Thematic meeting at the World Conference on Science, Budapest 26 June - 1 July 1999.

Sophisticated and detailed knowledge of the biophysical environment is not confined to science. Societies from all regions of the world have developed rich sets of experience, understanding and explanation relating to the natural world. Often dismissed by scientists as irrational and insignificant, these ‘other systems of knowledge’ in fact provide much of the world’s population, including the most impoverished and marginalized, with the principal means by which they fulfil their basic needs. Furthermore, these traditional knowledge systems, rooted in other cultures, are expressions of other ways of living in the world, other relationships between society and nature, and other approaches to the acquisition and construction of knowledge. As such, they harbour knowledge as yet unknown to science and potential options for sustainable livelihoods that are of benefit to all humankind. This thematic meeting was organized to consider these traditional or local systems of knowledge and their interrelationships with mainstream science and society.

Thematic session (.pdf)
Press Release: Weakening of traditional knowledge must be reversed
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