Indigenous knowledge exploitation for rural regional development ---by case of Baixinglin in Guizhou China

摘要

In nowadays knowledge-based society, the local embedded knowledge and innovation are considered as the core-competence of the regions. In rural areas, maybe it is not suitable to adopt the high-tech or other industrial cluster development strategy as in urban areas because of the barrier of “organizational thinness”. However, the rural areas always have their special local resources, especially the intangible asset, such as cultural resources and local knowledge embedded in the long history. Besides absorbing the external knowledge, exploiting the local knowledge will also enrich the knowledge network of the local areas. Moreover, because indigenous knowledge was generated from the local wisdom and culture,it fits to the local situation natively, and also it is very hard for others to imitate.This paper examines the case of Baixianglin in Guizhou, China. Due to over-disafforestation in 1950s’ steel-making and the Great Leap Forward in 1960s, the ecological environment was destroyed severely.According to the appraisal of forestry experts its recovery would cost 50 years and a huge economic investment. However, during the last 20 years, under the leadership of Mr. Yang Mingshen, local people have succeeded in forestation by using the local knowledge. Due to the environment improvement, the regional economy has developed and the poverty has been alleviated.Based on this case study, this paper searches first a sustainable development approach to exploit the local knowledge to enrich the local knowledge pool, and then a practical utilization or interaction with the external knowledge. Some specific knowledge exploitation approaches are examined. The determinant factors for indigenous knowledge exploitation are analyzed, including the leadership function, autonomy of agents and self organization of the community.