Classification Systems: Indigenous

Abstract

Numerous developing countries, with agricultural and natural resource management traditions dating back to several thousand years, have generated, via hundreds of ethnic groups living in dozens of different ecological zones, an immense collection of indigenous natural resource management and agricultural knowledge as well as ethnopedology, i.e., soil type properties developed by indigenous technical knowledge (ITK). These soil types have been the basis for the "sustainable land management" (SLM) concept. This knowledge on soil classification, unique to a given culture or society, is unfortunately largely ignored in the so-called developing world in spite of the increasing number of studies conducted by international and locally functioning establishments, such as the World Bank, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, International Board for Soil Research and Management, the Institute of Indigenous Technology of the Iowa State University, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and United Nations Environment Programme. ITK obtained throughout the relevant world programs is concerned with a wide range of subjects from improved farm implements, to soil classification and SLM.