Coupling technology with traditionalknowledge and local institutionsto deal with change in rural households:A focus on the semi-arid tropics

Abstract

Contemporary industrial societies typically rely on engineering and technologicalmeans to control variability threatening food production or other aspects of survival.But before the advent of industrial mechanization and fuel-driven agriculture, societieshad other types of adaptation strategies often oriented to spread risk across space(mobility), time (storage), asset classes (diversification), and households orcommunities (sharing and pooling). The storyline of this paper is that, for longstretches of history, and in many places still today, the effectiveness of the above-mentioned risk-spreading strategies (and derived technologies) relied on couplingthem with a) a deep knowledge of the local environment (traditional ecologicalknowledge); and b) a set of shared rules, norms and conventions on how to applysociety’s technology and knowledge (locally evolved institutions). Drawing in our ownresearch among different contemporary small-scale societies, we present oneexample of each of those strategies highlighting the role of traditional ecologicalknowledge and local institutions in the application of risk-spreading strategies andrelated technologies. In the last section, we discuss the role of traditional ecologicalknowledge and local institutions in dealing with change in the semi-arid tropics. Wepropose that attempts to increase the adaptive capacity of such social-ecologicalsystems to deal with disturbances should make an effort to couple technologicalinnovations with local knowledge of the environment and locally evolved institutions.

Key words : adaptive capacity, local institutions, pastoralism, resilience, seed exchangenetworks, traditional ecological knowledge, water tanks.

R�esum�eAssocier technologie, savoirs traditionnels et institutions locales pour faire face au changementdans le monde rural : le cas des tropiques semi-arides

Les soci�et�es industrialis�ees contemporaines s’appuient principalement sur l’ing�enierieet la technologie pour controler la variabilit�e dont d�epend notamment leur productionalimentaire. Mais avant l’industrialisation et la m�ecanisation de l’agriculture, lessoci�et�es humaines ont mis en oeuvre d’autres strat�egies d’adaptation, visant �a r�epartirle risque �a travers l’espace (mobilit�e), �a travers le temps (stockage), entre activit�es(diversification), ou entre unit�es familiales ou communaut�es (partage et mise en

Victoria Reyes-Garcıa1

Matthieu Salpeteur2

Laura Calvet-Mir2

Tarik Serrano-Tovar2

Erik G�omez-Baggethun2

1 ICREA-Universitat Autonoma de BarcelonaInstitut de Ci�encia i Tecnologia Ambientals08193 BellateraBarcelonaSpain<victoria.reyes@uab.cat>2 Universitat Aut�onoma de BarcelonaInstitut de Ci�encia i Tecnologia Ambientals08193 BellateraBarcelonaSpain<matthieusalpeteur@hotmail.com><lcalvetmir@gmail.com><kirat@gmail.com><Erik.Gomez@uab.cat>

To cite this article: Reyes-Garcıa V, Salpeteur M, Calvet-Mir L, Serrano-Tovar T, G�omez-BaggethunE, 2013. Coupling technology with traditional knowledge and local institutions to deal with changein rural households: A focus on the semi-arid tropics. S�echeresse 24: 340-9. doi: 10.1684/sec.2013.0404Reprints : V. Reyes-Garcıa

doi:10.1684/se

c.2013.0404

340 S�echeresse vol. 24, n8 4, octobre-novembre-d�ecembre 2013

Research Article

S�echeresse 2013 ; 24 : 340–9

I n ecology, disturbances are typicallydefined as discrete events in time thatdisrupt ecosystem structure and

change resources, substrate availability,or the physical environment (White andPickett, 1985). Major ecological distur-bances include fires, droughts, floodingevents, wind storms, insect outbreaks,whereas anthropogenic disturbancesinclude forest clearing, introduction ofexotic species and political and eco-nomic crises. Ecological and anthropo-genic disturbances are often coupled.Because disturbances are a constituentpart of the dynamics of social-ecologicalsystems, all societies have developedmechanisms to cope with them. Con-temporary industrial societies typicallyrely on engineering and technologicalmeans to control any form of disturbanceand variability threatening food produc-tion or other aspects of the resource basefor survival (Holling and Meffe, 1996).But before the advent of industrialmechanization and energy-based tech-nological innovations, societies prima-rily relied on other types of adaptationstrategies. A common feature of thoseadaptation strategies is that they werebased on a long-term understanding ofthe dynamic relations between humancultures and the environment (Coldinget al., 2003b, Tengoe and Belfrage,2004; Haque and Etkin, 2007). Roundthe world individuals have developeda myriad of innovations that – whenspread by cultural transmission (imita-tion, teaching, emulation, and the like)(Mesoudi et al., 2012) – have beeninstrumental in helping societies tocope with environmental and other typesof change. These innovations takeplace through a variety of mechanismsincluding chance (accident, copy errors),invention (trial-and-error, exploration),refinement of existing knowledge, andrecombination or exaptation (applying

