The Ecological Knowledge Hidden in Traditional Crafts & Nature Conservancy

Weaving a basket can communicate the best time to take advantage of a plant. Knowledge of a certain tree can be expressed in a sculptural form. An understanding of local plants, seasons and soils may be embedded in a naturally dyed textile.

Traditional crafts are generally looked upon as art forms or cultural practices. But for many handmade objects, there is another kind of knowledge; it is a knowledge of the world of nature, gathered and passed on through generations of time and observation.

This ecological information can affect which materials communities employ, when they sample them, how they sample them, and how they ensure they are available. UNESCO views traditional ecological knowledge as knowledge accumulated by Indigenous and local community members over the centuries about the environment, including biodiversity, resource management and ecological relationships. 

There's more to traditional crafts than beauty, though, in this case. They can be records of people's ways of living in their environment.

The Material Knows Where It Came From

All materials in the craft are associated with a landscape.

Forest is the source of wood. Plants are the source of fibres. The material called clay is derived from the earth. The dyes can be made from leaves, bark, flowers, roots, minerals or other natural materials. Anything from bamboo to grasses, to rattan to shells, to seeds and more can be a creative tradition of a community.

The selection of the material can thus offer a lot of information about a site.

An old-time herbalist might be in the best position to know which plants give the strongest fibres, those that give specific colours, that are available to harvest at certain times of the year, and which are better left untouched.

All of this information might not have been written down in a book.

These can instead be passed along via model, practice, word of memory, and talk.

UNESCO maintains that traditional craftsmanship is not just about the final product, but about the skills and knowledge of the masters – skills and knowledge that need to be protected and promoted by enabling masters to continue their practice and transfer of knowledge.

Seasons Written Into Craft

Nature does not provide the same resources at every moment of the year.

Plants flower, fruit, shed leaves, grow new shoots, and enter dormant periods. Some materials become suitable for harvesting only during particular seasons. Communities that depend on these resources often develop detailed systems for recognizing these cycles.

Research from India's Pachmarhi Biosphere Reserve, for example, documents community knowledge of seasonal forest-resource collection. Different plants and products are gathered during different periods of the year, while customary practices can influence when harvesting takes place. 

This knowledge is ecological because it connects human activity to the rhythms of an ecosystem.

An artisan may not describe the process using scientific terminology. But generations of observation can produce a sophisticated understanding of when a resource is available and how its collection affects future growth.

The craft may be the visible result.

Ecological knowledge is part of the process.

Sustainable Harvesting Is a Practice, Not Just a Principle

A phrase like “sustainable harvesting” may seem like a pretty new term you hear in the environmental field now. However, over many generations, there has been development of waste avoidance and future availability within communities.

The Food and Agriculture Organization has recorded cases where traditional harvesting knowledge encompasses knowledge on the identification of mature plants, harvesting time and taking measures that positively contribute to the regeneration of the resources. In one South Indian case, the wild yam gatherers remove mature plants and replant a portion of the root, allowing for regrowth.  

Such practices bear out a valuable lesson:

When humans are taking something from the natural world, it doesn't automatically equate with harming the natural world.

Variation may depend on the who, what, where and how of the takings.

Traditional knowledge can offer guidelines that yield answers to such questions.

When Craft and Conservation Depend on Each Other

The relationship takes on additional significance when the existence of an artisan is dependent on ecosystem health. When bamboo is a key part of a craft, a fall in bamboo resources may have an adverse impact on the environment as well as those who depend on it to make their craft. Changes to wetlands may impact the availability of materials for basketry when the material is dependent on certain grasses or reeds. When carving requires specific tree species, deforestation ultimately can be detrimental to the craft.

UNESCO states that traditional craftsmanship can be directly impacted by the environment and climate. Not only may deforestation or land clearing lead to lower availability of important natural resources, but growing production may add stresses to the environment as well. 

The effective link between conservation and cultural preservation is thus created.

Maintaining an ecosystem can help to maintain a craft.

