Indigenous Peoples, Marginalized Populations and Climate ...

Indigenous Peoples, Marginalized Populations and Climate Change:

Vulnerability, Adaptation and Traditional Knowledge

Mexico City, Mexico (19-21 July 2011)

COMPILATION OF PRESENTED

ABSTRACTS

IPMPCC Compilation of Abstracts 2


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of contents .............................................................................................................................................. 3

International Steering Committee ............................................................................................................. 7

Donors .................................................................................................................................................................. 8

Welcome .............................................................................................................................................................. 9

Background Information ............................................................................................................................ 10

Presentations.................................................................................................................................................. 13

1. How to prepare ourselves for transculturation and uncertainty: the challenge posed by the

ngöbes in Costa Rica ........................................................................................................................................................... 13

Edgar ATENCIOa and Fabricio CARBONELL

b .......................................................................................... 13

2. Vulnerability of Inuit women’s food system to climate change in Nunavut, Canada ................ 14

Maude BEAUMIER and James D. FORD........................................................................................................ 14

3. Climatic knowledge through phenological indicators and ritualization in the ch’oles

agriculture in Chiapas (Mexico) ................................................................................................................................... 16

Fernando BRIONES .............................................................................................................................................. 16

4. The annual cycle and climate in the northwest Amazon: Indigenous knowledge and

intercultural research to understand and manage the calendar and its variations ............................ 17

Aloisio CABALZARFILHO ................................................................................................................................... 17

5. Harnessing local knowledge and potentials for climate change adaptation: A pilot research

in mountain villages in Western Tajikistan ............................................................................................................. 19

Stefanie CHRISTMANNa and Aden A. AW-HASSANb ............................................................................... 19

6. Coping with the impact on climate change and climate variability on agriculture in Mexico:

Results of two case studies ............................................................................................................................................... 21

Cecilia CONDEa, Alejandro MONTERROSOb, Guillermo ROSALESb and Rosa María FERRERc

...................................................................................................................................................................................... 21

7. Climate Change: Adaptability measures of indigenous people and African descendants of

the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua ............................................................................................................................... 22

Mirna CUNNINGHAM KAIN* ............................................................................................................................ 22

8. Seasonal environmental practices and climate fluctuations in Melanesia. An assessment of

small island societies in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. .............................................................................. 24

Frederick H. DAMONa and Carlos MONDRAGÓNb ................................................................................... 24

9. Securing food through the Lampisa indigenous practice of resource management of the

Pidlisan tribe in the Cordillera, Philippines ............................................................................................................. 25

Sarah DEKDEKEN ................................................................................................................................................. 25

10. Reviving Traditional Coping Practices as Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change in

Tonga 27

Sione FAKA’OSI ...................................................................................................................................................... 27

11. Canaries of Civilization: small island vulnerability, past adaptations to climate

variability and the spectre of sea level rise .............................................................................................................. 28

Marjorie FALANRUW .......................................................................................................................................... 28

12. Forests and Tuapi indigenous women: Food security promotion experience ......................... 29

Nadezhda FENLY .................................................................................................................................................. 29

13. Synergies between Communities Vulnerable to Climate Change: Cases of Tuvalu and

Baffin Island (Nunavut, Canada) .................................................................................................................................. 31

P. Brian FISHER ..................................................................................................................................................... 31

14. Indigenous health and climate change: A review ................................................................................ 32

James FORD ............................................................................................................................................................. 32


15. Detailing climate change models with local Amazon indigenous knowledge: enabling

contributions to national and global adaptation policies from local Negro River Indigenous

Peoples 36

Paula FRANCO-MOREIRA .................................................................................................................................. 36

16. Alliance of Guardians (indigenous people and farmers) of native seeds as an autonomous

measure for climate change adaptability ................................................................................................................ 38

Carlos GODFREY*.................................................................................................................................................. 38

17. Peruvian Indigenous Andean-Amazonian Communities’ Assessment and Strategies to

Tackle Climate Change. Results from the 2008 National Workshop on Climate Change, Food

Sovereignty and In Situ Conservation of Native Seeds and its Wild Relatives ........................................ 39

Tirso GONZALES ................................................................................................................................................... 39

18. Indigenous talent of Konso people to cope with climate change susceptibility, Ethiopia . 40

AlemayehuHAILEMICAEL ................................................................................................................................. 40

19. ClimateChange Vulnerability, Adaptation and Traditional Knowledge in Clayoquot

Sound British Columbia .................................................................................................................................................... 42

John LERNERa andNeil HUGHESb ................................................................................................................... 42

20. Vulnerability and adaptation to climate change among Indigenous communities in

northern Vietnam ................................................................................................................................................................ 44

Son Ngoc HO ........................................................................................................................................................... 44

21. I am counting moon, I am counting fish – Traditional environmental knowledge and

social vulnerability of artisan fishing community of Tarrafal, Sao Nicolau, Cape Verde .................. 45

Jelena ILIC ................................................................................................................................................................ 45

22. Tlicho Traditional Knowledge of Climate Change and the Impacts on Caribou Hunting . 47

Petter JACOBSEN................................................................................................................................................... 47

23. Climate Change and MāoriSociety: Risks, Capacities and Opportunities .................................. 48

Darren Ngaru Terrance KING .......................................................................................................................... 48

24. Contribution of Traditional Knowledge to Complement Climate Change Research in Two

Extreme Ecosystem Scenarios in India ...................................................................................................................... 49

Sumit KUMAR GAUTAMa and Avanti ROY BASUb .................................................................................... 49

25. Can the Traditions of Her Ancestors withstand the Challenges of Climate Change:

community-based marine resource management for over 1300 years among the female ama

divers of Japan ....................................................................................................................................................................... 51

Anne McDONALD .................................................................................................................................................. 51

26. The Baka of East Cameroon and the Challenges of Climate Change........................................... 53

Estelle MAWAL ...................................................................................................................................................... 53

27. Mayan Indigenous Geography IXIL: Indigenous rules on the use of water, the forest and

wildlife 55

Felipe Pedro MARCOS GALLEGO* .................................................................................................................. 55

28. The native Kokonukos and peasants define their own route of adaptability to the climate

change, experience in the Colombian Andes. .......................................................................................................... 57

Piedad MARTIN1* and José Domingo CALDON2 ....................................................................................... 57

29. Sami Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and NASA Remote Sensing Technologies

Working Together for Adaptation Strategies......................................................................................................... 59

Nancy MAYNARDa, Anna DEGTEVA, Anders OSKAL, Inger Marie GAUP EIRA, Al IVANOFF, Michael POGODAEVand Svein MATHIESEN .............................................................................................. 59

30. Traditional indigenous knowledge and practices in the Andes for adaptability and

diminishment of climate change impacts. ................................................................................................................ 60

Angel MUJICA* ....................................................................................................................................................... 60

31. Documenting Indigenous knowledge of Climate Change, Coping and Mitigation

Mechanisms: The Case of the Niger-Delta, Nigeria .............................................................................................. 61

Andrew ONWUEMELE ........................................................................................................................................ 61

32. Adaptation Strategies of tribals in Western Ghat (India) and their age-old wisdom in

practice ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 63

Joseph Sebastian PAIMPILLIL ......................................................................................................................... 63


33. Peasants of the Amazonas-Andes and their “conversation” with the climate change in the

Region of San Martín .......................................................................................................................................................... 64

Rider PANDURO* .................................................................................................................................................. 64

34. Climate Change Adaptation & Traditional knowledge in Agricultural Societies – A case

study from Sri Lanka. ......................................................................................................................................................... 66

PrabhathPATABENDI .......................................................................................................................................... 66

35. Advancing Adaptation Planning for Climate Change in the Western Canadian Arctic ..... 67

Tristan PEARCE ..................................................................................................................................................... 67

36. Integrating social and cultural perspectives in addressing Climate Change: Social Water

Management among indigenous Mundas in the Sundarban Forest, Bangladesh. ................................ 68

Chiara PERUCCAaand Krishnopodo MUNDAb ........................................................................................... 68

37. The Participatory Design of Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change Impacts:

Integrating traditional knowledge and stakeholder consultation for the selection and creation of

best adaptation model for the Tabasco Plains, S.E. Mexico ............................................................................. 70

Raul PONCE-HERNANDEZa and Reesha PATELb ..................................................................................... 70

38. Increasing Vulnerability to Drought and Climate Change on the Navajo Nation,

southwestern United States ............................................................................................................................................ 72

Margaret Hiza REDSTEERa, Klara B. KELLEYb, Harris FRANCISc and Debra BLOCKa ............... 72

39. Tuvalu and Climate Hazards: Enhancing Community Resilience to Climate Hazards

through the Application of Indigenous Knowledge ............................................................................................. 73

AlanRESTURE ......................................................................................................................................................... 73

40. Impacts of Climate Change on the Livelihoods of Loita Maasai Pastoral Community and

Related Indigenous Knowledge on Adaptation and Mitigation. .................................................................... 74

Henri Ole SAITABAU............................................................................................................................................ 74

41. Singing for the Whales:Environmental Change and Cultural Resilience among the Iñupiat

of Arctic Alaska ..................................................................................................................................................................... 75

Chie SAKAKIBARA ................................................................................................................................................ 75

42. Tibetan Ethnobotany of Climate Change in the Eastern Himalaya ............................................. 76

Jan SALICK ............................................................................................................................................................... 76

43. Indigenous perceptions on the change of climatic variability in a zoque community of

Chiapas, Mexico..................................................................................................................................................................... 78

María Silvia SANCHEZ CORTES1* and Elena Lazos CHAVERO2 ......................................................... 78

44. Socio-Economic Conditions and the Impact of Climate Change on Traditional Land-Use

for Indigenous Peoples of the North as a Subject of Sociological Research ............................................. 79

Victoria N. SHARAKHMATOVA ....................................................................................................................... 79

45. How Kenyan Farmers Perceive and Adapt to Climate Change and what are the barriers

to adaptation: a community-based perspective in pastoralist areas .......................................................... 81

Silvia SILVESTRIa , M HERREROa, Elizabeth BRYANb, Claudia RINGLERband Barrack OKOBAc

...................................................................................................................................................................................... 81

46. A Landscape of Change: Community Based Adaptation and Vulnerability to Climate

Change and its Social, Institutional and Ecological Inter Linkages in Bolivia ........................................ 83

Jordi SURKIN and Grace WONG ...................................................................................................................... 83

47. The role of indigenous knowledge and biocultural systems in adaptation to climate

change 85

Krystyna SWIDERSKAa, Yiching Songb and Doris MUTTAc .................................................................. 85

48. Forest of the Lost Child, Dus Ailal & Dahas: Recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional

Knowledge in Forest Management as Means for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation ...... 87

Victoria TAULI-CORPUZa& Wilfredo V. ALANGUIb ................................................................................. 87

49. Changing Rainfall Pattern and its Impact on Food Security in Himalaya: Responses &

Adaptation by Indigenous Marginalized Mountain Communities ................................................................ 88

Prakash Chandra TIWARIa and Bhagwati JOSHIb .................................................................................... 88

50. “Everything that is happening now is beyond our capacity!”—Nyangatom Livelihoods

under Threats ........................................................................................................................................................................ 90

Sabine TROEGER ................................................................................................................................................... 90


51. Local Knowledge on Climate Change—A case study of a Tibetan village in Yunnan

province, China ...................................................................................................................................................................... 92

Dayuan XUEaand Lun YINb ................................................................................................................................ 92

Index .................................................................................................................................................................. 93


INTERNATIONAL STEERING COMMITTEE

International Panel of Experts

Kate Brown, University of East Anglia, UK

Edwin Castellanos, Research Center for the Environment and Biodiversity, Guatemala

Herminia Degawan, International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of Tropical Forests, Philippines

Igor Krupnik, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, USA

Penehuro Lefale, National Weather Service Department Meteorological Service of New Zealand

RogerPulwarty, National Integrated Drought Information System, USA

Saul Vicente Vasquez, International Indian Treaty Council, Mexico

Conference Convening Committee

Gerardo Arroyo O’Grady, Mexican National Institute of Ecology

Kris Ebi, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Technical Support Unit

Kirsty Galloway McLean, United Nations University

Terence Hay-Edie, United Nations Development Program

Sam Johnston, United Nations University

Douglas Nakashima, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

Ame Ramos Castillo, United Nations University

Jennifer Rubis, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

John Scott, Secretriat of the Convention on Biological Diversity

Hans Thulstrup, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

Jaime Webbe, Secretriat of the Convention on Biological Diversity

IPMPCC Compilation of Abstracts

DONORS

Many thanks to our generous donors for making this meeting happen.

Many thanks to our generous donors for making this meeting happen.

8


WELCOME

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 and marginalized societies due to their continuing reliance upon resource-based livelihoods. There is a need to understand the specific vulnerabilities and adaptation capacities of indigenous and marginalized communities.

Indigenous and marginalized peoples, however, are not just victims of climate change. Their accumulated knowledge makes them excellent observers of environmental change and related impacts. Attentiveness to environmental variability, shifts and trends is an integral part of their ways of life. Community-based and local knowledge may thus offer valuable insights into environmental change due to climate change, and complement broader-scale scientific research with local precision and nuance. Finally, indigenous societies and marginalized populations have elaborated diverse coping strategies to deal with change. While the environmental transformations caused by climate change are expected to be unprecedented, indigenous and local knowledge and coping strategies may nonetheless provide a crucial foundation for community-based adaptation measures.

The aim of this workshop is to identify, compile and analyze relevant indigenous and local observations, knowledge and practices related to understanding climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation. The workshop will provide a key opportunity to ensure that experience, sources of information and knowledge (scientific, indigenous and local), along with data and literature (scientific and grey), focusing on vulnerable and marginalized regions of the world are made available to the authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report and the global community.

On behalf of the Conference Steering Committee, we are delighted to present the summary of abstracts selected for the international workshop on Indigenous Peoples, Marginalized Populations and Climate Change: Vulnerability, Adaptation and Traditional Knowledge.


BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Introduction

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an international scientific body tasked with evaluating the risk of climate change caused by human activity. The panel was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The IPCC is composed of government representatives with relevant expertise. Nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations are allowed to attend as observers at the invitation of the IPCC.

A main activity of the IPCC is publishing Assessment Reports (ARs) on topics relevant to the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These reports are based mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific literature and are the most widely cited reports in almost any debate related to climate change. Governments and international organizations generally regard the IPCC reports as authoritative.

Since 1990, the IPCC has published four comprehensive Assessment Reports (ARs) reviewing the latest climate science as well as information relevant to its three working groups which address:

• The Physical Science Basis (Working Group I),

• Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (Working Group II), and

• Mitigation of Climate Change (Working Group III).

The ARs are prepared by teams of authors with relevant expertise. Authors for the IPCC ARs are selected from a list of researchers prepared by governments, observer organizations, and academia on the basis of scientific merit and academic credentials.

The IPCC is currently working on its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), which will be published in 2014. Like previous ARs, the outline for AR5 was developed through a scoping process that involved climate change experts from all relevant disciplines, representatives from governments, and other interested stakeholders. The outline was adopted during the 31st IPCC session in Bali, 26-29 October 2009 and specifically notes that “Chapters 14-17 will include case studies of, e.g., Least Developed Countries, indigenous peoples and other vulnerable countries and groups” (IPCC-XXXI/Doc 20, Rev.1).

The IPCC AR4 noted that indigenous knowledge is “an invaluable basis for developing adaptation and natural resource management strategies in response to environmental and other forms of change.” This was reaffirmed at the 32nd Session of the IPCC in 2010: “indigenous or traditional knowledge may prove useful for understanding the potential of certain adaptation strategies that are cost-effective, participatory and sustainable” (IPCC-XXXII/Doc 7). And in the last year, there has been an increasing realization that the observations and assessments of indigenous peoples and marginalized populations provide valuable regional in situ information, offer regional verification of global scientific models and satellite data sets, and provide the basis for successful adaptation and mitigation strategies.

But observations and assessments by indigenous peoples, marginalized populations and developing country scientists have remained relatively inaccessible to the IPCC process


mostly due to language and socio-cultural barriers. Thus, for the most part, indigenous and marginalized people’s knowledge that appears in grey literature (i.e. literature that is unpublished or published outside peer-reviewed academic forums) or that is made available through non-written media has remained outside the scope of IPCC assessments.

At its 32nd session, the IPCC recommended broadening the participation of regional experts, the inclusion of grey literature, literature in other languages, and the organization of workshops - particularly in developing regions - to collect and assess relevant in situ observations and scientific data on topics relevant to AR5 (IPCC-XXXII/Doc 7).

Workshops

Noting that assessing impacts on all regions and populations is the mandate of Working Group II and that issues related to indigenous peoples and marginalized populations will be prominent in several of the chapters of the AR5, IPCC and UNU in July 2010 agreed to co-organize two workshops to redress the shortfall of available information on indigenous and marginalized peoples and their climate change adaptation and mitigation. Subsequently SCBD, UNDP and UNESCO agreed to help co-convene these events.

The two planned workshops - which will focus on adaptation and mitigation respectively - will bring together lead authors for the AR5, indigenous peoples and marginalized population experts, and developing country scientists. The workshops will allow for more in-depth focus on the topics and regions for which IPCC is seeking input. The workshop outcomes will be made available to Working Group II and Working Group III lead author meetings for the AR5, as well as to the general public. An international panel of experts will oversee both workshops.

Aims

The overall aims of the workshops are to:

• Advance understanding of climate change vulnerability, adaptation and mitigation with respect to indigenous peoples and marginalized populations, with particular attention to vulnerable regions.

• Compile regional and local data that are relevant for understanding climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation involving local and indigenous knowledge holders, marginalized populations, developing country scientists and consulting also grey literature.

• Engage indigenous peoples, marginalized populations and developing country scientists and their research in international climate dialogues and debates.

• Provide policy-makers with relevant information on the vulnerabilities, knowledge and adaptive capacity of indigenous peoples and marginalized populations.


Workshop Convenors

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Mexican National Institute of Ecology

Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity

United Nations Development Programme - GEF Small Grants Programme

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems

United Nations University


PRESENTATIONS

1. How to prepare ourselves for transculturation and uncertainty: the challenge posed by the ngöbes in Costa Rica

Edgar ATENCIOa*

and Fabricio CARBONELLb

aAsociacion Meriregwe, Costa Rica,

bAsociacion Meralvis, Costa Rica

Keywords:Ngöbes, Conte Burica, climate change, vulnerability, transculturation.

Language of original submission:Spanish

Abstract:

We, the ngöbes, are indigenous people found between Panama and Costa Rica (Central America) who, in the past, occupied large territories of tropical forests and had, as guardian gods, the high mountains with their mysterious lakes. Currently, we live in Costa Rica, in five “Territories or Reserves" of which, Conte Burica is the largest, with approximately 11,000 hectares. We have traditional houses built with wood, and roofs of palm leaves or cinc, and engage in subsistence agriculture growing beans, rice and corn. This agricultural system is based on the forecasts of rain and drought seasons. We also have palms of pejibaye, yucca and tropical fruits near our houses. We breed chickens and some horses for transportation purposes. Occasionally, we hunt different animals such as iguanas, agoutis, peccaries and certain birds; we also fish and harvest fruit and medicinal plants from the woods. Also, women practice handicrafts by making their own dresses and bags, made with natural fibers and inks.

We have always lived with changes; this is because we lived before in Panama and came to Costa Rica, and walked from the mountains to the sea; thus, we have constantly been adapting ourselves; for example, in the past, we had a migrating agriculture, this is, the sowing season changed every year but, with time, such agriculture became sedentary because now our lands are limited. As an example on how our agriculture is changing, we have the case of beans. In order to grow beans, we search for a soil that has a secondary wood, later, the trees are cut down, the cuttings are burned if the weather allows so, and then, the beans are not sown but they are watered and then covered with fallen leaves and logs. Before, the sowing season fell in September, with rainy days so that the harvest would take place in February, with lot of dry days so that the seeds could dry up. Before, we did not have a lot of plagues, but now there are too many: parrots, coatis, iguanas, white-faced monkeys and titi monkeys, and we do not know the time when we are going to harvest. This also happens with rice, and even with the palm leaves used to thatch houses; before, they lasted for years, but now there are small beetles that eat them, and quickly renders them useless.

*Presenting author


Ngöbe tradition tells that at the time when indigenous people face the culture of another world, this is, the western culture, their departure will start; the access to electric power and other customs will cause animals and plants to rebel against the ngöbe people; for example, now medicinal plants do not have the same strength as before, the lemon leaf is no longer useful to treat the flu, and the seeds that were commonly used against the cold cannot be found; also, the inks used in handicrafts have not the same strength.

Then, what can we do? We already stated that we, the ngöbe people, had to adapt ourselves to changes due to our way of life because in the past we were nomads, but afterwards, we survived in limited territories, changing our traveling agriculture to a rotary agriculture, but in the same place. Women changed their clothes made with natural fibers and barks to western fabrics, but they still have a similar symbolism and ornamentation; some of the ngöbe people are learning how to eat white-faced monkeys, which we did not eat before. Also, our custom is to work together whenever we have to help in sowing activities or to arrange the land of a native, having parties and lots of food and drinks. We are also establishing alliances with governmental institutions and foreign donors in order to consolidate ourselves. We are now thinking what we are going to do in the future, but it is not easy; it is unfair, above all because the climate change was not caused by the indigenous people who still live near the woods, but by other countries with their modern economy; but we do not bear any grudges because all of us are experiencing the consequences of wasting natural resources and mistreating our mother earth; we now have to face a new challenge due to the changes that are taking place.

2. Vulnerability of Inuit women’s food system to climate change in Nunavut, Canada

Maude BEAUMIER* and James D. FORD

Department of Geography, McGill University, Canada

Keywords: food security, food system, climate change, vulnerability, socio-economic factors, Inuit, women, vulnerable population

Language of original submission: English

Abstract:

Food systems globally are sensitive to climate change. According to Brown and Funk, (2008:580)“some of the most profound and direct impacts of climate change over the next few decades will be on agricultural and food systems”. While the vulnerability of agricultural based food systems to climate change has been widely studied, this is less true of hunter-gatherer based food systems such as that of Inuit in Arctic regions. In such locations, opportunities for agriculture are limited, with the availability and access of wild animals of key importance.