existing knowledge to new functions) ofknowledge.The storyline of this paper is that, for longstretches of history, and in many placesstill today, the effectiveness of locallydeveloped technologies has relied oncoupling themwith a) a deep knowledgeof the local environment (traditionalecological knowledge); and b) a set ofshared rules, norms and conventions onhow to apply society’s technology andknowledge (locally evolved institutions).Traditional knowledge refers to thecumulative body of knowledge, prac-tices and beliefs evolving by adaptiveprocesses and handed down throughgenerations by cultural transmission.When this knowledge relates to therelation of living beings (includinghumans) with one another and with theirenvironment, it is referred to as tradi-tional ecological knowledge (Berkeset al., 2000). Researchers agree thatthis type of knowledge evolves over timefrom long-term observation and learningfrom crises and mistakes (Olsson andFolke, 2001). Furthermore, because ofits intrinsic dynamic nature (G�omez-Baggethun and Reyes-Garcıa, 2013),traditional ecological knowledge hashad an important role in buildingresilience to disturbance among ruraland indigenous communities that rely onecosystem services or natural resoourcesas primary means for subsistence and/or sources of income (Berkes and Turner,2006; G�omez-Baggethun et al., 2010).Institutions are defined as humanlycreated formal and informal mecha-nisms that shape social and individualexpectations, interactions, and beha-viour (North, 1990; Ostrom, 1990).Institutions can be expressed through‘‘expectations, stability and meaning’’and are essential to coordinationbetween individuals and between orga-nizations (Vatn, 2005). In that sense,

institutions are different from organiza-tions. Organizations are better under-stood as actors while institutions regulatethe interaction between these actors(Vatn, 2005). Local institutions cancontribute to the resilience of social-ecological systems because they allowsocieties to store their collective memory(Berkes et al., 2003; Folke, 2004;Berkes and Turner, 2006; Barthelet al., 2010) and because they havethe potential to glue the communitytogether and promote social cohesionin the face of disturbance and crises(G�omez-Baggethun et al., 2012). Thislast aspect is of primary importancesince anthropological research on small-scale societies shows that social rela-tions and reciprocity systems withincommunities are likely to deteriorateduring crises and famine, thus increas-ing the likelihood of robbery, murder,and revolts (Sahlins, 1972; Ember andEmber, 1992).The core argument of the paper buildson Agrawal’s (2008) framework onstrategies of adaptation to climatechange. Agrawal proposes a frameworkto analyze adaptive capacities, or thepreconditions that enable actions andadjustments in response to change, andcoping mechanisms, or the existingresources that are used to achieve goalsduring and immediately after distur-bance. His framework is based on theidea that most strategies that help house-holds to cope with environmental orother types of shocks do so primarilyby spreading risks. In that sense, mainstrategies to cope with change or shocksinclude mobility, storage, diversification,and pooling and sharing. Mobilityhelps households spread risks acrossspace; storage helps households spreadrisks across time; diversification is usedto spread risks across asset classes;and pooling and sharing contribute to

commun de ressources). L’objectif de cet article est de montrer que, sur de longuesp�eriodes historiques, et dans de nombreuses r�egions du monde jusqu’�a aujourd’hui,l’efficacit�e de ces strat�egies (et des technologies associ�ees) a repos�e sur leurassociation avec a) une connaissance approfondie de l’environnement local (savoirs�ecologiques traditionnels) et b) un ensemble de r�egles, normes et conventionsd�eterminant les mani�eres d’utiliser ces technologies et savoirs (institutions locales). Ennous appuyant sur des exemples contemporains issus de nos propres recherches,nous pr�esentons ici chacune de ces strat�egies, en mettant en avant le role des savoirstraditionnels et des institutions locales dans leur mise en oeuvre. Dans la derni�eresection, nous �etudions le role des savoirs �ecologiques traditionnels et des institutionslocales dans l’adaptation au changement dans les tropiques semi-arides, pourconclure sur la proposition suivante : les initiatives destin�ees �a am�eliorer la capacit�ed’adaptation de tels syst�emes socio-�ecologiques devraient mieux associer les savoirstraditionnels et les institutions locales aux innovations technologiques.

Mots cl�es : capacit�e d’adaptation, connaissances �ecologiques traditionnelles, institutionslocales, pastoralisme, r�eseaux d’�echanges de semences, r�eservoirs d’eau, r�esilience.

