Local Knowledge for Weather Predictions Valuable
While seasonal forecasts are becoming more important, it is also clear that relatively accurate predictions will result from creatively combining modern science and local knowledge.
Since indigenous knowledge has not remained static but has borrowed fragments from elsewhere, knowledge in any African community can no longer be regarded as purely indigenous. Every knowledge system has a strong capacity to borrow perspectives from other forms of knowledge encountered by community members travelling from rural to urban areas as well as outside the country and back.
To the extent that Geography and Environmental Science in formal schools has influenced community understanding of weather and climate change, local knowledge in most African communities can no longer be considered entirely indigenous but a combination of formal knowledge from schools and indigenous experiences.
Ollivier Girard/CIFOR