* Presenting author


In the Arctic, the climate is rapidly changing. Temperatures are increasing at twice the global average, precipitation is increasing, sea ice extent and ice thickness are decreasing, and extreme weather events are more frequent and intense.These changes have been shown to affect several aspects of Inuit food systems, particularly hunting and fishing. These activities provide a variety of land and sea animal to Inuit which represent essential nutritional intake in their diet alongside socio-cultural importance.

Inuit in the northern territory of Nunavut (Canada) already suffer disproportionally of food insecurity. In fact, 56% of Inuit households in Nunavut experience different level of food insecurity, which significantly exceeds the Canadian average of 14.7%. Existing challenges to food access, availability, and quality, are likely to predispose Inuit food systems to emerging stresses including climate change. In Canada and other developed nation, women, especially aboriginal and/or lone parent women, are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. In the Arctic regions, Ford and Berrang-Ford (2009) as well as Lambden et al. (2006) report a higher prevalence of food insecurity among women community members. Food security and health are closely linked, particularly when food insecurity is a chronic underlying problem, with those who are food insecure more likely to suffer from compromised health status. Increasing women’s access to both traditional and healthy store foods is one of the main nutritional goals of Nunavuts Department of health and Social Services.

Several aspects of Inuit food security have been studied, such as dietary change, diet nutritional composition, traditional knowledge and food safety. However, there are currently few studies assessing vulnerabilities and adaptation of Inuit food systems to climate change, particularly among vulnerable subpopulations including Inuit women. Knowing that Arctic climate is predicted to continue warming over the next 50 years, it is imperative to understand the pathways through which climatic factors and change affect Inuit food systems and how these changes are experienced and responded to. In addition, identifying and characterizing the multiple factors affecting Inuit women food system is essential in order to better understand the conditions under which food insecurity occurs.

This presentation will look the vulnerability of Inuit women food system to climate change and the conditions in which it creates food insecurity based on the work of Ford and Beaumier. This research advances our general knowledge on Arctic food systems in a changing climate, an important step to develop adequate adaptation policies at local and territorial level. In addition, a better understanding of how the Inuit women food system is vulnerable to climate change in the context of other social stresses will provide important information regarding the multiple determinants of food insecurity, which will in turn help better target community intervention.


3. Climatic knowledge through phenological indicators and ritualization in the ch’oles agriculture in Chiapas (Mexico)

Fernando BRIONES*

Professor-Investigator of the Center of Higher Education of Social Anthropology Research and Study (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social or CIESAS)

Keywords:Phenological indicators, agriculture-related rituals, mayans, Chiapas, Mexico

Language of original submission: Spanish

Abstract:

Climate has an essential significance in societies: It influences production forms and social relations through systems of codified knowlege in social institutions. Climatical knowledge has been used to diminish the thresholds related to environmental risks. If “traditional” societies have done so through magical-religious practices, “modern” societies have done so through climate forecasts. Thus, both shamans and meteorologists fulfill the duty of interpreting, in order to diminish climatic uncertainty. The knowledge of the climate has strategical significance; insures productive systems and defines prevention strategies to face threats such as excess and lack of water.

However, credibility in scientific information (materialized in climatic forecasts and early alerts) depends more on their accuracy and confidence in institutions, whereas traditional knowledge is flexible because it is based on a deterministic/causal logic. If the observation parameters of “traditional” societies are associated to cycles, scientific forecasts operate by patterns. This materializes a problem of translation of scientific information, and represents the interpretation of an extremely complex environmental reality. This dichotomy is mainly represented in urban/rural divisions, and defines the relations between different social actors in the management of climatical risks.

In general, projects which diminish vulnerability to climatical threats do no take into account the cultural characteristics of social groups. The management of risks of disaster and the adaptability to climate change cannot be reduced to statistical and economic scenarios. Climatical knowledge and practices are social resources which represent, in non-explicit manner, a mechanism to calculate risk that sets forth -partially- the capacities to adapt to threats. This knowledge is essential to decipher adjustment and resilience mechanisms in face of natural phenomena, but also to understand some forms of vulnerability. On a daily basis, adaptability is essentially a social practice based on experience, social relations, daily production practices and culture in general. How do social groups adapt themselves to hydrometeorological threats? How do they perceive and adapt themselves to global climate change? According to which mechanisms? Which knowledge, practices and strategies are useful for adaptability, and which give rise to vulnerability?

We present the climate interpretations that C'holes express through worshipping corn and water sources in ceremonies to aks for rain and agricultural calendars. We analyze field data on speeches related to atmospherical events and phenology indicators, such as

* Presenting author


the migration of birds and insects that indicate the change in seasons, and associations with the emergence of plants to rain or drought periods. Furthermore, we describe the field observations, where the context of popular religiosity, cohesion and identity seem to favor the ritualization of agricultural works and the observation of climate indicators. The presence of tlatuches or praying men (shamans) that fulfill the duty of insuring the rituals related to agricultural activities form part of the continuity of traditional knowledge. Around the ritual activities related to the agricultural calendar we find practices that define, in a certain way, the success or failure of their crops.

4. The annual cycle and climate in the northwest Amazon: Indigenous knowledge and intercultural research to understand and manage the calendar and its variations

Aloisio CABALZARFILHO*

Programa Rio Negro, Instituto Socioambiental, Brasil

Keywords: Indigenous annual calendar, traditional knowledge and indigenous research, Northwest Amazonia, Tukanoan Indians


Abstract

The indigenous peoples who inhabit the northwest Amazon region organize their social, economic and ritual lives, and establish knowledge and practices in accordance with astronomic and ecological cycles. These cycles are described through the narratives of the indigenous conhecedores (knowledge-holders) concerning the annual calendar, above all through the words of the elders. These cycles have recently begun to be observed, recorded and systematized by means of joint research activities carried out by indigenous and non-indigenous researchers, connected to indigenous schools and organizations, non-governmental organizations and universities. Research on the indigenous calendar (of the Tukano, Desana and Tuyuka groups) arose in the context of the growing interest on the part of indigenous organization in establishing, by means of intercommunal agreements, environmental and territorial management plans.

The intercultural and interdisciplinary research is carried out by a team of thirty indigenous researchers in conjunction with researchers, advisers and collaborators of the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA). They keep a daily record of agricultural and food preparation activities, the life cycles of the fish, game animals, edible insects and amphibians, trees and other fruit-bearing plants (whether wild or cultivated). They link these observations to the identification of the seasons on the basis of the astronomical calendar and to phenomena such as the rainy and dry seasons, river water levels and so on. At the same time the food provision strategies of the family group (in particular hunting and fishing activities) are recorded. The observational data and the daily

* Presenting author


records are collectively systematized, by means of research seminars, with a view to describing each annual cycle. This way of organizing the data brings out the interrelationships between the various ecological and social cycles.

The paper includes the description of the annual cycles occurring in the region and how changes in these cycles are being perceived, as reflected in the migration of birds, fish and animals, in their reproductive behavior, in the cycles of precipitation and periodic river water level rises. This part of the presentation will conclude with comments on the indigenous understanding of these changes. It starts from the premise that the shamanic management of the world has been perturbed: specialists no longer carry out the ceremonial activities that protect and cure the world.

The second part of the paper describes recent research undertaken in the region in conjunction with young indigenous researchers. Research tools and methods are being employed in association with the knowledge of the elders to observe and record the phenomena of the annual cycles, as previously referred to. This enterprise places the indigenous researchers in the role of mediators between their own community knowledge traditions and those of western science, seeking to explore this constructive interface.

The notion of a calendar, as defined here, includes a set of concepts and methodologies that favour the mutual understanding between conhecedores (knowledge holders) and indigenous and non-indigenous researchers. At the same time it contemplates the indigenous conception of the cycle of the seasons: the turning of the world (bureko

watotire, in tuyuka), the passage of time with its particular beings and events, and with the responsibilities of the specialists (the purifiers and healers of the world) to protect their relatives and their surroundings such that time passes without accidents, bad luck or illness. For the non-indigenous researchers the focus on the calendar enables an understanding of the relationship of the indigenous communities with their environment and associated practices and knowledge.

From the perspective of the younger indigenous researchers, this is a way of making sense of the management practices and offers a learning space with the elders and their knowledge. Put broadly, it enables an understanding of the relationship between the peoples of the upper Rio Negro and their environment, and the practices and knowledge involved. Beyond this it may prove to be the way to explore the interfaces between indigenous and western knowledge by coming together to study the cycles of life, both natural and social, which can be observed and recorded on a yearly basis.


5. Harnessing local knowledge and potentials for climate change adaptation: A pilot research in mountain villages in Western Tajikistan

Stefanie CHRISTMANNa* and Aden A. AW-HASSANb aICARDA-CAC, P.O. Box 4564, Tashkent 100 000, Uzbekistan

bSEPRP, ICARDA-Headquarter, P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syrian Arab Republic

Keywords: adaptation, capacity building, gender, glacier loss, mountain villages, Tajikistan


Abstract

Tajikistan is the most vulnerable country of all East European and former Soviet countries not due to high exposedness to climate extremes, but due to high sensitivity and mostly due to lack of adaptive capacity (The World Bank 2009). However, an ICARDA1-case study in two mountain villages in Zerafshan region in 2010 showed high potential of local communities to adapt if they get timely support in information and capacity building.

Both villages have significant experience to adapt to changing conditions by their own efforts e.g. after breakdown of the Soviet Union. But in Central Asian mountain villages, plenty of water, due to glaciers and strong sun in summer, was one main stable factor for centuries. Now climate change – with forecasted increase of temperature by 3.7⁰C until 2100 in Central Asia - sets a completely new scenario for mountain villages depending on small glaciers such as the entire West Tajikistan: due to rapid glacier melt-off villages currently relying on irrigated agriculture having only one generation to adapt to water scarcity in the growing season. They lack experience to build water catchments and use water efficiently; only few old farmers have experience in rain-fed production of wheat and barley, they also lack experience in marketing of rain-fed crops. They don’t even refer climate change to their own life though the villages have satellite TV.

Additionally labor migration of the young male generation interrupts transfer of knowledge over generations. Higher education is given to those children who will not inherit the farm, but need certificates to find a job in urban areas. Agriculture, crop husbandry, irrigation, hydrology, and related fields are not taught in primary and secondary education, but specific knowledge among those inheriting the farm will be crucial to adapt to climate change. Women are deprived from higher education and decision making in those mountain villages, which are still very traditional.

The achievement of the research project was to bring men and (also often illiterate) women and all social groups together with support of local development committee members. In one village for the first time men and women joined in meetings. The participatory research project used modified Social Analysis Systems methods fully transformed into drawings, pie, bar and conceptual diagrams, yearly calendars and

* Presenting author 1 International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas


walks with villagers to glaciers, rangelands and fields. Photos taken during these walks were discussed in working group sessions. The drawings with their clear messages effectuated in keen interest of many villagers, mobilization of readiness to start and contribute to adaptation and in ownership of the process.

Villagers showed high readiness to invest time, labor, skills and money in adaptation and in collective action and also to improve women education and women participation in decision-making. Each village developed comprehensive, ambitious and realistic short term and long term action plans within two weeks of stay in each village. The local strategies include (1) means to increase local capacity on all relevant levels for men and women (school gardens as research plots, farmers’ practice, academic education in agricultural science), (2) environmental adaptation (water catchment, stabilization of slopes, pro-active protection of species/medicinal plants), (3) economic adaptation (improved irrigation, crop/livestock change, value chains) and (4) management instruments (establishment of water basin management committees, saving/raising funds etc.).

Due to the case study the number of labor migrants refers strongly to hazards and problems in agricultural production. The more labor migration from mountainous areas increases due to low agricultural income, the more adaptation measures will be hampered by lack of male labor force. Climate change adaptation and increase of profitability of mountain agriculture must be pursued simultaneously. Abandoned mountainous areas would cause reduction of agricultural area and products, loss of biodiversity, and might increase social or even political tension in urban areas.

Mountain villages have only short time to build capacity and to adapt, given the predicted changes in the climate and its effects on the water resources. But research organizations invest significant funds in GIS-mapping and modeling, development agencies in specific aspects like disaster prevention. A re-prioritization from eagle- to frog-perspective is favorable with view to livelihoods at risk and time pressure for adaptation: due to the case study participatory socio-economic research is a key factor for climate change adaptation and needs to be expanded.


6. Coping with the impact on climate change and climate variability on agriculture in Mexico: Results of two case studies

Cecilia CONDEa*, Alejandro MONTERROSOb, Guillermo ROSALESb and Rosa María FERRERc

aCentro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, UNAM, Mexico bPosgrado Geografia, UNAM, Mexico

cBiología. Colegio Franco Inglés, Mexico

Keywords: Rainfed agriculture, climate change, exteme events, vulnerability, coping capacities, Mexico


Abstract:

Rainfed agriculture represents the source of subsistence of the majority of rural people in Mexico. Cultural richness contrast with the poverty conditions of most of small farmers, and both factors determine their coping capacities.

In Mexican states of Tlaxcala and Veracruz, two studies cases were developed to assess the impacts and possible responses to climate change and climate variability of maize and coffee producers, respectively.

Observed climate changes, including the more frequent or intense extreme climate events, were of a high concern of the farmers in both regions, which then established the focus of these studies.

Current and future climatic threats were used to illustrate the impacts on agricultural activities, using climatic threat spaces as a tool to study the critical years when high losses in agriculture production occurred.

Participatory techniques applied with farmers in two study sites (in Tlaxcala and in Veracruz) were the basis of the methods applied in the research, and the results obtained allowed the development of an integrated assessment that considered the climatic and the non–climatic factors that determined adaptive capacity. Current climate threats, current practices and past and current environmental, economical and household problems were analysed with the farmers involved in the studies.

Coping strategies for past and current climatic events were also analysed, considering the traditional knowledge of both set of farmers, but their viability (weakness and strengths) under climate change conditions was discussed in focus groups, participative workshops and in depth interviews.

In both studies, adaptive capacity was assessed considering climate and non-climatic stressors, such as environmental, food economy and household factors. Stakeholders’ involvement in the research can be seen as an adaptation measure, because it might ensure the viability of practical measures in the future.

* Presenting author


7. Climate Change: Adaptability measures of indigenous people and African descendants of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

Mirna CUNNINGHAM KAIN*

Chairman of the Center for Autonomy and Development of Indigenous People (Centro para la

Autonomía y Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas or CADPI)

Keywords:climate change, indigenous peoples


Abstract:

This study, on Climate Change and Adaptability Measures used by the Indigenous People of the Nicaraguan Caribbean is the result of the collaboration between the Instituto de Investigación y Desarrollo Nitlapan-UCA and the Centro para la Autonomía y Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas, CADPI (http://www.cadpi.org).

Twelve case studies were conducted, which comprised the ecological areas of the coast, plains, wet tropics and agricultural frontier, places where the themiskitu, sumu-mayangna, mestizos and garifunas people live.

Once the information gathered in this study is analyzed, it allows identifying both vulnerabilities and risks that indigenous people and ethnic communities have experienced as result of the climate change, which have been intensified due to the history of colonization and enclave economy of the development model imposed upon such communities by state actors and external private actors. Likewise, a variety of traditional practices that have experienced changes have been identified, by way of an adjustment or adaptability measures in view of those changes.

Context

The strength of winds and the frequency of storms have increased. Since the start of reliable statistical records, it has been managed to determine that during the last 112 years (from 1892 to 2004), Nicaragua has been affected by 41 cyclonic events, 45% of them hurricanes (19); 50% of them, tropical storms (20); 14, and 5% of them, tropical depressions (2).

These phenomena have modified local ecosystems, representing a challenge for the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean, due to the limitations in their adaptability capacity and their dependence on water and food supply; the increase of diarrheal diseases and cardiovascular ailments; the increase of floods in coastal communities; modifications in cays due to the increase of the temperature of waters and due to the ocean's acidification, which causes the bleaching of coral reefs.

The IDH 200521 indicated that a forest area of nearly 3.5 million hectares existed in the Autonomous Regions.22 The national forest inventory (2009) reflected that there are 3,245,145 of hectares of forest, of which 49% are found in the territories of the indigenous people.

* Presenting author


The loss of forest areas not only impacts on the loss of biological biodiversity, but also has a high impact in means of life and on agricultural, forest, hunt, fruit and plant harvest production systems conducted by indigenous people.

The main problem lies in that the elements of the extractivist development model are contrary to the ancient view of the world of indigenous people and their ideas on territorial rights, and sometimes impact on the division of this local view.

The consequences of climate change also impact upon the social fabric and upon the traditional view of the world of indigenous people.

Adaptability Measures

Hereinbelow, we present the main adaptability measures found in the communities of the autonomous regions.

1. Delimitation and ownership of territories

In view of the progress in the agricultural border, immigration and change of land use, indigenous people have chosen to:

a. Delimit and own their own lands.

b. To form structures of territorial governments and their strengthening.

c. Negotiation strategies and creation of alliances.

d. Creation of rules for their coexistence.

2. Improvement of social control mechanisms and environmental resources

To apply rules for the community in order to manage the natural resources, which aid to strengthen community structures and the selfsame community institutionality.

3. Cultural Revitalization

Implementation of measures to strengthen their identity, their culture, their values, amongst them, the perception on the use and management of resources, forest and water.

a. Reinforcement of the role played by the elders

b. Recovery of traditional foods

c. Reinforcement of reciprocity and solidarity practices

d. Use of traditional fluvial transportation

e. Combination of practices to obtain a variety of foods: seafood, coastal and agriculture (productive diversity versus monocultures)

f. Environmental Education

g. Garbage management

h. Strenghtening of traditional medicine.


8. Seasonal environmental practices and climate fluctuations in Melanesia. An assessment of small island societies in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.

Frederick H. DAMONa and Carlos MONDRAGÓNb aDepartment of Social Anthropology, University of Virginia, USA,

b Centro de Estudios de Asia y África, El Colegio de México, MEXICO

Keywords:Seasonal production systems, climate fluctuations, indigenous adaptability, small island societies, Melanesia


Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to offer an overview of environmental knowledge practices and short- and long-term climate fluctuations in relation to two small Pacific Islands’ societies in the region of the Western Pacific commonly known as Melanesia. The societies in question are located 1) in the island of Muyuw (Woodlark Island), on the northern side of the Kula ring, in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea, and 2) in the Torres Islands, in the north of the Vanuatu archipelago. The principal object of our paper is to offer a critical assessment of the contemporary state of human-environmental relations in these communities, with special attention to the inherent adaptability of the food production systems of each society, as well as the multifarious forms of guardianship and exploitation of forest and marine resources. We will include descriptions of the manner in which local productive and ritual activity relates to climate fluctuations, and attempt to draw conclusions regarding the potential adaptability of these traditional practices in relation to the consequences of anthropogenic climate change in the near future. For the past decade the authors of this paper have carried out collaborative research regarding the seasonal environmental activities of both island groups. Since 2008, with support from the National Science Foundation, we have carried out an ambitious, comparative research initiative undertaken with more than 15 colleagues who specialize in different areas of the Pacific Islands, Asia and the Americas; our primary focus has been the flexibility of traditional environmental knowledge in different parts of the Pacific Rim and Islands. This work has been facilitated by closely collaborating with specific local actors. In the case of Vanuatu, this has involved the Vanuatu Cultural Centre and National Museum through its unique Extension Fieldworkers’ Program, which is aimed at enabling the participation of local people in the processes and output of scientific research. In the case of Muyuw, Damon has worked closely and on a long-term basis with various key informants in relation to the analysis of forest growth and the use and conceptualization of trees in the construction and use of Kula-related canoes.


9. Securing food through the Lampisa indigenous practice of resource management of the Pidlisan tribe in the Cordillera, Philippines

Sarah DEKDEKEN*

Public Information Commission, Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), Philippines Montañosa Research and Development Center

Keywords: natural resource management, food security, Kankanaey indigenous people’s group


Abstract:

The Cordillera region in Northern Luzon, Philippines, is home to more than 1 million indigenous peoples belonging to at least 8 distinct ethnic groups collectively known as Igorots. Known as the watershed cradle of northern Luzon with its various rivers and tributaries, and for its rich mineral ore deposits in its mountainous topography, it has a total land area of 1,829,369 hectares, with agriculture as the primary source of livelihood in the region.

At present, the water resource base in the region is threatened by deforestation while at the same time it is under pressure from increasing water demand due to population growth, expansion in housing, tourism, and real estate, and intensified cash-crop production. The scarcity of water has become a problem and has given rise to conflicts within communities and even between tribes. It is necessary to implement a more systematic mechanism in the protection, control, development and management of water sources.

In Sagada, Mountain Province, the Pidlisan tribe has been practicing the Lampisa system of water distribution, and maintenance and operation of irrigation systems. Instituted in the early 1930s, it has survived for decades, triumphing over individualism, kinship favouritism, and political pressures to promote communalism in the ownership and use of a vital agricultural production resource – water. The Pidlisan tribe occupies four villages in northern Sagada with an estimated population of 1,883 persons. Most of the 681.5 hectares of watershed within the municipality of Sagada is located within Pidlisan territory. Ricefields in the territory cover a total land area of 175 hectares. The Pidlisan tribe is organized into smaller wards called dap-ay wherein the elders exercise powers of governance over their wards, and they set the pace of the rice production cycle.

In the 1920s, expansion of rice fields in the Pidlisan territory exceeded the maximum carrying capacity of existing irrigation systems. To maintain and operate the irrigation systems, the dap-ay elders instituted chetchet, which required every person who avails of irrigation to participate in the indigenous system of cooperative labor (obbo), for the rehabilitation work. Chetchet is performed before preparation of rice fields for planting and at any given time during the cropping period.

* Presenting author


To ensure the daily maintenance of irrigation canals and rice fields, and the proportionate water distribution for the rice fields especially throughout the dry season, the dap-ay elders select persons, called Lampisa, for this endeavour. In times of drought, the Lampisa must work 24 hours a day to guarantee that every rice field gets an equal share of irrigation no matter how low the water discharge is. At present, there are six Lampisa overseeing water distributions along three irrigation systems in Pidlisan. The number of Lampisa is proportional to the size of each system’s service area.

The success of the Lampisa rests on two inter-dependent factors: (1) the capacity of the Lampisa and the dap-ay elders to enforce the rules, and (2) the people’s recognition of the need for those rules and for the Lampisa system itself.

