‘We have a connection with the Hadzabe community because they are hunter-gatherers just like us.’
In May 2025, ǀUi David, a tracker from the Juǀ’hoansi San community in Namibia, took part in a unique exchange organized by UNESCO’s Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems Programme (LINKS).
Together with members of Tanzania’s Hadzabe community, he participated in training on CyberTracker, an icon-based application that allows users to record animal tracks, signs, and ecological data, blending Indigenous knowledge with digital technology.
In the past decade, there has been a substantial shift in both the United Nations and the environmental conservation sector toward giving greater recognition and respect to the knowledge systems of indigenous peoples.
Liebenberg has been one of the advocates for recognising the similarities between indigenous knowledge of biodiversity and complementary aspects of Western science. Indigenous peoples deal with observable facts, have highly developed understanding, analytical capacity and discernment about animal behaviour, tracks and traces, and this body of knowledge is passed from generation to generation through didactic methods, that involve precision, accuracy and verification within the parameters of their own systems.
In this article, Liebenberg, drawing on his decades of working with highly skilled San trackers, discusses and describes his experience of working with indigenous peoples to create a standardised and credible system of assessing knowledge of wildlife tracking and trailing, and evolving this into a system of certification that has international validity.
For UNESCO, this is an opportunity to create dialogue about diverse knowledge systems, explore how different indigenous peoples are dealing with their interface with science, and promoting options which can both address historical discrimination and provide new opportunities for sustaining indigenous knowledge with greater scope for application inside and outside the wage economy.
Nigel Crawhall, Chief of Section, LINKS
08 November 2021
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