Dayak Land Use Systems and Indigenous Knowledge

Abstract

The Dayak are a forest dwelling people of the interior of Borneo who rely on a subsistence base of agricultural products cultivated in shifting cultivation plots and forest gardens. Their indigenous knowledge systems are heavily integrated into their mosaic of land use practices. In the field of development there is now recognition that indigenous knowledge may be the key to sustainability. Concepts long used by indigenous groups have maintained populations for several hundred years and continue to due so successfully in times of rapid change in the world.