In recent years, much work has been put into understanding the products of indigenous knowledge. Many traditional, indigenous soil and water conservation techniques, ethnoveterinary practices, natural pesticides and intercropping have been documented, assessed and improved. ILEIA is one of the organisations following these developments. However, in documentation and assessment as well as participatory technology development (PTD) there has been a Western bias. Indigenous knowledge is being approached with concepts derived from contemporary Western science. Our comprehension of the concepts of life (or cosmovision) and the internal logic of indigenous knowledge and our understanding of the processes of indigenous learning, experimentation and the roles of the indigenous institutions is very undeveloped.
