ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that indigenous knowledge practice is commensurate with critical realist scientific practice. Primary data for the study was generated through face-to-face interviews with fishers, mangrove restorers and local elders, followed by focus group meetings and a guided experiential learning workshop which adopted the critical realist scientific framework known as the DREIC/RRREI(C) to mirror obtained data through a participatory learning process. Secondary data was used to provide information on mangrove ecologies as sites that may potentially attract context-based learning and to substantiate how indigenous knowledge has widely enriched Western knowledge. The chapter reveals that, similar to Western science, indigenous science is guided by theories that are developed and improved over time through an epistemology accurately described by the DREIC/RRREI(C) schemes. Examples are drawn from the coastal context to show how scientific processes such as induction, deduction, retroduction, and retrodiction feature in indigenous practice, and how the same affect learning processes. The chapter concludes that it is justifiable to suggest that indigenous knowledge is in many ways equivalent to Western scientific knowledge and can potentially be used by individuals, groups, organizations and institutions that are involved in the field of environment and sustainability education to fill knowledge gaps in similar learning contexts.
