Word: forester
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Over the ages, indigenous peoples have developed innumerable technologies and arts. They have devised ways to farm deserts without irrigation and produce abundance from the rain forest without destroying the delicate balance that maintains the ecosystem; they have learned how to navigate vast distances in the Pacific using their knowledge of currents and the feel of intermittent waves that bounce off distant islands; they have explored the medicinal properties of plants; and they have acquired an understanding of the basic ecology of flora and fauna. If this knowledge had to be duplicated from scratch, it would beggar the scientific resources...
...members of the Penan tribe still led the seminomadic life of hunting and gathering at the beginning of the 1980s. But the logging industry has been destroying their woodlands, and the Malaysian government has encouraged them to move to villages. Now fewer than 500 Penans live in the forest. When they settle into towns, their expertise in the ways of the forest slips away. Villagers know that their elders used to watch for the appearance of a certain butterfly, which always seemed to herald the arrival of a herd of boar and the promise of good hunting. These days, most...
...healer, has not been able to pass on her learning. One brother said he wanted to know about the plants she used but was afraid to ask because she would think he had foreseen her death -- the traditional time to pass on knowledge. Another brother would go into the forest with her but hesitated to ask what she was doing because he feared the power of her medicines; while the third, pursuing a successful engineering career, assumed that others would acquire her learning. Now with each passing year, it is more likely her knowledge will die with...
...past decade, researchers in developed countries have realized that they have much to learn from traditional agriculture. Formerly, such farming was often viewed as inefficient and downright destructive. "Slash and burn" agriculture, in particular, was viewed with contempt. Following this method, tribes burn down a section of forest, farm the land until it is exhausted and then move on to clear another patch of trees. This strategy has been blamed for the rapid loss of tropical rain forests...
With bountiful soils that make subsistence living an attractive alternative to workaday jobs, New Guinea's tribal life is still vibrant. Majnep says his biggest concern is the misuse of the land, as people abandon traditional crop rotation and forget about taboos that used to protect the forest. Still, people like Majnep raise hopes that the island nation may find an accord between tradition and modernity...