Unit 7: Ecological wisdom in traditional knowledge

Welcome to Unit 7 of Sustainable pedagogies.

In the previous unit, you were introduced to transformative and regenerative learning concepts that help the transition toward more sustainable ways of learning, teaching, thinking and acting.

This unit will follow on from those principles by exploring how looking at traditional ecological knowledge and nature-inspired principles may help us move forward toward a more sustainable future. It will also ask you to consider how such wisdom can be made part of your professional practice.

Activity planner

With the climate crisis escalating, scientists, ecologists and researchers around the globe are turning to traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), indigenous local knowledge (ILK) or Native Science to get a deeper understanding of the reciprocal relationship between humans and the natural world.

These sources of knowledge will be discussed in this unit, as well as how they can be drawn on in learning about sustainability. These traditional sources of knowledge and understanding can be drawn on to design the ecologically sustainable transformations required in the next decades.

TEK can be broadly defined as ‘the knowledge and know-how accumulated across generations, and renewed by each new generation, which guide human societies in their innumerable interactions with their surrounding environment’ (Nakashima et al., 2012, p. 8).

Central to TEK are notions of collective heritage and collective human experience with the natural world through thousands of generations. An experience that is human and shared while being simultaneously local, strongly community-based, and reflecting the knowledge, practices, worldview and beliefs of a particular bioregion and culture (Whyte, 2013).

TEK is place-based, and an expression of the knowledge and wisdom of indigenous groups that co-evolved with their ecosystem, along with a deep awareness of and respect for the uniqueness of the place they inhabited. This therefore connects with the notions of seeking out and facilitating the participation of local knowledge by indigenous peoples advocated in Unit 3.

Another critical element in TEK is the interconnection between knowledge and wisdom. ‘Knowledge’ usually refers to information or awareness that someone has about a subject. This can be gained through education or experience. ‘Wisdom’ refers to someone’s good sense or judgment and ability to process, apply, or otherwise act on knowledge.

Knowledge and wisdom are both essential elements of that experiential body of practices, beliefs, and cultures developed through millennia. Some authors refer to it as traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom (TEKW).

What is the point of learning if it does not result in acting on that knowledge?

An example of the combination of local knowledge and wisdom that is found in every traditional culture, and especially those based on agriculture, is proverbs (sayings). They help people understand natural phenomena, engage with them and act with wisdom. People used proverbs to remind them how to act, such as planting seeds at a specific time or in certain weather, or staying inside if the wind was blowing from a certain direction.

‘A stitch in time saves nine’ – dealing promptly with a problem avoids the need for more laborious solutions later

According to TEK, ecology and sustainability is not about understanding how the dynamics between humans, land and non-humans work but about considering that humans and non-humans are all part of the same community and are all related, and are in reciprocal or circular types of connection.

According to Shilling (2018) there are recurring key-notions that many indigenous and traditional beliefs share, which have been adapted into six ‘R’s:

All the points listed above require not only ecological awareness but a participatory mind, which is a ‘way of thinking, understanding and participating with the natural world, that holds the best and most life-sustaining solutions to the current disconnection of science to the ground of its own being’ (Cajete, 2018, p. 96).

This participatory mind as discussed in Unit 3 seems to be natural to many indigenous and traditional societies, whilst considered lost in the modern world. Shifting toward a participatory mind, through embracing an approach to the natural world promoted by traditional knowledge, would help us move forward by looking back, or better, through coming full circle.

As Abram (1996, p. 170) states:

How can the transition to a participatory mind for ourselves and our students be promoted? How do indigenous and traditional societies transfer experiential knowledge and wisdom while instilling the need for reciprocity, respect, and reverence towards ecosystems? What can be learned from these practices that may help us develop more sustainable pedagogies?

Storytelling and myths

In indigenous practices, experiential knowledge is transferred from one generation to the other through stories that reflect the collective experience of people and the land they inhabit. They engage the heart and mind promoting the particular way of participating in the natural world that is central to TEK.

As Fernández-Llamazares and Cabeza (2018, p. 3) explain:

The power of storytelling as a pedagogical tool is overshadowed by a scientific mindset in the modern world. Indigenous practices may help remind us how stories can raise interest, deliver content with a context, encourage a holistic way of thinking and promote transformative learning (Hofman, 2022).

Indigenous stories and myths provide original instructions for how to care for and relate to the land. They also offer mnemonic frameworks for storing that knowledge and are used as practical pedagogical tools for the transmission of knowledge.