The exercise of good judgement by the elders in selecting Lampisa is vital in the success of the Lampisa system. The qualities required of a Lampisa include being industrious, patient, dedicated, just, able to transcend kinship loyalties, physically strong, preferably male, respected, and able to withstand political pressure. Policies and rules for the Lampisa and their work are strictly implemented. A Lampisa is given absolute control over water regulation. When found guilty of negligence, the Lampisa shall pay a fine to the affected rice field owner commensurate to the crop damage. The Lampisa shall also pay dearly and undergo reorientation if proven guilty of favouring relatives or other influential people. In return for the Lampisa’s services, a Lampisa receives 5% of the total harvest of each farmer beneficiary.

The Lampisasystem thus provides for water services at very low expense – just 5% of the total volume of production, a rate which can hardly compare for instance with the volume of crop loss (60-80% in 2004) that rice producers in Central Sagada suffer due to the absence of a systematic means of ensuring equitable water distribution in their communities.

In conclusion, the Lampisa system secures food for the Pidlisan tribe while demonstrating an indigenous practice of resource management. Indigenous socio-political systems such as the dap-ay, knowledge and practices such as the Lampisa which have long governed Cordillera indigenous peoples’ use, management and disposition of the ancestral land the resources therein are imperative in addressing climate change impacts to the vulnerable indigenous peoples. Thus, in the light of the climate crisis, it is important to nurture, protect and promote indigenous knowledge systems and practices.


10. Reviving Traditional Coping Practices as Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change in Tonga

Sione FAKA’OSI*

Tonga Community Development Trust, Tonga

Keywords: adaptation, traditional knowledge, islands, disaster management, coastal erosion, food security, agriculture


Abstract:

The paper will discuss how an NGO helped local communities in Tonga to revive traditional mechanisms as part of developing adaptation strategies to cope with climate change and natural disasters. Local communities are more vulnerable because they are at the forefront when natural disasters occur.Like small island settings around the world, Tonga is considered to be highly vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters, especially the low-lying areas. Tonga is prone to natural disasters, such as, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, cyclones, coastal flooding and droughts.Climate change has increased the scale and frequency of naturally occurring disasters.As a result, most coastal low-lying areas are experiencing extensive tidal flooding more frequently. There is an ongoing degradation of the quality of ground water due to sea level rise and contamination from land-based activities.Coastal erosion is a major issue for many low-lying coastal communities due to coastal developments, destruction of important coastal ecosystem like mangroves, sand mining and coastal deforestation.The impacts of natural disaster and climate change on the social, economic and cultural dimension on an island nation like Tonga can be devastating. Tonga’s vulnerability to climate change is further increased by the fact that its economy and peoples’ livelihoods are based largely on agriculture and fishing.

Tonga Community Development Trust is an indigenous non-governmental organisation working with local communities to foster self-reliance and sustainable development since 1978.Over the years, Tonga Trust has helped many villages to improve their capacity and access to good quality drinking water, improve family and community health and sanitation, understanding human rights, democracy and good governance, environmental protection and disaster management.

In response to coastal community needs, Tonga Community Development Trust is piloting climate change and disaster management projects.These projects provide a good opportunity to engage selected coastal communities in updating their understanding of climate change issues and most importantly, in developing coping mechanisms for natural disasters.Activities undertaken were focused on the most vulnerable groups at the community in time of natural disaster, especially women and children.The active participation of local communities helped the pilot project to demonstrate the following traditional practices:

• Identifying traditional signs for different types of natural disasters;

* Presenting author


• Traditional food preparation and reviving local menus;

• Traditional food preservation - salted fish, drying octopus, traditional Tongan bread, etc;

• Traditional farming system, especially crop rotation and organic farming to address drought;

• Coastal ecosystem restoration – coastal tree replanting, mangrove replanting with schools and communities; and

• Documentation and publication of a manual of the above-mentioned.

Tonga Community Development Trust continues to advocate in other local communities the need to revive traditional practices as coping mechanisms for natural disasters and adaptation to climate change.

The paper will provide more information on the accomplishments, challenges and conclude with lessons learned.

11. Canaries of Civilization: small island vulnerability, past adaptations to climate variability and the spectre of sea level rise

Marjorie FALANRUW*

The Yap Institute of Natural Science

Keywords: islands, climate change, sea level rise, traditional technologies, Yap islands


Abstract:

The people of low-lying Pacific islands are especially vulnerable to climate change, and are already experiencing impacts of sea level rise. Among the most immediately impacted areas areCaroline islanders who reside on low-lying islets and atolls in Yap State in the Federated States of Micronesia. The FSM is a young Pacific nation located in the northwest Pacific. The nation is composed of four states, the most western of which is Yap State. In addition to the high islands of mainland Yap, the state includes many inhabited and uninhabited atolls and low-lying islets but several meters above mean sea level. Over thousands of years, these “people of the deep sea” have developed technologies for food production and voyaging in small canoes in order to survive. Now high sea levels are threatening supplies of fresh water and traditional food production systems, including taro patches and even atoll agroforests.In addition to sea level rise, storm surges pose additional devastating threats to water supplies, food production and habitation.

* Presenting author


As a result of these threats and already experienced impacts, outer islanders are migrating to mainland Yap, a high island with which they have strong cultural links. The ability of mainland Yap to sustain natural resources and food security in the face of climate change, while also accommodating a very large increase in population, will be severely strained. Most of the islands more productive soils are very vulnerable to storm surge and important coastal taro patch habitat are expected to be inundated by sea level rise. Meeting challenges of supporting increased populations on limited island resources will require wise planning, intensive preparation and hard work. To some extent, ancestors of present day Yapese had adapted to this challenge during a prehistoric time of high population through intensive methods of food production and allocation of natural resources that avoided the tragedy of the commons wherein resources available to all are more likely to be overexploited and depleted or damaged. It is important to incorporate and enhance the considerable repertoire of adaptive traditional technologies of food production and natural resource management into adaptations to climate change. Traditional technologies and natural resource management is however fading, and it is important to document, evaluate and utilize those technologies that could contribute to climate change adaptation.

Some examples of relevant technologies and cultural practices are described. Traditional food production technologies include landscape architecture, agroforestry, taro patch systems and a wide variety of fishing technologies and cultural practices. Most of the land area of mainland Yap has been modified to manage the flow of fresh water via ditched beds systems of raised garden and living areas and lowered areas used for taro patches. A variety of methods of shifting agriculture are used as well as site stable agroforestry systems. Taro patches are especially productive and taro culture involves many methods and four species. Both agroforests and taro patch systems exhibit high agrobiodiversity at both species and sub specific levels. Management of water flow continues into the marine environment in the form of huge stone fish weirs that concentrate fish, and other fishing technologies managed by a complex system of social allocation.

12. Forests and Tuapi indigenous women: Food security promotion experience

Nadezhda FENLY

Foro Internacional de Mujeres Indigenas – FIMI

Centro para la Autonomia y Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indigenas – CADPI

Organizacion Comunal Li Karma

Keywords: Food security, forests, Tuapi women


Abstract:

This document is a case study conducted in the Tuapi community, found approximately 15 kilometers to the north of the city of Bilwi, Municipality of Puerto Cabezas in the


Autonomous Region Northern Atlantic (ARNA), Nicaragua, with the collaboration of the Centro para la Autonomía y Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas-CADPI and the Foro Internacional de Mujeres Indígenas-FIMI.

The study has been particularly focused in the indigenous women of the community, community leaders, both young and old. In this document, miskita women of Tuapi talk about their relation with the forest, and the adaptability measures in face of climate change, practiced throughout the last thirty years in their community, and the impact of Félic hurricane in their way of life and their food security.

The women of the Tuapi community perceive climate change as the fact that the earth is changing. This perception is based on the variability and unpredictability they observe in relation to time, natural disasters, which take place more frequently, drought of rivers, etc. Another perception they have with respect to this phenomenon is that all months are now equal, because there exist irregularities in nature; seasons are taking place out of the customary time, and heat is increasing. The unpredictability of nature was reflected by the impact made by Félix hurricane, which took the people by surprise.

The women of Tuapi perceive the forest as a source of life, inasmuch as they use the forest to establish agricultural areas for their plantations, to obtain wood to build their homes, to hunt according to the season of the woodland’s game, to obtain firewood and medicinal plants to relieve their ailments. In parallel with these events, the indigenous women of the community also direct their time to fishing activities, in order to supplement their families’ diet. To this effect, they perceive that the products from the forest supplement the products from the sea.

Climate change has caused changes in the traditional practices of reciprocity, practiced in the past by the people of the community, such as mutual support and exchange. The loss of areas of the forest has impacted on the capacities of the community to rotate the use of plots of land, because there is no space for the land to rest. Over-exploitation and deterioration of ecosystems are causing the loss of medicinal plants; this has caused negative changes in the cultural systems, thus triggering women to resort to western medicin. After the Félix hurricane, the external aid has greatly supported the community, causing an increase in the dependence on external aid.

In view of the evident increase in vulnerability, women have developed and implemented adaptability strategies, unaware of this terminology. To this effect, they have started to adapt traditional products to the requirements of the market, producing products derived from fruits they now harvest in lower amount. They have created family gardens, in order to insure the food security of their families; they have reintroduced techniques to apply traditional therapies to recover the plants damaged by the hurricane, and try to recover the diet they carried out in the past.

In conclusion, through this study, it was verified that the men and women of the community are evidently concerned with the environment, which caused the women of Tuapi to develop adaptability measures to face the climate change phenomenon and its impact on their daily lives. They have developed measures to protect and care for their environment and their natural resources. The women of the Tuapi community have shown to be a significant agent of change in the development of their people.

It is deemed that it is very important to have bodies that support the preparation of this type of research that aim to present the main role that indigenous women play and have played within their families and their communities.


13. Synergies between Communities Vulnerable to Climate Change: Cases of Tuvalu and Baffin Island (Nunavut, Canada)

P. Brian FISHER*

Departments of Political Science and Environmental Studies, College of Charleston, USA

Keywords: Arctic, South Pacific, Tuvalu, human security, human rights, vulnerable peoples, food insecurity, non-communicable diseases, communicable disease vectors, sanitation, cultural loss, psychological stress


Abstract:

This paper examines the full range of biophysical and social effects from climate change, based on extensive field research in Baffin Island, Canada and Funafuti, Tuvalu. From this examination, I analyze the comparative aspects between these two communities. The results demonstrate that despite significant different geographies, cultures, and environmental changes, climate change produce similar trajectories of societal impacts with significant implications for vulnerability, traditional knowledge, and local governance. Based on this analysis, the final aspect of the paper draws on lessons learned (from the comparison) to suggest a modification in the approach to climate adaptation. The field research was based on extensive qualitative interviews with a wide range of people in both societies with significant traditional knowledge, including religious figures, community/tribal leaders, NGO2s, government officials and community members. The research also included a survey that produced quantitative data on perceptions and observations of climate impacts and modes of adaptation. In Tuvalu, it was the first comprehensive survey (2009) administered on climate change impacts and adaptation.

* Presenting author 2 Non-government organisations


14. Indigenous health and climate change: A review

James FORD*

Dept of Geography, McGill University

Keywords: Indigenous health, global, climate change


Abstract

The global climate is changing and climate models indicate continued and accelerated climate change in the future even with policy intervention (Fussel, 2009; IPCC, 2007b; New et al., 2011; Parry et al., 2009; Rogelj et al., 2010). It is no longer therefore a question of “will the climate change?” but “by how much?”. Research is only just beginning to examine the potential health implications of climate change and indicates significant vulnerabilities (Haines et al., 2009). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that climate change could already be causing over 150,000 deaths and approximately five million disability-adjusted life years per year, Costello et al (2009) argues that climate change is the biggest health threat of the 21st century, while Roberts and Stott (2010) have called for human health to be at the centre of climate change discourse.

Key threats associated with climate change include increasing exposure to infectious diseases, exacerbated water and food insecurity, natural disasters, and population displacement; detailed descriptions of which are provided elsewhere. In many cases, the health consequence of climate change will be exacerbated by other global environmental stresses including land use change, degradation of ecosystem services, and social-economic trends (Ebi, 2009a; Myers and Patz, 2009). Populations will be differentially vulnerable to climate change impacts at global to local levels (Campbell-Lendrum et al., 2009; Friel et al., 2008; Haines et al., 1993; McMichael et al., 2008; Patz et al., 2005a; Patz et al., 2008; Watson et al., 2005). Those at highest risk are likely to be populations with an existing high burden of ill-health, who are sensitive to climate-related health risks, and living in nations with limited technological capacity, weak institutions, high levels of poverty, and political inequality (Costello et al., 2009).

It is developing nations, particularly the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), who are commonly believed to have the highest vulnerability although recent studies have also indicated significant health vulnerabilities in developed nations (Ebi, 2007; Ebi, 2009b; Ford and Berrang-Ford, In Press; Ford et al., In Press; Hajat et al., 2005; Hajat et al., 2010; Kovats and Ebi, 2006). Largely neglected in the literature on health and climate change however and more generally in human dimensions of climate change research are Indigenous populations (Ford et al., In Press; Macchi, 2008; Salick and Byg, 2007; Salick and Ross, 2009; Trostle, 2010). For example, The Lancet Commission report on the health effects of climate change (Costello et al., 2009), IPCC assessments (IPCC, 2001, 2007a), the World Banks Development and Climate Change (World Bank, 2010), and the Stern Report (Stern,

* Presenting author


2006), make limited reference to Indigenous peoples. Similarly, few, if any, major international health and environmental change initiatives (e.g. through UN agencies, international science programmes) focus on Indigenous health dimensions of climate change.

There are numerous factors responsible for this neglect. Firstly, there are few studies in the peer reviewed literature focusing on Indigenous health in a changing climate, and those that have been published are typically not in mainstream environmental change / health journals (Berrang-Ford et al., 2010; Ford and Pearce, 2010; Pearce et al., 2010). While the literature commonly notes disparities in vulnerability globally, rarely are Indigenous peoples discussed despite experiencing some of the highest levels of poverty and marginalization (Campbell-Lendrum et al., 2009; Haines et al., 1993; Haines et al., 2006a, b; Haines and Patz, 2004; McMichael, 2006; McMichael et al., 2008; Myers and Patz, 2009; Patz et al., 2005a; Patz et al., 2008; Patz et al., 2005b; Watson et al., 2005). Consequently, climate change meta-analyses based predominantly on reviewing the peer reviewed literature (e.g. IPCC) have been unable to go beyond general statements.

Secondly, as a vulnerable population, Indigenous peoples are not explicitly referred to in the text of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), unlike the SIDS or LDCs. Specific funds and research programs for Indigenous populations have therefore not been initiated through the international climate regime or through other international bodies (e.g. WHO). Finally, climate change has been neglected by the Indigenous health research community more generally. In 2006 and 2009, for example, The Lancet published a series of articles reviewing the status of Indigenous health globally and identifying key research and intervention priorities, with climate change only briefly documented as a potential threat (Anderson et al., 2006; Gracey and King, 2009; King et al., 2009; Montenegro and Stephens, 2006; Ohenjo et al., 2006; Stephens et al., 2006). This may reflect a broader lack of engagement on environmental issues in the health sciences community (Campbell-Lendrum, 2005; Few, 2007). This research deficit leaves Indigenous peoples often labeled as vulnerable to the health effects climate change or entirely overlooked as an at-risk group but with correspondingly little information on the nature of this vulnerability. More problematically, it establishes Indigenous peoples as powerless victims of climate change, downplaying the adaptive capacity of health systems and agency of Indigenous peoples, and thereby directing attention away from finding ways to assist Indigenous peoples adapt (Ford et al., 2010) (Green et al., 2009; Salick and Byg, 2007). While there has indeed been limited research on Indigenous health and climate change, we argue that this is compounded by an absence of comprehensive and systematic reviews of current understanding (Berrang-Ford et al., 2010; Green et al., 2009), aside from a small number of regional specific knowledge syntheses (Ford et al., In Press; Furgal, 2008; Furgal and Prowse, 2008; Furgal and Seguin, 2006; Green et al., 2009).

In this paper, therefore, we review all peer reviewed and grey literature publications on Indigenous health and climate change published over the last two decades. Drawing upon systematic review methodologies commonly used in the health sciences but not in climate change scholarship, we quantitatively and qualitatively analyze key research rends. Specifically, we use a vulnerability framework to develop a baseline understanding of current knowledge at a global level and identify research gaps. To our understanding this is the first such assessment globally, providing timely information for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.

References:


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IPCC (2007a) Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Working Group II Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. Geneva. IPCC (2007b) Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva. King M, Smith A, Gracey M (2009) Indigenous health part 2: the underlying causes of the health gap. Lancet 374:76-85. Kovats RS, Ebi KL (2006) Heatwaves and public health in Europe. European Journal of Public Health 16:592-599. Macchi M (2008) Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and Climate Change: Issues Paper. IUCN, p. 64. McMichael AJ (2006) Population health as the ‘bottom line’ of sustainability: a contemporary challenge for public health researchers. The European Journal of Public Health 16:579-581. McMichael AJ, Friel S, Nyong A, Corvalan C (2008) Global environmental change and health: impacts, inequalities, and the health sector. British Medical Journal 336:191-194. Montenegro RA, Stephens C (2006) Indigenous health 2 - Indigenous health in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lancet 367:1859-1869. Myers SS, Patz JA (2009) Emerging Threats to Human Health from Global Environmental Change. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 34:223-252. New M, Liverman D, Schroder H, Anderson K (2011) Four degrees and beyond: the potential for a global temperature increase of four degrees and its implications INTRODUCTION. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society a-Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences 369:6-19. Ohenjo N, Willis R, Jackson D, Nettleton C, Good K, Mugarura B (2006) Indigenous health 3 - Health of Indigenous people in Africa. Lancet 367:1937-1946. Parry M, Lowe J, Hanson C (2009) Overshoot, adapt and recover. Nature 458:1102-1103. Patz J, Campbell-Ledrum DC, Holloway T, Foley J (2005a) Impact of regional climate change on human health. Nature 438:310-317. Patz J, Campbell-Lendrum D, Gibbs H, Woodruff R (2008) Health impact assessment of global climate change: Expanding on comparative risk assessment approaches for policy making. Annual Review of Public Health 29:27-+. Patz JA, Campbell-Lendrum D, Holloway T, Foley JA (2005b) Impact of regional climate change on human health. Nature 438:310-317. Pearce T, Ford J, Duerden F, Smit B, Andrachuk M, Berrang-Ford L, Smith T (2010) Advancing adaptation planning for climate change in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR): A review and critique. Regional Environmental Change. Roberts I, Stott R, Climate Hlth C (2010) Doctors and climate change. British Medical Journal 341. Rogelj J, Chen C, Nabel J, Macey K, Hare W, Schaeffer M, Markmann K, Hohne N, Andersen KK, Meinshausen M (2010) Analysis of the Copenhagen Accord pledges and its global climatic impacts-a snapshot of dissonant ambitions. Environmental Research Letters 5. Salick J, Byg A (2007) Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change. A Tyndall Centre Publication. Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Oxford, p. 32. Salick J, Ross N (2009) Traditional peoples and climate change Introduction. Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions 19:137-139. Stephens C, Porter J, Nettleton C, Willis R (2006) Indigenous health 4 - Disappearing, displaced, and undervalued: a call to action for Indigenous health worldwide. Lancet 367:2019-2028. Stern N (2006) Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. HM Tresury, London, UK. Trostle J (2010) Anthropology Is Missing: On the World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change. Medical Anthropology 29:217-225. Watson RT, Patz J, Gubler DJ, Parson EA, Vincent JH (2005) Environmental health implications of global climate change. Journal of Environmental Monitoring 7:834-843. World Bank (2010) World Development Report - Development and climate change. World Development Report, Washington, D.C.


15. Detailing climate change models with local Amazon indigenous knowledge: enabling contributions to national and global adaptation policies from local Negro River Indigenous Peoples

Paula FRANCO-MOREIRA*

Institute of International Relations, University of Brasilia (UNB), Collaborative researcher of the Climate Change Programme of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), Instituto

Socioambiental (ISA)’s associate

Keywords: Amazon, indigenous knowledge, adaptation, calendars


Abstract:

According to data recently published by Science, the droughts in the Amazon are becoming more severe. The one occurred in the Amazon in 2010 was more severe and more spatially extensive than the one registered in 2005. This last drought triggered loss of some Amazon forests, which in turn, shall accelerate climate change. However, regarding scientific publication, the projected future scenarios of climate change and vulnerability prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 for the Northwest of the Amazon, have been generic and simplified because they were adapted to the requirements of their technique. These models have normally been developed with a regional amplitude, that lacks capacity to see the details of the natural, agriculture and urban landscape, and that can only be looked at and distinguished by expert and landscape’s local residents. For instance, in the Amazon, the models have plots measured by 250 square km2, which miss significant diversity of landscape within this plot.

On the other hand, the Indigenous Peoples (IP) from the Baniwa ethical group, based on Içana river, Arawak linguistic affiliation, have registered a unique and distinguished perception of the climate change in their region along the last decades. This group lives in the watersheds of River Negro basin in the Indigenous Territory named Alto Rio

Negro(Upper River Negro) in the northwest of the Brazilian Amazon. With a population of 15,600 Indigenous peoples, this immense area of 79,993 km2composed by continued tropical forest has been demarked as Indigenous ancestral territory in 1988. This area holds the highest density of carbon of the Brazilian Amazon,and extraordinary humidity and pluvial rates.

Nevertheless, even with these characteristics, the students from the Baniwa’s traditional Pamaali School assisted by the elder have registered climate changes. They have developed an astronomy-ecological-economic map to illustrate the changes in the calendar to deal with agriculture, fishing, harvest, fruiting, flowering and planting in the region, using various natural indicators in order to understand and interpret the world and monitor the phenomena from the Nature. Using these tools, they have realized changes such as the season of flowering and fruiting of some plants that is now

* Presenting author


occurring twice a year (e.g. Umari fruit). They interpreted that this change was due to the rise of temperature and unusual interruption of dry seasons with unforeseen rain. They have also registered that the fishes are not reproducing in the usual way due to the rise of the temperature of the waters that, in turn, causes acceleration of the reproductive organ of the fish. This local and detailed perception lives no doubt that even the most remote areas are subject to climate change.

