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Connecting the World Through Local Indigenous Knowledge
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Connecting the World Through Local Indigenous Knowledge
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Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JASON GRIFFEY: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Day 2 of the NISO Plus 2021 conference. My name is Jason Griffey. I am the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO. And more importantly, for the next few days, I'm the director and the chair of the NISO conference. So when I say that I appreciate you being here, I really do appreciate you being here. This has been quite a wondrous thing to put together, and the fact that we have so many people coming to enjoy it with us is really, really heartening.
JASON GRIFFEY: I'm going to do a very, very brief introduction before we get to our keynote, Dr. Margaret Sraku-Lartey, and I'm going to do a very quick screen share here so that I can introduce a couple of things to you. So welcome to Day 2. For those of you that may not have been here yesterday, we had a really excellent day of programming, really, really excellent opening with our keynote from yesterday, Cory Doctorow.
JASON GRIFFEY: If you did miss yesterday's opening, I suggest you go check it out. It is actually already up and available at our video platform, Cadmore media. If you follow the links in the schedule, those video links will now take you to a recording of the work that we did yesterday with Cory and the welcome. So if you missed that, feel free to go see that later on. I wanted to reiterate how pleased I am that we have so many people from so many places and remind everyone that you, the attendees, really are the sort of secret to this conference.
JASON GRIFFEY: You're the reason we do it. But more importantly, we've arranged the conference to try and give absolutely as much space and capacity for attendees to interact with each other and the experts as possible, both in the chat, in the video experience for most of our sessions, in the Zoom experience that we have for most of our sessions, in discourse, and elsewhere.
JASON GRIFFEY: And I'm going to talk about some of our platforms as we go through, but the real secret and the real sort of joy that happened yesterday mostly came from attendees being sort of diving in and really having a conversation among each other and among themselves and the experts. Really, the secret of the conference, I think, is getting that moving. So I heartily endorse you diving in, and asking your questions, and being a part of the conversation.
JASON GRIFFEY: Again, for those of you that may-- this may be your first morning with us here at NISO Plus, everything basically goes through our scheduling software, Sched. That is the place to go and the place to start. The little yellow button that says "Video Stream" will take you wherever it is you need to be for the session, whether that is a live session, whether it is a prerecorded session, whether it is a social session.
JASON GRIFFEY: Everything links through that magic button. So go to your schedule, click the button, and you will be taken wherever you need to go. We also have, for every session, a Discourse thread for discussion after-the-fact. Once the session ends, often, we find that people want to keep talking about things because they are passionate about the topic in question. And so we have set up a manner and method for that to happen.
JASON GRIFFEY: That is Discourse, a forum software. If you go over-- if you follow the links to Discourse from a session, you can begin chatting. And make sure that the topic keeps being forwarded. We also want to remind people that four of the sessions, the prerecorded sessions, they do start promptly when they are scheduled. These are prerecorded and prescheduled.
JASON GRIFFEY: So at the time they are supposed to start, the video will actually start. So we have given about 15 minutes between every session to make sure people have time to get up, move around, grab a drink, get a snack, and still make it back in time for the start, so you don't miss anything important. When you do click that magic yellow button, it will take you to a video interface for most of the sessions again.
JASON GRIFFEY: You join the screening and the screening will kick off automatically. You don't have to do anything. It will-- everyone will watch together. And on the side, there is a chat where you can interact with each other and begin to formulate your questions for the discussion afterwards. The discussion afterwards will happen in Zoom for most sessions.
JASON GRIFFEY: You click and you will be put into a room, where the speakers, and the attendees, and the moderators will all be together to have a conversation about the topic. So also like to remind you that we have a series of social events that we have put together for the conference to try to get everyone talking and have a little more relaxed atmosphere. The social session for today is an art show, effectively, sponsored by EBSCO.
JASON GRIFFEY: That will take place in Gather.town. And our social event yesterday-- or sorry-- social event tomorrow is a custom cocktail/mocktail hour. If you missed the Jeopardy yesterday, you missed a very, very fun evening of a wacky standards game show. Gather.town is the social platform that we're using for the conference. Here are the link and the password to get in.
JASON GRIFFEY: Gather.town is sort of-- it's a little bit video game-like, in that it-- your small avatar, and you walk around, and meet people, and talk. We had a number of people yesterday that commented on how sort of enjoyable that was to have meetings of people that they may not have expected to be there. It mimics the sort of hallway conversations that are so prevalent at a physical, in-person conference.
JASON GRIFFEY: There are also some Easter eggs. There's a relaxation room, if you'd like to look at cute animal videos and some other things to discover and find, some games and such. So go and explore, and that is actually open for people the entire conference. If you'd like to go there and have a meeting with someone, meet up with friends to talk, continue a conversation from a session, you can jump over to Gather.town, and it will be there, and be ready, and be open for you to be able to do that.
JASON GRIFFEY: Discourse is the sort of text-based follow-up that we have. We're experimenting with forum for this. If you'd like to join the Discourse, you can do so by clicking discourse.niso.org or scanning the QR code on the screen. If you, obviously, may not have been ready for that, these slides are actually available from the opening session of the conference itself.
JASON GRIFFEY: So if you go there, you can actually download these slides. And then finally, what happens if you run into problems? If you run into problems, standard IT operating procedures apply. First thing, try a different browser. Mostly, the tools we're using work in Chrome and Firefox. Check your link, go back to Sched and click the link again, just to make sure that it worked. And then step 3 is of course, we have people to help you.
JASON GRIFFEY: So if you visit niso.plus/help, we have a team that is dedicated to making sure that whatever question you might have is answered, whatever resource you can't access, you can access. And that page also has reminders about our code of conduct, which is applicable for every aspect of the conference, as well as reporting forms and such, for code of conduct violations. If anything fails, if there are any problems with anything, this is your sort of first stop.
JASON GRIFFEY: And then finally, if you'd like to keep up with NISO, in general, throughout the year, bit.ly/subscribe-niso will get you on our various mailing lists. You can choose. This is an opt-in form, where you can choose the sort of level and degree of contact you would like from us. We will email you as much or as little as you prefer. So if you'd like to make sure that you're on all of our news lists, make sure that you get updates for educational events, make sure that you know what's happening for NISO Plus next year, you can do that right there.
JASON GRIFFEY: And finally, I am very pleased to introduce Stephanie Lovegrove Hansen from Silverchair who are the sponsors of this particular session. Thank you very much for doing so, and Stephanie, I'm going to stop my screen share and hand it to you to introduce our speaker. STEPHANIE LOVEGROVE
HANSEN: Great.
HANSEN: Thank you, Jason. And thanks, everyone, who put this conference together. It's been wonderful so far. Silverchair is very happy to, once again, be sponsoring the NISO Plus conference. And it's a great pleasure to get to introduce today's keynote speaker, Dr. Margaret Sraku-Lartey. Dr. Sraku-Lartey is Principal Librarian at CSIR- Forestry Research Institute of Ghana and has been involved in several projects on information management funded by international agencies, such as the Elsevier Foundation, the UK Department for International Development, the International Institute for Communication Development, and the International Union for Forestry Research Organizations.
