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THE BIOLOGY BUILDING of Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Quito was quiet just before lunchtime. As I entered the herpetology lab I heard only the bubbling from many terrarium tanks and the highpitched clicking of frogs. Luis Coloma waved for me to come over to the far side of the lab. On an unattended computer monitor near him, animated poison dart frogs marched across the screensaver.
Coloma, who grew up in an Andean town southwest of Chimborazo, Ecuador's highest peak, has studied frogs for over two decades and is part of an international task force studying the decline of amphibian populations worldwide. A biologist by training, Coloma is interested in local uses and perceptions of nature. He reminded me that it was from indigenous Americans that European naturalists learned of the chemical powers of the poison dart frog and the healing properties of cinchona bark. (In the early 1800s the area near Coloma's boyhood home was a world center for cinchona trees, from which quinine was extracted.) Coloma says that indigenous people in the Andes, who live closer to the land than the rest of us, had an early inkling of what scientists were also starting to think: that catastrophic declines in frog populations might be linked to climate change.
"If you talk to the Indians, they say that the sun is too hot," Coloma says. He cited scientific studies that found rising rates of skin cancer among indigenous people. There were many other possible factors in amphibian decline, Coloma adds quickly, and he is no expert on traditional knowledge, but his view reveals the growing dialogue between scientists and indigenous people about the world around them.
Traditional knowledge is a growing field, and local groups in the Americas are at its leading edge. In Mexico, Canada, and elsewhere, community-based researchers are recording information that has remained mostly oral for generations, and has often been stigmatized by scientists as superstition. Traditional knowledge is finding new value both in cultural initiatives and in efforts to understand the environment and improve health care.
Coloma marvels at the movements to monitor and restore traditional knowledge, which, he points out, has been mostly hidden for five hundred years. But he is cautiously optimistic. "My worry is that the fast rates...