Philosophically, the Baniwa justifies the climate changes based in their traditional myth “Napirikoli and Kowai” that explains, in metaphorical words, that climate changes, that in turn can destroy the humanity, are result of human action in the planet, outcomes of the bad use of natural resources. They sustain that during the colonization period, the rules dictated by their Gods were lost.

Currently, the Brazilian national government is preparing the adaptation plan as one of the sectorial plans to implement the national climate change policy into which perceptions and recommendations from locals and detailed climate change effects should feed in.

Considering this context, the main contribution of this research is to detail climate change models to the Negro River Basin with collaboration of the local Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge in way to enhance and register the local knowledge. The research process has also the objectiveof facilitating the participation of local Negro River Indigenous Peoples in the development of national and global mentioned adaptation policies by assisting to transform their perception and recommendations into the language of policy communication.

Moreover, the registration, translation, communication and participation have been demanded by IPs long ago in order to highlight their concern to food security that is already occurring due to the impact of climate change.

Our conclusion is that climate change models and corresponding adaptation policies will lack accuracy if prepared without the crucial contribution of local resident knowledge of whom have lived in the area for centuries, having monitored the changes of behavior in species of trees, plants, fish, nuts, rivers and wildlife to maintain their food security and livelihoods.


16. Alliance of Guardians (indigenous people and farmers) of native seeds as an autonomous measure for climate change adaptability

Carlos GODFREY*

Consultant, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Colombia

Keywords: Autonomous adaptability, ancient knowledge, food security, native seeds


Abstract:

In the Colombian massif, at the southern part of the country, strategic for Colombia and South America, since it is the rain star where 5 rivers of national significance have their origin, a work to promote and support an alliance of guardians of native and characteristic seeds and species, in order to preserve, multiply, distribute and certify seeds. This is an autonomous strategy of adaptability to climatic extreme variability events and climate change. The work is developed with 5 indigenous guardians of the central zone of the Cauca, (Paletará, Kokonuko, Puracé, Quintana and Poblazón) and two rural organizations (Asocampo and Asoproquintana), under the leadership of the Association of Councils formed by Genaro Sánchez and agencies of the United Nations, particularly FAO and PNUD.

With this work, the role played by the guardians is made more evident; it also favors spaces of exchange and consolidates a network that goes beyond the family preservation of seeds and native and characteristic seeds and species. This gives rise to the improvement and multiplication of seeds, in order to increase the production for exchange by way of barter, in first place, but also to be sold, so that the region can gradually become self-sufficient in seeds. At the same time, it is sougth that the seeds are resilient to intense rains and lengthy droughts, and also to frosts and heat waves.

* Presenting author


17. Peruvian Indigenous Andean-Amazonian Communities’ Assessment and Strategies to Tackle Climate Change. Results from the 2008 National Workshop on Climate Change, Food Sovereignty and In Situ Conservation of Native Seeds and its Wild Relatives

Tirso GONZALES*

Indigenous Studies, The University of British Columbia Okanagan, Canada

Keywords: Andean region, Andean Indigenous Peoples, sustainability of biodiversity, food security, climate change, Andean indigenous worldview


Abstract:

The Peruvian Andes are among the most vulnerable regions to climate change (IPCC 2007). In Peru the Indigenous population is over 9 million. As of July 2001, there were 5,827 Comunidades Campesinas (Peasant Communities) and, of these, 4,224 had their property land titles registered at the Public Registrar and claimed ownership of land, covering a land area of more than 18 million hectares. Today, however, Comunidades

Campesinas own only 10 per cent of the total agricultural land despite peasant communities making up 90 per cent of the agricultural and pastoral units in the Peruvian Andean territory and producing between 45 and 60 percent of the country’s total food output.

Biodiversity, food security and climate change are inextricably related. Current and previous national and international strategies concerning climate change, biodiversity, and food security have failed to include the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples’ communities in their assessments and proposed solutions to address these challenges. Indigenous Peoples should be strategic and crucial partners in the development and implementation of regional and national strategies on the aforementioned issues. Both national and international strategies and the Indigenous peasant ones should complement each other.

In the above context the 1st National Workshop on Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, and In situ Conservation of Native Seeds was held in Ayacucho, Peru (Dec. 11-14, 2008). The workshop gathered two groups of indigenous NGOs actively shaping realities on the frontlines of culturally based food security, biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation in three different regions: the Nuclei of Andean-Amazonian Cultural Affirmation (CONACA), and the Nuclei of Andean Cultural Affirmation-Southern Andes(NASAs). These indigenous NGOs make up 22 Nuclei of Andean-Amazonian Cultural Affirmation (NACAs), which are associated to the Andean Project for Peasant Technologies (PRATEC), based in Lima, Peru. NACAs and PRATEC have a sustained and innovative work in the Peruvian Andes of more than 22 years.

* Presenting author


The workshop gathered the testimonies, diagnostics and strategies of Indigenous peasants from 22 locations in the Amazon, the central and southern high Andes. In contrast with national and international strategies concerning climate change, the Andean peasant perception of climate change and their local diagnostic is more comprehensive. A central tenet of their diagnostic is that the alterations of the weather are due to the lack of respect of humans to nature, to the deities and among them. Underlying the two diagnostics (Andean Indigenous and dominant Western scientific) there are two worldviews.

18. Indigenous talent of Konso people to cope with climate change susceptibility, Ethiopia

AlemayehuHAILEMICAEL*

Arba Minch University, Arba Minch Ethiopia as Lecturer in Science Faculty Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, India as PhD scholar in Environmental Sciences

Keywords: Indigenous talents, Konso people, Climate change, adaptation


Abstract:

The Konso people live in a small ethnic-homeland in the high mountains of south-western Ethiopia. They occupy relatively small area (approximately 650 sq. km) which is situated some 700 km south of the capital, Addis Ababa. The majority of the ethnic groups of Ethiopia (more than 80) live in this region,of which the Konso are among them. The Konso highlands run across the Ethiopian rift valley and the Konso people have lived in isolation for a long period. The main agricultural area ranges from 1400m to 2000m above sea level. The people live in an inhospitable harsh environment with irregular bimodal type of rainfall. The climate is dry montane type. Steep sloping landscape and high susceptibility of soil to erosion has provoked them to develop efficient coping up strategies.

Many international conventions like the UNFCCC3 assume that developing countries are the victims of climate change and need external solutions from top-down approaches.However, recent calls to recognize local adaptation mechanisms and coping up strategies by concerned groups has enabled exploration of the indigenous talents of marginalized people.The Konso people’s indigenous practice is one among many secluded and vulnerable people. The inhospitable Konso terrain was transformed by people into a remarkable landscape of terraces and channels conserving every drop of rain, protecting the soil against erosion and harvesting excess water in cultural dams. The conservation structures have been built for more than four hundred years. Thousands of kilometers-long water systems that interweave across the landscape to conserve available moisture and protect soil reflect unique indigenous talents. Everyone

* Presenting author 3 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change


in the farming system acquires the skill of terrace construction as part of routine farming practices. Today, every individual, including children, is contour literate due to massive participation in such campaigns. They ahve also built large cultural dams known as harta to harvest water during the rainy season. Further, the terraces efficiently prevent the land from flooding and erosion thereby contributing to combat the prevailing climate change. In 2011, the Konso Cultural Landscape was been included in UNESCO’s World Heritage list as “a spectacular example of a living cultural tradition stretching back 21 generations (more than 400 years) adapted to its dry hostile environment”4.

The unique mixed agriculture and agro-forestry practices enabled the people to cope with climate change impacts in any season, including unpredictable environmental conditions. Traditional multistory cropping helped to harvest a variety of crops throughout the year. This minimizes the risk of losing and compensates deserted crop species.Intercropping of legumes to increase fertility of soil has been understood through experience.Such diversified productivity has enabled the Konso people to combat climate change. In addition, interaction and symbiotic relations of various crops is well understood.The characteristics of various crops such as drought tolerant, early or prolonged maturity, growth pattern and soil covering potential, moisture retention capacity, and shading effect are selection criteria for planting.The cabbage tree of Konso, Moringa stenopetala, is a multi-purpose tree used to fill gaps associated with drought impacts. Culturally, the tree is taken as a dowry, or measure of wealth (i.e. how many of these trees the bride groom has in the garden or nearby farmland to feed his future family). In addition, the integrated crop-livestock system has enabled people to minimize risk of exposition to climate change effects. The largest number of livestock is kept in the homesteads.It is seen as an important insurance against crop failure. Livestock is handfed from agro-forestry and agriculture harvests. The manure is collected and periodically applied to the fields.In doing so, the people have maintained soil productivity and integrated problem solving strategy. Such adaptation mechanisms have reduced the vulnerability of the people to climate change impacts.

Generally, the Konso people have survived a harsh environment, challenging landscape and unpredictable rainfall. They have modified the harsh mountainous landscape and vulnerable environment through integrated agricultural systems. The multiple cropping systems with crop, livestock and tree integration has great synergism in Konso. The plantation of several species and varieties at the same plot minimized the risk of total crop loss. Such indigenous talent of the people can be taken as excellent lessons for farmers in other portion of the watershed in particular and of the country and the rest of Africa in general.

4http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1333


19. ClimateChange Vulnerability, Adaptation and Traditional Knowledge in Clayoquot Sound British Columbia

John LERNERa* andNeil HUGHESb aEcoLibrio, Canada

bEcotrust Canada, Program Director Forestry

Keywords: First Nations, Cayoquot Sound, adaptation


The Ahousaht, Hesquiaht and Tla-o-qui-aht are three of five Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation communities living in the Clayoquot UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, occupying one of the few intact ecosystems on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. While the communities are relatively dynamic and thriving, they are still healing from the effects of colonization and the residential school system and they are increasingly experiencing stress over natural resource declines, which are affecting diet and health as well as culture and livelihoods. Many changes have been observed over the last 30 years and are thought to be caused by poor resource management and human greed but also by climate changes. According to ClimateBC modeling projections, the Clayoquot region can expect the mean annual temperature to increase as much as 4 C by the 2080’s under the more extreme ◦

scenario. Temperatures will increase throughout the seasons, but slightly more in the spring and summer than in the winter and autumn. The mean annual precipitation is projected to increase as much as 764 mm by the 2080’s in what is already a very wet environment. The bulk of this precipitation will occur in the winter months in conjunction with a significant reduction in snow. Projections regarding rain and wind intensity are uncertain but there is reason to believe that these will increase as well during the coming century. These climate scenarios are illustrated via an interactive map already developed for the communities http://livingatlas.org/. The combination of changes in temperature, precipitation and storm activity as well as significant changes in ocean water chemistry will likely have a significant effect on the natural and built environment upon which the Clayoquot communities depend. Several key fish and shellfish species are expected to decline or shift, which could weaken the communities’ food security, health, culture and livelihood. Rain, wind and wave activity could become more violent, which could jeopardize human safety as well as the communities’ housing and infrastructure. However, warming temperatures are not likely to negatively affect the cedar-hemlock forest species of the area and the forest industry on which they partially depend for employment. Moreover, summer warming temperatures may improve cultivation and tourism opportunities, if it is not accompanied by drought. The projected climate changes and recent environmental degradation have encouraged the Clayoquot communities to assert their vision for sustainable development based on the concept of “Hishuk’ish’ tsawalk”, which means that everything is interconnected, that

* Presenting author


everything is one. In following this vision they look to a form of development that re-establishes a healthy integration of economy and environment in which there is a balance of creation and consumption and a continual investment in biological and economic diversity. The communities also hope to respond proactively to climate change rather than react to it if and when climate impacts become apparent. Their general adaptation approach in this regard is to: • Slow the negative impacts of climate change on the land and the ocean by reducing

unsustainable human use and by restoring natural habitats where possible. • Build individual and community capacity to adapt to eventual climate and ecological

changes by strengthening key community assets, including health and safety resources, local economies, food supply systems, housing and infrastructure and cultural, social and political resources.

Pursuant to this approach, the following list of adaptation measures are recommended for implementation by the communities. Climate Adaptation Objectives

Key Measures

Maintain Ecological Health

• Reform fishery planning • Shift fishery catch • Protect and restore habitat

Strengthen Housing and Infrastructure

• Upgrade key assets for storm surges, flooding, rain, wind and wind throw.

• Pay particular attention to ventilation and mould issues.

Diversify Livelihoods • Increase investments in multiple economic sectors • Undertake risk reduction initiatives • Increase skill development support

Diversify Food Supply • Shift subsistence fishery catch over time • Explore closed containment & multi-trophic

aquaculture • Increase gardening and food preservation support • Educate youth on traditional practices and healthy

diets Improve Health and Safety Resources

• Update emergency preparedness planning • Coordinate early warning systems with

government • Monitor for new pests and diseases

Strengthen Political, Social and Cultural Resources

• Integrate Adaptation Plan into community planning

• Raise community awareness re Climate Change • Promote a culture of self-reliance, adaptation and

continuous learning


20. Vulnerability and adaptation to climate change among Indigenous communities in northern Vietnam

Son Ngoc HO*

Fenner School of Environment & Society, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, Australian National University

Keywords: Vulnerability, adaptation, marginalised population, indigenous communities


Abstract:

Several recent studies concur that Vietnam is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change in the world. The mountainous regions of Vietnam are, along with coastal regions, at high risk of natural hazards and disasters, and climate change impacts. However, little is known about climate change impacts and adaptation experiences in northern mountain regions. In the northern region of Vietnam, ethnic minorities are identified as the most vulnerable human populations. However, because of their close traditional relationship with the environment, local and indigenous communities are uniquely positioned to be able to adapt to climate change. This paper reports field research from July 2009 to February 2010 which examines the vulnerability and adaptation to climate change among Indigenous people in the northern uplands of Vietnam where more than 12 million people of 31 ethnic groups live. Examples from three ethnic minority groups (Tay, Dzao, and H’Mong) are used to show how processes that shape local vulnerability relate to the development state of communities. A range of techniques was employed in order to generate information, to triangulate insights and to build up an accurate, detailed picture of the dynamics of vulnerability at both household and community level.

This study found that different ethnic groups with different socio-economic status and cultural differences are vulnerable to climate and other stresses in different ways, confirming that vulnerability is context-specific. This implies that the design and implementation of adaptation measures must capture the specificity of vulnerability among different groups. In addition, vulnerability to specific impacts of climate change is most severe when and where they are felt together with stresses from other sources. Climate is not the only stress on livelihoods in the northern uplands of Vietnam. Rather, local communities are living from day-to-day, with a host of stressors that may combine to heighten their vulnerability to climate change. Therefore, vulnerability reduction strategies need to address the underlying causes of vulnerability which include the increasing inequality within and between regions, limited access to development and economic opportunities, marginalisation, and policy failure.

Most adaptation options seen in the field are short-term coping responses. Long-term adaptation actions that address the drivers of vulnerability are still scare. Households have diversified livelihoods, intensified agriculture and extended cultivation as a response to climatic and other stressors. However, some of these responses have

* Presenting author


depleted and degraded natural resources, undermining their future adaptive capacity. The study also found that local people have good knowledge of local condition, wild plants and animals which is important for their coping with stresses and shocks. Therefore, it is essential to build on local and traditional knowledge about managing climate risks. However, it is important to realize that traditional coping and adaptation strategies can prepare communities only for some perceived risks, not for the uncertain and possibly different risks brought by climate change. In this way, communities might be well adapted to their climate but less able to adapt to climate change.

The paper concludes with some suggestions of responses different levels of government in Viet Nam could make mountain communities more resilient.Given a very uncertain long-term future, the creation of livelihood opportunities is important and should be central to policy-making and investment. Addressing fundamental livelihood and development problems and strengthening social, economic, and environmental resilience will make it easier for local communities to respond to climatic risks, whether they are droughts, floods or cold snaps. However, new approaches to minority policy should take more account of what indigenous people want by increasing their abilities to have voice and use it effectively. So far, government policies and interventions are often imbued with prejudice and majority group ethnocentrism. These kinds of policies and interventions failed to improve the livelihoods of the poor and ethnic minorities and even further marginalize the disadvantaged groups. Indigenous people need special policies to make up for past and current deficiencies that have left them on an uneven playing field. Policies need to target reducing socio-cultural distances in addition to the provision of infrastructure networks (transportation, market, health care, education).

21. I am counting moon, I am counting fish – Traditional environmental knowledge and social vulnerability of artisan fishing community of Tarrafal, Sao Nicolau, Cape Verde

Jelena ILIC*

SILENE (Social Inclusion and Learning on Environment and Equity, Belgrade IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management

Keywords: artisan fishing community, tuna- fishing, migration, social vulnerability, cultural domain analysis, Cape Verde


Abstract:

Sao Nicolau is a small island in the Cape Verde archipelago situated in the northern group of islands in the so-called Barlavento group. The climate is dry and tropical with two distinctive seasons: a rainy and a dry season. The rainy season in Cape Verde was never indeed a rainy season; it only offers the possibility for rain to occur. The island experiences desertification; the weather conditions are formed under strong influences * Presenting author


from the wind circulation originating in the Sahara. Even though the archipelago as a whole was a Portuguese colony, the presence of Americans, Spanish and Flemish left a significant mark on its history.

Coupled systems of droughts and famine forcedpeople of Cape Verde to migrate around the world. The history of migration is divided into three waves where the first migration had occurred during embarkations on American whale hunting vessels between the XIX and first half of the XX century.The second wave of migration took place between WWI and WWII and a bit after when, due to hunger, the Portuguese Government forcefully shifted population to Angola and Sao Tome. The last ones are economic migrations to theNetherlands and Southern Europe.

The history of Cape Verde is a unique mosaic of human struggle against harsh environmental conditions as well as harsh environments created in a society based on slavery.For the traditional community of Tarrafal, from Sao Nicolau, tuna fishing is a way of living. It is a trademark of their Creole culture and evidence of their remarkable past. Their knowledge of the sea, traditional fishing techniques, counting moon phases in order to choose their fishing grounds were and are still passed from father to son.

Fishing takes place in small boats, which is additionally risky due to unexpected storms in the ‘wrong season’. These changes in the weather pattern force people to embark less and thus have less protein intake and insecure income for their dependents. Artisan fishermen face fish stock depletion, late arrival of key species, catch shift towards smaller individuals, unexpected, heavy sea storms and unjust over-competition with industrial foreign fishery, very often illegal ones. Furthermore, artisan fishery is perceived less and less as an important livelihood activity. Therefore, men involved in such small-scale business lose their social status of respected men in the community as well as attractiveness in the eyes of local women for emotional partnerships.

The state lacks capacities, commitment and readiness to face environmental and social crises and the challenges which climate-shaped realities demand. There is no structured social agency at the local level to bring up issues of fishermen concern; empowerment of fishermen is needed. Fishing communities are left alone to struggle for their dignity and continuity of their fishing tradition. In the Creole culture, the act of creativity and mixture of different practices and tradition would always evolve into something new- technical innovation. Although tuna fishing with poles was brought to Tarrafal from Madeira in the 1930s, it evolved into a new technique with some improvements and became the typically Sao Nicolense way of fishing.

In a series of workshops and interviews with fishermen, part of their traditional knowledge was decoded in order to identify new adaptation strategies in the light of decreasing fish production, changing fish migratory patterns, lack of fish bites and late arrival of key fish species. The main methodology applied was cultural domain-analysis.

The dialog established with brave and knowledgeable people revealed a rich world of uncertainty, skills, pride, hardship, fatality, mind-mapping based on moon and landmarks, and 136 folk names of fish species. The community in Tarrafal does experience changes in temperature, primary productivity, weather extremes, torrential rains and salt-water intrusion. However, a notion of sea level rise doesn’t exist at all.

The small-scale artisan fishery is at cease. It is the essence of the once enslaved man to regain his dignity and self-esteem; a sense of being his own master by mastering his skills and learning to adapt to an uncertain environment. The main dilemma remains: is there or is there not enough fish in Cape Verde, and to whom is it meant to be?


22. Tlicho Traditional Knowledge of Climate Change and the Impacts on Caribou Hunting

Petter JACOBSEN*

University of Northern British Columbia, Canada

Keywords: sub-arctic Canada, environmental changes, warmer temperatures, hunting adaptations, holistic knowledge, human-environment ontology


In Canada’s Northwest Territories, a qualitative study has been conducted with the Tlicho Elders to document their Traditional Knowledge of climate change and the impacts on caribou hunting. The Tlicho Elders have lived most of their lives on the land participating in the annual round of hunting, trapping and fishing. Based on this lifelong experience they have individual and cultural intimate knowledge of the environment, which has made them able to live successfully and comfortably in the sub-arctic climate. As the sub-arctic environment has been changing during the last decades the Tlicho Elders have experienced: a general increase in temperature; an increased snow base; thinner and unsecure ice; a decrease in wind; and a general drier forest due to lack of rain and warmer temperature. As the Tlicho live closely with the land, these environmental changes impact hunting and travelling on the land. The Tlicho respond to these environmental changes, by acquiring new knowledge and adapting their ways of hunting caribou. These adaptations can be generalized into; changes of hunting locations, modified time for hunting, uncertain weather predictions when travelling on the land, and an increased focus on safety. Together these impacts and adaptation strategies create a greater reliance on cash to sustain hunting, due to factors as longer hunting trips and changes to time of hunting.

The Tlicho community Whati, where the research was conducted, is an isolated fly-in community in the vast boreal forest in the Northwest Territories. Over 90% percent of the population speaks their native language and traditional activities as hunting and fishing are large part of the daily activities in the community. Heavily reliant on the local natural resources, the land is an essential element in the Tlicho culture. Increasing climate change therefore proposes future impact on travelling and hunting on the land. As culture and nature for sub-arctic indigenous peoples are interconnected aspect of each other, the Tlicho Elders are not solely observers to the environmental changes; rather they are acting within the ecosystem.

