Traditional Knowledge and Technologies: administration of commons goods from the perspective of goat producers in the Lavalle Desert

TORRES, LAURA

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, Israel

Conferencia; International Conference Drylands, Deserts and Desertification; 2008

Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research Drylands,

In studies concerning desertification, and in tune with other international conferences, the UNCCD highlights the importance and need to protect, add value to and promote the traditional knowledge and technologies stemming from local communities. Among other things, these needs are linked to the acknowledgment that traditional knowledge and technologies are part of complex systems of practices and meanings born from the interaction with the environment, which can become allies in the process to combat desertification. According to this view, this is not about simple, low-cost technologies, but a mode of relationship among environment, production and culture, that accounts for the historical conditions in which local populations develop (UNCCD 2005). Within this line of work, and taking the drylands of Mendoza (Argentina) as case study, this proposal seeks to describe and analyze the intertwining of traditional knowledge and technologies that have enabled local groups to manage natural resources. For such purpose, it describes the consensus achieved at international level and discusses the concepts of traditional knowledge and technologies. With these tools, the proposal analyzes the particular way in which local communities in the desert of Mendoza manage both goat production and a wide array of natural resources regarded as “common goods”.     Key words: desert, society/nature, common goods, goat production, location, Mendoza, Argentina.