Vildc-.at doc.uine.nted indigenous Americans' consciousness
before Europeans arrived (19973. b. 20(X)). These early accounls demonsttale tl1e i111pottaoce of indjgenous knowledge in ptactical situations such as agricuJtural
:l<'livirit"J:; :i,'CI firl" H'.()lney (foh:.nJ\l'_<i: IQXQ) \Vhih (;nlll <i:mrlit:.( tli>r";Ol lor::il ('llt•i" understandjng to be on par wilh weslern sc-ientific knowledge. odlets do oot (Tutner
2CX)5) . Though severaJ studies saw indjgeoous knowledge as lhe origins of people's local knowledge. it is a collection of values (Fig. 3.1 ). Indige.oous people's wisdom is
derived from a vatie1y of philosophical systems. Traditional Ecologic-al Knowledge
(TEK) (Johannes 1989; Pierotti and WiJdc:n 2000), Indigenous Knowledge (\Varren et al. 1995). LocaJ Knowledge {Bettes 1999), Folk Knowledge (Alessa 2009).
Nnuralized Knowledge Systems. and Native Science a.re some of lhe terrns used lO describe so-c:al led knowledge. Becaus-e lhe scope of 0011text is all abou1 natural