Traditional Knowledge is an inclusive and holistic form of knowledge; thus the Tlicho Elderssee the individual environmental changes described above connected to the larger changes throughout their society and land. Their knowledge of climate change portrays ontological understandings of the environment based on holistic perceptions of climate

* Presenting author


change. By placing the evolution of human culture into the natural world and therefore eliminating the perceived difference between ‘us’ as people and the natural world, the Tlicho knowledge portray the importance of the human role in the ecosystem based on our historical and spiritual connections. The environment is therefore both natural and social. Thus, for the Tlicho, humans assume an active role in the shaping on the environment. Their lifestyle, rooted in tradition and spirituality, allows them to understand the land in broader terms and live within connections to the natural world that actively works to maintain the sustainability of the ecosystem. In this respect, the introduction of a modern lifestyle consequently, not only contributes to transform cultural practices, but most importantly works to erode the human connection to the natural world.It is this erosion of the human connection to the natural world, which, for Tlicho Elders, is the underlying understanding of climate change.By listening to the Tlicho Elders knowledge of the function and purpose of humans in the ecosystem, we can learn sustainable solutions that can prevent further changes to the climate. This study has tried to meet the holistic nature of the Tlicho knowledge, and will present the Tlicho Elders’ knowledge of climate change, the impacts on caribou hunting and ontological meanings between environmental changes, hunting and human-environment interaction.

23. Climate Change and MāoriSociety: Risks, Capacities and Opportunities

Darren Ngaru Terrance KING*

Māori Environmental Research Centre – T Kuwaha o Taihoro Nuurangi National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) – New Zealand

Keywords: climate change, society, vulnerability, culture, adaptation, policy


Abstract:

Climate is of fundamental importance to Māori society. It affects natural environmental systems and resources, influences social-cultural knowledge and practic, shapes communityvulnerability and resilience, and is directly linked to economic investment and government policy. Given the diverse realities and climate-sensitivities that Māoriface in different places and region across Aotearoa (New Zealand) there is a growing interest to know more about the implications (and risks) of a changing climate on different sectors, systems and groups. Māoristakeholders have expressed also concerns and aspirations to know more about adaptation options and the linkages between climate change, natural hazards and sustainable development, to understand

* Presenting author


what makes some groups more resilient than others, and to promote Māoriknowledge (includes values) and greater Māoriinvolvement in environmental policy, planning and management. This paper will review the scholarship conducted to date, examine the key spheres of inflence tha complicate the climate change issue for Māorisociety, and explore some of the projected impacts of cliate change including the vulnerability, resilience and adaptation options facing different sectors, systems and groups.

24. Contribution of Traditional Knowledge to Complement Climate Change Research in Two Extreme Ecosystem Scenarios in India

Sumit KUMAR GAUTAM*a and Avanti ROY BASUb

a Earth Science and Climate Change, The Energy and Resources Institute, India b Educating Youth for Sustainable Development, The Energy and Resources Institute, India

Keywords: drought, climate change, flood, traditional knowledge


Abstract:

Climate change causes significant threats to the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially those related to eliminating poverty and promoting environmental sustainability. Unpredictable variations in key climatic parameters are affecting poor communities that are already facing challenges related to food insecurity, environmental degradation, economic instability and various other effects of globalization.

Water is one of the key sectors affected by climate change, resulting in increased vulnerability of large population groups in developing countries. Evidently, global climate change will affect the quality and availability of water supplies. At least 1.1 billion people lack access to safe water supply. One-third of the world’s population faces acute water shortage. If current trends persist, two-thirds of the world’s population would be exposed to moderate or high water scarcity by 2025. The lack of access to safe potable water is a major cause of ill health and life-threatening diseases in developing countries.

Disorganized water institutions fail to manage growing water needs in developing countries. The greatest vulnerabilities worldwide are in inefficient water systems that are linked to population growth, increasing agricultural uses, water contamination, adverse policies, and other forces that make the system unsustainable.

Considering India as a case in point, occurrence of erratic climatic events like droughts and floods not only damages lives and livelihoods, but also hampers economic progress and the process of poverty alleviation. Every year, some part of India is usually in the

* Presenting author


grip of a devastating drought or a destructive flood – the two extreme scenarios being explained hereunder.

• Drought prone region of Rajasthan: An arid area where intensive agriculture, deforestation and overgrazing of pastures have led to desertification and depletion of ground water resources as well as affected the economic and social security of the people of this region. UN sources reveal that high temperatures and dusty storms make the heat worse, where people purchase water at a price, which is half of the families earning per day. Most people have bath once in fortnight in the scorching heat due to extreme water shortage. Most of the men migrate whilst women subsist on craftwork.

• Flood prone region of Odisha: Rivers in this region have a common delta where flood waters intermingle; this problem becomes more acute when floods coincide with high tide. High population density, encroachment on the flood plains, poor socio-economic condition, weak infrastructure and mud houses increase the vulnerability. As on September 2008, floods have affected a total of 188 villages leaving behind a marooned population of 76,760 and have caused damage to 30,820 ha of cropped area.

The impacts of climate change on the communities living in the above regions are significant. These marginal eco-settings provide key ecosystem services, and are critical for maintaining the overall resilience and adaptive capacity of the local communities, who suffers the greatest challenge as a result of climate change. However, in order to cope with the climatic extremes, there exists vast traditional knowledge in the communities that facilitates the process of climate change adaptation.

Despite scientific research, a considerable amount of uncertainty exists concerning the rate and the extent of climate change in these Indian regions, and how change will affect regional climatic processes and ecosystems. This paper provides a scope to review the existing traditional knowledge that will supplement climate change research in these regions. The paper attempts to inventorize the age-old knowledge that exists in the above two regions to enhance scientific approaches for understanding climate change in the area. The compilation and analysis of the traditional knowledge of the region can act as a local scale expertise, as a source of climate history and baseline data, and may provide an insight into impacts and adaptation in the communities of these two extreme ecosystem scenarios in India. Such a potential convergence may provide a conceptual framework for bridging the gap between traditional knowledge and science, in the context of climate change research.


25. Can the Traditions of Her Ancestors withstand the Challenges of Climate Change: community-based marine resource management for over 1300 years among the female ama divers of Japan

Anne McDONALD*

United Nations University – Institute of Advanced Studies Operating Unit Ishikawa/Kanazawa

Keywords: Marine resources, Japan, Ama divers


Of the 6,852 islands that make up the Japanese Archipelago, 6,847 are designated as remote islands. Among these remote islands, 258 are inhabited by communities marginalized geographically, socially and some would argue economically from the main islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa (MLIT, 2010).

Hegura Island is one among the inhabited 258 remote islands. Located on the Japan Sea fifty kilometers from mainland Honshu, Ishikawa prefecture, Hegura Island has a total land area of 1.04 km2 and circumference of 5 kilometers. The island is located at the intersection of two opposing warm and cold ocean currents; the tsushimashio, a substream of the kuroshio warm ocean current from the Pacific and oyashio, a cold ocean from the northern Pacific Ocean, thus contributing to the climatic and marine biodiversity of the area (Fuji et al, 2010). Plants from both southern and northern regions coexist on this island, creating a unique vegetation landscapes not observed on the mainland 50 kilometers away (Yoneda et al, 1961; Fuji et al, 2010).

Not only marine life but according to ethno-historical records, the ama-san, women free divers of Hegura are believed to have travelled with the cold tsushima current from the Korean Peninsula over 1300 years to Japan (Tanabe, 2007). Exclusive rights to harvest marine resources in designated waters around Hegura Island were granted by the feudal government in 1649 and these rights continue today, passed from mother to daughter (Uno et al., 1987).

Hereditary fishing rights are integral to resource management and social structure of all fishing communities in Japan, but the ama-san women diver communities differ from the patriarchal foundations of most fishing communities (Yagi, 2010). Harvesting seasons, grounds, and species are all determined by matriarchal rights. Any decisions to modify current rules that guide harvesting activities and other resource management decisions, such as obligatory fees to pay for species regeneration activities and community initiated no-fish zones, are discussed and decided by the collective whole.

As harvesting rights have passed from one generation to the next, so has the knowledge of her ancestors. Individual harvesting grounds within the collective harvesting waters are family secrets transmitted from mother to daughter. Many of the names describe marine life and identifying characteristics of the marine habitat. Marine life descriptions, water temperatures, currents and depths are among the knowledge transmitted (McDonald, 2008). Yet this knowledge is no longer sufficient, nor always reliable. The

* Presenting author


oceans her ancestor knew is not the same as the ocean they need to know to continue as ama-san women divers. It is a changing one and they are looking for answers to how to adapt to these changes (McDonald, 2010).

Recorded ocean temperatures around Hegura Island between 1909 and 2009 rose by 1.2°C; the global average for the same time period being 0.5°C (Fuji et al, 2010). Along with warming temperatures, degradation of sea grass beds, increasing rates of ocean desertification, declines in marine life and the increased frequency of southern marine life into their waters have also been recorded by scientists (Fuji et al, 2010).

This paper will examine how resource use and management traditions of the ama-san women divers have been transmitted and how they are maintained today. One question to be explored is the resilience of their traditional knowledge and its applicability to help them adapt to a changing marine environment that is being studied and recorded by scientists. Interviews with ama-san focusing on their observations of environmental changes will be examined along with the scientific data collected from the Hegura and Nanatsushima Island Natural Science Research Report results from studies published in 1961 and 50 years later in 2010. How the ama-san have managed to maintain their customs and distinct sense of cultural identity amidst the waves of westernization, modernization and technological advancement that have swept through mainstream Japan may be key when considering adaptive capacity potentials not only for the ama-san, but other indigenous or marginalized communities elsewhere living with climate change.

References: Fuji et al., 2010, Hegura and Nanatsushima Island Natural Science Research Report, Hokkoku Research Center Publication (in Japanese) (McDonald) Unpublished field notes and taped interview compiled from 10 separate field stays to Hegura Island from 2008-2010. (in Japanese) Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Statistics, 2010 (in Japanese) Tanabe, 2010, Ama of Japan, Hosei University Press (in Japanese) Uno et al., 1987, Hegura Island Life, Hokkoku Newpspaer, (in Japanese) Yagi, 2010, Marine protectedareasinJapan:Institutionalbackgroundand management framework, Marine Policy, Elsevier Ltd. Yoneda et al., 1961, Nanatsu and Hegura Island Natural Science Study, Hokkoku Publishing Company


26. The Baka of East Cameroon and the Challenges of Climate Change

Estelle MAWAL*

Association pour la Promotion de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable (APEDD) Environment Management Consulting (EMaC)

Keywords: Baka pygmies, forests, water management, impacts of climate change

Language of original submission: French

Abstract:

The Pygmy are a people of small stature who depend directly on forest products for their livelihood. Their territories include the regions of East and South Cameroon. BAKA is the name for the culture and language, as well as the people themselves. Although they have long been known as a hunters, fishers and gatherers, agriculture is today also included amongst their pursuits. The Bakaway of life distinguishes them from the rest of the country’s population. They are disadvantaged, however, by high levels of illiteracy, by forest extraction that has a negative impact on their milieu and today, by a changing climate that threatens their social organization. It is the social and cultural values of the Baka that are of key importance as their ecosystem knowledge creates opportunities to better conserve local equilibria.

Climate Changeand its Impacts

For the Baka community, climate change disrupts the seasonal cycle, prolongs the dry season, reduces precipitation, and dries up water sources. These changes have impacts on their activities due to loss of seed, bad harvests, scarcity of animal life, emergence of new insect pests, and the disruption of fruit tree production. Socio-economic impacts include diminished harvests from agriculture, hunting, fishing and gathering, the undermining of food self-sufficiency, poor revenues and an increase in water-related illnesses.

The Baka have not remained passive in the face of these various changes. Quite to the contrary, they have developed certain adaptation measures such as : replacing crop varieties that fail, placing snares close to water sources, selecting crops that are sun-resistant, or the gathering and trading of non-ligneous forest products, etc. This said, their adaptation opportunities and capacities are hampered by limited resources, a lack of appropriate technologies and above all, a lack of access to information.

Adaptation Strategies

Data collected when implementing the project « les Bakas de l’Est Cameroun face aux

changements climatiques (The Baka of East Cameroon and the challenge of climate

change)» allow measurement of the impact of climate change on the Baka community and provide the basis for the selected adaptation strategies.

* Presenting author


Water Management

Many of the climate change impacts experienced by the community have a relationship with water. Water plays an essential role in the different activities conducted by the community whether they relate to hunting, fishing, gathering or agriculture. For this reason the water resource management is a vital strategy for the Baka communities. This concerns both surface water for agricultural purposes as well as water for human consumption.

Supporting the development of agriculture

In comparison with other activities, agriculture at the scale traditionally practiced by the Baka is most respectful of the environment. Indeed, hunting may compromise the protection of populationsthreatened with extinction. Fishing, while productive due to decreasing water levels in the rivers, leads to erosion of aquatic resource. Agriculture should be encouraged and supported in various ways, particularly technological, to provide a boost to the development of Baka communities.

The way forward

Support organizations working with the Baka on climate changeissues

Project outcomes may benefit from a multiplier effect by sharing lessons learned with organizations working with the Baka in the areas of empowerment and development. Their capacities in relationship with climate change are in need of reinforcement. This action is the focus of a proposed workshop to reinforce the capacities of local organizations working in regions close to Baka communities.

Promote local knowledge to enhance adaptation

To guarantee the efficacy of adaptation actions by the Baka in response to climate change, it is important to promote the application of local knowledge in adaptation methodologies. This would allow communities to better integrate their own methods and in particular to preserve fundamental elements of their social organization.


27. Mayan Indigenous Geography IXIL: Indigenous rules on the use of water, the forest and wildlife

Felipe Pedro MARCOS GALLEGO*

Environmental Collective Rights of Indigenous People – Centro de Acción Legal-Ambiental y

Social de Guatemala – Guatemala

Keywords: Mayan Indigenous Geography, Way of Life, Preservation and Conservation, Maya-Ixil, Climate Change, Socio-natural, Development Style, Natural Resources, Middle American Production System, Ancient Knowledge, Local Legal System


Abstract:

In order to present certain knowledge on the indigenous territories of Guatemala, Guatemalan populationh is formed by 22 Mayan ethnic groups and 23 linguistic groups; contemporary Mayans have managed to preserve and apply their ancient knowledge, particularly the manner they relate to nature. Guatemalan Mayan people is closely united to the land, not only as the production factor around which family economy develops, but also conceived as the most important resource that supports all other constituent elements of nature. This study of Guatemalan Mayan indigenous geography intends to justify the way of life of Mayan indigenous people and the current state of natural resources in their territories, where two perceptions coexist: a vision that respects nature, and a vision that does not respect nature.

The systematized traditional knowledge of Ixil Mayan population in the book: Indigenous rules on the use of water, the forest and wildlife (CALAS, 2006) make evident the wealth and depth of knowledge of the Man-Nature relationship. Ixiles conceive water as a symbol of life, and it is an important element of nature that gives life to both man and animals. Conception on the forest: The forest cleans the air, the mountain gives life and rain, because it was formed many years ago. Understanding of wildlife: The life of wild animals must be respected, because they are ornaments to nature and they beautify earth.

The legal ordinance of the Ixil people incorporates principles of a set of internal rules and regulations, elements of the internal rules and regulations, the role of important figures of the community and other fundamentals such as the notion of complementarity, the principle of coexistence and the channel used to process the set of internal rules and regulations of the Ixil people.

The cultural-environmental identity and the man-nature relationship is the difference between the conventional way of life and ancient practices that respect nature. Within the scopes and levels of relationships of every day living of the Mayan Ixil people the spiritual relationship with nature acquires great importance.

The socioeconomic geography of Guatemala can be divided in two geographical areas, the low lands of the Guatemalan territory destined to export crops that have already lost their wooded cover, and the high lands of mountains, hills and ravines that the

* Presenting author


indigenous people of Guatemala currently inhabits (87% of peasants have approximately 18% of the land of the country).

Notwithstanding the socioenvironmental benefits of indigenous territories, their main contradictions are related to the economic nature of the conquest; it allowed to consolidate two patterns of establishing a social relation with nature: The relocation of indigenous people in high lands, and the new model of human settlement based on contemporary urbanization. However, the view of the world of the Mayas could respectfully coexist in these new territories, basing, at all times, their family economy in the association of growing corn-beans-cucurbits, but the natural and cultural wealth of the Ixil region contradicts the social indicators that put it below the line of poverty (the IDH is of 0.42).

The modern way of life contradicts the way the Mayan-Ixil people live, which preserves the Middle American production system but with certain limitations, due to the introduction of new production approaches, and plants grown which respond to the structure of the agro-exporter and have a negative impact on food security, in the way of life of the Ixil people, and will be the culprit of the irreversible deterioration of strategic ecosystems of high biological value that preserve species such as the Pavo de Cacho.

The actions pending of the Guatemalan State are: to acknowledge, speaking in legal and economic terms, the way of life of the Mayan Ixil people through policies grounded in the view of the world of the Mayan people. The economic acknowledgment must locate a special bond with the local production system, due to the ratio of food production-progress of the agricultural frontier, and to adopt economic initiatives at local level, taking advantage of the natural function of the forests, by way of payment due to environmental services.


28. The native Kokonukos and peasants define their own route of adaptability to the climate change, experience in the Colombian Andes.

Piedad MARTIN1* and José Domingo CALDON2 1 Organization of the United Nations, Mexico. Colombia.

2 Asociación de Cabildos de la Zona Centro “Genaro Sánchez”, Colombia.

Keywords: Indigenous and peasant communities, Millenium Development Goals,

organizative capacity, food security, health, water, ecosystems, disaster risk management


Abstract:

The communities of the Cauca in Colombia started a process to adapt themselves to the climate change, facilitated by the United Nations Organization and the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales or IDEAM). The indigenous people of the Kokonuko people and small associations of peasants conducted a vulnerability analysis of the Variability and Climate Change (VC/CC) that has given rise to the “Transition Route for the Adaptability to Climate Change in the High Basin of the Cauca River: Secure Water and Food in a Healthy Territory”.

The significance of this process lies in its participating methodology, based on a dialogue between science and local knowledge. The concepts and methodologies of data roll-up and space analysis, and the weight of each variable were defined according to its cultural significance. The methodology of learn-by-doing of the communities was emphasized, as well as the most accepted culturally alternatives of adaptability that could generate changes in their capacity of adaptability in the future.

The Cauca River has its source in this region of the Andes, one of the most important rivers of the country, and a key element in the supply of drinking water to Popayán, capital city of the department of Cauca. This is a region which has scarce public investment, and is mostly populated by ethnic minorities who have been marginalized, speaking in social, economical and political terms. The poverty is higher than the national average. In 2007, a pilot of adaptability was commenced, based on pioneering rural communities that intends, within the framework to fight poverty, to obtain lessons learned in order to be replicated, and the recommendations to adjust public policies and instruments or territorial ordinance. Given the uncertainty that still exists in relation to the climate change, the process emphasizes the strengthening of capacities and local knowledge.

Indigenous and peasant communities have played a major role in the generation of a current and future vulnerability methodology to the VC/CC, and conducted the diagnoses with tools such as GPS and SIG. The main axes of the analysis were: the natural environment (climate, ecosystems, water and risks) and the social environment (ODM, production systems, health, organization and gender approach). * Presenting author


Subsequently, the adaptability alternatives were defined and assessed, with the participation of traditional authorities, youngsters, elders, women and doctors. The most important criteria to prioritize the measures were: 1) concentration on the most important causes that generate vulnerability; 2) multiplying effect; 3) cost/benefit and collective benefit; 4) economical, environmental and social and cultural sustainability. The innovation was combined with the consolidation of the existing initiatives that have been supplemented in order to constitute basic elements of community resilience.

The most important adaptability measures implemented in relation to traditional knowledge were: a) the recovery of the practice of barter amongst communities of different warm climate areas as cultural practice and to promote the acclimatization of seeds, the access to a greater diversity of foods and the exchange of knowledge, b) the consolidation of a network of protectors of seeds of native varieties, both for food and for medicine purposes, c) the recovery of areas of cultural, spiritual and ecological significance, d) the promotion of a pact for the rights of mother nature, d) the consolidation of the role of Indigenous Protector in matters of early alerts for natural disasters, combining local climate information and observations of the wise elders, e) the establishment of field schools to promote good practices, such as: Management of fertilizer and natural gardens, incorporation of new varieties, sowing seasons, etc. f) consumables to adjust the Life Plan of indigenous communities.

The main lessons learned relate to: 1) to establish a co-responsibility in the analysis and implementation of adaptability measures, 2) to prioritize culturally adapted measures that have proven to be successful, 4) to support agents of change of the community; innovative families that can give an example and replicate the actions, 5) the political-organizational consolidation for adaptability, 6) to develop space of exchange between generations, and 7) to open spaces of political impact of marginalized communities.


29. Sami Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and NASA Remote Sensing Technologies Working Together for Adaptation Strategies

Nancy MAYNARDa*, Anna DEGTEVA, Anders OSKAL, Inger Marie GAUP EIRA, Al IVANOFF, Michael POGODAEVand Svein MATHIESEN

aSenior Research Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Keywords: Sami, indigenous, traditional knowledge, reindeer, herders, NASA, remote sensing, adaptation, climate change


Abstract

Eurasian indigenous reindeer herders developed an important initiative to study the impacts of climate change and development on their pasture lands and migration routes and to create local adaptation strategies based upon their traditional knowledge of the land and its uses. This reindeer herder-led initiative, the IPY project called EALAT (“Reindeer Pastoralism in a Changing Climate”), was developed as an international, interdisciplinary partnership with the science community involving extensive collaboration and co-production of knowledge to minimize the impacts of the various changes and to plan for optimal adaptive strategies. This paper describes how remote sensing (e.g., Landsat, AMSR-E) and other scientific data (e.g., meteorology, modeling) are being combined with indigenous knowledge to “co-produce” datasets to improve decision-making, herd management, and adaptation strategies. This paper also brings to the IPCC process some specific results from herding case studies in Russia and Norway to show how combined knowledge from the indigenous and scientific communities are helping develop new adaptation strategies for indigenous reindeer herders to address specific climate change impacts such as rain-on-snow as well as the simultaneous effects of oil and gas development on their pastures and migration routes in Russia and Norway.

* Presenting author


30. Traditional indigenous knowledge and practices in the Andes for adaptability and diminishment of climate change impacts.

Angel MUJICA*

Red Iberoamericana de saberes del entorno vegetal- RISAPRET- CYTED

Universidad Nacional del Altiplano, UNA, PUNO, Perú.

