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Indigenous cultural knowledge: opportunities and challenges to climate change resilience.

  • 9 February, 2022
  • Posted by: Orly Vidal
33 Comments

Acknowledging the importance of indigenous communities in the analysis of environmental variability is gradually perceived as fundamental for adaptation responses. The value of indigenous knowledge is derived for the biophysical sphere where they perform social, economic and governance practices. But more important is the strong connection with the natural environment where they dwell which is shaped by other important elements such as social networks and the productive systems which assure the sustainability of their livelihoods. The significance of indigenous knowledge lies on the historical adaptive capacity to survive and to cope with environmental changes. Direct observations on natural changes have played a critical role especially across these resource dependent communities. The diversification of their natural and economic capitals and the notions of reciprocity and solidarity, represent examples of the coping mechanisms highly valued within the scientific field. Patterns of change including perceptions of future events are considerably valued and required special treatment. Likewise, traditional perceptions can be reconstructed based on experiential knowledge which probably have varied over time, but still helpto identify the main drivers of change that have positively influenced adaptation.

Indigenous cultural values are commonly built upon the basis of worldviews, territorial tenures, landscapes, biodiversity, sovereignty, belief systems, spirituality, social bonds, aesthetic heritages and reciprocities. Keeping the functional structures on the physical and biological environment where indigenous inhabit have direct effects on these customary values. For instance, multiple studies suggest that culture is built upon places where biodiverse natural resources have influenced social interactions and multiple forms of understanding the natural world. As a result, livelihood development can be  aligned with conservation efforts, which embrace regulations for sustainability and resilience. Attachment to places, the natural environment and  social interactions can be seen as elements that support social-ecological resilience. The concept is understood as the amount of disturbances a system can absorb maintaining the original state, the level of a system to self-organize; and the degree a system can adapt and cope with change. Nevertheless, case studies suggest that strong place attachments can be disruptive to social-ecological resilience. The critical issue identified by scholars is perceived when the components of a system become strongly connected, leading to rigidity traps which limit development and promote unstable adaptation. Across traditional communities, rigidity traps can be seen when rooted customary practices lock the access to external networks, knowledge diversity and technical innovations. These conditions could be found among subsistence communities whose dependency on natural resources may perpetrate attitudes and behavior to the detriment of development and sustainability.

Within traditional and subsistence societies, social – ecological resilience can work in the absence of external shocks, such as industrial developments, extensive land use and social disruptions. However, it is broadly known that recent climatic and human pressures have altered the natural dynamic of environmental values. The Anthropocene and the rapid scale of changes  limit  indigenous capacities’ to perform customary practices, having an impact on environmental biophysical structures and livelihoods’ resilience.

Considering the territorial sphere of indigenous places, protecting human relations with the natural environment is fundamental to preserving customary practices. Yet, systems that deal with change and continue developing may require other functional factors to support them. For instance, collaboration and integration of different knowledge perspectives and a net of relationships across communities to regulate land use and natural resource stewardship. Likewise, within production systems, technology may facilitate land optimization for cropping productivity and agricultural resilience. Still, the increasing influence of industrial developments and other human pressures across traditional lands has permeated the governance of natural resources with effects on the stability of indigenous cultural values. Examples across traditional communities in Guatemala demonstrate that population pressures and land degradation generates traps that reduce the capacity of subsistence agroecological systems to deliver ecosystem services. On the other hand, amongst resource dependent communities, poverty represents a persistent factor that intensify vulnerability; disrupting systems’ capacity to absorb, recover to shocks and adapt to change. These conditions have multiple origins ,such as political instability, land degradation, migration, property rights, climate risks, among others. In these scenarios, the scientific field can be appropriate as a complementary approach to build pathways for social-ecological resilience among traditional communities. Similarly, traditional knowledge can be applied in multiple contexts where climate change and environmental variability threat livelihoods’ stability. The experiential knowledge of indigenous communities are mechanisms that help to identify the main drivers of change that have positively influenced adaptation and social-ecological resilience.

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Author: Orly Vidal

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