HANSEN: She has written and spoken widely on her work, and she lectures currently in scientific communication for graduate students at the CSIR College of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Welcome.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Hello, everybody. My name is Margaret Sraku-Lartey. I'm a Principal Librarian of the CSIR- Forestry Research Institute of Ghana. It's my pleasure to be connecting with you today at this conference. I'm going to talk about connecting the world through local Indigenous knowledge. And you can see, that's the aerial view of my institution, the CSIR- Forestry Research Institute, a very beautiful institute in the heart of Kumasi.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: We deal with forestry and forest products research. And it's my pleasure today to represent that institute and to tell you about Indigenous knowledge. So I'm bringing you greetings from Kumasi, and I really do thank the organizers of this conference for doing me this great honor by inviting me to give one of the keynote addresses. Global Conversations: Global Connections, the theme of the conference, is more than apt for this period of global uncertainty in the areas of global health, telecommunications, commerce, air travel, and knowledge management.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: I do acknowledge that this conversation is appropriate within the context of what is happening in our world today. COVID-19, for example, has virtually brought the world to its knees. The impact of this pandemic has affected every sector of the global economy, giving rise to changes in digital behavior. So now new trends like remote working and learning, telemedicine, and delivery services have emerged.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And these trends are not likely to go away anytime soon. So within just a short space of time, there has been tremendous improvement in the way information is created, communicated, and used. Global communication has improved in the current dispensation to such an extent that within minutes of an incident occurring, the whole world gets to hear or to see it.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Moreover, the world today is connected in all spheres of endeavor such as commerce, health, food security and transportation. There is therefore an urgent need for us to talk and connect to one another, even more than ever before. This is perhaps why we refer to the world as a global village. The term, "global village," was coined over 50 years ago by Marshall McLuhan, who used it to basically describe how the world is connected as a result of modern telecommunication tools that are capable of linking everyone, even in the remotest part of the globe.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: This concept is even more relevant today, than when it was coined, some 50 years ago. And without it, it would virtually have been impossible to gather together here to have this conference virtually. Global development has always been propelled by research. And we know the research generates new knowledge and technologies, which in turn, contribute to economic growth and national development.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: However, high quality research is dependent on availability of up-to-date information and sound theoretical concepts. Consequently, researchers build on existing knowledge, especially, we build on published literature to create new knowledge. Availability of high-quality information is made possible through the collaboration of researchers, publishers, and information managers, who also play a significant role in the developmental process.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: By now, we also do know that development includes the different components of knowledge management. So you can't develop in any economy, if you don't have your information up-to-date, and if your information is not relevant to the development process. So we know that the development includes the different components of knowledge management, such as the people, the process, the content, and the strategy.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So regardless of which sector the knowledge is being generated from or being applied to, you always need people to lead. You always need people to sponsor and to support that knowledge sharing process. And in this case, we also do know that both explicit and tacit knowledge are used to catalyze development worldwide, however, explicit knowledge which is easily articulated, recorded, communicated, and most importantly in the world of knowledge management, stored, is the most widely accepted.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Scientists, information managers, and publishers have always been concerned and interested in explicit knowledge, perhaps because science is based on empirical evidence that strives for objectivity, accuracy, and acceptability. So all kinds of standards have been developed to ensure that scientific reportage is standardized, is of a high quality, and able to stand the test of time. On the other hand, very little attention or interest has been paid to tacit knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So what happens to the tacit knowledge that abounds in our midst? The knowledge that is garnered from personal experience and context, that is difficult write down, to articulate, or present in a tangible form. The vital knowledge that had accumulated over many generations, this is the knowledge we call Indigenous Knowledge. What happens to it?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: How do we handle and use it to catalyze development? So what is Indigenous Knowledge? There is an old African proverb we normally refer to, that says, and I quote, "When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground." So what does this proverb mean, and what are the implications for information management? The old man or woman, as the case may be, in this case, is the custodian of knowledge who stores volumes of wisdom and knowledge accumulated over many years.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: He or she has a lot to teach us about our very lives and the environment we depend on, through the application of years of accumulated knowledge. With his death, all the knowledge goes with him. Nobody can benefit from the lost knowledge. The value and importance of Indigenous Knowledge for development can therefore not be to over-emphasized. Indigenous Knowledge can be described as the rich body of knowledge that is unique to a given culture or community and is differentiated from modern scientific knowledge or known knowledge systems.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: It is the basic component of any country's knowledge system and form the basis for the local-level decision-making. So what are some of the characteristics of Indigenous Knowledge? Ladies and gentlemen, it is-- Indigenous Knowledge is transferred orally and spans several generations. It tends to be collectively owned and takes the form of technologies, know-how, skills, festivals, songs, folklore, food, proverbs, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, community laws.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: You go into the community and they have strict laws that you have to follow, especially with respect to the environment. Certain times, you cannot even enter the-- you can't enter the forest. At certain times, you can't go to the riverside. These are all local community laws that do help in the management of the environment. And it also encompasses local languages and agricultural practices.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Indigenous Knowledge also includes the development of plant species and animal breeds that enable the community to achieve a stable livelihood. It is, in fact, it is a complete knowledge system with its own concepts of epistemology, and its own scientific and logical validity. And today, we risk losing these extraordinary archives of knowledge and expertise, which are stored in the memories of elders, healers, midwives, farmers, fishermen, hunters in the different cultures of the world, leaving humanity inevitably in danger of losing its past and perhaps jeopardizing its future as well.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And I remember a time, we went on a field trip to one of the coastal towns in Ghana. And one of the folks, local folks, told me that if the seawater comes up to this level, then we are going to have a very rainy season. I mean, there was no-- it blew my mind away because it appears so absurd, but true to his word. It's OK.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So we should therefore provide the avenues through which the wisdom and experiences produced over many years can be harnessed and shared. So let's take a look at this. You look at the pictures. Traditional Indigenous Knowledge is of a practical nature. It's not an abstract, especially in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, health, horticulture, and forestry.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: On the right, you see-- to my right, you see several products. You can see cloves, you can see black pepper, you can see tamarind velvet as a fruit, you can see the miracle berry, you can see ginger, and many others. Many of these are widely used products that can be used for medicines and cosmetics and are derived from traditional knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And I'll give you a story. As a young mother many, many years ago, I think in the early '80s, I had my first child. And this child was so restless that day. He kept on crying, crying, nothing would classify him. I don't know how my mother found her way into my house that day, but she did. She took one look at my son, just took my son in her arms, and then gave him a warm bath and applied what we called shea butter, shea nut butter oil.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: It's a local oil. She just massaged the body gently. Within minutes, my son was fast asleep. He did not wake up until the next day. But this is knowledge I had no idea about. Otherwise, I would probably have applied it, even before she could. So, but sadly, this vital knowledge is diminishing at an alarming rate, making it necessary for us to preserve it, before all or most of it is completely lost.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And the consequent loss of the Indigenous knowledge in any community results in cultural gaps between generations and denies that community, in particular, and the world, in general, of this rich and powerful heritage of traditions that can be built on for development. As a natural consequence, therefore, Indigenous knowledge, together with modern scientific knowledge, should be important components in global, national, and community development.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: However, current scientific discourse and development tend to ignore and underestimate and sometimes undermine Indigenous knowledge systems, which are often labeled as unscientific and outdated. So if you'll permit me, for the next 30 minutes, I'm going to share with you the relevance of Indigenous knowledge in our lives. We shall look at some of the different types of Indigenous knowledge and establish how it enriches scientific knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: The need to treat it as a knowledge gateway that has to be preserved will also be assessed. So I'm going to start with Indigenous knowledge and our health. In our world today, there is the need to find new cures for diseases, and this has become even more pressing, especially since the emergence of dangerous and infectious diseases like Ebola, SARS, and COVID-19.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: There is renewed interest in finding solutions from nature, and the best way of finding suitable remedies for specific diseases is just to talk to local people. People are using all kinds of concoctions worldwide for this COVID. And with regard to the current pandemic, my humble opinion is that by now, there should have been a massive drive to interact with local Indigenous people around the world to identify local plants that are being used by them to curb respiratory diseases similar to COVID-19, and to at least assess if there's any chance of finding a natural cure for this dreadful disease.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: We need to realize that this option might be a good one because local communities have used plants and plant-derived products as remedies for various ailments, for many centuries. The use of these plants have led to the discovery of various cures, which in some instances, have been researched into and have produced results that have been accepted and applied globally. Now, I give you an example we can of learn from is the discovery of the smallpox vaccine in the 1700s, when a youngster from Africa called Onesimus recommended the rubbing of pus from the person infected with smallpox into an open wound on the arm of someone not infected.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Once the infected materials were introduced into the body, the person who underwent the procedure developed antibodies to fight the disease. The procedure now known as inoculation was thus developed to fight smallpox. This was Indigenous knowledge that had been passed on to Onesimus from his ancestors in Africa, and which he had kept in his head until it was needed. This is the knowledge that gave birth to the concept of vaccinations and the concept upon which most vaccinations are based.