Keywords: Indigenous knowledge, Andes, Quechuas and Aymaras, Climate change


Abstract:

The Quechua and Aymaras cultures of the Andes engaged in the domestication, cultivation, selection, transformation and consumption of Andean cultures, have developed knowledge and traditional practices to manage and preserve the diversity and variability of grains, tubers, roots, fruits, aromatics and medicinal, as strategy to face climatic adversities and the impacts of climate change.

In order to gather and systematize this information, the methodology of complementation and exchange of knowledge has been used with bilateral information flow and an ethnographic approach (continuous ethno-botanical-anthropological exploration throughout the production process, with bilateral and multilateral knowledge exchange) in communities that preserve the agro-biodiversity of the Peruvian Andes during five agricultural campaigns; to this end, the indigenous communities have selected and improved those genotypes that show morphological mechanisms (smaller size of leaves, plant), physiological (nyctinastic movements and replacement of foliaceous photosynthesis), anatomical (greater radicular development and smaller size of stomas), biochemical (production of betainas, presence of calcium oxalate) and phenological (quick phenological development, asynchronous flowering period) allowing them to mitigate and adapt better to the impacts of climate change, facing, with greater advantages, droughts, floods, salinization of soils, cold (frosts) and intense solar radiation that are frequent in the Andes, diminishing their vulnerability.

In the same manner, they have modified the environment where they conduct their agricultural activities, allowing them to produce foods under difficult conditions, and diminish losses due to the changes in the weather, as well as the risks and impacts of these adverse factors, notwithstanding of being marginalized populations for reasons of different nature, they still maintain this knowledge and have survival and adaptability mechanisms through the Waru-Warus (excess of humidity and attacks of plagues ), Andenes (freezings and sowing in mountainsides), Cochas (floods, cold and exploitation of high plains), Canchas (cold, height and exploitation of intense solar radiation) and other unique and exceptional agricultural practices as the use of wild relatives, integral use of the plant (leaves, young stems, inflorescence, grains, stems, roots and even anti-nutritional substances: saponin), association of sowings according to supplementary requirements of the species, sowing in salt flats and arid lands, rational use and

* Presenting author


management of water and soil (Dry farming), sowing in hillsides, gathering of water in the high regions of the basin, organic production, use of natural biocides to counteract plagues (alkaloids, saponins, glucosinolates, terpenes), natural fungicides, growth regulators, use of bio-indicators, use of thermo-therapy to eliminate viruses in tubers, exploitation of favorable mutations and the natural selection of the fittest individuals and other techniques that allow them to exploit cold, intense solar radiation, wind and natural vegetation. It is concluded that Andean cultures have developed knowledge to diminish the impacts of climate change, adapting themselves better to such weather adversities and, logically, decreasing their vulnerability thanks to the great domesticated diversity and variability, and currently they play a major role in the sustainable use and preservation In situ of food and non-food resources of the Andes, both grown as well as of their wild relatives, and also of the native agro-ecosystem with all their components, emphasizing the preservation of the soil and water, based on their ancient knowledge, notwithstanding they are strongly influenced by the modernizing development and globalization.

31. Documenting Indigenous knowledge of Climate Change, Coping and Mitigation Mechanisms: The Case of the Niger-Delta, Nigeria

Andrew ONWUEMELE*

Researcher, Social and Governance Policy Research Department, Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER)

Keywords: indigenous knowledge, mitigation, Niger-Delta, vulnerability, policy


Abstract:

The initial scepticism surrounding the possibility that the global climates may be changing have been laid to rest with the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report in early 2007 which confirmed that global climate is already changing.The report indicates that communities who live in marginal lands and whose livelihoods are highly dependent on natural resources are among those highly vulnerable to climate change. In the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria where the study is based, environmental and climatic changes are not new to the indigenous people due to the fragile nature of their environment. The region is characterized by perennialflooding, high temperature, salt water intrusion and sea level rise and themagnitude and intensity of which have been on the increase in recent time.

* Presenting author


Studies have shown that local communities in the region had successfully achieved somelevel of sustainable livelihoods in the face of these changing environmental and climate conditions using indigenous knowledge. However, traditional knowledge systems in mitigation and adaptation have for a long time been neglected in climate change policy formulation and implementation in Nigeria. Traditional and indigenous people, who have survived over long periods to many kinds of environmental changes, including climate change have valuable lessons to offer about successful and unsuccessful adaptations which could be vital in the context of climate change. Also, integrating knowledge of the beneficiaries of a given programme is necessary, if such programmes are to find support amongst the targeted population. Despite bearing the brunt of climate change impacts, local communities are hardly involved in decision making and policy formulation. This deliberate exclusion has stymied adaptation and mitigation projects from achieving their goals in this respect.In addition, while several sectoraldevelopment policies abounds in Nigeria, climate change adaptations are hardly mainstreamed into such policies and generally lacks the active participation of the poor local communities who are mostly affected by these hazards. This paper explores and documents this indigenous knowledge in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria.

The study covers two states (Delta and Ondo states) out of the nine states in the Niger-Delta region. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected for the study. The major instruments of data collection were the questionnaire and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with indigenous people in the two states. Five notable local communities each adversely affected by climate change were purposively selected from the two states. A total of two hundred questionnaires were randomly distributed to two hundred households. Also, two FGDs each were conducted in the two states. The household questionnaire were analysed using Statistical Packages of the Social science (SPSS) while the FGD were content analysed.

The results reveal relevant indigenous knowledge of climate change and plethora of viable traditional coping and mitigation strategies of climate change impacts. In addition, the study found that climate change is real in the various communities and adversely impacting on the livelihoods and quality of life of the people. The paper calls for active participation of local communities in the formulation of climate change adaptation and mitigation policies at the state and national levels. It also recommends the integration of these indigenous coping and mitigation mechanism with the western scientific knowledge in the design and implementation of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies in the region.


32. Adaptation Strategies of tribals in Western Ghat (India) and their age-old wisdom in practice

Joseph Sebastian PAIMPILLIL*

Center for Earth Research and Environment Management, India

Keywords: Western Ghat tribals, traditional healers, herbal remedies, adaptation strategies


Abstract:

The forest tribals and Adivasis have confronted the extremes of climate change for generations and developed a large arsenal of practices to survive and adapt to an increasingly dangerous climate. They observe climate change and react to it positively by making use of their traditional knowledge and ancestors’ rich experiences. They use diversified adaptation strategies to survive and ensure their food security. The tribals in Wayanad, Kerala have ensured their food security even in the years of heavy rain and flooding and in years of severe drought. Over the decades, they have developed certain agricultural practices and varieties of paddy seeds that can withstand flooding for more than two weeks and can be sown and raised when there is no rain. In order to survive in the changing climatic conditions, they had developed diversified adaptation strategies suitable to every land and region.

A number of interesting adaptation strategies emerged, based on their experience of the tribals in the area.In drought conditions they use traditional seeds like Mulanpuncha, Kalladian and Onavattam. The night moisture is sufficient for them to germinate. After a month or so, when there is a little rain the crop takes advantage and grows well. The adivasis also have their own ways of knowing when there will be floods and when drought.For example, if certain mushrooms grow in abundance before the rainy season, it signifies that there will not be enough of rain forthcoming. The Kurichya tribe has a lot of expertise in paddy. They hang the seeds in straw bundles and preserve them. The straw controls the temperature and allows the seeds to breathe. The adivasis have identified 72 wild varieties of food producing plants. These include edible leaves, tubers, mushrooms, fruits, etc. They are now promoting the cultivation of 6 varieties of wild tubers on tribal lands.

The experience of the adivasis shows that frequent use of wild mushrooms prevents breast cancer. The women of the Kattu-nayakar tribe have a low incidence of uterus related problems because of the consumption of kattu chaimbu, or wild taro.These tribal farmers have indigenous method of soil classification, fertility management, soil and water conservation through selected plants/trees/shrubs and cultural practices, creating micro-environment, seed selection and conservation, planting methods, weed control, maintaining the indigenous gene pool of location specific rice varieties, cropping systems and local techniques of insect pest management. Indigenous knowledge though being utilized by Indian forest communities in the forest resource management and

* Presenting author


conservation of biodiversity, it is not widely utilized by the scientific community since they are not incorporated in the manuals.

The Akshaya centers initiated by Kerala State are utilized as effective arm in reaching out to traditional tribes. As an initial exercise, the Western Ghats (India) is taken up, which covers barely 5% of India’s area with biological richness of 27% of all the species of higher plants in India and one of the 18 biodiversity “hot spots” of the world.The mountain is home to some 900 species used in Ayurvedic medicines. Under the program for generating and strengthening knowledge about ecology and sustainable development of mountain ecosystems, the people were encouraged to and started the policing of their flora and fauna. The people’s movement had moved beyond the documenting and staking claim to biodiversity to ensuring its conservation and proper use. The indigenous Kani community had initiated the commercial use of its traditional medicinal knowledge of the invigorating properties of the local trichopus shrubs and developed medical formulas are earning royalty. In order to effectively use the vast store of traditional knowledge to aid in climate change prediction and adaptation, a multiuser-friendly knowledge management system must be set up to collect, classify, test and disseminate this essential data to those who need it.

33. Peasants of the Amazonas-Andes and their “conversation” with the climate change in the Region of San Martín

Rider PANDURO*

San Martín, Asociación Rural Amazónica Andina Choba Choba, Perú.

Keywords: Geo-climatic diversity, Conversation with the weather, Ways of the seeds, Recreation of traditional agriculture


Abstract:

Scientific works on the Peruvian Amazonas-Andes region lead us to understand that, throughout its long history, there have been important geo-climatic changes, allowing the periodical recreation of their physical and biological diversity. Likewise, they establish eleven main climates worldwide, of which eight can be found in these climatic zones of the Country. This evidences that the Country has great climatic and ecologic diversity and density. Conditions under which man inhabited this landscape 20,000 years ago, and during the first half of his stay he engaged in the harvesting, hunting and fishing, and approximately 10,000 years the process to create agriculture began. This last period is framed in the last interglacial, and is the period we are currently living.

These dynamics coincide with the movements of the people of the Amazonas and the Andes in the cooling periods, such as: Chavín, Tiawanaku and Tawantinsuyu, as well as

* Presenting author


in the warm periods, such as: The Muchik, Nazca, Cajamaca and Kechwa Lamas people in the High Amazonas of the region of San Martín, movements we currently experience, and where they have developed a characteristic view of their own world, perceived as alive, where each one has its own personality, this is, a world of equivalent living beings, the selfsame climate is a person with whom they conduct a ritual conversation, and thus, we do not speak here of adaptability.

While traveling the northeastern slope of the region of the Andes and the Amazon, of which the San Martín region forms part, there is a huge interrelationship of very ancestral roads, through which people relate in inter-cultural networks and exchange of seeds; these routes are named as “the way of the seeds”. Along this walk, they occupy a diversity of ecological levels, allowing them to invigorate, spread and increase the diversity of their crops, and thus, to tune in to the varied, dense and diverse weather.

247,854 native and non-native peasant settlers live the Region. They are engaged in small-scale agriculture, in soils of the hillside, and dependent upon the frequency of rains, growing a diversity of native cultures in association with trees, as well as tuned into the agro-silvicultural, agro-festive and agro-astronomical natural cycles.

But currently, these natural cycles take place in quite an accelerated and altered manner in their frequencies, to which we contribute with the degradation of our "agro-ecosystems" due to the high rate of deforestation caused by monocultures that, in turn, promote a disorderly immigration of Andean families that is reducing the spaces to regenerate the native diversity. At present time, in the sowing season, we have strong droughts that do not allow the development of our cultures, and in the seasons of ripening and harvest, we find unexpected rains that ruin yields.

As options to this crisis, we are intensifying our travel through the ways of the seeds and, in line with this we are recreating our old practices and "strategies", e.g., extending the sowing and harvest seasons, identifying and reproducing resistant varieties and consolidating our organization and solidarity capabilities.

Specifically, this experience can be observed between the sub-basin of Bajo Mayo and Alto Cumbaza, between 350 to 1200 m.s.n.m. in the province of Lamas, where 400 peasant families, Kechwas natives, in 16 Km. longitudinal and 10 Km. transversal, have a network of different winding roads that link eight native communities; roads where 52 varieties of beans, 22 of peppers, 2 of cotton, 3 of peanut, 4 of corn, 6 of vegetables, 37 of bananas, 11 of cucurbits, 19 roots and 17 of fruits travel and regenerate, associated to over 100 arboreal species.

Likewise, in certain stretches of this micro-verticality of levels there are peasants that leader recreation processes of their traditional agriculture, intensifying the use of the land with a diversity of native cultures and with practices compatible with the preservation of nature, thus improving their micro-climates and therefore, the “adaptability” to the climate crisis of their native and wildlife diversity. These agro-silvicultural spaces are currently becoming Mutual Learning Centers, in “laboratories” In Situ in order to strengthen the conversation with the climate change and to exchange knowledge with many peasant families.


34. Climate Change Adaptation & Traditional knowledge in Agricultural Societies – A case study from Sri Lanka.

PrabhathPATABENDI*

Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Institute of Human Development & Training (IHDT),Sri Lanka

Keywords: Traditional knowledge, indigenous people, vulnerability, adaptation


Abstract:

Sri Lanka has experienced a number of tragic disasters including tsunami, floods, landslides, cyclones, droughts, wind storms and coastal erosion in recent years and is regarded as a multi-hazard country. Hambantota is situated 300 km away from Colombo towards Southern province belongs to the “DL5”agro-ecological regions of Sri Lanka, indicating the rainfall scarcity of the area. Hambantota was badly devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, which was reported to have killed a large proportion of the population.It was reported that the annual dependable rainfall is as low as 650 mm in this area. These low rainfalls and more severe seasonal droughts collectively cause more evaporative demand resulting high salt accumulation on land surface.

The major constraint to agriculture in this region is the low effective rainfall for a greater part of the year. Minor irrigation schemes go dry during long dry period due to lack of management of the limited water resource available in the area. Villages can recall their memories of droughts for last 100 years. The drought hit in 1914 caused scarcity of food and water, problem of dust and spread of diseases. A two-year drought prevailed in 1956 and 1957 affected about several thousand families with shortage of food and water and diseases. An extent of 700 – 800 acres of paddy and about 1000 acres of rain fed crops was entirely destroyed in the district by this drought. Another drought with somewhat similar consequences prevailed in 1965 – 1966 and many could remember the recent droughts occurred in 2001, 2004 and 2007.

Hambantota is currently undergoing a number of major development projects, including the construction of a new sea port, international airport and an international cricket stadium- the venue for the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Hambantota is also a candidate city for the 2018 Commonwealth Games. It was found that the developers have cleared thousands of acres of natural forest to build the road network and city infrastructure. It aggravated the drought conditions during last two years and villages have noticed that a significant drop in the water level of the agricultural lands. Most of the farmers are unable to cultivate their lands. Some have migrated to other cities, and some of them were adapted to the present condition.

A research study carried out using the participatory action research methodology to assess adaptability and mitigation practices based on traditional knowledge in the prevailing conditions took place in the district. It was found that in a particular village, most of the farmers have adapted alternative agricultural practices as a measurement of

* Presenting author


adaptation. There are several mitigation initiatives they have taken as a community, based on traditional knowledge. This paper analyses the finding of the study and gives conclusion and recommendations for further research.

35. Advancing Adaptation Planning for Climate Change in the Western Canadian Arctic

Tristan PEARCE*

Department of Geography, University of Guelph

Keywords: Inuit, Inuvialuit, Arctic, economy and business, infrastructure and transportation, subsistence hunting, culture and learning, health and wellbeing


Abstract:

This paper reviews scientific and grey literature addressing climate change vulnerability and adaptation in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR) in the western Canadian Arctic. The review is structured using a vulnerability framework and 420 documents related directly or indirectly to climate change are analyzed to provide insights on the current state of knowledge on climate change vulnerability in the ISR as a basis for supporting future research and long-term adaptation planning in the region.

The literature documents evidence of climate change in the ISR which is compromising food security and health status, limiting transportation access and travel routes to hunting grounds, and damaging municipal infrastructure. Adaptations are being employed to manage changing conditions; however, many of the adaptations being undertaken are short term, ad-hoc, and reactive in nature. Limited long term strategic planning for climate change is being undertaken. Current climate change risks are expected to continue in the future with further implications for communities but less is known about the adaptive capacity of communities. This review identifies the importance of targeted vulnerability research that works closely with community members and decision makers to understand the interactions between current and projected climate change and the factors which condition vulnerability and influence adaptation. Research gaps are identified and recomendations for advancing adaptation planning are outlined.

* Presenting author


36. Integrating social and cultural perspectives in addressing Climate Change: Social Water Management among indigenous Mundas in the Sundarban Forest, Bangladesh.

Chiara PERUCCAa*and Krishnopodo MUNDAb a Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD), University of Liberal Arts of Bangladesh (ULAB),

Bangladesh bSunderban Adivasi Munda Shangashta (SAMS), Bangladesh

Keywords: Indigenous Ecological knowledge, social water management, drop in biodiversity, vulnerability to natural disasters (cyclones)


Abstract:

The social environment plays a crucial part in the functioning of natural systems. In particular, cultural logics underlying water management practices need to be documented and disseminated for designing appropriate adaptation strategies. In a predominantly agrarian country like Bangladesh, water is among the most vital resources for the livelihood of the majority of the population. Therefore, its availability and optimum use determines the extent of poverty and inclusion of people in the development process.

Research studies on Traditional Knowledge are extremely limited in Bangladesh. Moreover in this culturally, religiously and linguistically diverse country, it is quite tricky to study Indigenous People, since the number, the composition and the location of ethnics groups are not well documented.

The literature regarding indigenous groups is limited and deals with communities inhabiting the eastern and the northern regions, while the ones living in the southwest are under researched.In particular, among them, the cultural practices of Munda people living in the Sundarban area have not been analyzed by academic researchers or development professionals.

The Sunderban Forest is the largest mangrove forest in the world and supports a high diversity of marine and terrestrial life acting as refuges and nursery grounds for many species of fish, shellfish and crustacean. The effects of climate change in the area are quite tangible. This productive and protective ecosystem is experiencing modifications because this part of the country is gravely prone to storm surges and to extreme weather events. The coast is acutely vulnerable to the rise in sea level and to the related saline intrusion into fresh groundwater resources. Because of the occurrence of cyclones in the area, relief interventions have been implemented, but very little consideration was given not only to Munda culture, but even to the recognition of their existence.

Our paper explores Munda’s knowledge of the surrounding ecological environment, focusing on the patterns related to water management, identifying their spatial, temporal and social frame of reference. Special relevance has been given to the symbolic

* Presenting author


languages and practices Munda use to transmit their ecological knowledge through generations such as myths, rites, music.

The aim of the study is not only to document an unknown and vanishing world-view, but to support the recognition of traditional knowledge and its potential for driving change.

The information has been collected through horizontal communication processes, implementing observant participation and Participatory Rural Appraisal. Having Munda people actively involved in the research staff, brought to this study a local perspective and improved the relevance and reliability of the information thanks to their familiarity with the topics and the sites of and to their comprehensive contextual knowledge.

Firstly, all the water resources present in the communities, their spatial distribution, use, management and the stakeholders involved have been identified. Then, villagers have been discussing about the local vulnerability to natural disasters and the historical and seasonal changes in water availability. The responses to the challenges in the resource composition and quality, such as harvesting and preservation techniques and practices in water management have been explored to monitor their positive or negative impact.

Particularly relevant is the knowledge Munda have of the cyclical behavior of climate and its manifestations and the corresponding availability of fishing and hunting species in the Forest. This regularity in climate components is reflected in the traditional system of climate indicators and in the regular occurrence of ritual celebrations through the year. The communities’ perception of the changes the forest’s ecosystem is experiencing in correlation with the changing in climate patterns has emerged clearly from the PRA, driving to a discussion on the possible causes and implications for their people.

The information generated through the research is supposed to achieve a practical significance, representing the baseline for possible development interventions and to provide a route map towards a participative design of appropriate water management and adaptation strategies for the area.


37. The Participatory Design of Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change Impacts: Integrating traditional knowledge and stakeholder consultation for the selection and creation of best adaptation model for the Tabasco Plains, S.E. Mexico

Raul PONCE-HERNANDEZa* and Reesha PATELb a Associate Professor, Environmental and Resource Science / Department of Geography,

Director, GEORESLAR Lab, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. b Researcher, GEORESLAR Lab, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

Keywords: Climate change, adaptation models, adaptation planning, stakeholder consultation, indigenous knowledge, flooding impacts prevention, participatory planning, realistic adaptation plans


Abstract:

Floods are a recurrent problem in the Tabasco Plains in Mexico. This problem will only be exacerbated by extreme events, as indicated by the predictions for a changing climate (IPCC, 2008), not only for Tabasco, but for flood plains anywhere in the planet. The lack of preparedness after recent flooding events and predicted increases in precipitation due to climate change, bring evidence of the urgent need for adaptation plans in Tabasco.

Indigenous peoples of Tabasco, Mexico have been dealing with recurrent flooding events caused by the Usumacinta and Grijalva rivers for many years. The local and indigenous adaption strategies, knowledge and experience are vitally important to the design of effective adaptation strategies, in the face of likely catastrophic events derived from climate change.Presently, a host of published climate change adaptation models and tools exists and continues to grow (Environment Canada, 2007). Local and Federal authorities may wish to select relevant models and tools for designing their adaptation strategies. To be realistic, the selection of the best adaptation model demands the participation and the elicitation of input from all stakeholders in the area.

In this paper, the integration of traditional knowledge and stakeholder consultation is achieved through a computer model based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), (Saaty, 1980), developed to assist with two main tasks, namely: (i) the selection process of the best adaptation model and tools for Tabasco, from those developed and published (Environment Canada, 2007), and, (ii) the structuring of a participatory AHP model, for evaluating the rationality of the adaptation model selected through: (a) eliciting the articulation of preferences, expectations and aspirations of stakeholders and indigenous peoples in the affected area; (b) enabling the formalizing of stakeholders’ preferences and reservations concerning the range of adaptation models, and; (c) empowering indigenous peoples to voice their concerns, experiences and intuitive knowledge. It is expected that a rational, robust and realistic adaptation plan may emerge from the process.

