Indigenous Knowledge For Climate Change Assessment And Adaptation

This unique transdisciplinary publication is the result of collaboration between UNESCO's Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) programme, the United Nations University's Traditional Knowledge Initiative, the IPCC, and other organisations

This UNESCO report looks into the damaging effects of climate change on Indigenous cultures. When considering climate change, indigenous peoples and marginalized populations warrant particular attention. Impacts on their territories and communities are anticipated to be both early and severe due to their location in vulnerable environments, including small islands, high-altitude zones, desert margins and the circumpolar Arctic. Indeed, climate change poses a direct threat to many indigenous societies due to their continuing reliance upon resource-based livelihoods. Heightened exposure to negative impacts, however, is not the only reason for specific attention and concern. As many indigenous societies are socially and culturally distinct from mainstream society, decisions, policies and actions undertaken by the majority, even if well-intended, may prove inadequate, ill-adapted, and even inappropriate. There is therefore a need to understand the specific vulnerabilities, concerns, adaptation capacities and longer-term aspirations of indigenous peoples and marginalized communities throughout the world. Indigenous and traditional knowledge contribute to this broader understanding.

This Open Access book provides a critical reflection into how indigenous cultures are attempting to adapt to climate change. Through detailed first-hand accounts, the book describes the unique challenges facing indigenous peoples in the context of climate change adaptation, governance, communication strategies, and institutional pressures. The book shows how current climate change terminologies and communication strategies often perpetuate the marginalisation of indigenous peoples and suggests that new approaches that prioritise Indigenous voices, agency and survival are required. The book first introduces readers to Indigenous peoples and their struggles related to climate change, describing the impacts of climate change on their everyday lives and the adaptation strategies currently undertaken to address them. These strategies are then detailed through case studies which focus on how Indigenous knowledge and practices have been used to respond to and cope with climate change in a variety of environments, including urban settings. The book discusses specific governance challenges facing Indigenous peoples, and presents new methods for engagement that will bridge existing communication gaps to ensure Indigenous peoples are central to the implementation of climate change adaptation measures. This book is intended for an audience of Indigenous peoples, adaptation practitioners, academics, students, policy makers and government workers.

With a long history and deep connection to the Earth’s resources, indigenous peoples have an intimate understanding and ability to observe the impacts linked to climate change. Traditional ecological knowledge and tribal experience play a key role in developing future scientific solutions for adaptation to the impacts. The book explores climate-related issues for indigenous communities in the United States, including loss of traditional knowledge, forests and ecosystems, food security and traditional foods, as well as water, Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost thaw and relocation. The book also highlights how tribal communities and programs are responding to the changing environments. Fifty authors from tribal communities, academia, government agencies and NGOs contributed to the book. Previously published in Climatic Change, Volume 120, Issue 3, 2013.

Climate change presents a profound challenge to food security and sustainable development in Africa. Its negative impacts are likely to be greatest in the African region, which is already food insecure. In the face of global climate change and its emerging challenges and unknowns, it is essential that decision makers base policies on the best available knowledge. In recent years, the knowledge of local and indigenous people, often referred to as indigenous knowledge (IK) has been increasingly recognised as an important source of climate knowledge and adaptation strategies.

Indigenous populations are projected to face disproportionate impacts as a result of climate change in comparison to nonindigenous populations. For this reason, many American Indian and Alaska Native tribes are identifying and implementing culturally appropriate strategies to assess climate impacts and adapt to projected changes. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), as the indigenous knowledge system is called, has the potential to play a central role in both indigenous and nonindigenous climate change initiatives. The detection of environmental changes, the development of strategies to adapt to these changes, and the implementation of sustainable land-management principles are all important climate action items that can be informed by TEK. Although there is a significant body of literature on traditional knowledge, this synthesis examines literature that specifically explores the relationship between TEK and climate change. The synthesis describes the potential role of TEK in climate change assessment and adaptation efforts. It also identifies some of the challenges and benefits associated with merging TEK with Western science, and reviews the way in which federal policies and administrative practices facilitate or challenge the incorporation of TEK in climate change initiatives. The synthesis highlights examples of how tribes and others are including TEK into climate research, education, and resource planning and explores strategies to incorporate TEK into climate change policy, assessments, and adaptation efforts at national, regional, and local levels.

Climate change is a major challenge for life on Earth. It is mainly manifested through modifications of average temperature, rainfall intensity and patterns, winds and solar radiation. These modifications significantly affect basic resources, such as land and water resources. Populations at disproportionately higher risk of adverse consequences with global warming of 1.5°C and beyond include disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, some indigenous peoples, and local communities dependent on agricultural or coastal livelihoods (IPCC, 2018). Therefore, adaptation measures are recommended in order to cope with climate change. Indigenous peoples have developed practices for climate change adaptation, based on their long-term experience with adverse climatic effects. There was thus a need to identify such practices as they could be effectively mainstreamed in community-based adaptation programmes. This report makes an inventory of indigenous and community adaptation practices across the world. The inventory was mainly done through literature review, field work and meetings with selected organisations. The case studies documented are categorized in five technologies and practices themes, including: (1) Weather forecasting and early warning systems; (2) Grazing and Livestock management; (3) Soil and Water Management (including cross slope barriers); (4) Water harvesting (and storage practices); (5) Forest Management (as a coping strategy to water scarcity), and; (6) Integrated wetlands and fisheries management. These were then related to the corresponding main agro-ecological zones (AEZ), namely arid, semi-arid, sub-humid, humid, highlands and coastal and wetlands. The AEZ approach was considered as an entry-point to adopting or adapting an existing indigenous strategy to similar areas. Challenges that threaten the effectiveness of indigenous and community adaption strategies were identified. These challenges include climate change itself (which is affecting the indicators and resources used by communities), human and livestock population growth (which is increasing pressure on natural resources beyond their resilience thresholds), current institutional and political settings (which limit migrants’ movements and delimits pieces of usable land per household), cultural considerations of communities (such as taboos and spiritual beliefs), and the lack of knowledge transfer to younger communities. Indigenous knowledge provides a crucial foundation for community-based adaptation strategies that sustain the resilience of social-ecological systems at the interconnected local, regional and global scales. In spite of challenges and knowledge gaps, these strategies have the potential of being strengthened through the adoption and adaptation of introduced technology from other communities or modern science. Attention to these strategies is already being paid by several donor-funded organisations, although in an uncoordinated manner.

This Handbook examines the diverse ways in which climate change impacts Indigenous Peoples and local communities and considers their response to these changes. While there is well-established evidence that the climate of the Earth is changing, the scarcity of instrumental data oftentimes challenges scientists’ ability to detect such impacts in remote and marginalized areas of the world or in areas with scarce data. Bridging this gap, this Handbook draws on field research among Indigenous Peoples and local communities distributed across different climatic zones and relying on different livelihood activities, to analyse their reports of and responses to climate change impacts. It includes contributions from a range of authors from different nationalities, disciplinary backgrounds, and positionalities, thus reflecting the diversity of approaches in the field. The Handbook is organised in two parts: Part I examines the diverse ways in which climate change – alone or in interaction with other drivers of environmental change – affects Indigenous Peoples and local communities; Part II examines how Indigenous Peoples and local communities are locally adapting their responses to these impacts. Overall, this book highlights Indigenous and local knowledge systems as an untapped resource which will be vital in deepening our understanding of the effects of climate change. The Routledge Handbook of Climate Change Impacts on Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities will be an essential reference text for students and scholars of climate change, anthropology, environmental studies, ethnobiology, and Indigenous studies.