LINKS Project - Global

Launched in 2002, UNESCO's Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) Project focusses on the interface between local and indigenous knowledge, on the one hand, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of poverty eradication and environmental sustainability, on the other. By organising projects, events, research, and resources, the project aims to:

• strengthen local community control over processes of ecological, cultural, and social change.
• revitalise traditional knowledge transmission within local communities by strengthening ties between elders and youth and evaluating the opportunities and constraints of existing educational frameworks.
• identify rules and processes that govern knowledge access and control in order to help develop appropriate instruments for protecting traditional knowledge.

Main Communication Strategies
The LINKS strategy involves building dialogue among traditional knowledge holders, natural and social scientists, resource managers, and decision-makers to the end of enhancing biodiversity.

LINKS brings together personnel from various UNESCO sectors (the Natural Sciences, Social and Human Sciences, Culture, Communication & Information and Education) and involves UNESCO field offices in Apia (Samoa), Bangkok (Thailand), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Hanoi (Vietnam), Moscow (Russia) and Montevideo (Uruguay). These personnel work to carry out the following activities:

• following assessment missions, the carrying out of demonstration projects in collaboration with rural and indigenous communities
• examples include: use of local knowledge of acquatic resources to develop viable sustainable development options in the Charan region (Bangladesh); use of indigenous knowledge among the Cree First Nations of James Bay (Quebec, Canada) to assess environmental and social impacts of large-scale development; strengthening the role of Even and Koryak peoples living in the Volcanoes of Kamchatka World Heritage Site (Russia) in managing the protected area in which they live; and increasing farmers' use and knowledge of Azolle in paddy rice field production in Thai Binh Province (Vietnam).
• the pursuit of action research on key concerns and issues, such as consultation with the Vanuatu Cultural Centre to assess concern about school curricula that may undermine indigenous knowledge of value for customary resource management.
• the use of information and technologies (ICTs) to record, manage, and transmit indigenous knowledge
• information on traditional knowledge of navigation has been compiled (in the form of text, image, and audio-video), using internet-based databases. Missions to the Cook Islands and to Satawal have provided digital footage of navigators' knowledge. These data contribute to the second CD-ROM in the LINKS series. Other information will be posted, as the programme progresses, on the LINKS site.
• training to build local capacities in relevant multimedia techniques.
• international workshops and seminars to promote reflection and dialogue, such as "Science and Tradition: Roots and Wings for Development" and "NGOs, Indigenous Peoples and Local Knowledge". Details about these events are posted on the LINKS site.

Development Issues
Local and Indigenous Knowledge, Poverty Alleviation, Environmental Sustainability.