This synthesis addresses local institutions and associated management practices related to natural resources and ecosystem dynamics, with an emphasis on traditional ecological knowledge systems. Traditional practices for ecosystem management include multiple species management, resource rotation, ecological monitoring, succession management, landscape patchiness management and practices of responding to and managing pulses and ecological surprises. There exist practices that seem to reduce social-ecological crises in the events of large-scale natural disturbance such as creating small-scale ecosystem renewal cycles, spreading risks and nurturing sources of ecosystem reorganization and renewal. Ecological knowledge and monitoring among local groups appears to be a key element in the development of many of the practices. The practices are linked to social mechanisms such as flexible user rights and land tenure; adaptations for the generation, accumulation and transmission of ecological knowledge; dynamics of institutions; mechanisms for cultural internalization of traditional practices; and associated worldviews and cultural values. We dive deeper into the role of informal social institutions in resource management, such as many taboo systems. We find that taboos may contribute to the conservation of habitats, local subsistence resources and 'threatened', 'endemic' and 'keystone' species, although some may run contrary to conservation and notions of sustainability. It is asserted that under certain circumstances, informal institutions may offer advantages relative to formal measures of conservation. These benefits include non-costly, voluntary compliance features. Since management of ecosystems is associated with uncertainty about their spatial and temporal dynamics and due to incomplete knowledge about such dynamics, local management practices and associated institutions may provide useful 'rules of thumb' for resource management with an ability to confer resilience and tighten environmental feedbacks of resource exploitation to local levels.