Page 40 - Local Voices, Local Choices Excerpt

38 local voices, local choices
indigenous knowledge of the landscape is helping them to understand the value of the resources they have.”
Japhet describes how, in the village of Kalinzi, different water sources had almost completely dried up over the past decade. This was because some people were planting eucalyptus. The eucalyptus was introduced to the area by the missionary churches because they were a fast-growing spe- cies and good for timber production. Yet, he explains, the people planted them “without understanding the ecosystem services principles, and how eucalyptus removes all of the groundwater.”
To address this problem, Tacare proposed planting another tree, Khaya anthotheca (East African mahogany), as an alternative species. During those discussions, Japhet says, “the people started to understand,
‘Okay, now we remember how it was before the eucalyptus, they [the trees] used to be like this. Our forefathers told us about this, and this, and this.’” He adds that, locally, “many of the species were used as medicinal plants before the introduction of the health centers. The people were using the same species, the same vegetation, but now generations are passing, and things are changing.”
As Japhet understands, trying to maintain cultural heritage is a bal- ancing act between the benefits of development and the value of tradition. Hamisi Matama is someone who still holds one of the keys linking tradi- tional remedies and beliefs with modern knowledge. Now retired, in 1972 he was one of many local villagers who were employed as research assis- tants, guiding foreigners and collecting daily observational data on the Gombe chimps. Yet, as a medicine man, his local knowledge of the vege- tation is not only scientific but cultural.
“My first source of knowledge on trees was my late mother, who knew a lot about them,” Hamisi explains. “She would teach me lessons like, ‘My son, this medicine is to make you vomit if you’ve taken poison.’ I started from there and continued progressing through inquiring and finding out more. I enjoyed it very much because it gives you freedom of understand- ing. The knowledge was beneficial then, but I still use it—even here at