In indigenous societies, rituals mark seasonal events, like celebrating the new harvest, or are performed to engage with the elements, like rainmaking rituals. Rituals are essential to involve communities in a reciprocal and emotional relationship with their environment, to celebrate or ask for support.

Rituals and the idea of sacredness connected to specific places are also crucial for preserving habitats. Sinthunule (2023, p. 7) stated:

Similarly, the preservation of the Gosaikunda Lake in Nepal is strictly connected to the lake being one of the important religious sites in Nepal. As per Hindu mythology, Gosaikunda is considered the abode of the Hindu deities Lord Shiva and Gauri (Thakuri et al., 2021).

The potential of rituals for ecosystem preservation and restoration is immense and promotes the ideas of reciprocity, reverence, relationship and responsibility mentioned above. Creating new rituals and promoting a ritualistic approach to local trees, waters, and natural environments may help people develop that idea of sacredness that would help lead to respect, emotional connection and the desire for preservation.

Introducing permaculture

Permaculture (originally Permanent Agriculture and Permanent Culture) is a design system and a social movement founded by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s. It is a way of designing regenerative systems at all scales using nature's principles as a model to create resilient, healthy, diverse and productive landscapes and communities.

Described as a ‘holistic, integrated practice that can build functioning sustainable alternatives that balance the needs of nature with the needs of humans’ (Pickerill, 2013, p. 180), ‘Its goals and priorities coincide with what many people see as the core requirements for sustainability’ (Chapman, n.d.). Permaculture seeks to co-create a society rooted in ethics of sustainability, social justice, and equity through nested and intersecting action learning processes (Henfrey, 2018).

In her book People and Permaculture, Looby Macnamara states that Permaculture has limitless meanings but some commonalities that help understand it. She defines Permaculture as a design system that:

These are all points that a sustainable pedagogy could be based on.

Permaculture has a set of ethics at its core, techniques and methodical steps to assist in the design process and a call to action and twelve principles to guide this.

The set of ethics includes:

• care for Earth
• care for people
• fair share.

Permaculture is not alone in being ethically based. Many worldviews and beliefs, arising from differing contexts, share this way of thinking e.g. Lepine et al. (2004) who stated that permaculture makes the ethics of Earth care, people care and fair shares explicit within a design process, removing them from the realms of philosophy and rooting them in everybody's lives. Harland (2013) says these transform thinking into doing. Whatever action is taken and whichever principles are worked with, they need to meet these three ethics. When these ethics are incorporated into a pedagogy, they will provide immense support for the development of a sustainable society.

The twelve principles in the diagram below, likewise, provide a set of universally applicable guidelines that can be used in designing any sustainable system. They have been derived from the thoughtful observation of nature and earlier work by ecologists, landscape designers and environmental scientists.

Figure 1  The Permaculture Flower

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In the centre of the image are three core priniciples: care for Earth, care for people and fair share. The second layer of the 'flower' is seven categories: land and nature stewardship, built environment, tools and technology, culture and education, health and spiritual wellbeing, finance and economics, land tenure and community governance. The outer layer of the flower is the 12 principles. 1) observe and interact, 2) ccatch and store energy, 3) obtain a yield, 4) apply self-regulation and accept feedback, 5) use and value renewable resources, 6) produce zero waste, 7) design from patterns and details, 8) integrate rather than segregate, 9) use small and slow solutions, 10) use and value diversity, 11) use edges and value the marginal, 12) creatively use and respond to change.

Figure 1  The Permaculture Flower

For their simplicity and transferability, the twelve permaculture principles can be integrated into higher education curriculum design as an essential structure for sustainable, and self-sustainable, thinking and action. But they can also become learning and teaching tools to ensure that what is taught and how it is taught, as well as what and how students – and ourselves as learners – learn, aligned with nature's principles.

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Transcript: Video 1  Incorporating the twelve permaculture principles into teaching and learning

Alessandra Campoli

For their simplicity and transferability, the 12 Permaculture Principles can be integrated into higher education curriculum design as an essential structure for sustainable and self sustainable thinking and action.

But they can also become learning and teaching tools to ensure that what is taught and how it is taught, as well as what and how students and ourselves as learners learn, align with nature's principles.

The first principle is observe and interact. This is the starting point of permaculture principles and actions in the garden. We need to observe when the fruit is ready to harvest and what plants need attention. Animals in the wild observe before moving to action.

To have a beneficial effect on any system, whether it is an ecosystem, a person or group, or even our own mental ecology, we need to develop an understanding of that system through observation and direct experience.