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: By the time he disclosed this knowledge, there was a lot of resistance in its application. But had he not disclosed it, we may probably be still struggling to find a cure for various ailments. Let me give you a few examples from Ghana. In Ghana, for example, a lot of people, especially those in rural communities, depend on plant-based remedies, usually referred to as herbal medicine, as a complement to orthodox medicine to solve their health problems.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: In some places, these herbal medicines are used exclusively in place of orthodox medicine. In a study that I conducted in the Offinso area in the Ashanti region, local people reported on the use of forest plans for various ailments, such as malaria, high blood pressure, respiratory diseases, and many others. The neem tree, pictured on your right, is for example, is a popular plant used in malaria treatment.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Apart from the leaves and the bark that are used for malaria, the neem seeds produce oil that is used as insect repellent. This is a natural product, which is devoid of toxic substances that can harm us. And I think that if there was a global drive to maybe use this as basis for insect repellent and pest products, it may go a long way in preserving our environment. It is worthy to know that many of these remedies have been used for centuries and have been passed on from generation to generation.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Unfortunately, however, the formulae and dosages administered are not documented, making it difficult to stick to standard dosages. There are many such examples, but for the purpose of this conference, please permit me to discuss two wonderful plants that have been used by local people for many years in Ghana, and that could perhaps help change the global management of people with diabetic tendencies.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to the miracle berry. It's a plant native to West Africa with central origin in Ghana. The fruit has a unique taste on the-- it has a unique effect on the taste buds and has been used for centuries by local people to make sour food taste sweet. These berries are well known throughout Ghana by various local names including Asaa or Asawa among the Akans.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: They are usually found in home gardens and consumed more by children. It's not really regarded as an important plant by most people in Ghana, maybe because we don't place much value on it. The berry itself has no taste, but when it is eaten, any food eaten thereafter tastes sweet. In Ghana especially, it's often used to make palm wine, a local alcoholic beverage that has over fermented and is thus bitter, taste sweet.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: You know, palm wine is a local drink that we get from the palm tree, and the first bits that come out are usually very sweet. Thereafter, tends to turn a bit bitter and sour with more alcohol in it. But immediately, you take the miracle berry before drinking it. Oh, it tastes maybe like shandy or something, and it tastes so sweet.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: In Ghana, the sweetener effect typically lasts from about half an hour to two hours, with the intensity declining over time. The fruit has been proposed as a treatment for the taste changes experienced by some cancer patients, though further studies may be needed. It is also a giant step for those with diabetes, as this could be a great substitute for artificial sweeteners that are rich in vitamins and antioxidants, with almost no calories.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Despite its potential to transform the health sector as a sweetener, it's not as treasured as one would expect. The worrying aspect of this is that many young people have not picked up this local knowledge. Results of a study revealed that respondents between the ages of 18 and 30 had very little knowledge about this plant, and I think this is a cause for worry. And I also think that the miracle berry could bring great transformation into the local communities from which they are endemic, so that it could give jobs for people, could give them income and a better standard of living.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Then let me go to the second plant that I talked about. I again introduce you to another plant, known as Thaumatococcus danielli. This plant has similar properties, similar to the miracle berry. It can be found in Africa, stretching from Sierra Leone to Democratic Republic of Congo. And if you look on the map, you will see where the red line stretches through all these countries.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Now when I was growing up, the leaves of this plant were used in cooking and for wrapping food. In Nigeria, it was used to cook moi-moi, a pudding made from beans. The leaves give the food a distinctive taste that is unique and pleasant. In traditional medicine, the fruits has numerous benefits. The fruits of this plant are used as laxative. The seeds can be used as an emetic and for pulmonary conditions.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: The sap of the leaves are used as an antidote against venoms, stings, and bites. And then, the roots are also used as sedative and for insanity treatment. Though all these uses have not been authenticated by science, it still does not negate the impact on the health of local people. As a sweetener for diabetics, one of the most important properties of this plant is as a sweetener, being the source of thaumatin, an intensely sweet protein of interest to diabetics.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, a molecule in the fruit binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet. Currently, thaumatin is being extracted and exported out of the country, mainly to Europe, for use in the food industry. Despite its importance on the global markets, its use locally is still limited. Does not appear as if Ghana has benefited financially from the export of thaumatin in the same way as cocoa has.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So let's just look-- have a summary, short summary of what I've talked about so far. I have given you, so far, two examples, a few examples of two valuable plants that can be important to the economy of Ghana. These plans have the possibility of transforming the health sector and, in Ghana, provided enough local research could be conducted on them. Knowledge on these two species discussd above seems, however, to be dwindling among local people.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: The new generation of young people do not even know the uses to which these plans can be put. Consequently, efforts at conserving the habitat of these species is at a minimum, and we risk losing them altogether. So we need to consider a few things and keep them in mind. One of the basic things is that when valuable traditional products are discovered, the beneficiaries are usually not the local people.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: For example, the thaumatin that is been extracted is exported directly to Europe. Miracle berries are also being exported to the USA. There is no evidence that thaumatin is being extracted and used in Ghana. So although the discovery is a local one, the benefits are global. Now, what are the things we need to think? How widely spread is this knowledge, even in Ghana, among our own politicians?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And how many people have even heard of their existence? How do we ensure that the knowledge is transferred and documented and the benefits shared equitably? So let me move away from the plants and then go on to the second type of Indigenous knowledge, what we call Sacred groves, as storehouses of knowledge. The second type of Indigenous knowledge I would like us to share is on Sacred groves. By definition, Sacred groves are small patches or islands of remaining original habitat or forests of various dimensions, partially or fully protected by local, or religious, or culture agents, that harbor rare and threatened species.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Sacred groves are common in many developing countries, but reports indicate that their impact is diminishing in some places. Indigenous local communities try to live in tandem with nature. As a result, they manage their natural resources using local customs and traditions. And the easiest way to do this is to create patches of forest land that contain numerous valuable plants that are separated from human habitation, which they call Sacred groves.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: In these groves, they conserve certain plants species for medicinal purposes and for spiritual use. They also preserve animals they consider to be sacred. They revere these sacred groves and consider them to be sacrosanct. Even though the sacred groves are created mainly for medicinal and spiritual purposes, they however serve multiple purposes. Some of the benefits-- a study in some of these sacred groves have unearthed the following.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Sacred groves are more than just spiritual groves. They are actually treasure troves of knowledge that are of cultural, historical, and scientific benefit and considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. Water bodies that constitute the headwaters of major rivers and streams that supply water to entire communities and towns can be found in them. Rare plants and threatened species that are difficult to find elsewhere are conserved here.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: They provide a habitat for birds, rare birds, insects, and reptiles. They also create a cool micro-climate that is significantly different from adjacent lands. They play a major role in natural resources management. They could possibly be an avenue to help mitigate the effects of climate change. In these groves, resource extraction is controlled by a variety of traditional rules and taboos, often invoked to placate the deities involved.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: The presence of healthy plants ensure that the ecosystem maintains equilibrium by employing selective harvesting techniques that can maintain the ecosystem. Well-preserved sacred groves are storehouses of valuable medicinal plants and herbs and other flora having high economic value. The people have the phenology of the plans at their fingertips, so they know when it flowers.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: They know when it fruits, they know when it is ready for harvesting, and they protect it with their very lives. Indeed, these sacred groves serves as refuge for threatened species. Now, modern knowledge has now taught us that while these traditionalists were thinking of this spiritual side of the groves, they were inadvertently conserving nature for the betterment of society.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: This, I think, could be replicated in different ecological zones in response to the effects of climate change and could possibly be an avenue that could be explored and used in the fight against climate change. For example, we continue to do the same things over and over again, and nothing is changing, in terms of climate change mitigation. Maybe we need to start doing something different, and this can be an opportunity for us to begin, to look at sacred groves as one avenue through which the climate can be controlled.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Now the third type of Indigenous knowledge I would like us to discuss is on living libraries. About 1,600 years ago, the Great Alexandria library went up in flames. The real tragedy of the period was not the uncertainty of not knowing who to blame for the library's destruction, but rather, the tragic loss forever of ancient history, literature, and learning.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Today, we have a similar situation unfolding right before our eyes. Only this time, it is about knowledge that does not exist in books or huge edifices like modern libraries. It is another form of Indigenous knowledge called "living libraries." The only the difference between living libraries and a regular modern library are the books.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Most of our local communities do not have libraries with books and computers. Rather, they have people who are substitutes for the books. They keep the memory of the people alive. In a library, in a living library, the people are the books. Living librarians have their own way of producing, codifying, storing , and retrieving knowledge and information. Now, I would like us to talk about the living librarians of Dagbon.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: They are called the Baansi. Dagbon, a traditional kingdom founded in the 15th century, is one of the powerful and largest traditional groups in Northern Ghana. The history of this powerful kingdom has been kept by the Baansi, who are important in maintaining the entire existence of the members of this community. Baansi is a collective name for musicians.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: The Baansi are court musicians who engage themselves in the art of praise singing. Libraries are also defined as repositories of knowledge, and the Baansis of Dagbon are just that. They are repositories of knowledge, known as living libraries. They are also holders of cultural wisdom and history and are custodians of all knowledge relating to the history of the Dagbon kingdom.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Plockey, in 2005, in a study, identified the Baansi as living librarians of Dagbon. They produce, transmit, and store knowledge, which they recount at important ceremonies, such as the rituals performed during the installation of chiefs, naming of babies, funeral ceremonies, and indeed at all social flora, using what they call their Timpani drums. And you can see a diagram, a picture of the Timpani drum on the screen.