Studies of chimpanzee behaviors in nearby Gombe Stream National Park indicate that many of the plants identified as having medicinal and nutritional value to humans are also important foods and medicine for chimpanzees and primates in the area. The African Union declared 2000-2010 to be the 'Decade for African Traditional Medicine' thus making the timing of this survey especially appropriate.

Our biophysical scientists will compile information on indigenous medicinal and wildland fruit plants, while survey questionnaires will be distributed to at least 100 households in 20 different villages within the Kigoma region to determine the location of traditional sacred sites. The results of this research will help revive environmentally-friendly indigenous festivals and other traditions, such as indigenous ecological calendars, allowing for the preservation of traditional knowledge and linking youths to traditional beliefs that are rapidly becoming extinct.

Outcomes of this study will be integrated into the GOSESO curriculum, which is based on the idea that indigenous education is a necessary foundation for indigenous life and the persistence of traditional culture. Within this framework, people become architects of their own future whereby information is invested anew with each passing generation. The GOSESO curriculum includes African philosophy, name systems, religions, food, indigenous medicine, and the use of a rich cultural legacy of the Africans.

Our two main areas of study that will benefit most from this research are:

• This course will examine the interrelationship of African communities with their biophysical environment. Students will learn how the region’s oral history and traditions can be incorporated into planning conservation for the future. They will study the ways natural and human history combine to form the unique highland, savanna, and lake landscapes that cover East Africa. Reading a landscape’s history will include learning about the region’s history of settlement, migration, highly endangered medicinal plants, and land use. As part of a regional oral history project, students will collect oral histories in order to create a multipurpose archive, accessible to researchers and to the public.

• Students will study the relationship between people and their environment on a local and regional level, including various linkages among economic, environmental and cultural components of sustainability. They will learn the importance of basic principles of ecology and natural resource management. The course will examine various community-based conservation strategies, the restoration of ecosystems, and the values and benefits derived from them.