While the intellect is a phenomenal tool, being present with the experience of interacting with the system is irreplaceable. Observing patterns of behaviour, preferences, contradictions and habits allow us to see what is going well and what might need changing. Interacting in this sense is vital as there is no point in just observing. A dynamic and iterative approach to the observant interrupt principle may help us bring significant improvements and save us time and energy in the long run in whatever we plan or design.

And this leads us to the principles catch and store energy use and value renewable resources and services, and produce no waste. I combine here these three principles for their focus on energy and resources.

Ecological systems involve continuous energy storing and exchange. For example, all the energy to grow a forest that comes from the sun and rain, or from energy cycling within the forest itself. It is stored and keeps the forest healthy through a balanced exchange among the elements. Everything is used within the system and there is no waste. As humans, we need to work with our natural rhythms and energy levels to catch and store energy, and so do students for being sustainable and self sustainable and for greatest productivity.

And everyone needs to work on something they're passionate about. Our capacity increases when we feel a connection and purpose to activities. When that happens, people are more energetic and effective, making sure that the activities proposed to students are engaging, balance, connect to their passion, but are also clear and have aims and purposes that students are aware of will maximise their learning. In this way, our students would catch and store energy as the elements of a natural system. Educators and students can also share energy and become resources for one another. Knowledge and skills are renewable resources that should be valued. Peer sharing and peer feedback feedback, for example, could be renewable resources that generate A flux of energy. Those who help others learn should also be creative in producing new resources that can be cyclical and renewable, or in designing multifunction solutions to recycle an element into many different functions and produce no waste.

At the same time, nothing in terms of planning time or personal resources should go to waste when working within the learning communities. These principles guide the use of old talent, energy skills and knowledge of students or the wider community, ideas generated and power on hand.

To meet the above principles, time, space and a broad overview of the available resources and what is aimed to be achieved with those resources is needed. The principles designed for pattern to detail and use small and slow solutions encourage stepping back to take time and observe existing patterns as the first stage of the design process. This enables the designers to work out an overall pattern that seem to work well done.

Smaller details can be addressed. In nature. Every tree has the same pattern of roots, trunk and leaves, but they each has different details resulting in different species. In curriculum design, we should start with our pedagogical goals, the trunk routes and leaves to arrive at the end at the creation of tasks and assignments corresponding to the details making the different 3 speeches. This means that the activities we propose to our students do not stand alone single investigations of an element of knowledge or skill, but tie into the larger scope of intended outcomes. When designing a system from patterns to detail, we can also look at the overarching patterns of success from another system, which in curriculum design means looking at successful patterns in the existing educational framework that come from the structure. For a new curriculum, design, integrate rather than segregate, use and value, diversity, use and value, edges and marginal. These three principles have been grouped because they form the core of environmental and social sustainability and are critical to a sustainable and self sustainable approach to education. Edges are a central element in permaculture design. They are the interfaces between 2 ecosystems.

There are dynamic, fuzzy places that share, amalgamate and integrate characteristics from each of the adjoining places, as well as having a distinctive ecosystem themselves. Ages are marginal and diverse, and they get their value, richness, and productivity precisely by their marginality and diversity in nature. Diversity allows for an abundance of yield, diverse systems are more resilient and diversity is the basis of regenerative design,

McNamara states: By being aware of our boundaries, we can gently stretch ourselves into the new. Being open to other viewpoints and ways of doing things, we allow new information in and expand our knowledge base. Being conscious of times we are on edge, then appreciating it for its characteristics allows us to be brave and challenge ourselves, perhaps leading us to new and exciting possibilities. In designing planning, these principles should remind us to look for solutions at the edge of what is expected and in teaching to encourage our students to do the same, to value marginal ideas, the ones that seem outside the box or beyond the conventional. We should aim to emphasise how diversity in nature, society and the learning environment brings strength to the whole and encourage and make use of their diversity. And we should aim to create and allow for a diversity of opportunities and offerings in the curriculum.

The diversity of activities, methods and approaches allows us for an abundance of yield within the learning community. Yield is a recurrent concept in permaculture design and obtain A yield is one of the principles in nature. Grazing animals are continuously obtaining a harvest. Similarly, expanding the idea of yields increases our potential to get harvests from our activities. Job satisfaction fund growth and learning can be valued yields in the curriculum. Obtaining yields help us educators and learners to maintain motivation and momentum on our path. Rewards provide incentives for us and are much more satisfying when they come from the work itself rather than externally.