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: In the process of communication, they entertain and train on the customs and traditions of the kingdom. They have full knowledge of the genealogy of the people, their history, and have immense knowledge on who has the credentials to ascend the throne. They form an important source of knowledge on the political economy, history, and literature of Dagbon.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: For instance, the use of praise names to serenade royals serve as an important source of teaching for the people. That Baansi, as living librarians, have the history of Dagbon in their memory, and they consider themselves to be vessels speech. They are repositories of knowledge who harbor secrets that are many centuries old. They consider themselves indispensable, since without them, the names of the kings would vanish into oblivion.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: They consider themselves the memory of mankind, at least within the Dagbon enclave. By the spoken word, they bring to life the deeds and exploits of kings for younger generation. There is no doubt that they may be classified as librarians in their own right. How do we treat living libraries? How do we help the Baansi to preserve their knowledge and get it known?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Can the knowledge of these living legends be packaged and promoted in a way that would pave way for them to benefit from their knowledge? These living libraries can easily be equated to counter archives, whose knowledge cannot be lost. The libraries are the people, and will be our demise, all this knowledge dies. There is therefore the need to document, record, and digitize their knowledge as well.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So far, we have looked at three different types and characteristics of Indigenous knowledge. There are many other types of knowledge, but due to time constraints, I have limited myself to only these three. All of them provide useful information that can be tapped for national or global development. Indigenous knowledge is recognized as an important source of developmental information.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: It is priceless to those who depend on it for their very existence. It is also acknowledged that information management personnel play a significant role in the developmental process. However, they pay more attention to explicit or published information. It is thus imperative for information management personnel to begin to learn more about Indigenous knowledge, if they are to meet the information needs of Indigenous people and all those who use the information.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: We need, therefore, to preserve knowledge not for the fun of it, but to learn from it. We need to create local pathways to global development. And in learning from Indigenous knowledge, we can pick up the best practices of communities in local knowledge systems and publish and share them for local and global development. As partners in development, information personnel must begin to be proactive in Indigenous knowledge management.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: We need to give a new meaning to development that empowers local people to use their own knowledge for their own well-being. As information personnel, we must begin to move out of our comfort zone. And it is important to remember that a comfort zone may be a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there. We must therefore be able to get involved, just like at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had librarians playing key roles in producing face masks.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: We, as a professional group, should begin to play a major role in national and global development. We need to recognize local people as contributors and recipients of the knowledge they create. We also need to recognize that knowledge and the management of it is not the exclusive domain of technologically advanced communities. So revitalizing Indigenous knowledge production-- as information management personnel, our preoccupation has always been to preserve knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: How do we collaborate as scientists, as librarians, and publishers, to bring valuable information into the public domain? How do we promote Indigenous knowledge of economically viable local products? Who benefits from the proceeds of this knowledge? Should there be a sharing formula? Can anything be standardized? Should a procedure for collection be developed?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: What procedures should be used to validate information gathered? What documentation standards should be used? Is there any possibility of applying intellectual property rights? Can patents be developed? By whom? And for whom? These are key questions that need to be answered.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: May I now make some suggestions on the way forward. To foster positive interactions between Indigenous knowledge and other knowledge systems, there is the need for collaboration between various players in information management. Each player must be regarded as an equal partner. There must be mutual respect and understanding for the knowledge. Dialogue between groups on what needs to be done must be transparent and open.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: There must be informed consent and just returns for Indigenous knowledge holders and practitioners through the flow of rewards and benefits. And there's a lot of practical work to be done, such as establishing the modalities for managing Indigenous knowledge, developing guidelines on how materials should be identified, copied, organized, stored, and retrieved to meet the specific needs and management regimes of particular communities, assessing standards of technology needed, developing consistency of practice across many local Indigenous contexts, assessing training needs for the local community, and identifying a champion whose passion would be to help mobilize local knowledge for development.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And to conclude, I hope I've been able, in the last 40 minutes, to create awareness about Indigenous knowledge and its role in national development. I've also tried to explain the few differences that exist. Despite these differences, however, I do hope it has become evident that Indigenous knowledge plays a key role in national development. Let us now come together to start a conversation on Indigenous knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Let us now start a global conversation on Indigenous knowledge to create global connections. Thank you very much.
JASON GRIFFEY: Thank you so, so much, Dr. Sraku-Lartey. That was an amazing presentation, full of an enormous amount of information. And we have far too many questions than we can get to at the moment, but I did want to try to sneak in a couple, before we let everyone go. The first that I was really curious about it-- it looks like you maybe started typing an answer in the Q&A, but Joe Haveman asked, how can Indigenous knowledge be integrated with modern scholarly systems?
JASON GRIFFEY: I think everyone sees this as a challenge. How can this knowledge sort of be put into systems that obviously are not designed directly for it? Is there a path forward there?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Thank you, Jason. It's a huge challenge, trying to even get Indigenous knowledge together. But currently, at FORIG, we are responsible for forestry research. And we have started an initiative by digitizing the local information, the local knowledge that people have actually come up with. So we have a database where we collect information from the field.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: When we come back to the institute, we try to sift through them, and then go through the literature to see whether it's validated. And we then digitize it in the database. So if there is a particular plant, we give the scientific name, the local name, the uses to which the people are putting it. And then, we also put out the uses to which the literature talks about.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And I think that's one of the ways by which we can integrate the knowledge from different sources, because once it's in a database, scientists are likely to look up the literature, and to see that it's been documented, and then use that as a starting point to go through with their research. You can't just pick up local knowledge, because people says it works.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: You actually have to authenticate it, and you have to do research on it, to make sure it works for everybody. So we have started it, in a small way, by developing a database for the plants and the food plants, local Indigenous foods and medicines. And I think, if we're able to continue, we could get a huge database for that. India has done that, and it's a way that we can actually follow to see if it works very well for us.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Thank you.
JASON GRIFFEY: Yeah. That's actually-- I actually-- the second question I wanted to try to sneak in before you run out of time was actually from one of our attendees from India, Dr. Ramayya, who asked whether this work that you're doing and the Indigenous knowledge that you've recorded is being, then, used educationally in any way? Is it being put into an educational system?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Yeah. Right now, actually, apart from us documenting and digitizing it in a database, which is available to everybody, the University of Science and Technology, which is one of the huge universities, train traditional pharmacists to use herbal medicine. So in their pharmacy department, they do have a department for herbal medicine, where they integrate the herbal medicine into orthodox medicine to see how it works.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So I think in training-- and I do have a lot of the students come in from the university, to see whether they can learn from the studies that we did on Indigenous knowledge. Thank you.
JASON GRIFFEY: That's fantastic. It's really, really wonderful to know that the knowledge, that the work that you're doing to capture this knowledge, is then being passed forward, right?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Yeah.
JASON GRIFFEY: And I also take, as a really important point, your description of the fact that scientists, when searching, right, you make it findable, and then it can be put forward into future research because of that initial findability. And that reinforcement cycle is obviously a huge part of scholarly work, right? And that's just super, super important, as a way of getting Indigenous knowledge to move forward into the future, right?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Yeah.
JASON GRIFFEY: I do worry about things like making sure that the metadata, like, how that knowledge was captured continues on in that scientific process.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Exactly.
JASON GRIFFEY: So it doesn't get lost. That it was--
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: But the difficulty is that everybody is using their own kind of style. So it's very important for us to be able to streamline the way metadata should be captured for the different resources. So if it's a video of a festival, how do we record it? That globally, without us doing our own thing in our own little corner, so that it makes it so difficult for other people to have access to.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So I think it's about time we have a global discussion on Indigenous knowledge. There has been quite at a number of them, in patches, in different places, on different occasions, but we really need to gather things together. I think God created the world and put all the resources in there for all of us to use. He brought all solutions out, but we have just tapped on the tip of an iceberg, just the little tip of it.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: There's so much in the local treasures that we can tap from, that we can use for our own well-being, without going through difficulties in using toxic and other substances that would actually harm us. So I think this is a great way to start, by me talking to such an international audience. Let it be a thought process for all of us, and let's whether we can move forward with our knowledge on Indigenous knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Thank you.
JASON GRIFFEY: I can't think of a better way to end. That's a wonderful, wonderful point. We have about five minutes until the top of the next set of sessions. I have captured all of the questions that were asked. We had far more than we could have time for, but I'm going to move those over into the Discourse. You know, Dr. Sraku-Lartey, you're certainly welcome to join us there for the conversation. There was a ton of interest in the chat about continuing this conversation, and this is the group to get standards started for this work.
JASON GRIFFEY: So I think it is a really key point to keep the conversation going. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for such a marvelous way to kick off Day 2. And we hope to see you, we hope to see you again and keep the conversation moving forward, so that we can hopefully make this work for everyone. So thank you, all. Enjoy the day, and we'll see you at the other sessions.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: OK. Thank you. Thank you. You're wonderful.
JASON GRIFFEY: Thank you.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: All right. Bye-bye. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Segment:0 .