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spread risks across households orcommunities.We add two main aspects to Agrawal’sframework. First, Agrawal analyzesthose four strategies as basic mecha-nisms through which households addresslivelihoods’ riskiness in face of climaticchange. Here we argue that thosestrategies have also been instrumentalin guiding adaptation to other types ofeconomic, social, and environmentaldisturbances, thus helping societies todeal with many types of change andshocks. Second, we argue that theeffectiveness of the four strategies pro-posed is dependent, not only on specifictechnological developments, but also ona) the traditional ecological knowledgeof the society (G�omez-Baggethun et al.,2012) and b) the correct functioningof the local institutions that regulatetheir implementation and use throughperiodical readjustment (Ilich, 1975).We devote the next four sections of thepaper to present one example of each ofthose strategies and devote the lastsection of the paper to discuss the roleof traditional ecological knowledge andlocal institutions in dealing with changein the semi-arid tropics. Our examplesdraw from different contemporary indi-genous and rural societies and highlightthe role of traditional ecological know-ledge and local institutions in managingthe resource base of households andcommunities. We then discuss howtraditional ecological knowledge andlocal institutions contribute to mobilityamong pastoralists in Gujarat (India).The next section analyzes the contribu-tion of local institutions to the adequatefunctioning of water tanks, a traditionalwater storage technology in South India.We then analyze the links between cropdiversification, a well known risk spread-ing strategy, and traditional ecologicalknowledge using a case study from ahunter-horticulturalist Amazonian society.The following section focuses in explain-ing how sharing knowledge about locallandraces can functionasamechanism topreserve them in a context wheremarketsdominate seed acquisition.In the last section of the paper, we focuson the role of traditional ecologicalknowledge and local institutions indealing with change in the semi-aridtropics. In the arid and semi-arid regionsof the world, accounting for approxi-mately 30% of the world total area and20% of the total world population(Sivakumar et al., 2005), climate varia-bility and unpredictable occurrence ofwater extremes, especially droughts, aremajor sources of ecological distur-bances. As traditional agricultural sys-

tems are dependent on local ecologicalconditions, water extremes are also aprincipal source of fluctuations in foodproduction. Thus, throughout history,extremes of droughts and floods, butalso of heat and cold and other variousforms of violent weather changes havegenerated fluctuations on the agricul-tural systems in these regions, generat-ing shocks and variability in foodproduction (Mirza et al., 2001). Butsemi-arid tropics, societies have alsotraditionally developed a set of mecha-nisms to deal with such disturbances. Thecases of pastoralist mobility in Gujaratand water storage in South India aregood examples of mechanisms thathave traditionally helped societies inthe semi-arid tropics to deal with ecolo-gical disturbances. We propose thatattempts to increase the adaptive capa-city of such social-ecological systems todeal with disturbances should make aneffort to couple technological innovationswith sociocultural elements.

Mobility: Nomadicand semi-nomadic pastoralistsin Gujarat

Mobility is a strategy that helps house-holds and communities to spread risksacross space (Agrawal, 2008). Throughmovement, human groups extend theirspatial range of action and take advan-tage of resources spread across largeareas, including those that are out ofreach for sedentary populations. Forsmall-scale societies depending onnatural resources for their livelihoods,mobility helps to cope with spatial andtemporal variations of resources’ avail-ability. Mobility is considered as the lastcoping mechanism for agricultural popu-lations in face of environmental risks(McGregor, 1994), but it is also a well-known and widely used strategy fora wide range of societies across theglobe living in different ecosystems anddepending upon different food produc-tion strategies: hunting-gathering, slash-and-burn agriculture, and nomadicpastoralism (Ingold, 1986;Oteros-Rozaset al., 2013).In the semi-arid tropics, mobility isprimarily associated to nomadic andsemi-nomadic pastoralism (Niamir,1995; Niamir-Fuller, 1999). In suchmarginal areas, periodic moves allowgroups to adapt their grazing pressureto the low carrying capacity of theenvironment (Dyson-Hudson and Dyson-Hudson, 1980; Bonte et al., 1996).

Furthermore, nomadic societies are cha-racterized by a high flexibility, whichallows them fast adaptation to changingecological and socio-political conditions(FAO, 2001; Casimir and Rao, 2003).Researchers have made attempts toassess the specific features of nomadicsocieties linked with the mobile way oflife, highlighting that nomadic pastoralsocieties have developed traditionalecological knowledge and local institu-tions that allow them to adapt to thehigh variability of natural resourcesavailability.We illustrate this in a case study of theRaika-Rabari1 ofNorth-western India. TheRaika-Rabari represent the main groupof transhumant pastoralists in WesternIndia. They are mainly found in Gujaratand Rajasthan states. Initially specia-lized in camel herding, they progres-sively switched to sheep and goatkeeping as this pack animal wasprogressively replaced by mechanizedtransports (Pr�evot, 2007). Over the lasttwo decades some have shifted tosedentary cow and buffalo keeping formilk production and wage labour(Choksi and Dyer, 1996; K€ohler-Rollefson, 1999). The sale of wool isthe main income source for groups livingin Rajasthan, whereas the sale of youngmales in the meat market is the mainincome source for groups living inGujarat. Different specializations andvarying degrees of agricultural depen-dence, nested in a broader multi-resource economic system, have beenconsidered key features in the adapt-ability of the pastoralist way of life(Khazanov, 1984; Pratt et al., 1997).The transhumant Raika-Rabari conductseasonal migrations, moving during thedry season (October through May) andreturning to their villages during themonsoon time (June through Septem-ber). As such mobility implies unstablerelations with people outside the commu-nity, the Raika-Rabari have developedspecific institutions to deal with environ-mental as well as social variability andchange. Seasonal migration is carriedout mostly by men, although they aresometimes accompanied by their wivesand older children. The Raika-Rabaricluster in nomadic groups, called dangs,of varying size but common politicalorganization (Agrawal, 1999). Depend-ingon the circumstances, householdsand

1 The term Raika is mainly used in Rajasthan,when Rabari is used in Gujarat. Both namesrefer to the same community, which has beendivided into two territorial sub-groups after amigration sequence from Jaisalmer, in Rajasthan(Frater, 1995 ; Pr�evot, 2007).

