Moderator: Youn Yeo-Chang
Monday, 24 October 2016, 13:30-15:30 (Room 302B)

 

Find abstracts on the Congress website http://www.iufro-ao2016.org/en/index.asp?hid= under Congress Program!


In this session, Traditional Forest Knowledge practices were suggested as a collective pathway for sustainable forestry development. However, there are national and international concerns regarding the loss of these traditions and the consequently negative effects for local livelihoods and natural resources protection. China’s economic development, social transformation and governmental intervention have had significant influence in local forest management decisions and culture, moving from the loss of almost all natural forest by 1980, to promoting community-based traditional knowledge building capacity for landscape management by 2010.

Local communities have relied on traditional knowledge to manage forest and utilize their resources for centuries. This cumulative body of ecological knowledge, culture and forest management experience has been transmitted through generations and across multiple landscapes. Nevertheless, human development has disturbed their retention and application all over the world.

In China, socio-economic development, governmental policies and the combination of old and new cultures have affected the capacity of forests to provide environmental services and eroded the retention of community-based traditional forest knowledge. Moreover, the influence of urban lifestyle, age, gender, modern education, and economic development among others have been identified as erosion factors of traditional forest-related knowledge in local Chinese communities. It was also mentioned that the hybrid traditional/modern knowledge system might have a negative effect on the ecological community-based forest management impacting the effectiveness of these systems.

In conclusion, the change of traditional forest culture is a dynamic and complex process that depends on internal and external factors. Further studies are needed to focus on traditional knowledge processes and answer more questions on the disturbing factors and how we can contribute to help mitigate these effects. Forthcoming research is fundamental in order to influence future governmental policies and connect traditional forest-related knowledge with sustainable forest restoration programs.

 

Presentations in this session:

  • A study on the retention of traditional forest-related knowledge: the case of Dengcen village in Guizhou province, Southwest China (Yinghe Huang, Seoul National University Korea)
  • Forest Management Changes and Collective Actions in a Traditional Forestry Village in Southern China (Zhang Minghui, Renmin University of China)
  • Forestry Traditional Knowledge and Ecological Effectiveness of Community-Based Forestry Management: Qualitative Measurement and Analysis (Minghui Zhang, Renmin University of China)
  • Decontextualizing Changes of TFRK of Lisu Minority in China —A case of Henghe community, Tengchong County of Yunnan Province (Jinlong Liu, Renmin University of China)