Protection of a craft can lead to incentives to preserve information on the ecosystem.

There is no form that is separate from another.

The Knowledge Behind the Object

Imagine a basket made from a local plant fibre.

The finished basket might be displayed in a gallery or sold in a market thousands of kilometres from where it was made.

But the object contains an invisible chain of knowledge.

Someone knew where the plant grew.

Someone knew when to collect it.

Someone knew which parts were suitable.

Someone knew how to prepare the fibres.

Someone knew how to weave them.

Someone learned these skills from someone else.

And that person learned them from someone before them.

This is why a craft can function as a kind of ecological archive.

It preserves knowledge not through pages or databases, but through repeated practice.

What Happens When the Knowledge Is Lost?

The disappearance of a craft tradition can mean more than losing a particular style or product.

It can mean losing the ecological knowledge embedded within the practice.

UNESCO warns that environmental degradation, urbanization, climate change, and the loss of natural resources can contribute to the decline of traditional knowledge and craftsmanship. When plant species disappear, or communities lose access to forests and other ecosystems, traditional practices may become difficult or impossible to continue. 

There is also a generational challenge.

Traditional knowledge is often transmitted orally and through direct participation. If younger generations stop learning a craft, an entire body of practical knowledge can become vulnerable.

Preservation, therefore, is not simply about documenting an old technique.

It is about keeping people connected to the knowledge and environments that make the technique meaningful.

Modern Markets Can Change the Equation

The flip side of the situation exists.

An increased demand for a natural material can lead commercialization and this can result in overharvest. What used to be harvested mainly for use in the home or community may suddenly find itself being gathered for big markets.

Recent studies based in the Pachmarhi Biosphere Reserve in India have shown that increased demand for forest products can drive harvests that are not in line with traditional practices and thereby compromise the resources that are relied upon by forest value chain stakeholders. 

This is the reason sustainable harvesting cannot simply be an increase in traditional crafts production.

Sustainability has to do with knowing what to do and what not to do in the ecosystem, with living successfully without consuming what is not there, with an eco-responsible action plan, with a sustainable development strategy, with sustainable living on this planet.

Not only should the question be, “How much can we produce?”

It is also the question that has to be answered, “How much can the ecosystem continue to provide?”

Preserving Knowledge Means Supporting People

No method of preservation is more effective than this, but the usual method is to preserve the object behind glass.

It is preserving knowledge.

Supporting apprenticeships, providing equitable opportunities for artisans, ensuring access to sustainable resources and providing community stake in cultural practice are necessary for this.

UNESCO's Living Heritage activities highlight the role traditional practices can play in contributing to environmental sustainability and cultural continuity and in promoting community wellbeing. 

Otherwise, the case of West Bengal is illustrative. The Rural Craft and Cultural Hubs initiative, pioneered by UNESCO, bridges the intersections of safeguarding living heritage and sustainable rural livelihoods, skills transfer, and local development, in a multitude of craft and cultural value chains.

On that point - that there is nothing wrong with cultural preservation and community development not competing.

There are some that can reinforce one another.

Learning to Read the Landscape

Traditional Handicrafts help us see handmade differently. We can learn a lot from a woven fibre about a plant. A natural dye can be used to learn more about local biodiversity. Carvings can impart knowledge of trees.

The use of a harvesting method may show signs of understanding of seasons.

And an apprenticeship can show you how ecological knowledge is passed from generation to generation.

The artwork is just the tip of the iceberg! Behind it is a human-place relationship, possibly spanning many centuries. That's where it gets more complicated, as you need more than finished items and products to keep that relationship safe. In terms of protection, it implies the safeguarding of the ecosystems, communities, skills, and knowledge to continue the production of these objects.

Sometimes, an illustration of the perceptions of a community toward nature is not to be found in a scientific paper.

It is in the hands of the one who knows what and when to collect, how much to gather and leave behind so that there may be tomorrow. It's the ecological insight in the hands of traditional crafts.