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their herds move alone or in clusters of upto 40 households. The creation of suchgroups depends on friendship and trustrelations, and they include individualsfrom different kin groups and villages.Each group has a leader, called Nam-bardar in Rajasthan (Agrawal, 1999)or Patel in Gujarat (Swayam, 2001),chosen by the dang members for hisexperience in migration and animalkeeping, knowledge of the areas to bevisited, negotiation abilities, and trustful-ness. This leader is in charge of thedecision-making for matters affecting thewhole group: he negotiates the sale priceof animals and wool with middlemen; hemakes arrangements for group stays andgrazing opportunities with farmers andvillage councils; he deals with govern-ment officials to obtain grazing rights inforest reserves; and he is the legalresponsible if problems arise. When thedang has to move to a new place, theleader will scout the potential grazingareas and gather information from groupmembers and villagers to choose the nextmigration place (Agrawal, 1999; Pr�evot,2007).This local institution developed by theRaika-Rabari help them to adapt tochange in two different ways. Onthe one side, the convey flexibilityto the composition of migrating units(Khazanov, 1984). For example, group-ing can help nomadic communities toobtain better prices through collectivenegotiations, thus increasing the eco-nomic returns of nomadic units whileensuring the required relations withpeople outside the community. Similarly,splitting can help them to reduce andspread their pressure on fragile environ-ments during critical years and on high-density farming areas, and in doing so,limit conflicts with farmers. On the otherside, the delegation system in decision-making, allows group members tooptimize the advantages of migration,as they save the time normally dedicatedto negotiate or otherwise relate withoutsiders, and invest this time in herdmanagement (Agrawal,1993;Agrawal,1998; Agrawal, 1999), although exces-sive centralization can also reduce resi-lience if the whole group depends on asingle leader.Migrations and animal husbandryrequire specific traditional knowledgeto ensure the success of temporarymoves and the sufficient reproductionof herds. Information regarding localecosystem composition, cycles, andclimatic conditions allows herders toknow which grass or tree species will beavailable in each area at a particulartime. For example, in the Kutch region of

Gujarat, individuals generally make adistinction between ‘‘rainy season’’ and‘‘dry season’’ grasses, names thatindicate the temporal availability ofparticular species (figure 1). Pastoralistsare aware of the effects of the differentgrasses on milk production and offspringbearing, as well as of the healingproperties of numerous species (K€ohler-Rollefson, 1997a; Mistry et al., 2003).As migration often involves passingacross agricultural lands, and pasto-ralists partly feed their animals from thefodder remaining in the fields after theharvest, they also master information onagricultural cycles, crop quality, andfarmers’ attitude, criteria that partlydetermine the choice of migratingroutes. Animal keeping and breedingpractices also constitute an importantpart of the traditional ecological know-ledge of these populations. For example,pastoralists monitor birth rates tomanagethe size of herds to adapt them to localenvironmental conditions and to house-hold’s needs. Moreover, they keep andmaintain specific breeds adapted to thelocal environments, able to support theharsh, often site specific, climatic condi-tions as well as to survive to the longmigrations (K€ohler-Rollefson, 1997b).A good example of the adaptive capa-city of mobile pastoralists is providedby the Dhebar Rabari, a subgroup ofthe Rabari located in the Kutch areaof Gujarat. Before the partition of Indiaand Pakistan, they used to migrate tothe Sindh area in Pakistan, where large

pastures were available. The closingof the border with the newly createdPakistan (1947) forced them to findnew pastures. They started to migratetowards the east, moving across Gujaratand reaching other states of North andCentre India (Maharashtra, MadhyaPradesh, Chhattisgarh). Thus, the socio-political crisis help the Dhebar Rabari todiscover new rich pasture lands, wherethey continue to migrate.The fitness of nomadic pastoralist liveli-hood to marginal areas and the contri-butions it makes to local economies playsa key role in sustaining continued foodproduction and security in the semi-aridtropics. If nomadic pastoralist societiesare highly vulnerable and threatened inmany parts of the world nowadays, theyalso have agreat potential for adaptationand mitigation of climate change (Daviesand Nori, 2008), and their efficiency infood production can be higher than‘‘modern’’ food production systems(FAO, 2001). Thus the development oftechnologies aiming at improving thefood security in the semi-arid tropicsshould take into account the specificknowledgeand institutions these societieshave built through times.

Storage: Water tanks in South India

Storage helps reducing risks acrosstime and has been historically used toaddress food as well as water scarcities.

Figure 1. A herd of sheep grazing in a coastal area, Southern Kutch, Gujarat.Snapshot: M. Salpeteur.

