In Situ Maintenance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge on Malekula Island,Vanuatu

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) guides resource management across the globe, but is at risk amid social and ecological change. This has prompted numerous calls for TEK maintenance efforts, but these remain largely unexamined in the literature. Here, we discuss three examples of in situ TEK maintenance from Malekula Island in Vanuatu, locally known as kastom schools. Based on qualitative data, we find that the kastom schools may create several opportunities to maintain TEK (e.g., establishing local control over education), and argue that they represent the creative and adaptive management of tradition in dynamic social–ecological contexts. However, a number of challenges, both practical (e.g., lack of funding) and epistemological (e.g., changing modes of cultural transmission), threaten the efficacy of the kastom schools. We argue that in situ modes of TEK maintenance have promise, but that issues of power and heterogeneity require serious consideration if such measures are to succeed.