The role of indigenous knowledge systems in conserving animal genetic resource biodiversity in Southern Africa: a review

Southern Africa holds an irreplaceable stock of locally adapted livestock breeds that persist mainly within smallholder and communal production systems. These breeds are losing genetic ground because of uncontrolled crossbreeding, disrupted land tenure, climate driven destocking, and decades of livestock policy that rewarded commercial output over the conservation of indigenous breeds. This structured narrative review, which incorporates systematic elements in its search and screening but does not follow the full protocol of a systematic or scoping review, examines how indigenous knowledge systems (IKSs) may function as a conservation mechanism for animal genetic resources (AnGR) across the region, drawing on 62 peer-reviewed and grey-literature sources published between 1995 and 2026 and retained in the final thematic synthesis. Findings synthesized across six thematic domains suggest that IKS-associated practices are linked to several dimensions of in situ conservation, although the underlying evidence is predominantly cross-sectional, observational, and ethnographic, and does not permit strong causal inference. Phenotype-based selection criteria appear, in the studies reviewed, to be associated with the persistence of some adaptive traits, though the genetic mechanisms underlying these associations are largely unconfirmed. Communal institutions such as livestock loaning (mafisa) and rotational bull-sharing are reported, mainly on ethnographic grounds, to regulate gene flow and limit inbreeding in the absence of any pedigree recording system. Customary taboos, socio-cultural governance structures, and oversight by elder councils are documented as helping to anchor indigenous genotypes within community gene pools across generations. Molecular studies of populations managed under IKS report heterozygosity, allelic richness, and between-breed differentiation that are consistent with, though not proof of effective community-level genetic management; the available evidence indicates an association between IKS-informed management and conservation-relevant genetic patterns rather than a demonstrated causal relationship. Significant gaps remain, particularly the limited genomic validation of IKS selection claims, the systematic under-documentation of women’s knowledge in small-stock management, and the near-total absence of longitudinal research linking IKS practice to genetic outcomes over time; closing these gaps is identified as the priority for establishing whether the associations described here reflect genuine conservation mechanisms. The review closes with policy-relevant recommendations for further evaluating, and where warranted embedding, IKS within national AnGR strategies and SADC livestock frameworks.