Traditional knowledge News

RSS
319 stories
A Dayak elder with a young member in Sungai Utik.

Borneo’s ‘omen birds’ find a staunch guardian in Indigenous Dayak Iban elders

Sonam Lama Hyolmo 15 Nov 2024
Nya Dosem, a specially prepared smoked fish made from snowtrout (Schizothorax genus).

In Bhutan, a smoked fish tradition helps sustain a vanishing ethnic group

Choki Wangmo 4 Nov 2024
Oracle in Rumtse village, Ladakh, India, where decision-making involves spirits of the land and water.

If all life mattered, what would decision-making look like? (Analysis)

Shrishtee Bajpai, Ashish Kothari 25 Oct 2024
Santa Marta's traditional medicine doctors Mauricio Martínez, Elicia Martínez and Viviana Montero stand among a plot of land containing curative plants.

The Panamanian shamans working to save their ancestral medicinal plants

Adam D. Williams 22 Oct 2024
Alexandrino Garcia, an Abuelos de Tajín, in front of a Totonac altar in his house. Image by Monica Pelliccia.

In Mexico, Totonac spiritual guides work with scientists to revive ecosystems

Monica Pelliccia 7 Oct 2024
Two young gorillas play in Gabon. Experts say humans' and gorillas' shared used of medicinal plants highlights the interconnectedness between humans and other apes. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Indigenous knowledge proves key in a study of plants gorillas use to self-medicate

Charles Mpaka 3 Oct 2024
Women's cooperative farm in Dogba. Image by Leocadia Bongben for Mongabay.

How the Zai farming technique is transforming soil fertility in North Cameroon

Leocadia Bongben 11 Sep 2024
A yellow oriental paper wasp (Polistes olivaceus)

Bats & bees help ni-Vanuatu predict storms — but will climate change interfere?

Sonam Lama Hyolmo 10 Sep 2024
Tightly coiled ferns of Matteuccia struthiopteris.

In Nepal, a humble edible fern is at heart of human-tiger conflict

Abhaya Raj Joshi 6 Sep 2024
Farmers on rice terraces in Bali.

In Bali, water temple priests guide a sustainable rice production system

Elizabeth Sinclair 26 Aug 2024
In community fisheries reserves, fish scouts or guards patrol the rivers to remove illegal nets and enforce local rules. Fish monitors record catches that are taken legally to track the state of their local fish stocks. Photo courtesy of Marcus Westberg.

As southern African freshwater fish & fisheries struggle, collaboration is key (commentary)

Gail Thomson 22 Aug 2024
Women in the São João da Ponta Extractive Reserve fish for crabs on the Mocajuba River in the Amazonian mangroves of northern Brazil.

Brazil’s ‘Mothers of the Mangroves’ protect an ecological and cultural heritage

Sarah Brown 19 Aug 2024

National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan on why Indigenous peoples are the best conservationists

Mike DiGirolamo 13 Aug 2024
Children are invited to guess the type of medicinal plant from its aroma.

Sumatra community school hands down ancient knowledge to modern generation

Teguh Suprayitno 7 Aug 2024
Hymenaea courbaril

Time for a copal comeback? The natural resin could boost Amazon’s economy

Fernanda Wenzel 30 Jul 2024
Shelly Boyd, a Sinixt woman, co-leads the annual salmon ceremony at Kettle Falls and keeps tradition alive by singing songs that have been sung there for millennia.

A tribe once declared ‘extinct’ helps reintroduce salmon to the Columbia River

Anna Dulisse 30 Jul 2024
Ailton Krenak

It’s not the end, we have several possible futures: Interview with Indigenous author Ailton Krenak

Jaqueline Sordi 30 Jul 2024
From left: Florinda Zurdo, Silvia Salina and Patricia Mendoza stand in a plot of land near ASASTRAN’s site in Lajero where traditional medicine is cultivated.

Indigenous midwives in Panama strive to preserve traditional medicine for maternal health

Adam D. Williams 25 Jul 2024
A Maasai man armed with a spear stands on a hilltop close to the highest point of the Loita hills.

Photos: For Kenya’s Maasai, will a new faith undo age-old conservation traditions?

Stuart Butler 23 Jul 2024
Goondoi rangers performing a traditional dance at Etty Bay Beach.

Shaping the next generation of Indigenous rangers: Interview with Manni Edwards

Sonam Lama Hyolmo 18 Jul 2024
Service in Östersund.

How Europe’s only Indigenous group is inspiring a greener Christianity

John Last 17 Jul 2024
Morchella esculenta mushrooms, locally called gucchi.

Traditional foods have the potential to help Kashmir communities adapt to climate change: study

Sonam Lama Hyolmo 16 Jul 2024
Lupine flowers in sunshine in Milford Sound, New Zealand. Image by Aneta Hartmannová via Unsplash.

Is ‘legal personhood’ a tool or a distraction for Māori relationships with nature?

Monica Evans 8 Jul 2024
Musicians at a 2019 ceremony marking a three-month rāhui closure of the bonefish fishery in Anaa Atoll.

French Polynesians revive traditional rāhui to protect fish — and livelihoods

Amélie David 4 Jul 2024
Aba Gebreselassie stands near a big tree in the forest around Ura Kidane Mihret Monastery in the Zege peninsula, Ethiopia.

Guardians of the sacred: Ethiopian Orthodox monks on spiritual forest conservation

Solomon Yimer 27 Jun 2024
Handils are the boundaries of fields as well as paths for transportation and waters to fish in.

Borneo’s Dayak adapt Indigenous forestry to modern peat management

Titik Kartitiani 25 Jun 2024
Water scarcity has been a problem for Xochimilco residents for a long time, even before the recent drought, due to the overexploitation of its aquifers that supply neighboring urban areas and megaprojects.

Photos: Exploring Mexico City’s Aztec-era farms, the chinampas

Aimee Gabay 19 Jun 2024
Stilt mangrove roots in West Bengal's Sundarbans.

Caught in the net: Unchecked shrimp farming transforms India’s Sundarbans

Niladry Sarkar 19 Jun 2024
He‘eia fishpond.

Restoring Indigenous aquaculture heals both ecosystems and communities in Hawai‘i

Keona Blanks 5 Jun 2024

Indigenous Alaskans drive research in a melting arctic

Gabe Allen 4 Jun 2024
A Dayak Pitap woman.

On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest

Riyad Dafhi Rizki 15 May 2024

Secrets from the rainforest’s past uncovered in Amazonian backyards

Carolina Pinheiro 8 May 2024

you're currently offline