ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the discursive aspect of knowledge, as represented and codified by FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) standards, is troubled by ways of knowing, what one might call knowing from below. The anthropological study of indigenous environmental knowledge has deep roots, in particular the disciplinary transition when economic botany began to shade into ethnobotany, research informed by the comprehensive botanical knowledge of local people. Properly locating indigenous knowledge is a problem that has troubled the field throughout its history, from colonial exploration to ethnobiology to community-based conservation. Forest management operations shall maintain or enhance the long-term social and economic well-being of forest workers and local communities. Agricultural and forestry planners alike describe Mapuche campesinos as poor farmers and natural resource managers, by virtue of their poverty and lack of education. Mapuche medicine, in particular, has seen a sort of popular resurgence, visible in the form of Mapuche pharmacies in urban areas, offering herbal medicines prepared by state-certified bicultural practitioners.
