General information

The workshop was developed and implemented within the frame of the Project Place-based Education: Communities Outreach and was financially supported by The Christensen Fund (USA). The workshop was organized with the support of Global Diversity Foundation and its Director Gary Martin.

Representatives of public organizations, associations, educational and research institutions from deferent parts of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan took part in the workshop. In total 11 participants were selected by the Selection Committee. In addition the regional consultants of The Christensen Fund Jyldyz Doolbekova and Jumaboi Shomurodov were the active participants of the workshop. An American researcher Robin Currey who conducted her research on local gardening and apple varieties in Issyk-Kul region came to join the workshop and made presentation about her research findings.

Objectives and tasks of the workshop

The main objective of the workshop was presenting ethno-ecological/ethno-biological methods and approaches that can be used in conducting researches in the sphere of preserving and revival of traditional knowledge reflecting people-nature relations. The tasks of the workshop included the following:

• Discussions of the ways of relationships of human communities with the biosphere;
• Ethical norms in conducting research in which indigenous, local traditional communities are involved.
• Importance of building collaboration with local communities on each stages of the research – starting from the designing the research project to dissemination of the results.
• Obtaining of the methods of studying bio-cultural diversity.
• Discussions of the perspectives in application of the obtained knowledge.
• Discussion of the role of educational in revival and strengthening of the connections between older generations – bearers of traditional culture, and the youth.

The Program and methodology

The workshop included the following sessions:

1. Contemporary issues of ethno-biology (theoretical part)
2. Journal Club;
3. Ethical issues in working with local communities;
4. Methodological practicum;
5. Data analysis;
6. Field works;
7. Ethno-botanical coffee-breaks:
8. Preparation of herbal remedies;
9. Round table for summing-up and discussing plans for the future;
10. Preparing course materials on CDs, demonstration of photo-essay based on the workshop’s materials.

Each day participants had outdoor sessions, session of preparing herbal remedies with Erin Smith, journal club with discussion of the major texts; ethno-botanical coffee-breaks, presentations of participants (evening sessions), data analysis with Anthropack program (evening sessions). Sometimes it was challenging to keep in time all sessions, because for instance, ethno-botanical coffee-breaks took longer time: participants were telling stories about history, traditions of growing, harvesting, preserving and consuming of different plants that they grow in their land. Based on his experience, Gary Martin suggested being flexible in time regulation depending on the dynamics of the group. Every morning he presented the schedule for the day. This method worked out very well.

The rules of participation that were discussed and approved in the very first day included:

Participation on each session;

Flexibly structured program allowing to cover many aspects of the course and making it more informative and perceptive;

Informality in communications that help feeling equal in the group with mixed age and statuses;

Experimental and improvising;

Mutual respect, critics;

Preparing photo-essays

Smoke- and mobilephone-free zone

Based on the workshop materials later the film ethno-biological methods called Tree Trail was produced with the support of the Global Diversity Foundation.

Theoretical part

Theoretical part included presentations of Gary Martin where he covered issues of contemporary problems of ethno-biology. Among the presentations were the following: Contemporary Issues in Bicultural Diversity; National Park, California; Reservations protected by local communities; Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS); ISE, Declarations of Belem and Cusco. Gary Martin provided the group with lots of new information about the projects in the sphere of bio-cultural diversity, ethno-biology and local initiatives in different parts of the world. Specifically it was mentioned about different movements on global agricultural heritage where participation of the Central Asian region is not presented yet. One of such movements considers the question of adaptation of local communities to global climate changes. This movement is interested in conducting more practical researches. He also spoke about the conference on Resilience that took place on the 4^th of April in Sweden. The issue of resilience was actively discussed in the group, in particular, participants were trying to find exact equivalent for this word and came to a conclusion that it was not easy to find one word that can reflect the whole idea of resilience that today is becoming more and more important due to the global climate changes. 

In the light of all the issues discussed in theoretical part, the group came to understanding that it is important to develop collaboration of local initiatives with international movements. The projects should be focused on local landscapes but as part of global ecosystems. The possibility of establishing of the network of researchers on agro-bio-diversity, climate changes, etc. was discussed. For example, establishing of the observatory of bio-cultural diversity where each participant can represent the point of observation and by combining the findings it is possible to see the global picture. By doing this it is important to follow the integrated and similar methods of conducting research, because this will allow combining and analyzing the data from different parts of the world. Global Diversity Foundation is actively working in this field by providing trainings in different parts of the world.

