Ethnobotanical knowledge is a major component of indigenous knowledge systems which refers to a cumulative body of traditional knowledge about the interaction between human societies and the plant kingdom, and more specifically, how local people perceive, manage, and utilize the plant resources around them. This study examines the utilization of indigenous botanical plant resources in the former Kakamega District, Kenya. The study focuses on creating an inventory of indigenous botanical plant resources, their use, gender dynamics, impact of new technology, conservation measures and the quest for sustainable development.

Indigenous peoples are the native ethnic groups, who are descended from and identified with the original inhabitants of a region, in contrast to groups that have settled, occupied, or colonized the area more recently. This book entitled Indigenous People is an attempt to bring out the analysis of indigenous environment, indigenous technical knowledge, indigenous resource governance, and indigenous entrepreneurship and empowerment. This book contains selected chapters from renowned personalities from across the globe who have rich knowledge on sovereignty, economic well-being, and resource access of the indigenous people, on which their cultures depend. This book will certainly be an asset or a boon, not only to the extension fraternity but also to all those who are really thirsty of information and knowledge on indigenous people.

This is the definitive African text on ecological ethics, African environmental spirituality, a theology of creation, and climate justice. The contributors to this important volume explore the common threats facing this earth our common home and the particular threats facing Africa because of our sick environment, unsustainable development practices, and the false narratives and programs of modernity in the African Motherland. Here, African environmentalists, theologians, and peace advocates in conversation with Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’, develop a roadmap for pastoral, local, and global education on ecological consciousness in order to bring about ecological conversion. African ecological wisdom is also offered as indispensable resources for recovering the intimate connection of all creatures and all peoples and as a praxis of solidarity for the poor, and our fragile earth.

Africa can achieve self sufficiency in food production through adoption of innovations in the agriculture sector. Numerous soil fertility and crop production technologies have been generated through research, however, wide adoption has been low. African farmers need better technologies, more sustainable practices, and fertilizers to improve and sustain their crop productivity and to prevent further degradation of agricultural lands. The agricultural sector also needs to be supported by functional institutions and policies that will be able to respond to emerging challenges of globalization and climate change.

After 42 years of international trade in wild harvested medicinal bark from Africa and Madagascar, the example of Prunus africana holds several lessons for both policy and practice in forestry, conservation and rural development. Due to recent CITES restrictions on P. africana exports from Burundi, Kenya and Madagascar, coupled with the lifting of the 2007 EU ban in 2011, Cameroon’s share of the global P. africana bark trade has risen from an average of 38% between 1995 and 2004, to 72.6% (658.6 (metric tons or t)) in 2012. Cameroon is therefore at the center of this international policy arena. First, despite the need to conserve genetically and chemically diverse P. africana, there are no populations in Cameroon that are completely protected. Commercial harvesting is allowed in Mount Cameroon National Park (MCNP) and enforcement within forest reserves such as Nkom-Wum Forest Reserve, Mount Manengouba is limited. Second, hopes of decentralized governance of this forest product are misplaced due to elite capture, concentration of power and “informal taxation” (bribery). Although shifts away from an export monopoly did occur, this resulted in “resource mining” rather than the intended sustainable resource management after 1987, when 50 Cameroonian entrepreneurs entered the bark trade. In 2004, this halved to 25 companies. In 2007, just nine companies received quotas, only one of which (Afrimed) actually exported bark. Afrimed continues to dominate the export trade to date. As one of four companies under the umbrella of a privately owned Cameroonian bank, Afrimed is different to other exporters in terms of power and influence. At the current European price for P. africana bark (USD 6 per kg), the 2012 bark quota (658.675 t) was worth over USD 3.9 million, most of it accruing to Afrimed. Third, in contrast to lucrative bark exports, livelihood benefits to local harvesters from wild harvests are low. For example, the 48 harvesters working within MCNP receive less than USD 1 per day from bark harvests, due to a net bark price of just USD 0.33 per kg (or 43% of the farm-gate price for wild harvested bark). The costs of maintaining an inventory, monitoring and managing sustainable wild harvests are far greater than the benefits to harvesters. Without the current substantial international donor subsidies, sustainable harvest cannot be sustained. To supply the current and future market, we must develop separate, traceable P. africana bark supply chains based on cultivated stocks. More Cameroonian small-scale farmers cultivate P. africana than farmers in any other country. This change requires CITES and EU support and would catalyze P. africana cultivation in Cameroon, doubling farm-gate prices to harvesters – from the current FCFA 150 per kg (USD 0.33) received by wild bark harvesters to FCFA 294 per kg (USD 0.66 ) – that could be paid to farmers after a 15% traceability cost was deducted.