Traditional Environmental Knowledge

Traditional Environmental Knowledge

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is an academic term referring to aboriginal, indigenous, or other forms of traditional knowledges regarding local environmental resources. TEK can be defined as "a cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission. the relationship of living beings (including human) with one another and with their environment." TEK is commonly used in natural resource management as a substitute for baseline environmental data to measure changes over time in remote regions that have little recorded scientific data.

The use of TEK in management and science is controversial since methods of acquiring and accumulating TEK, although often including forms of empirical research and experimentation, differ from those used to create and validate Western scientific knowledge.

There is a debate whether holders of TEK (i.e., Indigenous populations) retain an intellectual property right over traditional knowledge and whether use of this knowledge requires prior permission and license. This is especially complicated because TEK is most frequently preserved as oral tradition and as such may lack objectively confirmed documentation. Ironically, those same methods that might resolve the issue of documentation compromise the very nature of traditional knowledge.

TEK is often used to sustain local populations and maintain resources necessary for survival. However, it can be weakened or invalidated in the context of rapid climate change, environmental impact, or other situations in which significant alterations of ecosystems render TEK weak or obsolete.

TEK can also be referred to as "traditional environmental knowledge" which emphasizes the different components and interactions of the environment. More specifically it contains the knowledge of species of both animals and plants, and biophysical characteristics of the environment through space and time. However Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Traditional Environmental Knowledge can be used interchangeably due to the nature of both terms being synonymous where both emphasize the cultural relations with the environment and non-human relations with animals.