The issue on so-called “protected zones” – National Parks revealed the problem of dislocation of local population out of these territories where they used to live from the earliest time. Such cases can be found in Latin America. Protected zones of the Parks therefore preserve bio-diversity but lose indigenous culture of local communities inhabited these territories and used their resources in the past. The interconnectedness of natural and cultural heritage is becoming imbalanced. The initiative of Community Conserved Areas is one of the smooth ways of conservation of the territories that are protected by local communities living there.

In the sessions on ethical issues in conducting research the most important declarations – the Belem Declaration and Cusco Declaration were discussed. Their importance is in coordination of the strategy of decreasing of the extinction of bio-cultural diversity on the Earth. Some ideas gave impulse to further thinking and discussions in the group. 

Journal Club sessions

These sessions were devoted to discussions of the articles of well-known researchers in the sphere of bio-cultural diversity, such as Steward Brand, Patricia Howard, Ken Wilson and others. As Gary Martin said on one of the sessions, the pictures of the planet Earth from the cosmos received in 1970 made people to realize how beautiful and fragile our planet is. As Steward Brand noted, if the map of the Earth would be colorful, people would stop thinking the same way. As a result of the massive campaign the picture of the planet Earth was published and 22^nd of April was announced as the Earth Day. The 70-s became the time of the development of bio-culture in science, which showed the interdependence of biological, cultural and linguistic diversity.

As discussions of the articles showed, the diversity of the world is under the threat of disappearance: languages, plants, cultural practices are vanishing every day. Globalization is one of the main reasons for these processes. As most of the scientists believe, the preservation of cultural diversity needs careful relation to local cultures. 

Ethical issues in working with communities

The theoretical part was tested in practical sessions where participants tried to follow the discussed norms of ethics while communicating with studied groups and people in local communities that included the following:

Receiving prior, informed, free consent: it is important that respondent is aware about the research.

Active participation of local communities on all stages of the research, including planning, analysis of the results before they will be published.

Monitoring and evaluation of the agreement with the community.

Respect of the spirituality, morality, traditions, and rights – including the right to keep secrets of members of local communities.

Receiving consent and written agreement about transmission of knowledge and resources: the approach of researchers can not be exploitative.

Sharing with members of communities the results of the study.

Receiving consent from local authorities sometimes is also needed.

Therefore, the main thing that researchers should know is not only following all mentioned ethical norms, but making communities aware about these ethical norms, because very often they know nothing about this and as a result they can become an object for exploitative relation of other people searching for knowledge and resources they possess. The work with local communities should be mutually beneficial and efficient.

Participants have received the Code of Ethical Norms of International Society of Ethnobiologists and discussed the issue of writing an agreement between research group and communities and asked if there are some standard forms of such agreement. Sometimes people are afraid to sign documents and this makes it difficult to receive the written form of consent from a community. As instructor explained, the other forms of receiving a consent are possible such as recording on a video or dictaphone. There is no a standard form, every time it is special. Gary Martin gave an example about their work in Malaysia: it took half a year to develop and sign an agreement with local community. Experienced lawyers were invited to develop the form of agreement and the process took long time because they had to explain and tell about their research and even organized some activities to get to know better each other.

Methodological practicum

These sessions included different ethno-biological research methods such as Freelisting, Cultural Domain Analysis, Pile-sorting, ranking, qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data with using the Anthropack computer program. The main difference between ethno-biological and “pure” academic methods is that the data received reflect the point of view of local communities. Gary Martin explained such conceptions as “Emic” and “Ethic”. First one is knowledge about the subject from inside, from the point of view of local people, second – external knowledge that is directed to researchers. The principle of emic approach is clarification of local communities’ opinion in a research. The main rule for Freelisting is listing words of local people in exact form and sequence they were told, because for the research it is important to know what local people think about the subject of study. The Ranking method helps to understand the variety of preferences. The method was practiced in a group with variety of apricots that were sorted by participants in different ways according to their preferences. Preferences were analyzed in matrix and graphs that were created by Anthropack program.

