A short analysis of two IBPES reports and a recent linked publication in the framework
of the REPROCROP project:

1. Indigenous and Local Knowledge about Pollination and Pollinators associated with Food Production[1]

2. Thematic assessment of Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production[2].

3. Collating and validating indigenous and local knowledge to apply multiple knowledge systems to an environmental challenge: A case-study of pollinators in India[3].

By R. Bourdeix, reviewed by Vincent Johnson, October 2017

Introduction

The publication of two recent IBPES reports on pollination has completely modified the scientific context of the ReproCrop project. Thus, it appeared useful to make an analysis of these two reports and a recent paper on a similar topic, in order to compare results obtained in Côte d’Ivoire and on other parts of the world.

Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) about Pollination and Pollinators.

A Global Dialogue Workshop on ILK of pollination and pollinators associated with food production was held in Panama in December 2014. The workshop report gathers seven case studies from six countries; two additional chapters present ancient Mayan perspectives and a study focused on knowledge about bees (Lyver at al., 2015). Chapters devoted to Indonesia, Kenya and France do not explicitly discuss the perception of plant reproduction and pollination by indigenous people. Regarding Maori people in New Zealand, it was not clear from the chapter whether the Tuawhenua’s perception of pollination was recently acquired or not: “Our people recognized that the pollination process delivered wood for building materials and carvings (…/…) We believe chemical residues in the environment pose a large threat to biodiversity, pollination and pollinators”. Therefore, we personally contacted the authors of this chapter. They replied that elders “knew what pollen was”; “definitely understood that without pollination by these pollinators there would be poor or no fruiting”; and “the key evidence points to Maori recognizing pollination as a traditional concept”; “many of our tree are male or female”. This knowledge appears very different from what was observed in Polynesia for the coconut palm, where the numerous female and male indigenous classifications have no link with botany, and where most of farmers do not know that the coconut palm is both female and male (Bourdeix et al., 2013).

Regarding the Guna people in Panama, the representative said to scientists “Listening to you, I was struggling with the concept of pollination. I didn’t completely get it”. Therefore, scientists have taught the concept of pollination to the local representatives: “Indigenous knowledge holders do not see pollination and pollinators as a distinct theme, but we know that life must be preserved and, in order to do so, plant reproduction (from pollination to seed dispersal) is very important. We see it as a holistic process.”

The chapters related to Brazil concluded that the four local communities where interaction took place were not aware of the process of pollination as academic knowledge defines it: “How do indigenous peoples articulate the concept of pollinators and pollination? This is a question for follow-up research, for which we don’t have definite answers”. The concept of pollination “might be compared with the notion of “fertilization”, as referred by the Guna leader (Panama)”. Another chapter points out that ancient Mesoamerican indigenous societies have left a series of manuscripts where the processes of reproduction of life of pollination of maize seems to be “clearly described”. Maya Mam people in Guatemala “understand pollination as it affects different varieties of maize” (a wind-pollinated crop); one of their most precious maize varieties is cultivated close to their homes « to avoid “contamination (i.e. cross-pollination)” from other varieties.

This report seems to consider “indigenous people” as fully isolated from modern influence: one is indigenous or modern, but one is not in the middle. In reality, modern media and ideas influence most of people, even if they pertain to some “indigenous” culture. This is the case of the societies studied in the framework of the ReproCrop project.

Thematic assessment of Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services recently conducted a wide assessment on pollinators, pollination and food production (IBPES, 2016). Experts from all regions of the world concluded that pollinators, which are economically and socially important, are increasingly under threat from human activities.

The chapter 5 of their report, entitled “Biocultural diversity, pollinators and their socio-cultural values”, is the most relevant to ReproCrop approaches. The IPBES conceptual framework states “Indigenous and local knowledge systems, in coproduction with science, can be sources of solutions for the present challenges confronting pollinators and pollination”. Traditional and local knowledge on pollinators, their products and pollination practices remain underused in policy and science. Many indigenous peoples and local communities protect pollinators, directly and indirectly, through their own systems of governance, practices and understandings of the world: “Their perceptions of pollinators and pollination are embedded in categories such as, fertility, reproduction and reciprocity.”

