Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Section 1: What about Indigenous Knowledge? -- Some characteristics of IK -- What is included in IK research? -- The erosion of IK systems -- Why the sudden interest in IK? -- IK for sustainable development -- Section 2: Protecting Intellectual Property Rights -- Intellectual property rights -- The Convention on Biological Diversity -- The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade -- The current context -- What does this mean to a rural farmer? -- Some IPR issues -- Compensation mechanisms -- Emerging mechanisms for dealing with IPR -- Section 3: Developing a Research Framework -- IUCN: an approach to assessing progress toward sustainability -- Conducting social science research -- Making research gender sensitive -- Participatory rural appraisal -- Approaches for IK research -- Section 4: Data Collection -- Some PRA techniques -- Section 5: Case Studies -- A case study from Indonesia -- A case study from Ecuador -- A case study from Ethiopia -- A case study from Venezuela -- Section 6: Assessing, Validating, and Experimenting with IK -- Sustainable-development assessment criteria -- Summarizing case-study findings -- Indicators -- A screening form for sustainability -- IUCN's Barometer of Sustainability -- Comparative approaches to validation -- IK experimentation -- Final comments -- Appendix 1: Sample Guidelines -- Inuit research guidelines -- Dene Cultural Institute guidelines -- International Institute of Rural Reconstruction guidelines -- Appendix 2: Glossary -- Appendix 3: Acronyms and Abbreviations -- References.