Preface

**Section 3 Indigenous Knowledge 121**

**VI** Contents

**Development 123** John Tharakan

Desalegn Yayeh Ayal

Chris A. Shisanya

**Highlands of Kenya 159**

Chapter 7 **Indigenous Knowledge Systems for Appropriate Technology**

Chapter 8 **Revisiting Indigenous Biotic and Abiotic Weather Forecasting**

**Case from the Borana People of South Ethiopia 135**

Chapter 9 **Role of Traditional Ethnobotanical Knowledge and Indigenous Institutions in Sustainable Land Management in Western**

**for Possible Integration with Scientific Weather Prediction: A**

Indigenous communities, peoples, and nations are those that, having a historical continuity with preinvasion and precolonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories or parts of them. They form at present nondominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions, and legal system. But the interactions between in‐ digenous peoples, governments, and resources have historically often been contentious. Throughout the world, indigenous peoples are growing in political strength and commercial capacity. Some governments are beginning to redress historic injustices by recognizing in‐ digenous ownership and cultural and human rights.

Writing a comparative history of indigenous peoples is a challenging and humbling experi‐ ence. *A Global History of Indigenous Peoples* came out of a desire to search for patterns and processes in the history of indigenous to the newcomer encounter and to make connections across continents and centuries.

There was a tremendous response by the authors to the book on *Indigenous People* by con‐ tributing high-quality research chapters, which necessitated the publication of this book. Moreover, noncontributors could also be largely benefitted from the chapters of this book. The present book is based on selected manuscripts submitted by the authors on the theme of indigenous environment, indigenous technical knowledge, indigenous resource gover‐ nance, indigenous entrepreneurship, and empowerment to InTechOpen publisher. The process of publication went with different steps starting from selection of high-quality manuscripts to finalization.

I hope that this book would definitely offer a general overview and hope that it would stim‐ ulate debate and further investigations of the comparative dimension of the indigenous ex‐ periences is work, then, is a speculation on a broad, globally significant issue; I welcome the opportunity to expand, enhance, and rethink on the experiences around the world.

**Dr. Purushothaman Venkatesan**

National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM) Hyderabad, Telangana, India

**Section 1**