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Water tanks provide a vivid example ofa storage technology that has tradition-ally allowed people in the semi-aridtropics to deal with the characteristicrainfall variability of the region.Water tanks are shallow water reservoirsranging from a few hectares to overa thousand hectares and formedby constructing earthen embankmentsthat dam rainfall and seasonal runoffin situ and that extend across the naturaldrainage flow. Water tanks are found inalmost every village in arid and semi-aridregions, where rainfall is low (350-800 mm), interannual variability is high,and the soil has low permeability redu-cing percolation (von Oppen and SubbaRao, 1980; Agarwal andNarain, 1997;Gunnell and Krishnamurthy, 2003).Those areas include the dry zone ofSri Lanka (Li and Gowing, 2005) andthe semi-arid southern and central India(Gunnell and Krishnamurthy, 2003).Water tanks in South India have beenbuilt for over 3,000 years, and thedevelopment of agriculture in the regionseems to be linked to their expansion(Mosse, 2003). By impounding runoffwater from the monsoon rains, tankshave been a critical technology support-ing agriculture in the region (Jayatilakaet al., 2003). Besides their role inagriculture, water tanks have becomea central element of local agro-ecosys-tems, providing a wide variety of othersocio-economic uses (i.e., fresh water fordomestic uses, fish, silt, grass) andecological functions (i.e., contribute toflood control and runoff mitigation,provide protection of the biodiversity ofthe surrounding area, avoid erosion,recharge the water table) (Meinzen-Dick,1984; Wade, 1987; Janakarajan,1993; Palanisami and Meinzen-Dick,2001; Ratnavel and Gomathinayagam,2006; Prabhakar, 2008). Those multipleuses and functions benefit many differentsectors of the society, including farmersand non-farmers, with marginal sectors(i.e., Scheduled Castes) using tankresources in more diverse ways thanother sectors of the population (Reyes-Garcıa et al., 2011).As with other common pool resources,water sharing and the management ofwater infrastructures calls for coopera-tion and a set of managing rules withinand between villages (Ostrom, 1990).The management of water tanks implieshigh coordination not only to achievethe equitable distribution of waterbetween head- and tail-reach farmersand other beneficiaries, but also toconduct tanks’ and canals’ regularmaintenance, including desilting andcleaning the canals and the tank,

preventing encroachment or water diver-sion, and strengthening the canal wallsor deepening the canals beds. As manytanks are interconnected in complexsystems through water canals, tankmanagement involves many stake-holders and institutions across villages,which in South India has developed intoa complex management system invol-ving both local and state level institu-tions. Customary local institutions havetypically managed tank resources(water, fish, grass, trees, etc), whereasthe tank infrastructure has typicallyremained under state authority(Janakarajan, 1993; Vaidyanadhan,2001) (figure 2).Despite the fact that, for centuries, tankshave been the main source of surfaceirrigation in South India, their irrigatedarea has steadily fallen during thenineteenth and twentieth centuries(Janakarajan, 1993; Palanisami andMeinzen-Dick, 2001; Aubriot, 2008).The causes of this decline are multipleand complex, but many authors interpretthe sharp decline in tank use in directrelation with the decline of local institu-tions for tank management (Agarwaland Narain, 1997; Palanisami andBalasubramanian, 1998; Aubriot andPrabhakar, 2011). For example,farmers in Tamil Nadu who investedin pumps have been freed from theconstraints of surface water availabilityand collective irrigation (Aubriot andPrabhakar, 2011). As typically only the

wealthiest owners have been able toinvest in pumps and bores and as theywere also those playing an importantrole in collective decisions for watermanagement, their shift to other forms ofirrigation has resulted in the neglectof institutions regulating water tanks’management, and a consequent declineof water tanks (Janakarajan, 1993;Palanisami and Balasubramanian,1998).Over the last two decades, manyresearchers, policy-makers, and donoragencies have become increasinglydisenchanted with groundwater andlarge-scale irrigation systems such asbig dams (Moris and Thom, 1990;Hussain and Hanjra, 2004; Webb,2006) and have shifted their focus tofarmer-managed irrigation systems(Watson et al., 1998). The shift hasoccurred parallel to a trend to decen-tralize water management programsfrom the state to local users (Parkerand Tsur, 1997).Water tanks have beenseen as an opportunity, as they provideda millenarian-proved technology forwater storage, while decentralisingwater management to local populations(Meinzen-Dick and Zwarteveen, 1998;Webb, 2006). In the 2000, the TamilNadu State government enacted aFarmer Irrigation System with the aimto transfer the management of tanks tofarmers’ organizations. Under this Act,farmers in the command area of atank, and only them, were compulsorily

Figure 2. Desilting a water tank in Tamil Nadu, South India.Snapshot: T. Serrano-Tovar.

