Climate change disproportionately impacts indigenous peoples around the world when compared to non-indigenous peoples. These impacts are particularly felt in relation to health, environments, and communities. Some Indigenous scholars of climate change argue that these disproportionately felt impacts are linked to ongoing forms of colonialism. Indigenous peoples found throughout the world have strategies and traditional knowledge to adapt to climate change, through their understanding and preservation of their environment. These knowledge systems can be beneficial for their own community's adaptation to climate change as expressions of self-determination as well as to non-Indigenous communities.
There are over 370 million indigenous peoples found across 90+ countries. Approximately 22% of the planet's land is indigenous territories, with this figure varying slightly depending on how both indigeneity and land-use are defined. Indigenous peoples play a crucial role as the main knowledge keepers within their communities. This knowledge includes that which relates to the maintenance of social-ecological systems.
Indigenous peoples have myriad experiences with the effects of climate change because of the wide-ranging geographical areas they inhabit across the globe and because their cultures and livelihoods tend to be tied to land-based practices and relations. These land-based practices can be useful when mitigating and adapting to climate change, especially if implemented on a larger scale.
Background
Reports show that millions of people across the world will have to relocate due to rising seas, floods, droughts, and storms. While these conditions will affect people all over the world, the impact will disproportionately affect indigenous peoples.Kapua'ala Sproat, D. "An Indigenous People's Right to Environmental Self-Determination: Native Hawaiians and the Struggle Against Climate Change Devastation." Stanford Environmental Law Journal 35, no. 2.
Many indigenous farmers are noticing obvious changes in climate and nature, even though they're often not really familiar with the concept. Indigenous peoples have often relied on their own crop calendar depending on wind direction, blooming seasons, bird migrations, and other observable environmental factors for thousands of years. But after the global warming, farmers counting on traditional forecasting are feeling defenseless in front of nature's cycle changing. In addition, farmers with limited access to technology and modern forecast news won't be able to face unexpected weather changes like temperature variations or sudden precipitations.
All of these conditions are putting indigenous peoples under psychological and physical pressure. With regards to farming: "practices and traditions that have withstood thousands of years of civilizations rise and fall are becoming obsolete". This can carry a psychological toll for people who were using growing patterns in their farming methods that are often closely connected with local religious and cultural rites.
Indigenous peoples will be more acutely impacted by climate change than non-indigenous peoples for several reasons. Some of those reasons include:
Indigenous communities geographically tend to be located in regions more vulnerable to climate change such as native rainforests, the Arctic, and coastal areas. Many indigenous cultures and lifestyles are linked directly to the environment, therefore the health of the environment in which they live is extremely important for their physical and spiritual well-being. Changing climates that alter the environment will have greater effects on people who depend on the environment directly, both spiritually and physically. Indigenous people will suffer more because of their deep connection to the land. The increased negative effects of climate change are also directly related to oppression and poverty and other issues caused by colonialism. This is because indigenous peoples have experienced a series of traumatic invasions. For example, "massacres, genocidal policies, disease pandemics, forced removal and relocation, Indian boarding school assimilation policies, and prohibition of spiritual and cultural practices have produced a history of ethnic and cultural genocide". Indigenous communities across the globe generally have economic disadvantages that are not as prevalent in non-indigenous communities due to the ongoing oppression they have experienced. These disadvantages include lower education levels and higher rates of poverty and unemployment, which add to their vulnerability to climate change.
Many studies suggest, however, that while they experience the effects at disproportionate levels, Indigenous peoples have a strong ability to adapt when it comes to the environmental changes caused by climate change, and there are many instances in which indigenous people are adapting. Their adaptability lies in the traditional knowledge within their cultures, which through "traumatic invasions" have been lost. The loss of traditional knowledge and oppression that indigenous people face pose a greater threat than the changing of the environment itself.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People recognizes that indigenous people have specific knowledge, traditional practices, and cultural customs that can contribute to the proper and sustainable management of ecological resources.
Climate action of indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are working to prevent and combat the effects of climate change in a variety of ways, including through climate activism. Some examples of indigenous climate activists include Autumn Peltier, from Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario and Nina Gualinga from the Kichwa-speaking community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Autumn Peltier, from Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario, has been a driving force in the fight to protect water in Canada's indigenous communities. Peltier is the chief water commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation, which advocates for 40 First Nations in Ontario. Peltier, who became water commissioner in 2019 at the age of 14, is rallying for action to protect indigenous waters and has become a part of the climate action movement.
Nina Gualinga has spent most of her life working to protect the nature and communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon. At 18, she represented indigenous youth before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, helping to win a landmark case against the Ecuadorian government for allowing oil drilling on indigenous lands. She now advocates on the international stage for indigenous rights and a fossil-fuel-free economy. Gualinga recently received the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International President's Youth Award, which acknowledges outstanding achievements by conservationists under the age of 30.
Indigenous communities are also working to combat the impacts of climate change on their communities through community initiatives. For example, Canadian Inuit community members of Rigolet, Nunatsiavut in Labrador are working to combat feelings of cultural disconnect through organizing the teaching of traditional skills in community classes, allowing people to feel more connected with their culture and each other. Additionally, Rigolet community members worked with researchers from the University of Guelph, to develop an app that allows community members to share their findings regarding the safety of local sea ice, as a way to reduce the anxiety surrounding the uncertainty of environmental conditions. Community members have identified these resources as valuable tools in coping with the ecological grief they feel as a result of climate change.
Additionally, indigenous communities and groups are working with governmental programs to adapt to the impacts climate change is having on their communities. An example of such a governmental program is the Climate Change and Health Adaptation Program (CCHAP) within the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Indigenous Services Canada. The Selkirk First Nation in Yukon worked with the CCHAP to undertake a project that focused on the relationship between the land, water and the people who rely on the fish camps for food security and to continue cultural practices that support the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of their people. The Confederacy of Mainland Miꞌkmaq's Mi'kmaw Conservation Group in Nova Scotia also worked with the CCHAP on a project involving conducting climate-related research, engaging community members, developing needs assessments and reporting on the state of climate change-related emergency plans. The Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) is also an organization that is the only indigenous climate justice organization in Canada. They implement "tools, education, and capacity needed to ensure indigenous knowledge is a driving force in climate solutions." Specifically, they held many demonstrations helping Teck withdraw from the Frontier Tar Sands Project.
Benefits of indigenous peoples' participation in climate change research and governance
Historically, indigenous persons have not been included in conversations about climate change and frameworks for them to participate in research have not existed. For example, indigenous people in the Ecuadorian rainforest who had suffered a sharp decrease in biodiversity and an increase of greenhouse gas emissions due to the deforestation of the Amazon were not included in the 2005 Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) project.Krause, Torsten, Wain Collen, and Kimberly A. Nicholas. "Evaluating Safeguards in a Conservation Incentive Program: Participation, Consent, and Benefit Sharing in Indigenous Communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon." Ecology and Society 18, no. 4 (2013). . This is especially difficult for Indigenous people because many can perceive changes in their local climate, but struggle with giving reasons for their observed change.Nkomwa, Emmanuel Charles, Miriam Kalanda Joshua, Cosmo Ngongondo, Maurice Monjerezi, and Felistus Chipungu. "Assessing Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Agriculture: A Case Study of Chagaka Village, Chikhwawa, Southern Malawi." Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C 67-69 (2014): 164-72. . Their inclusion in conversations about climate change and sustainability can offer useful solutions to this problem.
Indigenous knowledge