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JASON GRIFFEY: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Day 2 of the NISO Plus 2021 conference. My name is Jason Griffey. I am the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO. And more importantly, for the next few days, I'm the director and the chair of the NISO conference. So when I say that I appreciate you being here, I really do appreciate you being here. This has been quite a wondrous thing to put together, and the fact that we have so many people coming to enjoy it with us is really, really heartening.
JASON GRIFFEY: I'm going to do a very, very brief introduction before we get to our keynote, Dr. Margaret Sraku-Lartey, and I'm going to do a very quick screen share here so that I can introduce a couple of things to you. So welcome to Day 2. For those of you that may not have been here yesterday, we had a really excellent day of programming, really, really excellent opening with our keynote from yesterday, Cory Doctorow.
JASON GRIFFEY: If you did miss yesterday's opening, I suggest you go check it out. It is actually already up and available at our video platform, Cadmore media. If you follow the links in the schedule, those video links will now take you to a recording of the work that we did yesterday with Cory and the welcome. So if you missed that, feel free to go see that later on. I wanted to reiterate how pleased I am that we have so many people from so many places and remind everyone that you, the attendees, really are the sort of secret to this conference.
JASON GRIFFEY: You're the reason we do it. But more importantly, we've arranged the conference to try and give absolutely as much space and capacity for attendees to interact with each other and the experts as possible, both in the chat, in the video experience for most of our sessions, in the Zoom experience that we have for most of our sessions, in discourse, and elsewhere.
JASON GRIFFEY: And I'm going to talk about some of our platforms as we go through, but the real secret and the real sort of joy that happened yesterday mostly came from attendees being sort of diving in and really having a conversation among each other and among themselves and the experts. Really, the secret of the conference, I think, is getting that moving. So I heartily endorse you diving in, and asking your questions, and being a part of the conversation.
JASON GRIFFEY: Again, for those of you that may-- this may be your first morning with us here at NISO Plus, everything basically goes through our scheduling software, Sched. That is the place to go and the place to start. The little yellow button that says "Video Stream" will take you wherever it is you need to be for the session, whether that is a live session, whether it is a prerecorded session, whether it is a social session.
JASON GRIFFEY: Everything links through that magic button. So go to your schedule, click the button, and you will be taken wherever you need to go. We also have, for every session, a Discourse thread for discussion after-the-fact. Once the session ends, often, we find that people want to keep talking about things because they are passionate about the topic in question. And so we have set up a manner and method for that to happen.
JASON GRIFFEY: That is Discourse, a forum software. If you go over-- if you follow the links to Discourse from a session, you can begin chatting. And make sure that the topic keeps being forwarded. We also want to remind people that four of the sessions, the prerecorded sessions, they do start promptly when they are scheduled. These are prerecorded and prescheduled.
JASON GRIFFEY: So at the time they are supposed to start, the video will actually start. So we have given about 15 minutes between every session to make sure people have time to get up, move around, grab a drink, get a snack, and still make it back in time for the start, so you don't miss anything important. When you do click that magic yellow button, it will take you to a video interface for most of the sessions again.
JASON GRIFFEY: You join the screening and the screening will kick off automatically. You don't have to do anything. It will-- everyone will watch together. And on the side, there is a chat where you can interact with each other and begin to formulate your questions for the discussion afterwards. The discussion afterwards will happen in Zoom for most sessions.
JASON GRIFFEY: You click and you will be put into a room, where the speakers, and the attendees, and the moderators will all be together to have a conversation about the topic. So also like to remind you that we have a series of social events that we have put together for the conference to try to get everyone talking and have a little more relaxed atmosphere. The social session for today is an art show, effectively, sponsored by EBSCO.
JASON GRIFFEY: That will take place in Gather.town. And our social event yesterday-- or sorry-- social event tomorrow is a custom cocktail/mocktail hour. If you missed the Jeopardy yesterday, you missed a very, very fun evening of a wacky standards game show. Gather.town is the social platform that we're using for the conference. Here are the link and the password to get in.
JASON GRIFFEY: Gather.town is sort of-- it's a little bit video game-like, in that it-- your small avatar, and you walk around, and meet people, and talk. We had a number of people yesterday that commented on how sort of enjoyable that was to have meetings of people that they may not have expected to be there. It mimics the sort of hallway conversations that are so prevalent at a physical, in-person conference.
JASON GRIFFEY: There are also some Easter eggs. There's a relaxation room, if you'd like to look at cute animal videos and some other things to discover and find, some games and such. So go and explore, and that is actually open for people the entire conference. If you'd like to go there and have a meeting with someone, meet up with friends to talk, continue a conversation from a session, you can jump over to Gather.town, and it will be there, and be ready, and be open for you to be able to do that.
JASON GRIFFEY: Discourse is the sort of text-based follow-up that we have. We're experimenting with forum for this. If you'd like to join the Discourse, you can do so by clicking discourse.niso.org or scanning the QR code on the screen. If you, obviously, may not have been ready for that, these slides are actually available from the opening session of the conference itself.
JASON GRIFFEY: So if you go there, you can actually download these slides. And then finally, what happens if you run into problems? If you run into problems, standard IT operating procedures apply. First thing, try a different browser. Mostly, the tools we're using work in Chrome and Firefox. Check your link, go back to Sched and click the link again, just to make sure that it worked. And then step 3 is of course, we have people to help you.
JASON GRIFFEY: So if you visit niso.plus/help, we have a team that is dedicated to making sure that whatever question you might have is answered, whatever resource you can't access, you can access. And that page also has reminders about our code of conduct, which is applicable for every aspect of the conference, as well as reporting forms and such, for code of conduct violations. If anything fails, if there are any problems with anything, this is your sort of first stop.
JASON GRIFFEY: And then finally, if you'd like to keep up with NISO, in general, throughout the year, bit.ly/subscribe-niso will get you on our various mailing lists. You can choose. This is an opt-in form, where you can choose the sort of level and degree of contact you would like from us. We will email you as much or as little as you prefer. So if you'd like to make sure that you're on all of our news lists, make sure that you get updates for educational events, make sure that you know what's happening for NISO Plus next year, you can do that right there.
JASON GRIFFEY: And finally, I am very pleased to introduce Stephanie Lovegrove Hansen from Silverchair who are the sponsors of this particular session. Thank you very much for doing so, and Stephanie, I'm going to stop my screen share and hand it to you to introduce our speaker. STEPHANIE LOVEGROVE
HANSEN: Great.
HANSEN: Thank you, Jason. And thanks, everyone, who put this conference together. It's been wonderful so far. Silverchair is very happy to, once again, be sponsoring the NISO Plus conference. And it's a great pleasure to get to introduce today's keynote speaker, Dr. Margaret Sraku-Lartey. Dr. Sraku-Lartey is Principal Librarian at CSIR- Forestry Research Institute of Ghana and has been involved in several projects on information management funded by international agencies, such as the Elsevier Foundation, the UK Department for International Development, the International Institute for Communication Development, and the International Union for Forestry Research Organizations.