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included in Water Users Associations(WUA), the new formal organizationsthat should assume the duty of managingthe water tanks and its uses, includingplanning the water rotational system,solving conflicts, and removingencroachers. Although WUAs aimedat increase local participation, theywere created without taking into accountthe existence of customary institutions fortank management. Those associationshave been controlled by new eliteslinked to local powers, thus creating amyriad of new local conflicts (Aubriotand Prabhakar, 2011).In sum, programs aiming at the ’revival’of water tanks in South India haverevolved around the idea of makingtechnical interventions to restore watertanks to their original design, paying noattention to institutional issues otherthan creating incentives for farmers tomanage the tanks themselves. Severalauthors have hypothesized that asuccessful approach for the ‘revival’ ofwater tanks should focus on institutional,as well as on technical issues, involved inthe functioning of this water storageinfrastructure (Meinzen-Dick and Zwar-teveen, 1998; Webb, 2006). In thatsense, water tanks constitute an exampleof how coupling technology andlocal institutions might be necessary toincrease the adaptive capacity of social-ecological systems.

Diversification: Crop diversity amongTsimane’ hunter-horticulturalistin the Amazon

Diversification is a universal risk spread-ing strategy that can be adopted inrelation to a wide variety of productiveand non-productive assets, consumptionstrategies, or livelihood activities (Turneret al., 2003) and that can operate atseveral spatial and temporal scales.Diversification protects livelihoods bypooling risks across households’ andsocieties’ assets and resources. Diversi-fication is a reliable risk managementstrategy against adverse environmental(Bentley, 1987; Zimmerer, 1996) andeconomic shocks (Perreault, 2005) tothe extent that benefits generated by thedifferent assets are subject to uncorre-lated risks and to the extent that thereturns given up by investing in diversi-fication are lower than the securityprovided by diversification.It is well known that in relatively remoterural settings, households diversify agri-cultural production in a variety of ways.

For example, to protect food productionagainst localized risks related to environ-mental and economic variability, house-holds plant several crops or varieties ofcrops, scatter plots, stagger the plantingseason, and use intercropping (Altieri,1989; MacDonald, 1998). Amongthose strategies, diversification of cropsand varieties has received large atten-tion by researchers (Brush, 1992; Brushet al., 1995; Zimmerer, 1996). Becausecrops and crop varieties vary in almostevery conceivable trait, from seed size,height, and fruiting time, to response toheat, cold, drought and ability to resistspecific diseases and pests, or to nutri-tional qualities and taste, farmers havetraditionally relied on a diverse set ofcrops and crops varieties to enhancefood security by enhancing responsediversity to disturbance.The study of crop and varieties diversi-fication in agricultural systems has oftenfocused on determining the number ofdifferent crops and crop species infarmers’ fields and analyzing the rela-tion between crop diversity and foodsecurity. For example, in a study of atransition from traditional shifting agri-culture to intensive horticultural produc-tion among the Yucatec Maya,Humphries (1993) found that the highcrop diversity in subsistence plotsbuffered the effects of environmentaluncertainties. Similarly, in a study of theColombian Amazon, Hammond et al.(1995) found that crop diversity pro-vided a buffer against environmentalrisks, such as rainfall fluctuations, attacksfrom pests, and plant diseases. In a studyin the Andean region of Paucartambo,Brush et al. (1995) documented that thepeasants’ choice of crops was shapedby their protective role. Similar conclu-sions were obtained by G�omez-Baggethun et al. (2012) regarding cropdiversification strategies among farmersin the Do~nana region, in south-westernSpain. But less attention has been paidto the detailed knowledge that accom-panies this diversification strategy andthe dependence of crop diversificationon traditional knowledge systems. Thiswas the goal of a study we conductedamong the Tsimane’, a semi-autarkicsociety in the Bolivian Amazon (Reyes-Garcıa et al., 2008).The Tsimane’ are an indigenous popula-tion whose economic system is basedon hunting, slash-and-burn farming,and – increasingly – wage labour. TheTsimane’ obtain their main staples(upland rice, plantains, maize, andmanioc) from plots cleared from old orfallow forest. Rice is the main cash crop,typically grown in newly-cleared fields.

After the rice harvest, fields may bepartially replanted with maize, manioc,or plantains. Maize and plantains areused both for household consumptionand for sale, whereas manioc is prima-rily sown for household consumption.Other crops planted in small patchesinclude pineapples, peanuts, water-melons, squash, sweet potatoes, andsugar cane (Huanca, 1999; Vadezet al., 2004). In a study of Tsimane’agriculture, Piland (1991) reported thatmost of the diversity of species was foundin fallow plots and home gardens, andthat higher variability was found within acrop species than among different cropsspecies. In a nutritional study in twoTsimane’ villages, Byron (2003) foundthat 47% of food items consumed byTsimane’ households came from farmproduction, making food security highlydependent on agricultural production.Among the Tsimane’, crop diversifica-tion is higher among households whoare more dependent on agriculturalproduction for household consumption,than among households more depen-dant in other livelihood strategies. Cropdiversification is positively associatedwith the production of consumptioncrops (i.e., manioc and maize), butnot with the production of cash crops (i.e., rice), highlighting the importantconnection between crop diversificationand household food security. Interes-tingly, our research also shows a sig-nificant and positive associationbetween the level of traditional ecologi-cal knowledge of the male householdhead (the person mainly responsiblefor agricultural production among theTsimane’) and the number of differentcrop species in household’s fields,suggesting that traditional ecologicalknowledge is a key covariate of cropdiversity. Since Tsimane’ rely on inter-cropping and polycropping for agricul-tural production, systems that mimicnatural environments, it is possible thatTsimane’ who have a better knowledgeof relations in natural ecosystems mightbe better able to apply some of thisknowledge on their own agriculturalfields, which would allow for higherproductivity, as Altieri (1999) hasobserved in similar agroecosystems.In sum, the association between indivi-dual levels of traditional ecologicalknowledge and crop diversity infarmers’ fields suggests that traditionalknowledge systems can help individualsand societies to deal with change andshocks by enhancing the protectiverole of crop diversification. Researchersand policy makers have stressed theimportance of conserving the world’s