The IPBES report emphasize: “the rule of socio-cultural evaluation which could help to detect power asymmetries and potential social conflicts related to different perceptions”, a thematic which is developed in the first ReproCrop paper. In some situations, unthinkingly imposing botanic views on farmers could have an adverse effect on some useful traditional practices. This doesn’t seem to be the case in the context of our African study, but preliminary interviews conducted prior to the project show that, in French Polynesia, modern scientific and local botanical knowledge could be contradictory.

Notes about the paper: A case-study of pollinators in India.

Smith, B. M., Basu, P. C., Chatterjee, A., Chatterjee, S., Dey, U. K., Dicks, L. V., ... & Basu, P. (2017). Collating and validating indigenous and local knowledge to apply multiple knowledge systems to an environmental challenge: A case-study of pollinators in India. Biological Conservation, 211, 20-28. . Available at the URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320717307309

Note from Roland : when comparing this paper with our work in ReproCrop, and more precisely to the first version of our ReproCrop paper prepared in Montpellier, the ways « materials and methods » are written are very different. This recent paper from India gives only a few details about the social characteristics of farmers : nothing on gender, nothing on age or size of the farm… Thus, this reading prompted our authors to reduce the quantity of information provided in our paper.

The UK Darwin-Initiative supported project « Enhancing the relationship between people and pollinators in Eastern India » was completed in 2015. Thus, 80 farmers operating on the boundary of this project were invited to participate to another pollinator study by local ‘rural advisors’ who knew those farmers (Smith et al., 2017). Within each of three areas, discussion took place in 3 randomly assembled groups of between 5 and 7 individuals. Questions where first asked about insects, their recognition, and their role in crop production. Then, only as the ninth question, came “what do you understand about pollination?” Results indicate: “Pollination was understood to be the process of moving pollen from male to female flowers (reported by eight groups) or ‘pollen exchange’ (one group).” All farmers groups agreed that all crops need pollination. Farmers “gained their understanding of the process of pollination by observing the increased yield or fruit quality after pollination (reported by five groups) or by observing the relationship between visitation and yield (reported by 2 groups), from ‘books’ (four groups), formal training (one group) and parents (one group)”.

Therefore, the study sites were located close to previous ‘Darwin project’ on pollinators. The same rural advisors already involved in this project were in charge of selecting the ‘new’ farmers. Once the word “pollinator” was introduced as a preamble among villagers and farmers, this may have been sufficient to suspend the real debate and to conceal the indigenous concepts about pollination. Moreover, surveyors interviewed farmers in groups. If only one farmer in the group was aware of botanical version of pollination, he was in situation to influence the views of the other members of his group.

This could explain why in ReproCrop we observed only 18% of farmers aware of pollination, when in India all the interviewed farmers groups are aware of it. Additional individual interviews, conducted further from the ‘Darwin project’ site, could usefully complement this Indian study.

In some other recent papers, it seems that scientists consider as evidence that farmers know pollination (Pudasaini et al., 2016[4]): Scientists are projecting part of their own knowledge, mistakenly considered as basic and obvious, to the farmers.

References

[1] Lyver, P., E. Perez, M. Carneiro da Cunha and M. Roué (eds.). 2015. Indigenous and Local Knowledge about Pollination and Pollinators associated with Food Production: Outcomes from the Global Dialogue Workshop (Panama 1-5 December 2014). UNESCO: Paris. Available at the URL : http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/SC/pdf/IPBES_Pollination-Pollinators_Workshop.pdf.

[2] IPBES (2016). The assessment report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on pollinators, pollination and food production. S.G. Potts, V. L. Imperatriz-Fonseca, and H. T. Ngo, (eds). Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Bonn, Germany. 552 pages. Available at the URL:
http://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/pdf/individual_chapters_pollination_20170305.pdf

[3] Smith, B. M., Basu, P. C., Chatterjee, A., Chatterjee, S., Dey, U. K., Dicks, L. V., ... & Basu, P. (2017). Collating and validating indigenous and local knowledge to apply multiple knowledge systems to an environmental challenge: A case-study of pollinators in India. Biological Conservation, 211, 20-28. Available at the URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320717307309

[4] Pudasaini, R., Thapa, R. B., & Tiwari, S. (2016). Farmers Perception on Effect of Pesticide on Insect Pollinators at Padampur and Jutpani Vdcs, Chitwan, Nepal. International Journal of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology, 4(1), 64-66.