Data analysis

Participants had a chance to learn in more details the principles of working with data with the use of the Anthropack program during the evening sessions. These sessions were optional for those who wanted to learn and needed using this program in their researches. However, these sessions became very popular among the majority of the participants. Almost all group attended these sessions despite the fact that they were carried out in the late evening time - till 22.00. Later the subgroup, which progressed in learning, had a special session. However, the whole group was able to receive the basic knowledge of using this computer program. This program was loaded to the laptop computers of participants, and also was given to each participant in the disks together with all other materials.

Field trips

During the workshop several field trips were organized. One of them was a trip to the household garden located in Tor-Aygyr village in Issyk-Kul region. The preliminary agreement was achieved with the owner of this garden. In his garden he was interviewed and almost each participant could ask questions such as quantity of fruit trees, their varieties and types, the methods of their planting, irrigation, care and protection from the pests, and traditional knowledge in the cultivation and storage of fruits. The researcher of household gardens Robin Currey focused attention of the group to a number of essential moments and errors made during conducting of the garden observation and interviews.

Second trip was organized to the Grigorev gorge. The major objective of the trip was to learn in practice the Tree Trial method – the trial of plant identification. This method is used for the obtaining of the knowledge of local people about the plants, provides an opportunity to speak about numerous sides of interaction between the humans and plants. After practicing this method with 10 selected plants and filming the process, Kyrgyz ethnographer Abdymitalip Myrzakmetov made a presentation about the Role of the plants in the life of Kyrgyz people in the past and present. During this session the techniques of Participatory Video and making herbariums were also introduced to the group.

Preparing herbal remedies

The sessions on preparation of medicinal remedies were conducted by Assistant Trainer Erin Smith, medical herbalist. She showed the variety of methods of preparation of the herbal remedies such as: infusion, tincture, extract, ointment and oil. She used local herbs as well as those she brought with her such as lavender, calendula, chamomile, yarrow, red clover and others. Participants were not only observing the process of preparation, but also helped and tried to prepare them by themselves. Dr. Smith spent several years of studying traditional knowledge on preparing herbal remedies.

Round table

On the last day the Round table was organized. In four small groups participants discussed the following issues:

• Local adaptation to the changes;
• Agro-Bio-diversity;
• Traditional medicine;
• The territories protected by the communities (pastures, forests, lakes, sacred places)

During discussions participants were also thinking about collaborative activities and ways of disseminating of the obtained knowledge.

Presentations of participants

The program of the workshop included the presentations of participants with the objective to get to know more about participants’ views, their projects and researches. Presentations were prepared by all participants. Usually 1-3 presentations were conducted in the evening time after all sessions. During discussions participants were able to identify the common issues and objectives for further studies such as:

• The areas of agro-bio-diversity in their regions;
• Identification of the custodians of traditional knowledge;
• Identification of the preferences of local farmers in growing plants;
• Identification of the strategy promoting the rational using of natural resources, improving farmers’ incomes; preventing conflict situations, etc.  

Feedbacks

Participants positively evaluated the structure of the workshop; flexibility and sequence of the program; content and the way of teaching; the punctuality of the trainer; the usefulness of all methods; the practical sessions; the issues of research ethics; the possibility of applying the knowledge in the different spheres; the Anthropack program; discussions; practical sessions on herbal remedies; the presentation of the participants; the venue of organizing of the workshop.

Among things they suggested to improve they mentioned the lack of time for discussing the theoretical part; they wanted more sessions about impact of globalization and ethno-biology, more time for data analysis, discussion of the declarations.

In general all participants highly evaluated the workshops’ activities. Among the future workshops and activities they would like to have more discussions, activities and learn more about the following:

• Using Anthropack and other computer programs on data analysis;
• Resilience issues;
• Meetings with different NGOs working in the field of agro-bio-diversity;
• Building and keeping contacts on regional and international levels;
• Climate changes and adaptation issues;
• Mobilization of communities for preserving bio-diversity and traditional knowledge;
• Food security issues.

They also expressed their recommendation to organize similar workshops in other regions of Central Asia, including Tajikistan.

On the final evening of the workshop the celebration of cultural diversity was organized. National songs, music, dances were presented by the participants.