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agricultural diversity, mainly to retain thecapacity to develop new crop varietiesthat might contribute to human adapta-tion to global environmental change(Vadez et al., 2012). However, cropdiversity conservation programs that donot take into account the traditionalknowledge systems that accompanycrop diversity developed in situ mightfail short as they might miss the culturalinformation that make of crop diversifi-cation a successful risk-insurancemechanism for rural households.

Pooling and sharing:Distributing landraces knowledgethrough a social network

Pooling refers to joint ownership ofassets and resources whereas sharingrefers to joint use of assets and resources(Agrawal, 2008). Pooling and sharingwithin a community have been mostlystudied in relation to assets andresources, suggesting that this strategyhelps households to spread risk from oneto another in the face of small, idiosyn-cratic shocks that typically affect one orfew households, such as illness or death.But pooling and sharing do not seemto help well against large or covariantshocks affecting all the households(Morduch, 1995; Townsend, 1995;Kurosaki and Fafchamps, 2002).Societies not only share resources, theyalso share the knowledge on how to usethose resources. Differently from assetsand resources, knowledge is a publicgood, as it is non-excludable (the use byone individual does not exclude the useof other individuals) and non-rivalrous(one individual’s use does not reduceavailability to others). This is mostly thecase for traditional knowledge systems,where knowledge is socially transmittedand widely shared among communitymembers (Reyes-Garcıa et al., 2003;Richerson and Boyd, 2005). Althoughsome small-scale societies have deve-loped systems to protect part of theirknowledge (Barth, 1990), a highdegree of information sharing isrequired to maintain the cultural trans-mission processes (Richerson and Boyd,2005), especially in oral societies. Aswe shall see in this section, sharingknowledge can be considered an institu-tion that allows societies to store collec-tive memory of the community of how tomanage their natural resources, therebyhelping to protect communities againstcovariant shocks.

Previous research suggests that theexchange of knowledge is crucial forthe effective governance of naturalresources (Bodin and Crona, 2009),an idea we wanted to test in anagricultural context. Researchers haveshown that germplasm (in the form ofseeds, seedlings, or other propagules)and its associated knowledge are oftenexchanged together (Vogl and Vogl-Lukasser, 2003; Acosta-Naranjo andDiaz-Diego, 2008), which implies thatnetworks of seed exchange should playan important role in agrobiodiversity insitu conservation. To test this idea, westudied how the position of a person in asocial network related to the number oflandraces cultivated in his or her gardenand to the level of landraces knowledgehold by the same person (Calvet-Miret al., 2012). The study was conductedamong home garden tenders in a ruralarea of the Catalan Pyrenees, north-eastern Spain.Home gardens in the study area tradi-tionally harboured a wide diversity ofcrops and crop varieties. Before the1970s, shops were absent in the studyvillages and the access to the towns wasdifficult, especially in winter. Because ofthese constraints in access to markets,farmers typically kept seeds from oneyear to the next or obtained them fromneighbours who had stored them.Although the practice of storing seedsdrastically changed in the 1970s, whenthe accessibility to the market townimproved, around 20% of the crops inthe studied gardens still do not comefrom commercial propagules (Calvet-Miret al., 2011). The practice of storing andexchanging seeds and propagules ismainly maintained in relation to locallandraces. Nowadays, local landracescan also be acquired from a local seedbank established in the area in 2005 inan effort to strengthen in situ agrobio-diversity conservation. The seed bankprovides gardeners with local land-races, and gardeners are expected togrow the crop and to return new seeds tothe bank.Results from our study suggest that thenumber of landraces a gardener growsand her/his level of knowledge onsuch landraces are highly dependenton the position of the person in the socialnetwork. People with larger relativeimportance in the network of seedsexchange, i.e., people with highercentrality, also have higher levels ofknowledge about landraces and grow alarger number of landraces in her/hisfields. An implication of this finding isthat the pooling of knowledge throughthe network helps ensure landraces

