Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
5.2.3 l
acK
oF
F
rameWorK
/m
echanIsm
For
I
ntegratIon
oF
tK
and
sK
Postmodern science's school of thought transcends the modern notions of the mate-
rial reality and subscribes to application of a wider variety of methods of know-
ing and learning in pursuit of the ultimate truth (Kamil 2011). Under this school of
thought, both TK and SK for soil management are invariably in concordance with
the principles of conservation, namely, planning, protection, and monitoring, but
variably differ in terms of practice quality. Understanding these differences is fun-
damental to the development of a comprehensive framework for integration of the
two divergent knowledge systems, assessment of geographic scale (local to global)
of application, standardization of methods for measuring soil quality (e.g., soil fer-
tility loss or gain), and a variety of other elements that increase the benefits to soil
management. Very few countries have applied TK to inform decision-making pro-
cesses (e.g., land evaluation in Swaziland) (Osunade 1992). Yet the integration of
both TK and SK sources is a promising new stream of research and application for
land evaluation and land use planning using Geographical Information System (GIS)
(Barrera-Bassols and Zinck 1986), managing for increasing ecosystem resilience to
global climate change by minimizing the impacts of local stressors or disturbances.
Scientific research associated with resilience is useful in influencing policy making
and subsequent environmental decision making in several ways:
Protection
: Observed resilience within specific ecosystems drives manage-
ment practice. When resilience is observed to be low, or impact seems to be
reaching the threshold, management response can be to alter human behav-
ior to result in less adverse impact to the ecosystem (Brand 2009).
Planning
: Ecosystem resilience influences environmental decision making,
similar to the way that existing ecosystem health impacts upon what devel-
opment pathway is adopted (Brand 2009). For example, the management
of fragile mountainous soils on steep slopes is influenced by their stabil-
ity to external forces, and the ecosystem conditions influence the land use
(Tamang 1993). For threatened ecosystems, environmental impact assess-
ment of the development pathway to be taken must be informed by their
health and resilience.
Monitoring
: Improvement of the
socioecological resilience
of ecosystems is
now a worldwide concern for scientists and other experts as demonstrated
by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) initiative. This initia-
tive's stated objective is “to assess the consequences of ecosystem change
for human wellbeing and the scientific basis for action needed to enhance
the conservation and sustainable use of those systems and their contribution
to human wellbeing.”
The lack of a framework for integration of TK and SK
inter alia
emanates from
the differences in management attributes captured (
Table 5.2
). Farmers' management
practices are based on subjective rationality, while scientific technologies are based
on objective measurements (Beckford 2002). Farmers' knowledge is well developed
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