PROFESSOR Carolyn Cooper of the University of the West Indies has congratulated herbalist Ivelyn Harris on her new book, while stressing the importance for Jamaicans to document their knowledge and heritage in the written form.

She said although much of the recent history of our people has been communicated orally, Africans had a legacy of preserving its history in writing, as was done at the University of Timbuktu in ancient Mali.

“I think it is very important that Ivy has written a book. Books represent the technology of writing that allows the oral text to have the permanence that makes it so much more authoritative,” Cooper said.

Kimberly John, freshwater ecologist and regional science manager of The Nature Conservancy who has researched traditional knowledge among the windward Maroons since 1995, said Harris and other residents of the area had been very generous in sharing their knowledge of the flora and fauna of the area.

She expressed concern about the sharp reduction in the number of crayfish and other species in the Rio Grande in recent years.

She also stressed the importance of Jamaicans preserving the traditional ecological and medicinal knowledge of the country.

“So much of what we have is published by people outside of Jamaica. We have to preserve what we know from the people we have,” she said.