HANSEN: She has written and spoken widely on her work, and she lectures currently in scientific communication for graduate students at the CSIR College of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Welcome.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Hello, everybody. My name is Margaret Sraku-Lartey. I'm a Principal Librarian of the CSIR- Forestry Research Institute of Ghana. It's my pleasure to be connecting with you today at this conference. I'm going to talk about connecting the world through local Indigenous knowledge. And you can see, that's the aerial view of my institution, the CSIR- Forestry Research Institute, a very beautiful institute in the heart of Kumasi.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: We deal with forestry and forest products research. And it's my pleasure today to represent that institute and to tell you about Indigenous knowledge. So I'm bringing you greetings from Kumasi, and I really do thank the organizers of this conference for doing me this great honor by inviting me to give one of the keynote addresses. Global Conversations: Global Connections, the theme of the conference, is more than apt for this period of global uncertainty in the areas of global health, telecommunications, commerce, air travel, and knowledge management.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: I do acknowledge that this conversation is appropriate within the context of what is happening in our world today. COVID-19, for example, has virtually brought the world to its knees. The impact of this pandemic has affected every sector of the global economy, giving rise to changes in digital behavior. So now new trends like remote working and learning, telemedicine, and delivery services have emerged.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And these trends are not likely to go away anytime soon. So within just a short space of time, there has been tremendous improvement in the way information is created, communicated, and used. Global communication has improved in the current dispensation to such an extent that within minutes of an incident occurring, the whole world gets to hear or to see it.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Moreover, the world today is connected in all spheres of endeavor such as commerce, health, food security and transportation. There is therefore an urgent need for us to talk and connect to one another, even more than ever before. This is perhaps why we refer to the world as a global village. The term, "global village," was coined over 50 years ago by Marshall McLuhan, who used it to basically describe how the world is connected as a result of modern telecommunication tools that are capable of linking everyone, even in the remotest part of the globe.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: This concept is even more relevant today, than when it was coined, some 50 years ago. And without it, it would virtually have been impossible to gather together here to have this conference virtually. Global development has always been propelled by research. And we know the research generates new knowledge and technologies, which in turn, contribute to economic growth and national development.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: However, high quality research is dependent on availability of up-to-date information and sound theoretical concepts. Consequently, researchers build on existing knowledge, especially, we build on published literature to create new knowledge. Availability of high-quality information is made possible through the collaboration of researchers, publishers, and information managers, who also play a significant role in the developmental process.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: By now, we also do know that development includes the different components of knowledge management. So you can't develop in any economy, if you don't have your information up-to-date, and if your information is not relevant to the development process. So we know that the development includes the different components of knowledge management, such as the people, the process, the content, and the strategy.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So regardless of which sector the knowledge is being generated from or being applied to, you always need people to lead. You always need people to sponsor and to support that knowledge sharing process. And in this case, we also do know that both explicit and tacit knowledge are used to catalyze development worldwide, however, explicit knowledge which is easily articulated, recorded, communicated, and most importantly in the world of knowledge management, stored, is the most widely accepted.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Scientists, information managers, and publishers have always been concerned and interested in explicit knowledge, perhaps because science is based on empirical evidence that strives for objectivity, accuracy, and acceptability. So all kinds of standards have been developed to ensure that scientific reportage is standardized, is of a high quality, and able to stand the test of time. On the other hand, very little attention or interest has been paid to tacit knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So what happens to the tacit knowledge that abounds in our midst? The knowledge that is garnered from personal experience and context, that is difficult write down, to articulate, or present in a tangible form. The vital knowledge that had accumulated over many generations, this is the knowledge we call Indigenous Knowledge. What happens to it?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: How do we handle and use it to catalyze development? So what is Indigenous Knowledge? There is an old African proverb we normally refer to, that says, and I quote, "When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground." So what does this proverb mean, and what are the implications for information management? The old man or woman, as the case may be, in this case, is the custodian of knowledge who stores volumes of wisdom and knowledge accumulated over many years.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: He or she has a lot to teach us about our very lives and the environment we depend on, through the application of years of accumulated knowledge. With his death, all the knowledge goes with him. Nobody can benefit from the lost knowledge. The value and importance of Indigenous Knowledge for development can therefore not be to over-emphasized. Indigenous Knowledge can be described as the rich body of knowledge that is unique to a given culture or community and is differentiated from modern scientific knowledge or known knowledge systems.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: It is the basic component of any country's knowledge system and form the basis for the local-level decision-making. So what are some of the characteristics of Indigenous Knowledge? Ladies and gentlemen, it is-- Indigenous Knowledge is transferred orally and spans several generations. It tends to be collectively owned and takes the form of technologies, know-how, skills, festivals, songs, folklore, food, proverbs, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, community laws.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: You go into the community and they have strict laws that you have to follow, especially with respect to the environment. Certain times, you cannot even enter the-- you can't enter the forest. At certain times, you can't go to the riverside. These are all local community laws that do help in the management of the environment. And it also encompasses local languages and agricultural practices.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Indigenous Knowledge also includes the development of plant species and animal breeds that enable the community to achieve a stable livelihood. It is, in fact, it is a complete knowledge system with its own concepts of epistemology, and its own scientific and logical validity. And today, we risk losing these extraordinary archives of knowledge and expertise, which are stored in the memories of elders, healers, midwives, farmers, fishermen, hunters in the different cultures of the world, leaving humanity inevitably in danger of losing its past and perhaps jeopardizing its future as well.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And I remember a time, we went on a field trip to one of the coastal towns in Ghana. And one of the folks, local folks, told me that if the seawater comes up to this level, then we are going to have a very rainy season. I mean, there was no-- it blew my mind away because it appears so absurd, but true to his word. It's OK.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So we should therefore provide the avenues through which the wisdom and experiences produced over many years can be harnessed and shared. So let's take a look at this. You look at the pictures. Traditional Indigenous Knowledge is of a practical nature. It's not an abstract, especially in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, health, horticulture, and forestry.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: On the right, you see-- to my right, you see several products. You can see cloves, you can see black pepper, you can see tamarind velvet as a fruit, you can see the miracle berry, you can see ginger, and many others. Many of these are widely used products that can be used for medicines and cosmetics and are derived from traditional knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And I'll give you a story. As a young mother many, many years ago, I think in the early '80s, I had my first child. And this child was so restless that day. He kept on crying, crying, nothing would classify him. I don't know how my mother found her way into my house that day, but she did. She took one look at my son, just took my son in her arms, and then gave him a warm bath and applied what we called shea butter, shea nut butter oil.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: It's a local oil. She just massaged the body gently. Within minutes, my son was fast asleep. He did not wake up until the next day. But this is knowledge I had no idea about. Otherwise, I would probably have applied it, even before she could. So, but sadly, this vital knowledge is diminishing at an alarming rate, making it necessary for us to preserve it, before all or most of it is completely lost.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And the consequent loss of the Indigenous knowledge in any community results in cultural gaps between generations and denies that community, in particular, and the world, in general, of this rich and powerful heritage of traditions that can be built on for development. As a natural consequence, therefore, Indigenous knowledge, together with modern scientific knowledge, should be important components in global, national, and community development.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: However, current scientific discourse and development tend to ignore and underestimate and sometimes undermine Indigenous knowledge systems, which are often labeled as unscientific and outdated. So if you'll permit me, for the next 30 minutes, I'm going to share with you the relevance of Indigenous knowledge in our lives. We shall look at some of the different types of Indigenous knowledge and establish how it enriches scientific knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: The need to treat it as a knowledge gateway that has to be preserved will also be assessed. So I'm going to start with Indigenous knowledge and our health. In our world today, there is the need to find new cures for diseases, and this has become even more pressing, especially since the emergence of dangerous and infectious diseases like Ebola, SARS, and COVID-19.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: There is renewed interest in finding solutions from nature, and the best way of finding suitable remedies for specific diseases is just to talk to local people. People are using all kinds of concoctions worldwide for this COVID. And with regard to the current pandemic, my humble opinion is that by now, there should have been a massive drive to interact with local Indigenous people around the world to identify local plants that are being used by them to curb respiratory diseases similar to COVID-19, and to at least assess if there's any chance of finding a natural cure for this dreadful disease.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: We need to realize that this option might be a good one because local communities have used plants and plant-derived products as remedies for various ailments, for many centuries. The use of these plants have led to the discovery of various cures, which in some instances, have been researched into and have produced results that have been accepted and applied globally. Now, I give you an example we can of learn from is the discovery of the smallpox vaccine in the 1700s, when a youngster from Africa called Onesimus recommended the rubbing of pus from the person infected with smallpox into an open wound on the arm of someone not infected.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Once the infected materials were introduced into the body, the person who underwent the procedure developed antibodies to fight the disease. The procedure now known as inoculation was thus developed to fight smallpox. This was Indigenous knowledge that had been passed on to Onesimus from his ancestors in Africa, and which he had kept in his head until it was needed. This is the knowledge that gave birth to the concept of vaccinations and the concept upon which most vaccinations are based.