* Presenting author


A multi-criteria decision support tool based on the AHP is used for effectively dealing with the subjectivity inherent in many decisions and for capturing and formalizing indigenous knowledge, experience and coping (i.e. adaptation) mechanisms. A simulated average stakeholder’s participation is captured in the AHP evaluation model. Then, a fairly large matrix of preferences, articulated lexicographically and later quantified by the model, is synthesized from stakeholder consultation through the AHP model.The resulting preferences and attitudes towards climate change adaptation scenarios are the main outcome of this modeling exercise helping to elucidate the most adequate adaptation strategy for implementation by local and national governments.

The results indicate clearly two outcomes: First, that there is no current adaptation framework or modeling tool that completely meet all cultural, economic and social needs of Tabasco, Mexico, so as to guide the design of adaptation plans. This is because all climate change adaptation models evaluated are one sided considering either, only quantitative predictive outcomes based on weather data analysis, or only qualitative information reflecting community preparedness and improvement ideas. A holistic approach is needed when developing a climate change adaptation model for Tabasco Mexico, which while predicting quantitatively expected excesses of water and floods, giving a changing climate, it would also allow for the inclusion of subjective judgment, experiences and the articulation of preferences and aspirations by stakeholders.Second, that the adoption of a full adaptation strategy and plan, while requiring of all stakeholders input and the integration of indigenous knowledge, is preferable (to the average stakeholder simulated) than a partial ad-hoc adaptation plan or to relocation or even migration.To be effective, a full adaptation strategy emerging from the integration of stakeholder input and indigenous knowledge would require of a massive awareness- raising, information and education campaign, targeting all sectors of the population as well as extraordinary level of coordination and civil society cooperation.


38. Increasing Vulnerability to Drought and Climate Change on the Navajo Nation, southwestern United States

Margaret Hiza REDSTEERa*, Klara B. KELLEYb, Harris FRANCISc and Debra BLOCKa

a U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, AZ 86001 b Ethnohistorian, Black Hat, Navajo Nation, NM, 87305

3 Navajo culture and language expert, St. Michaels, Navajo Nation, AZ, 86504

Keywords: Navajo, drought, livestock, tribal elders, traditional culture, socioeconomic conditions


Abstract:

The Navajo Nation of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah in the Southwest United States, is an ecologically sensitive semi-arid to arid area where rapid growth of the largest population of Native Americans is outstripping the capacity of the land to sustain them.Recent drought conditions and increasing temperatures are significantly altering the habitability of a region already characterized by harsh living conditions. Today, the Navajo land base is more than 65,700 km2 (25,350 mi2), slightly larger than the state of West Virginia. In this remote region, traditional people live a subsistence lifestyle that is inextricably tied to, and dependent upon, landscape conditions and water supplies. The Navajo are unique in American society as their traditional lifestyle requires intimate knowledge of the ecosystem, knowledge that has been passed on for generations through oral traditions. To complement the scant long-term meteorological records and historical documentation of the region, we conducted interviews with 50 Native American elders from the Navajo Nation and compiled their lifetime observations on the changes in plants and animals, water availability, weather, and occurrence of sand or dust storms. We used these observations to further refine our understanding of the historical trends and impacts of climate change and drought in the region. Among the most cited changes were a long-term decrease in the amount of annual snowfall over the past century, a transition from wet conditions to dry conditions in the 1940s, and a decline in surface water availability. The lack of water and changing socioeconomic conditions were mentioned as the leading causes for the decline of agricultural productivity. Other changes include the disappearance of springs as well as plant and animal populations (particularly medicinal plants, cottonwood, beavers, and eagles).Changes in the frequency of sand and dust storms (more frequent in the 1950s and increasing in the 1990s) were also commonly observed.

In addition to altered landscape conditions due to climatic change, drought, and varying land use practices over the last 200 years, the Navajo people have been affected by land use policies and harsh economic conditions that weaken their cultural fabric. Increasing aridity combined with drought threaten the very existence of Navajo culture and the survival of traditional Navajo communities. Stock-raising by large numbers of Navajo families is important to preserve aspects of traditional culture that Navajo people value:

* Presenting author


kinship cooperation and cosmography-ceremonialism.Livestock, especially cattle, are also a significant source of economic and food security for large numbers of families.However, the current grazing permit system tends to undermine kinship cooperation by encouraging individuals to assert property rights against neighboring relatives, leading to disputes.Drought puts even more pressure on individual grazing permit holders to protect their livestock by trying to monopolize land and water sources.These disputes also exacerbate the permit system’s restrictions on moving livestock in response to changing local range conditions, a necessary response to drought.The result is a threat to the well-being of the livestock that are the savings of families, as well as further threatening kinship cooperation and traditional ceremonial beliefs and practices.

Increasing aridity, and ecosystem stresses from increasing temperatures and decreasing snowfall, are trends we can expect to continue with climate change. A continuation of these trends, without addressing the economic and cultural needs of Navajo communities, is likely to result in further deterioration of rangeland conditions in the Four Corners Region. Because of the limitations in water resources, increasing disputes over water supplies appear eminent. In areas where sand dunes are numerous, and/or water supplies limited, entire communities may be forced to relocate. We conclude that a long-term drying trend and decreasing snowpack, superimposed on regional drought cycles, will magnify environmental degradation of the Navajo Nation, leaving the people increasingly vulnerable.

39. Tuvalu and Climate Hazards: Enhancing Community Resilience to Climate Hazards through the Application of Indigenous Knowledge

AlanRESTURE*

School of Environment, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Keywords: Natural disasters, climate change, sea-level rise, indigenous knowledge, vulnerability, adaptation, Tuvalu


Abstract:

Natural disasters pose serious threats to human lives. Impacts of climate change and sea level rise have exacerbated this situation especially in Small Island States like Tuvalu. The time interval between cyclones is getting shorter compared to the past and small Pacific Island Countries are now faced with this situation more frequently. In Tuvalu, there are always strong winds and storms every year. This means that the local population would have to allocate their resources wisely so that they are able to cope with such events. Fortunately, these coastal communities are relying on their indigenous

* Presenting author


knowledge, which has been around with them for centuries and has proven time and again its successfulness.

This paper examines the important role in which indigenous knowledge plays in reducing disaster risks. Having indigenous knowledge of weather forecasting and the various management practices enables the islanders to prepare well for potential natural disasters such as storms and hurricanes. Blending these with science and supported by the political will of the government will strengthen island resilience to natural disasters. An integration of science and technology, and indigenous knowledge is thus seen as the basis for sustainability and resource management in small island states like Tuvalu.

40. Impacts of Climate Change on the Livelihoods of Loita Maasai Pastoral Community and Related Indigenous Knowledge on Adaptation and Mitigation.

Henri Ole SAITABAU*

Loita hills community forest association (LHCFA)

Keywords: Loita maasai, indigenous knowledge, environment, climate change, pastrolism, livelihoods, mitigation, vulnerability, seasonal cycles


Abstract:

Since time immemorial, the Loita Maasai have had rich indigenous knowledge about their environment and how to monitor and predict climate and seasonal cycles through observation of behavioral characteristics of biological components, cosmology and other traditional, socio-cultural methods. They still use the same knowledge to model weather events and livelihood management. However, unpredictable weather variations have become so phenomenal that drought that used to occur every ten years is now occurring every two years or less and the trend continues to worsen. Annual rainfall is more erratic and figures continue to decline while people experience warmer dry months.

Climate change is severely affecting the weather patterns thus raising concerns for livelihoods, socio-economic and environmental sustainability. Owing to changes in seasonal cycles, the Loita Maasai pastoralists in recent years have experienced the full impact of prolonged droughts leading to drying of water sources, poor crop yields and livestock losses, all resulting in food insecurity.

This increased vulnerability has thus put the community to high risks of natural disasters. The use of traditional warning systems to monitor weather variations is becoming difficult, owing to unprecedented environmental changes, although this can also partly be blamed on erosion of indigenous knowledge.

* Presenting author


Work carried out in Loita in 2010 has shown that during drought (as was the case 2007-2009), community adaptation strategies and mitigation measures are suspended, resulting in increased environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity. This paper seeks to identify the various forms of pastoral livelihoods that are now vulnerable as a result of climate change. It also seeks to identify some of the community-derived priority strategies that the Loita Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania can use to improve resilience and adaptations, citing various mitigation measures that use local indigenous knowledge. The paper also shows how climate change has impacted on the cultural heritage especially ceremonial cycles as well as cultural sites where such cultural ceremonies are undertaken and also includes adaptive measures proposed by the community.

41. Singing for the Whales:Environmental Change and Cultural Resilience among the Iñupiat of Arctic Alaska

Chie SAKAKIBARA*

Department of Geography & Planning, Appalachian State University, USA

Keywords: cultural resilience, cultural identity, adaptation, climate change, environmental change, erosion, sea-level rise, Arctic warming, Iñupiat, Alaska, bowhead whale


Abstract:

Research on the human dimensions of global climate change needs to examine the way vulnerable populations confront uncertainty through cultural practices. This is a vital point for indigenous peoples around the world but particularly for those in the Arctic region where the effects of climate change are most dramatic. The Iñupiat of Arctic Alaska are especially susceptible to environmental change because they rely on sea ice to hunt the culturally and physically important bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus). The Iñupiat identify themselves as the “People of the Whales”, and the body of the bowhead has sustained their physiology at the same time it has nurtured cultural meaning and lifeways. The bowhead remains central to Iñupiaq life and culture through the hunting process, the communal distribution of meat and other body parts, associated ceremonials, and various events that sustain cultural well-being; what I call the Iñupiaq whaling cycle.

Currently, climate change increases environmental uncertainties that both threaten and intensify human emotions tied to whales by influencing the bowhead harvest and the security of the Iñupiaq homeland. Iñupiaq whalers are now obliged to make adjustments to their whaling cycle in order to accommodate these changes. Although changes in environment and climate bring immense impacts upon subsistence activities, hunting is just one manifestation of such. As a result, the people’s emotional intensity is revealed in the prevalence of traditional and newly invented whale-related events and

* Presenting author


performances, the number of people involved and the frequency of their activities, and the commitment with which they participate.

In this presentation, I illustrate how collective uncertainty about future environmental conditions is expressed and managed in Iñupiaq practices in Barrow and Point Hope in Alaska, and by extension, how deeply climate change penetrates the cultural core of their society. In so doing, I demonstrate how the Iñupiat reinforce their cultural relationship with the bowhead whale to better cope with an unpredictable environment and future. Specifically, I explore the bond between the people and the whale by examining the spatial change in storytelling traditions in Point Hope before and after the 1977 village relocation due to coastal erosion, frequent storms and flooding. The other facet of my research focuses on climate change’s reflection upon traditional Iñupiaq expressive culture, musical practices, performances and emotional transformations among performers. These case studies exemplify how traditional Iñupiat-whale relationship is not a miner’s canary, but rather an agent of innovation and adaptation.

These case studies show some of the complex pathways along which Iñupiat construct adaptive strategies to retain their bond with the whales and life more generally. Iñupiaq adaptability is manifest through social action generated out of culturally informed innovation. Their subsistence is built on change; change and continuity are closely interrelated, and often coping with change facilitates human-environment integrity. This research suggests that vulnerable populations confront environmental uncertainty by reaffirming their cultural identities and traditions.

42. Tibetan Ethnobotany of Climate Change in the Eastern Himalaya

Jan SALICK*

Senior Curator, Missouri Botanical Garden

Keywords: Himalayan climate change, alpine plants, Tibetan agriculture, Tibetan medicine, adaptation, mitigation, policy, indigenous knowledge, traditional ecological knowledge, cosmology


Abstract:

The Eastern Himalaya are a Biodiversity Hotspot and the most biologically diverse temperate ecosystem on earth with over 10,000 species and over 1500 genera. Simultaneously, the eastern Himalaya are experiencing the some of the most rapid climate change on earth beyond of the poles. The Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau are climate drivers for the world, affecting monsoons and ocean currents. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report) describes increases in temperature (5-6º C) and rainfall (20-30%) for the Himalayas that

* Presenting author


are exceeded only in the polar regions of the globe. As a worldwide climate driver with the dramatic increases of temperature and precipitation, the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau are often called “The Third Pole”.We cannot even estimate what these changes will mean to the rest of the world, but regionally, changes could be devastating. The five great rivers of the Eastern Himalaya make up the “water tower of Asia” on which over a billion people depend.As glaciers melt and precipitation increases, ravishing floods result, which have killed many people in South, East and Southeast Asia.

The Indigenous Peoples of the high elevation eastern Himalaya are predominantly of Tibetan origin. Our research shows that Tibetans clearly perceive climate change and are adapting to and mitigating climate change using traditional and innovative knowledge. This paper will present data on 1) quantitative changes in Alpine plant ecology, 2) Alpine plant use (especially medicinal) and management, 3) Adaptation to and mitigation of climate change through Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and 4) Tibetan cosmologies of climate change, adding a 5) plea to include Indigenous Peoples in Climate Change Policy fora.

1) Himalayan alpine plants are being forced up mountains to higher and higher reaches of life, further threatening plant species among the rarest, most endemic, and already threatened on earth. Changes in temperatures and rainfall determine these plant species distributions, which are changing rapidly with climate change. 2) Over 60% of these Alpine plantsare use traditionally by Tibetans, especially as Tibetan Medicines. As climate change threatens alpine plants, so too does it threaten Tibetan health, agriculture, and traditional Tibetan culture. 3) Tibetans adapt to climate change by modifying their agriculture and their culture. However, Tibetans are not passive responders to climate change. They also have much to teach us through their traditional practices that mitigate climate change through Traditional Ecological Knowledge. 4) Tibetan Cosmologies of Climate Change are profound and diverse, mixing Buddhist, pre-Buddhist, and contemporary interpretations. Tibetans are deeply worried about the spiritual implications of climate change. 5) With Tibetans so much at risk and applying Indigenous Knowledge to adapt to and mitigate climate change, they and other Indigenous Peoples deserve prominent seats at Climate Change Policy fora.


43. Indigenous perceptions on the change of climatic variability in a zoque community of Chiapas, Mexico

María Silvia SANCHEZ CORTES1* and Elena Lazos CHAVERO2 1Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas, México.

2Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Palabras clave: percepciones, conocimiento indígena del clima, cambio en la variabilidad climática, Volcán Chichón


Abstract:

Indigenous people have a close inter-relationship and knowledge of the weather and the landscape of the places they inhabit. They acknowledge the weather as part of their view of the world and organize their daily activities according to it (Leduc 2007; Green et al. 2010). This daily coexistence with the climate and the weather (meteorological phenomena) has gradually developed different responses and adaptabilities to climate variability, particularly those related to agriculture. Along these lines, indigenous groups can greatly contribute to the knowledge of the local weather and the changes observed during the last years. On the other hand, there are few studies at the micro-local level focused on knowing the vision, experience and response of indigenous groups to climate change and the socioeconomic impacts on their lives (Lammel et al. 2008), as in the case of temporary farmers.

Indigenous groups have been marginalized in social and economic scopes, and this situation is aggravated in view of a rapid changing world, from the climatic, environmental, economic and cultural point of view. For the Zoques, their adaptability to climate variability must be done in shorter times, apart from adding problems related to the lack of access to culture lands and the loss of agricultural knowledge, related to the migration of their younger population. These aspects are factors of risk that decrease the options of cultural and environmental resilience (Ángel 1995).

In 2007, we analyze the perceptions on climatic variability of farmers, both women and men, of different ages of a Zoque indigenous community of Chiapas. In this research, we considered climate variability as part of the weather and the long-term change that could take place in it. The case study concentrated on knowing what is being perceived as a change in climate, who perceives it, as well as the explanations and answers given to changes detected.

The persons interviewed perceive a diminishment in rains and an increase in temperature, climate components that relate to less humidity in the agricultural soil. These aspects have lead to the modification of the season to grow corn, and the introduction of new cultures in warmer regions. Zoques attribute the change of climate to the loss of vegetation in mountains and the eruption of the Chichón Volcano in 1982. The perception of the Zoques is formed according to the cultural and individual experience linked to agricultural practices and the annual calendar of time. The eruption

* Presenting author


provides a significant temporary referent to explain different environmental changes in the Zoque territory, amongst them, the climate change (Sánchez –Cortés y Lazos 2010).

In the view of the world of the Zoques regarding the environment, the times, spaces and the different living beings interrelate, all of them linked to cyclical events, such as the agriculture and the weather. In the perception of the zoques, they indicate the environmental changes that have taken in the territory, the climate, the flora, the fauna and the landscape. This is the origin of the importance of knowing the manner in which people experience the variation of the weather, starting from the knowledge of the local calendar of their climate. This calendar is related to the agricultural calendar, where the Zoques pay attention to atmospheric and environmental observations linked to agricultural productivity (Vedwan and Rhoades 2001; Orlove 2002). Thus, e.g., in the climatic aspect, the zoques differentiate the type of rain present in the different seasons, and concentrate their observations more in the duration of the rain than the quantity of rain. In the environmental aspect, the behavior of plants and animals leads to forecast next meteorological events or either, the shortage or abundance of rains during the next agricultural cycle.

The perception of change in climate variability from the point of view of this Zoque community furnishes elements to carry out micro-regional studies of the weather, such as agro-meteorological ones to know the interaction between the weather and the varieties of creole corn and introduced as an adjustment to climatic variability and the local production needs.

44. Socio-Economic Conditions and the Impact of Climate Change on Traditional Land-Use for Indigenous Peoples of the North as a Subject of Sociological Research

Victoria N. SHARAKHMATOVA*

Ethno-Ecological Information Center “Lach”, Environmental Program Coordinator, Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (Kamchatka/Russia)

Keywords: socioeconomic conditions, impacts of climate change, Indigenous Peoples of the North


Abstract:

Considering the worldwide interest in climate change, it is necessary to study various issues, including the impact of climate change on the traditional land-use of indigenous peoples of the North. Review of the situation with tribal communities in the research of the northern territories is an important source of information for the development of mechanisms to adapt the local population and indigenous peoples of the North to the

* Presenting author


ongoing climate change, as well as mechanisms for reducing the negative impact of man on nature. The polar regions are rich in natural reserves of hydrocarbons and other minerals. Owing to the melting of Arctic ice natural resources become more available. In the current situation related to climate change, the scientific community understands the need for joint actions to counter the threats arising from climate warming. This requires joint efforts and, therefore, it is important to involve local people in research and the collection of the required data. It promotes cooperation with local communities of the Arctic region in solution of the problems of indigenous peoples of the North, including environmental and social challenges in the Arctic and northern regions of Russia.

In 2010 there was conducted a sociological study to examine the problems of traditional land-use and socio-economic situation of the indigenous peoples of Kamchatka connected with climate change. The main goal of the sociological research was to identify the impacts of climate change on the traditional land-use of Kamchatka indigenous peoples. The results of the survey give a clear picture of changing weather conditions in the areas of traditional economic activities of indigenous peoples, of the feasibility of establishing a monitoring network of observations related to climate change with the participation of tribal communities of indigenous peoples. Sociological data made it possible to review the changes of traditional natural resources in separate districts and to analyze the issues from the point of view of climate change impacts on traditional land use.

153 peoples were interviewed and questioned from among the indigenous peoples of Yelizovo district (villages: Nikolaevka, Razdolnoye, Paratunka Zelyony and Central Koryak), Bystrinsky district (villages: Esso and Anavgai),Milkovskiy district (village: Milkovo), Ust-Bolsheretsky district (villages: Ozernovky and Ust-Bolsheretsk), Karaginskiy district (villages: Ossora, Karaga, Tymlat, Ivashka and reindeer camp “Friendship”), Olyutorsky district (villages: Khailino, Tilichiki), Tigil district (villages: Kovran and Tigil) and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky city.

The current stage of economic development, the introduction of more complex manufacturing processes require a study of the principles of environmental management of indigenous peoples of Kamchatka, including issues related to climate changes and their impact on traditional economic activities. In 2011 there was published a report “Observations of Climate Change by Kamchatka Indigenous Peoples”. Within a framework of this report these questions were studied.

This review is based on a sociological survey on the topic of indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge related to climate change, environment an historical strategies for their adaptation. This work presents an assessment of climate change impacts on traditional land-use by indigenous peoples of the North within Kamchatka. This expert assessment considers the feasibility of creating a monitoring network related to climate change and involving the participation of tribal community groups representing indigenous peoples.

Experts from the indigenous peoples can participate in the monitoring of weather changes, in interviewing elders and experienced hunters, in documenting the effects of climate and snow changes in the areas inhabited by indigenous peoples.

The information collected showed the necessity to develop regional adaptation plans to be discussed at joint meetings of representatives of government, extracting companies and indigenous communities. The information collected is analyzed by experts and


specialists for the purpose of creating a program that can be represented by public authorities at the federal level.

45. How Kenyan Farmers Perceive and Adapt to Climate Change and what are the barriers to adaptation: a community-based perspective in pastoralist areas

Silvia SILVESTRIa *, M HERREROa, Elizabeth BRYANb, Claudia RINGLERband Barrack OKOBAc

a International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) b International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

c NPC Soil and Water Management and Conservation Agriculture (KARI)

Keywords: perception, adaptation, climate change, livestock, Kenya


Abstract:

Kenyan farmers’ livelihoods are closely linked with climate conditions and are facing considerable challenges in coping with and adapting to climate variability and change. Livestock play an important role in the livelihoods of many rural communities in Africa, more-so in arid and semi-arid areas, where milk and meat are important dietary components due to lower availability of food from crops. In Kenya, livestock contributes to over 12% to GDP and 47% to agricultural GDP (Kabubo, 2009). Livestock are also particularly important for increasing the resilience of vulnerable, poor people, who are subject to climatic, market and disease shocks through diversifying risk and increasing assets (Krishna et al., 2004; Freeman et al., 2008).There are many ways in which climate change may affect the livelihoods, food security, and health of vulnerable people through its effects on livestock and livestock systems, such as changes in water and feed availability, changes in biodiversity and animal health (Thornton et al. 2007 and 2008; Luseno et al. 2003; McPeak 2006). Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, because their widespread poverty limits adaptive capability.

