Indigenous Environmental Knowledge: Exploring gender and sustainable development

Abstract (English)

'Teen pani, Kutki Rani,' the English translation of the riddle of the Baiga, a  PVTGs of Central India, is "With subsequent three rains, there is bumper harvest of Kutki, or little millet (Panicum sumatrense)."The Baiga have another riddle relating to Kothi ( storage ), a traditional knowledge of the Baiga women that preserve the Indigenous crop for not less than 75 years  ( Sahoo, 2024 ).
These two riddles of traditional wisdom of the Baiga community are inextricably related to the seriousness of climate change, the international protest of XR (extinction rebellion) in 2019 in 30 countries (Giddens & Sutton, 2021) and the Los Angeles wildfires in 2025 fuelled by "hydroclimate whiplash," caused by climate change.
Climate change is mainly Anthropogenic, and environmental issues always involve nature, emphasizing the nature-culture interface and nature/culture dualism. Ulrich Beck's Concept of risk  society (1999) and Hajer's (1996) awareness of environmental risk have focused on understanding nature-culture dualism (Haila, 2000) and nature-culture interface (Jones, 2009)  and put emphasis on research on  Indigenous and local  environmental knowledge system which is crucial to combat livelihood problems, enhance human and ecosystem wellbeing in general and sustainable development on particular (Ellen, 2007)
Murdock's (1949) and Parsons and Bales's (1936) arguments on the natural difference between the sexual division of labor and expressive and instrumental roles, respectively, are sharply criticized by feminists, who put their arguments that the social roles of men and women are socially constructed.
Women 's Indigenous Environmental knowledge of agroforestry and agro-biodiversity fosters the traditional knowledge of oral tradition, knowledge of flora and fauna. Their role as traditional healers and midwives and their contribution to food production, preparation, processing, preservation, storage, and sale of staple food enhance food security and lead to the conservation of (FAO, 1999) biodiversity and natural resource management.
In this context, the proposed panel focused on how the environmental knowledge of Indigenous women is related to the sustainability of the environment and natural resource management, as well as how gender relations affect the distribution of natural resources and power relations.
The panel shall provide more insights on ontological and epistemological assumptions and paradigm shifts on nature/culture and nature–culture in the context of gender and sustainable environment.