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: By the time he disclosed this knowledge, there was a lot of resistance in its application. But had he not disclosed it, we may probably be still struggling to find a cure for various ailments. Let me give you a few examples from Ghana. In Ghana, for example, a lot of people, especially those in rural communities, depend on plant-based remedies, usually referred to as herbal medicine, as a complement to orthodox medicine to solve their health problems.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: In some places, these herbal medicines are used exclusively in place of orthodox medicine. In a study that I conducted in the Offinso area in the Ashanti region, local people reported on the use of forest plans for various ailments, such as malaria, high blood pressure, respiratory diseases, and many others. The neem tree, pictured on your right, is for example, is a popular plant used in malaria treatment.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Apart from the leaves and the bark that are used for malaria, the neem seeds produce oil that is used as insect repellent. This is a natural product, which is devoid of toxic substances that can harm us. And I think that if there was a global drive to maybe use this as basis for insect repellent and pest products, it may go a long way in preserving our environment. It is worthy to know that many of these remedies have been used for centuries and have been passed on from generation to generation.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Unfortunately, however, the formulae and dosages administered are not documented, making it difficult to stick to standard dosages. There are many such examples, but for the purpose of this conference, please permit me to discuss two wonderful plants that have been used by local people for many years in Ghana, and that could perhaps help change the global management of people with diabetic tendencies.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to the miracle berry. It's a plant native to West Africa with central origin in Ghana. The fruit has a unique taste on the-- it has a unique effect on the taste buds and has been used for centuries by local people to make sour food taste sweet. These berries are well known throughout Ghana by various local names including Asaa or Asawa among the Akans.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: They are usually found in home gardens and consumed more by children. It's not really regarded as an important plant by most people in Ghana, maybe because we don't place much value on it. The berry itself has no taste, but when it is eaten, any food eaten thereafter tastes sweet. In Ghana especially, it's often used to make palm wine, a local alcoholic beverage that has over fermented and is thus bitter, taste sweet.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: You know, palm wine is a local drink that we get from the palm tree, and the first bits that come out are usually very sweet. Thereafter, tends to turn a bit bitter and sour with more alcohol in it. But immediately, you take the miracle berry before drinking it. Oh, it tastes maybe like shandy or something, and it tastes so sweet.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: In Ghana, the sweetener effect typically lasts from about half an hour to two hours, with the intensity declining over time. The fruit has been proposed as a treatment for the taste changes experienced by some cancer patients, though further studies may be needed. It is also a giant step for those with diabetes, as this could be a great substitute for artificial sweeteners that are rich in vitamins and antioxidants, with almost no calories.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Despite its potential to transform the health sector as a sweetener, it's not as treasured as one would expect. The worrying aspect of this is that many young people have not picked up this local knowledge. Results of a study revealed that respondents between the ages of 18 and 30 had very little knowledge about this plant, and I think this is a cause for worry. And I also think that the miracle berry could bring great transformation into the local communities from which they are endemic, so that it could give jobs for people, could give them income and a better standard of living.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Then let me go to the second plant that I talked about. I again introduce you to another plant, known as Thaumatococcus danielli. This plant has similar properties, similar to the miracle berry. It can be found in Africa, stretching from Sierra Leone to Democratic Republic of Congo. And if you look on the map, you will see where the red line stretches through all these countries.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Now when I was growing up, the leaves of this plant were used in cooking and for wrapping food. In Nigeria, it was used to cook moi-moi, a pudding made from beans. The leaves give the food a distinctive taste that is unique and pleasant. In traditional medicine, the fruits has numerous benefits. The fruits of this plant are used as laxative. The seeds can be used as an emetic and for pulmonary conditions.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: The sap of the leaves are used as an antidote against venoms, stings, and bites. And then, the roots are also used as sedative and for insanity treatment. Though all these uses have not been authenticated by science, it still does not negate the impact on the health of local people. As a sweetener for diabetics, one of the most important properties of this plant is as a sweetener, being the source of thaumatin, an intensely sweet protein of interest to diabetics.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, a molecule in the fruit binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet. Currently, thaumatin is being extracted and exported out of the country, mainly to Europe, for use in the food industry. Despite its importance on the global markets, its use locally is still limited. Does not appear as if Ghana has benefited financially from the export of thaumatin in the same way as cocoa has.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So let's just look-- have a summary, short summary of what I've talked about so far. I have given you, so far, two examples, a few examples of two valuable plants that can be important to the economy of Ghana. These plans have the possibility of transforming the health sector and, in Ghana, provided enough local research could be conducted on them. Knowledge on these two species discussd above seems, however, to be dwindling among local people.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: The new generation of young people do not even know the uses to which these plans can be put. Consequently, efforts at conserving the habitat of these species is at a minimum, and we risk losing them altogether. So we need to consider a few things and keep them in mind. One of the basic things is that when valuable traditional products are discovered, the beneficiaries are usually not the local people.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: For example, the thaumatin that is been extracted is exported directly to Europe. Miracle berries are also being exported to the USA. There is no evidence that thaumatin is being extracted and used in Ghana. So although the discovery is a local one, the benefits are global. Now, what are the things we need to think? How widely spread is this knowledge, even in Ghana, among our own politicians?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And how many people have even heard of their existence? How do we ensure that the knowledge is transferred and documented and the benefits shared equitably? So let me move away from the plants and then go on to the second type of Indigenous knowledge, what we call Sacred groves, as storehouses of knowledge. The second type of Indigenous knowledge I would like us to share is on Sacred groves. By definition, Sacred groves are small patches or islands of remaining original habitat or forests of various dimensions, partially or fully protected by local, or religious, or culture agents, that harbor rare and threatened species.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Sacred groves are common in many developing countries, but reports indicate that their impact is diminishing in some places. Indigenous local communities try to live in tandem with nature. As a result, they manage their natural resources using local customs and traditions. And the easiest way to do this is to create patches of forest land that contain numerous valuable plants that are separated from human habitation, which they call Sacred groves.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: In these groves, they conserve certain plants species for medicinal purposes and for spiritual use. They also preserve animals they consider to be sacred. They revere these sacred groves and consider them to be sacrosanct. Even though the sacred groves are created mainly for medicinal and spiritual purposes, they however serve multiple purposes. Some of the benefits-- a study in some of these sacred groves have unearthed the following.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Sacred groves are more than just spiritual groves. They are actually treasure troves of knowledge that are of cultural, historical, and scientific benefit and considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. Water bodies that constitute the headwaters of major rivers and streams that supply water to entire communities and towns can be found in them. Rare plants and threatened species that are difficult to find elsewhere are conserved here.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: They provide a habitat for birds, rare birds, insects, and reptiles. They also create a cool micro-climate that is significantly different from adjacent lands. They play a major role in natural resources management. They could possibly be an avenue to help mitigate the effects of climate change. In these groves, resource extraction is controlled by a variety of traditional rules and taboos, often invoked to placate the deities involved.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: The presence of healthy plants ensure that the ecosystem maintains equilibrium by employing selective harvesting techniques that can maintain the ecosystem. Well-preserved sacred groves are storehouses of valuable medicinal plants and herbs and other flora having high economic value. The people have the phenology of the plans at their fingertips, so they know when it flowers.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: They know when it fruits, they know when it is ready for harvesting, and they protect it with their very lives. Indeed, these sacred groves serves as refuge for threatened species. Now, modern knowledge has now taught us that while these traditionalists were thinking of this spiritual side of the groves, they were inadvertently conserving nature for the betterment of society.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: This, I think, could be replicated in different ecological zones in response to the effects of climate change and could possibly be an avenue that could be explored and used in the fight against climate change. For example, we continue to do the same things over and over again, and nothing is changing, in terms of climate change mitigation. Maybe we need to start doing something different, and this can be an opportunity for us to begin, to look at sacred groves as one avenue through which the climate can be controlled.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Now the third type of Indigenous knowledge I would like us to discuss is on living libraries. About 1,600 years ago, the Great Alexandria library went up in flames. The real tragedy of the period was not the uncertainty of not knowing who to blame for the library's destruction, but rather, the tragic loss forever of ancient history, literature, and learning.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Today, we have a similar situation unfolding right before our eyes. Only this time, it is about knowledge that does not exist in books or huge edifices like modern libraries. It is another form of Indigenous knowledge called "living libraries." The only the difference between living libraries and a regular modern library are the books.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Most of our local communities do not have libraries with books and computers. Rather, they have people who are substitutes for the books. They keep the memory of the people alive. In a library, in a living library, the people are the books. Living librarians have their own way of producing, codifying, storing , and retrieving knowledge and information. Now, I would like us to talk about the living librarians of Dagbon.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: They are called the Baansi. Dagbon, a traditional kingdom founded in the 15th century, is one of the powerful and largest traditional groups in Northern Ghana. The history of this powerful kingdom has been kept by the Baansi, who are important in maintaining the entire existence of the members of this community. Baansi is a collective name for musicians.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: The Baansi are court musicians who engage themselves in the art of praise singing. Libraries are also defined as repositories of knowledge, and the Baansis of Dagbon are just that. They are repositories of knowledge, known as living libraries. They are also holders of cultural wisdom and history and are custodians of all knowledge relating to the history of the Dagbon kingdom.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Plockey, in 2005, in a study, identified the Baansi as living librarians of Dagbon. They produce, transmit, and store knowledge, which they recount at important ceremonies, such as the rituals performed during the installation of chiefs, naming of babies, funeral ceremonies, and indeed at all social flora, using what they call their Timpani drums. And you can see a diagram, a picture of the Timpani drum on the screen.