Utilizing Indigenous Knowledge Systems on Climate Change for Forestry Conservation in Kenya

Abstract

Forest conservation is important in climate change mitigation. The Indigenous Knowledge (IK) or Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS) has recently been recognised in forest conservation for climate change mitigation. The potential use of IKS in climate change management in Sub-Saharan Africa including Kenya is unknown. Numerous analytical postulations detailing how to integrate IKS in climate change management have been formulated. However, this information is fragmented and mostly lost in sociology literature. This paper briefly reviews the indigenous knowledge related to different aspects of forest resource management. This review delves at in-depth information on the IKS and climate change management in Sub-Saharan Africa, emphasizing Kenya. For this review, the scooping review methodology was used to describe the state of knowledge and map the available evidence of the role of IKS for forest conservation and climate change adaptation. It discusses the role of IKS in climate change management in Sub-Saharan Africa and the potential application of the IKS in preventing adverse climate change effects. The integration of IKS to guide the climate change management have been evaluated and the threats to IKS and their conservation deliberated. It is generally observed that in many rural communities in Kenya, IKS is useful for enhanced food production, forest conservation and natural disaster management. But being culture-specific, IKS can be adopted across communities in SSA for real time management of climate change.