collective knowledge as well as themaintenance of the landraces them-selves. The finding that centrality in theseed exchange network is associatedwith local landrace knowledge rein-forces previous findings on the impor-tance of seed exchanges in maintaininglocal agrobiodiversity (Thiele, 1999).Interestingly, we also found that less than10% of the gardeners in the study areawere active collaborators with the localseed bank, the formal organization incharge of maintaining local landraces.Furthermore, our analysis suggests thatthe informal network of seed exchangeplayed a more important role thanformal institutions in the effective in situmaintenance of agrobiodiversity. Thesame findings have been reported inother contexts (Thiele, 1999; Bodin andCrona, 2009). In sum, in our case studyinformal networks to share knowledgeon resource management were criticalto maintain collective memory andpromote in situ maintenance of agrodi-versity. In a sense, our results helpconceptualize social networks as humanbiologic corridors to facilitate the conser-vation of agrobiodivesity knowledge bysharing it among the network actors.

The role of traditional ecologicalknowledge and local institutionsin dealing with disturbancesin the semi-arid tropics

Global environmental change adds newchallenges to traditional agriculturalsystems in semi-arid regions. Whilecertain regions of the globe will befavoured by climate change as it mightbring under production areas that weretraditionally too cold, the arid and semi-arid tropics, where cropping conditionsare already under environmental pres-sure, will be themost affected. Increasingsurface temperature and decreasingrainfall trends have already beenreported for several countries in tropicalAsia (Sivakumar et al., 2005). Similarly,trends in African rainfall have changedsubstantially over the last 60 years and anumber of theoretical, modelling, andempirical analyses have suggested thatnoticeable changes in the frequency andintensity of extreme events, includingfloods, may occur even with only smallchanges in climate (Sivakumar et al.,2005). Modelling work projectsincreasing warming in the semi-aridtropics of Asia and Africa, changesin the nature and characteristics of

346 S�echeresse vol. 24, n8 4, octobre-novembre-d�ecembre 2013

monsoon, a decrease in freshwateravailability, and increased frequency ofdrought (IPCC, 2007). All those changesare expected to have serious impacts onfood security in the semi-arid tropics ofAsia andAfrica (Sivakumar et al., 2005).Moreover, environmental stress, not onlyposes risk on agricultural production, butalso on other provisioning ecosystemservices (pastures, game, etc.) that oftenconstitute important complements for theincomeandnutrition of local populations.National and international policies havedictated a set of mitigation strategieswith a market top-down managementcomponent to reduce the sources orenhance the sinks of greenhouse gasesin an attempt to limit the effects of globalclimate change. There are also nationaland international policies oriented tohelp societies to adapt to global environ-mental change. For example adapta-tion strategies oriented to reduce theirvulnerability to climate change in thesemi-arid tropics include measures suchas the use of improved (sometimesthroughGeneticallyModifiedOrganisms)crop varieties, the improved use offertilizers, the alteration of the timing orlocation of cropping activities, changesin pest, disease and weed managementpractices, a better use of seasonal climateforecasts, or the construction of biginfrastructures to deal with water scarcityor flooding (Harris, 2002; Colding et al.,2003a; Orr and Ritchie, 2004; Schlechtet al., 2006; Rockstrom et al., 2010;Vadez et al., 2012).A common trend of those adaptationstrategies is that they heavily rely onengineering and technological meansthat are often decoupled both from thelocal knowledge of the ecosystemswhere the technologies should be imple-mented and from the local institutions. Asthe case studies presented here suggest,and as resilience scholars have sug-gested (Adger et al., 2003; Coldinget al., 2003a; Adger et al., 2005;Pelling and High, 2005), whether atechnology might contribute to helpsocieties to deal with change depends,not only on the technology itself, but alsoon the way the technology is adoptedand implemented.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is widely acceptedthat adaptation strategies should beprescriptive and dynamic, rather thandescriptive and static (Sivakumar et al.,2005), but it is far less acknowledgedthat adaptation strategies might not be

successful in creating social-ecologicalresilience to natural disaster unlesstechnologies fit local knowledge systemsand local institutions (Colding et al.,2003). Therefore, any attempt to imple-ment adaptation strategies oriented toreduce the vulnerability of agriculturalsystems to projected climate changeshould not only draw on the implementa-tion of new technologies, but alsotap into social-ecological memoriesembedded in local institutions andtraditional knowledge systems (Barthelet al., 2010). Traditional knowledgesystems and local institutions could beimportant complements to science andtechnology in creating successful adap-tive strategies to protect food security inthe semi-arid tropics and elsewhere. &

Acknowledgements

Research was funded by grants from theprograms of Cultural Anthropology ofthe National Science Foundation, USA(BCS-0134225 and BCS-0322380),the 6th Framework Program, EU (CT-2006-036532), and the Ministerio deEducaci�on y Ciencia, Spain (SEJ2007-60873/SOCI and CSD2010-00034).V. Reyes-Garcıa thanks a mobilitygrant to BRIC countries (Vicerectoratthe relacions internacionals, UniversitatAut�onoma de Barcelona, Spain) for thewriting stage, and Resilient Dry LandSystems, ICRISAT-Patancheru (India) forproviding her with office facilities.

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