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: In the process of communication, they entertain and train on the customs and traditions of the kingdom. They have full knowledge of the genealogy of the people, their history, and have immense knowledge on who has the credentials to ascend the throne. They form an important source of knowledge on the political economy, history, and literature of Dagbon.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: For instance, the use of praise names to serenade royals serve as an important source of teaching for the people. That Baansi, as living librarians, have the history of Dagbon in their memory, and they consider themselves to be vessels speech. They are repositories of knowledge who harbor secrets that are many centuries old. They consider themselves indispensable, since without them, the names of the kings would vanish into oblivion.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: They consider themselves the memory of mankind, at least within the Dagbon enclave. By the spoken word, they bring to life the deeds and exploits of kings for younger generation. There is no doubt that they may be classified as librarians in their own right. How do we treat living libraries? How do we help the Baansi to preserve their knowledge and get it known?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Can the knowledge of these living legends be packaged and promoted in a way that would pave way for them to benefit from their knowledge? These living libraries can easily be equated to counter archives, whose knowledge cannot be lost. The libraries are the people, and will be our demise, all this knowledge dies. There is therefore the need to document, record, and digitize their knowledge as well.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So far, we have looked at three different types and characteristics of Indigenous knowledge. There are many other types of knowledge, but due to time constraints, I have limited myself to only these three. All of them provide useful information that can be tapped for national or global development. Indigenous knowledge is recognized as an important source of developmental information.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: It is priceless to those who depend on it for their very existence. It is also acknowledged that information management personnel play a significant role in the developmental process. However, they pay more attention to explicit or published information. It is thus imperative for information management personnel to begin to learn more about Indigenous knowledge, if they are to meet the information needs of Indigenous people and all those who use the information.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: We need, therefore, to preserve knowledge not for the fun of it, but to learn from it. We need to create local pathways to global development. And in learning from Indigenous knowledge, we can pick up the best practices of communities in local knowledge systems and publish and share them for local and global development. As partners in development, information personnel must begin to be proactive in Indigenous knowledge management.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: We need to give a new meaning to development that empowers local people to use their own knowledge for their own well-being. As information personnel, we must begin to move out of our comfort zone. And it is important to remember that a comfort zone may be a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there. We must therefore be able to get involved, just like at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had librarians playing key roles in producing face masks.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: We, as a professional group, should begin to play a major role in national and global development. We need to recognize local people as contributors and recipients of the knowledge they create. We also need to recognize that knowledge and the management of it is not the exclusive domain of technologically advanced communities. So revitalizing Indigenous knowledge production-- as information management personnel, our preoccupation has always been to preserve knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: How do we collaborate as scientists, as librarians, and publishers, to bring valuable information into the public domain? How do we promote Indigenous knowledge of economically viable local products? Who benefits from the proceeds of this knowledge? Should there be a sharing formula? Can anything be standardized? Should a procedure for collection be developed?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: What procedures should be used to validate information gathered? What documentation standards should be used? Is there any possibility of applying intellectual property rights? Can patents be developed? By whom? And for whom? These are key questions that need to be answered.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: May I now make some suggestions on the way forward. To foster positive interactions between Indigenous knowledge and other knowledge systems, there is the need for collaboration between various players in information management. Each player must be regarded as an equal partner. There must be mutual respect and understanding for the knowledge. Dialogue between groups on what needs to be done must be transparent and open.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: There must be informed consent and just returns for Indigenous knowledge holders and practitioners through the flow of rewards and benefits. And there's a lot of practical work to be done, such as establishing the modalities for managing Indigenous knowledge, developing guidelines on how materials should be identified, copied, organized, stored, and retrieved to meet the specific needs and management regimes of particular communities, assessing standards of technology needed, developing consistency of practice across many local Indigenous contexts, assessing training needs for the local community, and identifying a champion whose passion would be to help mobilize local knowledge for development.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And to conclude, I hope I've been able, in the last 40 minutes, to create awareness about Indigenous knowledge and its role in national development. I've also tried to explain the few differences that exist. Despite these differences, however, I do hope it has become evident that Indigenous knowledge plays a key role in national development. Let us now come together to start a conversation on Indigenous knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Let us now start a global conversation on Indigenous knowledge to create global connections. Thank you very much.
JASON GRIFFEY: Thank you so, so much, Dr. Sraku-Lartey. That was an amazing presentation, full of an enormous amount of information. And we have far too many questions than we can get to at the moment, but I did want to try to sneak in a couple, before we let everyone go. The first that I was really curious about it-- it looks like you maybe started typing an answer in the Q&A, but Joe Haveman asked, how can Indigenous knowledge be integrated with modern scholarly systems?
JASON GRIFFEY: I think everyone sees this as a challenge. How can this knowledge sort of be put into systems that obviously are not designed directly for it? Is there a path forward there?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Thank you, Jason. It's a huge challenge, trying to even get Indigenous knowledge together. But currently, at FORIG, we are responsible for forestry research. And we have started an initiative by digitizing the local information, the local knowledge that people have actually come up with. So we have a database where we collect information from the field.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: When we come back to the institute, we try to sift through them, and then go through the literature to see whether it's validated. And we then digitize it in the database. So if there is a particular plant, we give the scientific name, the local name, the uses to which the people are putting it. And then, we also put out the uses to which the literature talks about.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: And I think that's one of the ways by which we can integrate the knowledge from different sources, because once it's in a database, scientists are likely to look up the literature, and to see that it's been documented, and then use that as a starting point to go through with their research. You can't just pick up local knowledge, because people says it works.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: You actually have to authenticate it, and you have to do research on it, to make sure it works for everybody. So we have started it, in a small way, by developing a database for the plants and the food plants, local Indigenous foods and medicines. And I think, if we're able to continue, we could get a huge database for that. India has done that, and it's a way that we can actually follow to see if it works very well for us.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Thank you.
JASON GRIFFEY: Yeah. That's actually-- I actually-- the second question I wanted to try to sneak in before you run out of time was actually from one of our attendees from India, Dr. Ramayya, who asked whether this work that you're doing and the Indigenous knowledge that you've recorded is being, then, used educationally in any way? Is it being put into an educational system?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Yeah. Right now, actually, apart from us documenting and digitizing it in a database, which is available to everybody, the University of Science and Technology, which is one of the huge universities, train traditional pharmacists to use herbal medicine. So in their pharmacy department, they do have a department for herbal medicine, where they integrate the herbal medicine into orthodox medicine to see how it works.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So I think in training-- and I do have a lot of the students come in from the university, to see whether they can learn from the studies that we did on Indigenous knowledge. Thank you.
JASON GRIFFEY: That's fantastic. It's really, really wonderful to know that the knowledge, that the work that you're doing to capture this knowledge, is then being passed forward, right?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Yeah.
JASON GRIFFEY: And I also take, as a really important point, your description of the fact that scientists, when searching, right, you make it findable, and then it can be put forward into future research because of that initial findability. And that reinforcement cycle is obviously a huge part of scholarly work, right? And that's just super, super important, as a way of getting Indigenous knowledge to move forward into the future, right?
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Yeah.
JASON GRIFFEY: I do worry about things like making sure that the metadata, like, how that knowledge was captured continues on in that scientific process.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Exactly.
JASON GRIFFEY: So it doesn't get lost. That it was--
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: But the difficulty is that everybody is using their own kind of style. So it's very important for us to be able to streamline the way metadata should be captured for the different resources. So if it's a video of a festival, how do we record it? That globally, without us doing our own thing in our own little corner, so that it makes it so difficult for other people to have access to.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: So I think it's about time we have a global discussion on Indigenous knowledge. There has been quite at a number of them, in patches, in different places, on different occasions, but we really need to gather things together. I think God created the world and put all the resources in there for all of us to use. He brought all solutions out, but we have just tapped on the tip of an iceberg, just the little tip of it.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: There's so much in the local treasures that we can tap from, that we can use for our own well-being, without going through difficulties in using toxic and other substances that would actually harm us. So I think this is a great way to start, by me talking to such an international audience. Let it be a thought process for all of us, and let's whether we can move forward with our knowledge on Indigenous knowledge.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: Thank you.
JASON GRIFFEY: I can't think of a better way to end. That's a wonderful, wonderful point. We have about five minutes until the top of the next set of sessions. I have captured all of the questions that were asked. We had far more than we could have time for, but I'm going to move those over into the Discourse. You know, Dr. Sraku-Lartey, you're certainly welcome to join us there for the conversation. There was a ton of interest in the chat about continuing this conversation, and this is the group to get standards started for this work.
JASON GRIFFEY: So I think it is a really key point to keep the conversation going. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for such a marvelous way to kick off Day 2. And we hope to see you, we hope to see you again and keep the conversation moving forward, so that we can hopefully make this work for everyone. So thank you, all. Enjoy the day, and we'll see you at the other sessions.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: OK. Thank you. Thank you. You're wonderful.
JASON GRIFFEY: Thank you.
MARGARET SRAKU-LARTEY: All right. Bye-bye. [MUSIC PLAYING]
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