BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The concern for declining biodiversity, global environmental change, and an unsustainable human impact on the biosphere, as well as the urgency of the situation is perceived across cultures, geographical scales, and knowledge systems. We want to contribute to a dialogue on how we can build on these concerns and mobilize all sources of knowledge as well as processes for generating new knowledge and understanding towards sustainable governance of ecosystems and biodiversity. In this dialogue, we want to emphasize connections, exchange, and cross-fertilization between knowledge systems rather than integration of aspects of one knowledge system into another.
The need for such a dialogue is expressed in several global science-policy initiatives such as the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the developing Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Ecosystem assessments to monitor conditions and trends of biodiversity and ecosystem services are one response to global environmental change from a science-based perspective. Given the rate and extent of environmental change and the complex interactions between social and ecological processes, it is recognized that we need to link information, knowledge and
The need for such a dialogue is expressed in several global science-policy initiatives such as the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the developing Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Ecosystem assessments to monitor conditions and trends of biodiversity and ecosystem services are one response to global environmental change from a science-based perspective. Given the rate and extent of environmental change and the complex interactions between social and ecological processes, it is recognized that we need to link information, knowledge and
understanding existing in different contexts to enhance the general understanding of environmental change and dynamics, and to strengthen our capacity for governing ecosystem services for human wellbeing at all scales. In particular, indigenous, traditional, and local knowledge systems are brought forward as sources of understanding on ecosystem dynamics, sustainable practices, and interdependencies between people and nature; sources that often have not informed decision making on ecosystem management beyond the local level. Furthermore, indigenous peoples and local communities are actors in processes assessing the state of ecosystems and the services they depend upon and cherish. Thus, there is a demand for ways to mobilize a diversity of knowledge systems to benefit ecosystem assessments and knowledge generation such as under the IPBES, and linked processes such as Sub Global Assessments (SGAs) and the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS). This benefit includes the processes of identifying and addressing knowledge gaps, supporting policy tools and methodologies, and identification and addressing of capacity building needs...
For continuation, download the full background paper as pdf.
For continuation, download the full background paper as pdf.
Los saberes Indígena, el Conocimiento Tradicional, la Ciencia y la conexión entre diversos sistemas de saberes"