The last two principles are focused on constructive change. The first of the two is apply self regulation and accept feedback. Climate change is throwing ecosystems into turmoil. It is essential that we accept the feedback that the planet is giving us and self regulate our actions that we observe and interact. Just to go back to the first principle,

being open to feedback and learning to accept it as a suggestion for improvement is essential to our development as learners and humans. But it is also important to regulate how much we need to change or improve. To understand the scale of the change and improvement that are neededin curriculum development, we should aim at creating feedback loops in both the design and function of curriculum development.

Working with projects, we are encouraged to identify what is working and what is not working and ensure that systems are working well in classrooms. Teachers are encouraged to use a self regulation and evaluation and at the same time learners can be encouraged to create their own self regulation measures.

The last principle is creatively use and respond to change in nature. As Macnamara stays on bear thin soil, nature will click quickly. Colonise with pioneer plants. These plants often have the characteristic for being Hardy, producing a lot of leaf litter and setting seed quickly. These improve conditions, improve conditions for plant that need more shade and soil, and barren fields can eventually become forests. This process is called natural succession.

Change is inevitable and often we can't control it. Dealing with it constructively and creatively, adjusting to situations instead of resisting them, being flexible, are essential to develop resilience.

The proverb associated with this principle is vision is not seeing things as they are, but as they will be. The amount of change we can expect in the next decades due to climate change, food and water scarcity, migration, wars, and many other factors will be more significant that we have seen before in nature. It is change that produces diversity and evolution. Societal change demands A concomitant change in pedagogy that will help to foster a well balanced, ecologically minded, flexible, creative, critical thinking and problem solving population that can respond to and deal with that change.

In this sense, it is essential that the sustainable pedagogy is able to facilitate a transformative learning experience and that we aim towards what Sterling define learning exchange, which engages the whole person and the whole learning institution.

But before changing anything, we need to observe and think. And these links us back to the first principle. Observe and interact in an iterative and spiralling process aimed at continuous change, adaptation and improvement.

Thank you for watching this video and here are some references for you.

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References Burke, K. (2017) Permaculture Design as a Pedagogical Resource. Available at: https://medium.com/@katharinestavrinou/permaculture-design-as-a-pedagogical-resource-b9ed547d970a (Accessed: 5 March 2022).; Chapman, E. (n.d.) What is Permaculture? Available at: https://www.permaculture.co.uk/what-is-permaculture (Accessed: 10 March 2022).; Harland, M. (2013) What is Permaculture – Part 1: Ethics. Available at: https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/what-permaculture-part-1-ethics (Accessed: 10 March 2022).; Heckert, J. (2014) ‘Planning for Abundance: Permaculture and Radical Transformation’, Theory in action, 7(4), pp. 97–106. Available at: doi:10.3798/tia.1937-0237.14030 (Accessed: 10 March 2022).; Henfrey, T.W. (2018) ‘Designing for resilience: permaculture as a transdisciplinary methodology in applied resilience research’, Ecology and Society, 23(2), p. 33. Available at: doi:10.5751/ES-09916-230233 (Accessed: 10 March 2022).; Macnamara, L. (2012) People & Permaculture: Caring and Designing for Ourselves, Each Other and the Planet: Designing personal, collective and planetary well-being. East Meon: Permanent Publications.; O'Riordan, T. and Voisey, H. (eds) (1998) The Transition to Sustainability: the Politics of Agenda 21 in Europe. London: Routledge.; Sterling, S. (2001) Sustainable Education – Re-visioning learning and change – Schumacher Briefings no. 6. Dartington: Schumacher Society/Green Books.

Video 1  Incorporating the twelve permaculture principles into teaching and learning

In this unit, you explored the importance of traditional knowledge and observation of nature for building a way of thinking about nature and sustainability that is informed by experiential learning, resilience, and is local yet universal at the same time. An important quality to have for learning the content in this unit is humility, as nature and traditional societies offer us a simple way of interacting with our environment that is already there and has been there for centuries. It should be recognised that the role of humans today may be to observe, interact and pay respect.

You also considered the importance of traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom (TEKW) in sustainable pedagogies and explored how permaculture principles help to provide sustainability as they are guided by the way nature functions. You have also developed ideas for incorporating traditional methods such as rituals and storytelling into your own sustainable pedagogies practice.

Unit 7 cards

Click/tap each card to reveal the text.

Alexiades, A.V., Haeffner, M. A., Reano, D., Janis, M., Black, J., Sonoda, K., Howard, M., Fiander, C. and Buck, M. (2021) ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Inclusive Pedagogy Increase Retention and Success Outcomes of STEM Students’, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 102(4). Available at: https://doi.org/ 10.1002/ bes2.1924 (Accessed 6 March 2024).

