Over the past years there has been growing concern about the loss of indigenous or local knowledge. Formal school education has become the only form of knowledge that makes any meaningful contribution to understanding various elements, natural phenomena and issues of our world both past and present.
Most learners and educators in Africa, and South Africa, in particular have been forced to look down on what they learned from elders and parents at home and within their communities.
Apartheid education ensured that learners were only exposed to prescribed content in selected textbooks. This has, over the decades, led to the marginalisation and devaluation of indigenous or local knowledge. It has created a sense that the environment can only be understood in terms of English or Western scientific concepts. As a result, learners find it difficult to understand these concepts within the context of everyday life. Most black learners survived the education system by memorising what was taught without any meaningful understanding of the natural environment.
On the other hand, conservation initiatives, such as the declaration of certain areas as protected areas or national parks, were done unlawfully without the consent of local communities. Many communities were forcibly removed from these areas. These socially unjust conservation practices led to negative perceptions about the need for conservation and environmental protection. It also contributed towards further separating indigenous communities from their land and from the wealth of indigenous knowledge that was developed within these areas and passed on from generation to generation.
SANParks linking wise elders and the youth
SANParks (South African National Parks) has, together with the Wilderness Foundation, taken up the challenge of engaging the youth through educational wilderness camps and trail activities based on indigenous knowledge. The Imbewu Youth Programme is an environmental awareness programme that explores the often forgotten and marginalised oral history and indigenous teachings of South Africa. This is achieved by exposing young people to the indigenous knowledge of wise elders (often retired park rangers who have both indigenous and modern scientific knowledge of the local fauna and flora and landscape) acting as teachers and interpreters of nature. They share their knowledge through stories, songs, folklore, proverbs, totems and taboos, dances, myths, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, community laws, local language and taxonomy, agricultural practices, equipment, materials, plant species and animal breeds. A group of young people is taken on wilderness trails for a number of days. Camps have been established with great success at the Kruger, Namaqua, Addo Elephant, Tsitsikamma and Marakele national parks.
The programme targets interested youth from previously disadvantaged communities in South Africa, mostly from townships and rural areas. Most of the young people are from secondary schools (Grades 8 to 12) and most of them have never set foot in a national park. Rustic, low-impact bush camps are identified in wilderness sections of the parks where there is no human activities. Electric fences are erected around the camps where it is necessary to keep out dangerous animals and campers sleep out in the bush under an open sky. During the day, they go out on trails with the elders interpreting nature in an indigenous language.
Some examples of Imbewu indigenous knowledge activities are:
Conservation
Vultures, today an endangered species, had an exceptionally high protection status. The destruction and consumption of vultures and other rare and ecologically important species, such as oxpeckers, egret, secretary birds, pythons and monitor lizards, were reserved for traditional healing and even today it is taboo to hunt these species.
While tribal laws protected ecologically important species, the utilisation of common species for the benefit of indigenous people is wisely controlled in a traditional way. A good example is traditional game hunting conducted by local hunters at a frequency dictated by the chief.
Language
Proverbs are an important heritage and express meaning in many ways. Different indigenous communities have proverbs peculiar to their environmental settings to uphold their values, morals and overall way of life. These proverbs are contain references to natural things such as animals, plants, landscapes and extraterrestrial objects.
African folk stories
The wisdom of the elders is used to interpret the natural wilderness environment. Interpretation ranges from fauna and flora, sites, landscapes and historical links to conservation ethics, tribal wildlife laws, languages (proverbs and idioms) taboos, totems and taxonomy. African folk stories always contain a lesson.
Other activities
Apart from what can be done on a trail and around the campfire, participants visit local cultural sites, play African indigenous games (such as morufa, morabaraba and diketo) and also go on a solitaire. It is during the solitaire that campers learn to communicate with Mother Nature. This can be shared as a poem, drawing or song. Campers react positively to these. They also become aware of similarities between current games and indigenous games.
Things to consider:
Think for a moment about how much you and your learners know about the local natural environment:
_How many trees can you identify and name in your indigenous language?
_What is known (indigenous) about this natural heritage (uses, taboos and beliefs)?
_Can you establish why these taboos or stories exist and what some of the indigenous names mean?
Learning outcome 3: science, society and the environment of the natural science curriculum has the following assessment standard for grade 6: ‘the learner understands science and technology in the context of history and indigenous knowledge—”.
What activities can be developed for learners to explore the links between scientific concepts, local society (indigenous knowledge) and the environment as suggested within the curriculum?
For more information, contact SANParks’ People and Conservation Division at (012) 426 5205/6. Materials supplied by Edgar Neluvhalani, South African National Parks