Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Indigenous knowledge as serious science
Mountain communities have read the sky, the weather, and the land for generations, encoding deep environmental knowledge in language, calendars, and practice. HICS documents this knowledge systematically and, where it makes sense, cross-validates it against instrument data — treating it as a serious source of scientific insight, not folklore.
This work cannot be done to communities. Knowledge holders are co-designers and co-owners of the results, with decision-making power over how their knowledge is recorded and used. This is structural, not rhetorical.
Document, validate, return
Systematic documentation ▸
Recording traditional astronomical, meteorological, and ecological knowledge with the communities that hold it.
Cross-validation ▸
Where appropriate, comparing traditional indicators (weather signs, seasonal markers) against HICS instrument records — each informing the other.
Return to the community ▸
Results are owned by and returned to the communities, in their language, on their terms.
Planned, and grounded in HICS's long-standing community relationships in Dolpo and beyond.