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Honey bee publish details |
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SEARCH FOR SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE |
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Mangoes say no to hunger, dowry and female infanticide |
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Mangoes say no to hunger, dowry and female infanticide
According to a BBC news report (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10204759), families from Dharhara village in Bhagalpur district of Bihar follow an innovative practice of planting a minimum of ten mango trees at the birth of a girl child. With a population of a little over 7,000, the village has more than 100,000 fully grown trees, mostly of mango and lychee. The families in the village plant trees as an investment, which enables them to pay for the dowry at the time of their daughters’ marriage. This is done by keeping aside, without fail, a part of the sale proceeds obtained from the fruits of the tree every year.
A similar practice is found in Turkey where trees are traditionally planted to celebrate the birth of a female child as a kind of “down payment” on her wedding (www.fao.org/docrep/x5861e/x5861e04.htm).
Dong tribes in China are known to plant timber trees to commemorate each birth, as an “18 year-tree”. The timber of the tree would be available to build a house by the time the child reaches marriageable age (http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=1003&catid=5&subcatid=31).
The idea of planting trees to commemorate the birth of a child or the death of a loved one dates back to antiquity. In Poland, a grove of trees is planted upon the birth of a child to build the child a house when he/she comes off age. A similar tradition exists in China, where a grove is planted for every daughter, the timber from which will become her dowry (www.thistlebrook.com.au/a-living-memorial/ , July 29, 2010).
There is an old Jewish tradition to plant trees at the birth of a child – cedar for a boy and pine apple for a boy. Similarly in Switzerland, an apple tree is planted at the birth of a boy and a nut tree for a girl (Celebrating Motherhood: A Comforting Companion for Every Expecting Mother, Andrea Alban Gosline, Lisa Burnett Bossi, Ame Mahler Beanland, Judy F (2002), Conari, p299)
Indigenous knowledge and climate change: “Rainmakers and Inuits”
Long vilified as sorcerers, Kenya’s Nganyi rainmakers — with meteorological equipment consisting of trees, pots and herbs – are being enlisted to mitigate the effects of climate change (Kenya’s rainmakers called to combat climate change, JEAN-MARC MOJON | MASENO, KENYA - Sep 20 2009 07:35). Of late, the scientific world has begun embracing them as partners in unraveling the never-ending mysteries of Mother Nature. As part of a two-year project, funded by the International Development Research Centre, a museum will be set up at Nganyi shrine. The project’s team leader, Prof Laban Ogallo, who is also the head of the Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC), run by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad), says that the aim of the project is to demystify the knowledge of the Nganyi community as rainmakers. “This will enrich Western methods to improve local communities’ adaptation to climate change,” he adds. Prof Ogallo says that the Nganyi community was selected based on the results of a recent survey carried out by ICPAC and UNEP. “The study revealed that the community has a well-developed indigenous climate forecast system that could be integrated into Western climate forecasts,” he explains (Kenya: Scientists in Rare Joint-Project With Traditional Rainmakers, Cosmas Butunyi, 1 July 2008).
Local communities and farmers in Africa have developed intricate systems of gathering, predicting, interpreting and decision-making in relation to weather. Farmers in Nigeria are reported to use the knowledge of weather systems such as rainfall, thunderstorms, windstorms, harmattan and sunshine to plan for future weather (Ajibade and Shokemi, 2003 www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch9s9-6-2.html)
Indigenous methods of weather forecasting are known to complement farmers’ planning activities in Nigeria. A similar study in Burkina Faso showed that farmers’ forecasting knowledge encompasses shared and selective experiences. Elderly male farmers formulate hypotheses about seasonal rainfall by observing natural phenomena, while cultural and ritual specialists draw predictions from divination, visions or dreams (Roncoli et al., 2001). The most widely relied upon indicators are the timing, intensity and duration of cold temperatures during the early part of the dry season (November to January). Other forecasting indicators include the timing of fruiting by certain local trees, the water level in streams and ponds, the nesting behaviour of small quail like birds, and insect behaviour in rubbish heaps outside compound walls (Roncoli et al., 2001 www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch9s9-6-2.html).
Recently, there was an article in Scientific American about a project where researchers at the University of Colorado would combine scientific data and the traditional environmental knowledge from two Canadian Inuit communities for shedding new light on an overlooked aspect of climate change. “This is not the first scientific paper on Inuit knowledge,” said lead author Elizabeth Weatherhead, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado. But it is the first paper linking that Inuit knowledge to more scientific approaches. She added,” We all grew up with the idea that if today is a warm day, tomorrow will be a warm day, too — but we probably won’t be stuck in a warm period for three weeks. There’s a natural time scale to weather events. That’s what seems to be changing'
(Source:http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=inuit-climate-change)
Turning to traditional medicines in fight against malaria
BN Prakash, a researcher with the Foundation for the Revitalization of Local Health Traditions, based in Bangalore, reported in a conference in Nairobi last year that a five to ten times reduction in malaria related deaths could be achieved by use of traditional medicinal plants like ‘guduchi’ (Tinospora cordifolia (Willd)Miers ex Hook F & THOMS), a local medicinal plant found in India. Another speaker, Gemma Burford of the Global Initiative for Traditional Systems of Health, shared that while carrying out research involving school children in rural Tanzania about traditional Maasai medicines, they found out that 48 per cent of these children already had knowledge about these plants. They used this knowledge to create a database for the purposes of preserving the knowledge and these plants too.
(Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200911040821.html)
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| Volume No. |
Honey bee 21(2), 16, 2010 |
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