Cajete, G. (1999) Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence. Santa Fe: Clear Light Books.

Greenall, R. F. and Bailey, E. G. (2022) ‘An Instructor’s Guide to Including Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the Undergraduate Biology Classroom’, Life Sciences Education, 21(4). Available at: https://www.lifescied.org/ doi/ 10.1187/ cbe.21-12-0340 (Accessed 6 March 2024).

Talking Stories – Encyclopedia of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (n.d.) Available at: https://talkingstories.uoregon.edu/ (Accessed 6 March 2024).

Permaculture Association (n.d.) Permaculture Association, Available at https://www.permaculture.org.uk/ (Accessed 6 March 2024).

Solkinson, D. and Sokinson, G. (2020) Permaculture Design. Available at: https://www.permaculturedesign.earth/ designdeck (Accessed 6 March 2024).

Abram, D. (1996) The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Pantheon Books.

Cajete, G. (2018) ‘Native Science and Sustaining Indigenous Communities’, in M. Nelson and D. Shilling (eds) Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 15–26.

Chapman, E. (n.d.) ‘What is Permaculture?’, Permaculture – Earth Care, People Care, Future Care. Available at: https://www.permaculture.co.uk/ what-is-permaculture (Accessed: 10 March 2023).

Fernández-Llamazares, Á., and Cabeza, M. (2018) ‘Rediscovering the Potential of Indigenous Storytelling for Conservation Practice’, Conservation Letters, 11(3), pp. 1–12. Available at: https://doi.org/ 10.1111/ conl.12398 (Accessed: 16 August 2023).

Harland, M. (2013) What is Permaculture - Part 1: Ethics. Available at: https://www.permaculture.co.uk/ articles/ what-is-permaculture-part-1-ethics/ (Accessed: 10 March 2023).

Henfrey, T.W. (2018) ‘Designing for resilience: permaculture as a transdisciplinary methodology in applied resilience research’, Ecology and society, 23(2), pp. 33.

Hofman, M. (2022) ‘Storytelling as an Educational Tool in Sustainable Education’, Sustainability, 14(2946). Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/ 358987729_Storytelling_as_an_Educational_Tool_in_Sustainable_Education (Accessed: 18 August 2023).

Lepine, M., Scott, J., Leung, E., Hansen, B. and Porter, D. J. R. (2004) Earth care, people care, fair shares: Rural and urban permaculture in the context of Danish society, KVL, The Royal Agricultural and Veterinary University, pp. 1–116.

Macnamara, L. (2012) People and Permaculture: Designing personal, collective and planetary well-being. East Meon: Permanent Publications.

Nakashima, D. J., Galloway McLean, K., Thulstrup, H., Ramos Castillo, A. and Rubis, J. (2012) Weathering Uncertainty: Traditional Knowledge for Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation. Paris: UNESCO. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ ark:/ 48223/ pf0000216613 (Accessed: 18 July 2023).

Pickerill, J. (2013) ‘Permaculture in Practice: Low Impact Development in Britain’ in J. Lockyer and J. R. Veteto (eds) Environmental Anthropology Engaging Ecotopia: Bioregionalism, Permaculture and Ecovillages. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 180–94.

Shilling, D. (2018) ‘Introduction: The Soul of Sustainability’, in M. Nelson and D. Shilling (eds) Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–14. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/ core/ services/ aop-cambridge-core/ content/ view/ A5917B1BADA9936096C79CC970C7DD1F/ 9781108552998c1_p3-14_CBO.pdf/ introduction-the-soul-of-sustainability.pdf (Accessed: 6 March 2024).

Sinthunule, N. I. (2023) ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge and its Role in Biodiversity Conservation: A Systematic Review’, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 11(2023). Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/ articles/ 10.3389/ fenvs.2023.1164900 (Accessed: 3 August 2023).

Thakuri, S., Neupane, B., and Khadka, N. (2021) ‘Conservation of Gosainkunda and Associated Lakes: Morphological Hydrochemistry, and Cultural Perspectives’, Journal of Tourism and Himalayan Adventures, 3. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/ 68354082/ Conservation_of_Gosainkunda_and_Associated_Lakes_Morphological_Hydrochemistry_and_Cultural_Perspectives (Accessed: 3 August 2023).

Whyte, K. P. (2013) ‘On the role of traditional ecological knowledge as a collaborative concept: a philosophical study’, Ecological Process, 2(7). Available at: https://doi.org/ 10.1186/ 2192-1709-2-7 (Accessed: 5 August 2023).