We investigated the ability of pastoralists to perceive climate change, how they have adapted to perceived climate change and the barriers to adaptation. Six hundred and forty households with livestock from 7 different districts of Kenya spanning the arid, semi-arid, temperate and humid agroecological zones (AEZ) of the country were interviewed through household surveys. The study sites were selected to represent the various agroecological zones that will be affected by climate change in Kenya, with the exception of the coastal zones.The sites cover various production systems as well as a range of policy and institutional environments.

* Presenting author


The study shows that while most households perceive long-term climate change, the degree of adaptation among livestock keepers is somewhat limited. Key adaptation strategies for livestock chosen by farmers include mixed crop and livestock production, destocking, diversifying livestock feeds, changing animal breeds and moving animals to other sites. Many of the coping responses to climate-related shocks, such as drought and erratic rain, are decisions that households are typically reluctant to make, such as selling livestock. Desired adaptation options include introducing new breeds and increasing herd size. Additionally, the main barriers to adaptation identified include lack of credit or savings followed by lack of access to land and input. Farmers also reported that the absence of markets limits adaptation, such as the purchase of new animal breeds and feeds.

Livestock producers may not know how to best respond to climate change when such changes are outside the range of their experience. Sharing climate information and providing advice about the most appropriate production techniques can support adaptation among livestock producers. The results indicated that farming experience determines whether or not farmers perceive climate change, and education and advice from extension agents facilitate adaptation.

Extension agents need to be trained to effectively deliver climate information and advice about appropriate responses and to help households make decisions despite uncertainty.

Investments in and dissemination of new technologies, such as drought tolerant breeds, are also essential to encourage adaptation among livestock keepers, as are supporting investments in infrastructure to increase market access and rural services such as credit facilities.

Government support will be important in terms of providing the enabling conditions (governance of water use and basic investments in infrastructure and extension). NGOs, the private sector and the government have roles to play in providing other rural services such a credit, information, education and health services. Food aid, food subsidies and other emergency relief programs that offer a social safety net to households facing climate shocks have been important and will continue to be so. However, more efforts are needed to increase the resilience of vulnerable households to confront future climate shocks such as drought. To accomplish this, drought management and drought preparedness plans should be integrated into rural development efforts. Other public actions that would increase resilience to climate shocks include developing early warning systems, expanding access to weather insurance and increasing food stockpiles to be used during poor production years.

References Kabubo-Mariara J., 2009. Adaptation to Climate Change and Livestock Biodiversity: evidence from Kenya, in: Conserving and valuing ecosystem services and biodiversity: economic, institutional and social challenges. K. N. Nina Eds, 345-371. Krisna A., Kristjanson P., Radeny M., Nindo W., 2004. Escaping Poverty and Becoming Poor in 20 Kenyan Villages. Journal of Human Development 5(2): 211-226. Freeman HA, Kaitibie S, Moyo S and Perry BD. 2008. Livestock, livelihoods and vulnerability in Lesotho, Malawi and Zambia: Designing livestock interventions for emergency situations. ILRI Research Report 8. ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute), Nairobi, Kenya. 62 pp. Thornton P. K., Mario Herrero, Ade Freeman, Okeyo Mwai, Ed Rege and John McDermott. 2007. Vulnerability, climate change and livestock-opportunities and challenges for the poor. Journal of Semi-Arid Tropical Agricultural Research 4(1). Thornton P. K., Notenbaert A., van de Steeg J., Herrero M., 2008. The livestock climate poverty nexus: A discussion paper on ILRI research in relation to climate change. ILRI, Nairobi, Kenya, 90 pp.


46. A Landscape of Change: Community Based Adaptation and Vulnerability to Climate Change and its Social, Institutional and Ecological Inter Linkages in Bolivia

Jordi SURKIN* and Grace WONG

Social Policy Unit, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Switzerland PEI Senior Technical Advisor, UNDP-UNEP, Lao PDR

Keywords: Adaptative Capacity, Aymara,Biodiversity, Bolivia, Climate change, Community, Ecosystems, Landscape, Lecos, Quechua, Madidi, Moseten, Tacana, Traditional Knowledge, Tsimane, Vulnerability


Abstract:

The Madidi Landscape (ML) in the Bolivian portion of the Vilcabamba Amboro Conservation Corridor (VACC) is a largely mountainous landscape primarily located in the Tropical Andes Hotspot, which is the most biodiverse region on Earth. This landscape contains four large indigenous territories and is home to six different indigenous groups including a large population of Quechuas and Aymaras in highland areas.

Global models predict a moderate to extreme vulnerability to climate change in Andean countries and above the global average temperature increases per decade.There is clear evidence that these changes are causing rapid melting of glaciers in the higher altitudes of the ML and other parts of the Andes.However, knowledge of how these impacts are felt along the altitudinal gradient from the lowland tropics to highlands is scarcer.At the local and landscape level, there is also insufficient understanding of level of vulnerability of indigenous communities and whether traditional knowledge increases their capacity to adapt.

Here we present the results of research on human vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in the Madidi Landscape implemented by the Grupo Nacional de Trabajo para la Participacion (GNTP), with technical and financial support from Conservation International (CI). The central objective of this study is support development of policyresponses that enhance well being and adaptive capacity of indigenous and peasant communities across this landscape.We also seek to increase understanding of linkages between climate change and the well being of marginalized populations.

Our study combines a mix of global to local data, including Wordclim climate data, data on 24 Global Climate Models (GCMs), vulnerability modeling and community based adaptation research.We implemented on the ground, participatory research in 6 communities in the ML that are representative of different altitudes and cultural and social backgrounds (indigenous groups, peasants, and migrants).

We found that perceptions of climate change are similar at different altitudes across the landscape.What varies is the type of extreme weather phenomena that are of

* Presenting author


importance. Both indigenous communities with greater local knowledge and migrant communities with lower levels of local knowledge have similar perceptions of climate change impacts.However, indigenous communities have a better historical memory of extreme weather events than more recently established communities.

Indigenous and marginalized communities are highly vulnerable to climate change but have varying capacity to adapt.Our vulnerability map demonstrates that municipalities with high indigenous populations in the ML and other parts of the country, especially those in the highlands, are among the most vulnerable in Bolivia.In all communities where we implemented our research, one adaptation strategy has been to shift the agricultural production calendar in response to changing weather patterns.Highland indigenous communities such as Nino Korin, which have irrigation systems rooted in traditional knowledge, may be better equipped to adapt to climate change.However, there is a need help recover this knowledge.There is some evidence that producer groups in indigenous communities are affected in different ways by extreme weather events as are people in different age groups, and, therefore, there is variation in their ability to adapt.

We identify the characteristics of communities that they perceive enable them to adapt as well as those which they view as lacking but necessary for adaption. This information and our vulnerability index provide poignant evidence that policy contexts, land tenure security, local knowledge and other contextual factors are important for ensuring adaptive capacity.

Based on the results of our study we make several policy recommendations. Public investments should be prioritized to strengthen adaptive capacity and reflect the specific local needs of indigenous and peasant communities. Climate adaptation/mitigation policies should be adapted to local contexts and implemented through decentralized governance mechanisms. Cultural knowledge and traditional land use practices should be promoted particularly if they support adaptation.Appropriate technology to support adaptation should be promoted. Finally, there is a need to improve access to financial services and create financial mechanisms such as climate risk insurance or catastrophe pooling funds.


47. The role of indigenous knowledge and biocultural systems in adaptation to climate change

Krystyna SWIDERSKAa, Yiching Songb* and Doris MUTTAc a International Insitute for Environmental Development and Policy; b International Participatory Action Research Programme, Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy, China; c International Kenya

Forestry Research Instutute, Kenya

Keywords: climate change adaptation, genetic resources, biocultural systems, traditional knowledge, participatory plant breeding, drivers of change


Abstract:

The paper will provide the findings of participatory research with indigenous communities on i) the impacts of climate change, and ii) the role of traditional knowledge and related agrobiodiversity, landscapes and cultural and spiritual values and customary laws - or biocultural systems – in adaptation to climate change. The paper will also explore the drivers of change affecting ‘biocultural systems’, including how agricultural policies and IPRs are eroding genetic diversity and TK, and the urgent need for reforms to address these drivers as part of adaptation responses.

The paper will draw on three case studies with communities vulnerable to climate change and already impacted by it:

1.‘Minority’ ethnic nationalities, Karst mountains, Southwest China, facilitated by

Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP).

Climate change is exacerbating already harsh natural conditions of remote farmers living in extreme poverty, with very limited arable land. The spread of high yielding hybrids in the area has also contributed to genetic erosion. Yet traditional varieties and Participatory Plant Breeding for maize and rice are showing potential for resilience and adaptation. This systematic study on climate change impacts and adaptation involved semi-structured interviews and a survey in CCAP’s PPB project villages and non-project villages. It explored local adaptation tools and practices, including traditional knowledge (TK), biodiversity, Participatory Plant Breeding, farmer seed production and community groups, and compared project villageswith non-project villages, i.e. TK and local varieties with modern technologies and varieties. The key findings are: a) biodiversity and related TK are being lost rapidly due to both climate change and economic changes which have negative impacts on local people’s livelihood; b) for confronting these changes, landraces, TK andlocal seed systems are playing crucial roles in adaptation e.g. landraces and farmer improved varieties survived the big spring drought in SW China in 2010, while most of the hybrids were lost; c)women and old people are the key players in local seed system due to male-outmigration.

* Presenting author


2. Kenyan coastal indigenous people, including Mijikenda communities, facilitated

by the Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI).

These communities are vulnerable to climate change due to sea level rise and the effects on agriculture and fisheries – yet there has been very little research on these issues. The study aims to explore local perceptions of climate change and its impacts; traditional ways of weather monitoring, prediction and interpretation; and knowledge and practices useful for adaptation. While farmers, pastoralists and fishermen have traditional knowledge and methods for coping and responding to climate change, this knowledge is dispersed and has not been collected for use by the community or policy makers. The study is being conducted with subsistence farmers, pastoralists and fishermen in Kwale, Kilifi and Lamu counties, through semi-structured interviews and open ended discussions and meetings with key informants with strong emphasis on TK holders. It will also explore the role of related elements of bio-cultural systems in monitoring change and developing adaptation responses, and the broader limitations to positive practices.

3. Indigenous people in mountain agricultural systems, Bolivia, facilitated by

PROINPA.

The highlands and valleys of the Cuchumuela community of Cochabamba in the Andes are already experiencing climate change in different ways, but with similar results – reduced agricultural yields, food security and incomes. This study explores these changes and impacts, including the increase in two major pests that affect potato crops, both from a scientific perspective and from a local perspective, based on participatory workshops with farmers. It explores changes in rainfall, temperature, drought severity and frequency. It finds that while the same crops are grown, the number of varieties grown and crop yields are significantly lower – largely due to the effects of the potato moth, Andean weevil and drought. Reduction in crop production is also due to increased pests and diseases during storage of produce, which has significantly reduced storage duration. Responses have entailed a mix of biodiversity based and chemical based approaches – the latter giving rise to health and pollution problems, and increased costs.

The paper will also draw on research on the protection of traditional knowledge and biocultural systems conducted with indigenous communities vulnerable to climate change in Peru, Panama, India, China and Kenya (2005-2009).


48. Forest of the Lost Child, Dus Ailal & Dahas: Recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Knowledge in Forest Management as Means for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation

Victoria TAULI-CORPUZa& Wilfredo V. ALANGUIb* a Tebtebba Foundation

bCollege of Science, University of the Philippines Baguio

Keywords: climate change, adaptation, mitigation, traditional knowledge, forest management


Abstract

This paper reports on the results of three case studies on traditional forest management as practiced by the indigenous peoples of Loita Maasai (Kenya), Miskitu (Nicaragua) and Dayak Jalai (Indonesia). These studies were done in 2010 partnership with Tebtebba Foundation under the project “Ensuring the Effective Participation of Indigenous Peoples in Global and National REDD+ processes”.Done by indigenous researchers, the studies aimed to document Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge, Systems and Practices (IKSP) that are relevant in sustainable forest management, forest conservation, enhancement of carbon stocks and in the promotion of cultural and biological diversity in the context of climate change and REDD5.

The paper provides a summary of traditional knowledge in forest management and governance, the role of indigenous women, and how this knowledge is transmitted to the younger members of the communities. Challenges in the practice of the communities’ traditional knowledge as well as current threats to their forests and the various drivers of deforestation are also presented.

The three studies show that indigenous peoples’ worldviews and their IKSP, especially in relation to forest management, are their best protection from climate change. In particular, the paper argues that the diverse traditional knowledge in forest management that has been documented in the three case studies may actually help these communities adapt to climate change and mitigate its impacts. Finally, the paper suggests that the recognition, protection and fulfillment of indigenous peoples’ rights over their forests and the sustained use of their knowledge in forest management are crucial for the success of any climate change program, and will help indigenous peoples move fromclimate change vulnerability to resilience.

* Presenting author 5 Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation


49. Changing Rainfall Pattern and its Impact on Food Security in Himalaya: Responses & Adaptation by Indigenous Marginalized Mountain Communities

Prakash Chandra TIWARIa* and Bhagwati JOSHIb a Department of Geography, Kumaon University, India

bDepartment of Geography, Government Post Graduate College, Rudrapur, India

Keywords: Subsistence agriculture; participatory resource appraisal; empirical studies; food security; marginalized people; traditional water conservation, crop rotation; cropping pattern; drought resistant crops; local indigenous knowledge


Abstract:

Himalaya represents ecologically fragile, socio-economically marginalized and one of the most densely populated mountain ecosystems on the planet, and therefore is highly vulnerable to climate change. Constraints of terrain and climate impose severe limitations on resource productivity as well as on efficiency of infrastructural facilities. As a result, biomass based subsistence agriculture constitutes the main source of rural food and livelihood even though the availability of arable land is severely limited and agricultural productivity is low in the region. Moreover, climate change has stressed traditional agricultural and food systems through higher mean annual temperatures and melting of glaciers, altered precipitation patterns and hydrological disruptions, and more frequent and extreme weather events. The long-term impacts of changing climatic conditions likely to cause substantial decrease in food production, and consequently increase the proportion of food and livelihood insecure people in Himalaya.

The main objective of the paper is to analyse the trend of changes in precipitation pattern, assess its impacts on agricultural productivity, and analyse community responses and adaptation to impacts of climate change on traditional food systems with a case illustration of Kumaon Himalaya, India. Detailed information with respect to (i) precipitation pattern, water discharge in springs and streams were collected from hydro-meteorological monitoring and observations; (ii) land use and resource appraisal have been carried out through the interpretation of high resolution satellite data and field survey and mapping techniques, and employing community based participatory resource appraisal and management tools; (iii) data pertaining to water availability for irrigation, biomass manure supply to cultivated land; crop production and, availability, access & utilization of food etc. have been collected throughconducting comprehensive socio-economic surveys using exclusively designed schedules and questionnaires, and from various secondary sources; (iv) empirical studies have been carried out to document practices, approaches and methods evolved and used by indigenous communities to respond and adapt their agricultural resource utilization pattern and food system to changing climatic conditions employing site observation, mapping, photography and inventorying techniques in varying agro-climatic zones and socio-economic backdrops of the study region. * Presenting author


Study revealed that number of rainy days and amount of annual rainfall had decreased respectively, by 25% and 40% during the last 20 years. As a result, water discharge in streams and springs has diminished drastically, and nearly 45% natural spring and streams have gone dry and irrigation potential has lessen by 15%, and supply of biomass to cultivated land has reduced by 15%. Consequently, the agricultural productivity has declined by 25%. On an average the region faces overall food deficit of 65%. This has been mainly due changes in precipitation pattern, diminishing stream flow and drying of springs, droughts, increasing incidences of natural disasters and hazards etc., decreased irrigation potential and resultant decline in agricultural productivity. This will have long-term impacts in food security of the region in terms of quantity, quality and nutritional value of the food affecting particularly the poor and socially marginalized people which constitute nearly 75% of the total population.

It has been investigated that indigenous communities inhabiting these remote and marginalized high mountains for several thousand years had foreseen changing climatic conditions and visualized their probable impacts on their subsistence agriculture and livelihood through their traditional ecological knowledge and experiences much earlier than the climate change and their potential impacts were accepted by scientific community.In order to maintain local food and livelihood security under changing climatic conditions (i) communities in 27% villages have replenished their water sources through traditional water conserving forestry and horticultural practices, (ii) nearly, 19% families changed cropping pattern by cultivating less water requiring and drought resistant food as well as cash crops, (iii) 25% villages managed scarce water through rainwater harvesting schemes based on local indigenous knowledge and community participation, (iv) 21% adjusted crop rotation to rainfall and temperature variability, (iv) 11% households cultivated abandoned land, (vii) 27% families relocated their agriculture. The study also revealed in some cases people have (i) abandoned agriculture and switched over to secondary and tertiary economic activities (7% families), and even out-migrated the region (5% families), (ii) decreased the consumption of certain food crops which are quite low in productivity (11% households) mainly due decreased rainfall and declined irrigation potential.


50. “Everything that is happening now is beyond our capacity!”—Nyangatom Livelihoods under Threats

Sabine TROEGER*

Horn of Africa Regional Environment Center, Ethiopia

Keywords: Pastoralism, unique culture in Ethiopia, climate change and adaptive capacity, decline of social capital


Abstract:

Pastoralism is taken as highly adaptive to harsh and at the same time fragile environments. Would not these flexible and environmentally alert societal systems be predestined to likewise adapt to environmental transformations in the course of climate change – especially, as climate variability always has been some accompanying feature of pastoralist’s life?

(Agro-) pastoralism in South Omo/South Ethiopia has undergone considerable climatic shifts in recent decades, and climatic change projections suggest there will be further significant changes in the future. At the same time, there are multiple pressures that are undermining people’s options and ability to respond to these changes in ways that strengthen their livelihoods and well-being – up to a stage, when people, formerly sufficiently well-adopted to their fragile natural environment, tend to resign from their mutual and sharing strive for livelihood security and give in:

“Nowadays we don’t exchange any more. We rather meet at food-aid distribution!”

The case of the Nyangatom (20,000 people) depicts these interdependencies and today’s desperate social-ecological environments of one of the world’s most unique ethnic groups: South Omo, the most southern part of Ethiopia, is inhabited by indigenous peoples – about twenty different groups, very distinguished from each other – which are to be taken as “world cultural heritage”. Among these are the Nyangatom, masters in survival in the harshest environment with already prior to climate change impacts very high temperature at an altitude of about 360m and very sandy soils.

These peoples are not only marginalised by ecological potentials of their environments, but have been politically marginalised in the course of the build-up of the Ethiopian nation, threatened by soldiers and officers by the northern dominated, government. Nowadays, government policies are a bit more integrative, but still emphasise the need for sedentary livelihoods far away from the former societal system.

These challenges the peoples up to now somehow have survived. They managed to establish livelihood systems resisting the adverse powers, be they from the fragile natural environment or driven by political power – but today they consider themselves as being “beyond their capacity”.

* Presenting author


Data from in-depth 3-months fieldwork by an intercultural team (one German researcher and two Nyangatom research assistants and facilitators), give evidence to the following momentums as to be highlighted in the presentation:

The Nyangatom agro-pastoralist livelihood is highly impacted by climate change and changing environmental patterns, namely subsequent years of failing Belg rains and tangibly increased temperature.People perceive this change as existential and irreversible, when they name indicators in nature like disappearing plants and animals and discuss re-naming their calendar. The formerly sound basis of a “culture of sharing” centred on the three existential pillars of “cattle”, “small ruminants” and “sorghum”, has become shaky and cannot anymore be the source of self-esteem and identification in times altogether conflict and stress prone due to ever decreasing resources.

To put it in precise terms: The virulent element of the strategy for survival in this extremely harsh environment is the Social Capital, captured in many rules and regulations, “ceremonies” of sharing and reciprocal support. This is the “capital” highly needed in times of climate change adaptation! – And this capital is now taken away and destroyed by climate change impacts!

Elements and features of social cohesion and identity are fading away: the cattle-rich pastoralist eventually becomes poor, women cannot maintain women’s friendships and become more dependent on their husbands, leather skirts as attributes of clan affiliation and family status are replaced by cotton skirts, ceremonies like Akunumnum and Ekomar are set out of function, and the life-reasoning of the elders gets questioned!

And the future perspectives for the life of a Nyangatom?

- Does the meaning and significance of cattle turn from a status symbol to a means of income? Do agro-pastoralist livelihoods turn into pastoralist livelihoods – or get abandoned altogether for the sake of “modern” life?

“The elders always talk about the cattle! But a lot of young men don’t want to care for

the cattle anymore! The work is too much. I’m fine with the small ruminants. I send my

children to school – even the girls!”


51. Local Knowledge on Climate Change—A case study of a Tibetan village in Yunnan province, China

Dayuan XUEaand Lun YINb* aCollege of Life and Environmental Science, Minzu University of China, China;

bYunnan Academy of Social Science, China

Keywords: climate change; local knowledge; Tibetan; China


Abstract:

The northwest of Yunnan province is the hot spot of biological and cultural diversity. The life of the local ethic minorities is closely related to the natural environment and the traditional lifestyle depends on natural resources while the ecological system is extremely fragile and the influence by climate change is especially obvious. So the impact of climate change on life and production is the most direct and sensitive and civil awareness on climate change is also more diverse.According to the authors’ survey and research since the year of 2007, the paper studies the local Tibetan awareness of climate change, taking Guonian village, Deqin County, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province in China as an example.Through literature review and statistics from local government and based on field investigation carried out in 2005, this paper discusses the impact of climate change on local traditional subsistence. According to investigation, the climate change not only changes biodiversity of local resources and subsistence environment of local people, but also affects local knowledge and traditions of subsistence. At the same time, the paper also analyzes local practice and adaption to climate change based on indigenous knowledge, in terms of how to alleviate degree of local climate change and how local people adjust subsistence traditions to adapt to the climate change. Local practice can not only reflect value of local knowledge to adapt to the climate change, but also provide importance information for local government to make policies on climate change in the future.

* Presenting author


INDEX

A

Adivasi (India) · 63 Africa

Cameroon · 53 Cape Verde · 45 Ethiopia · 40, 90 Kenya · 74, 81, 85 Nigeria · 61

Agriculture · 16, 21, 27, 40, 64, 66, 85, 88 Ama (Japan) · 51 Arctic

Alaska · 75 Canada · 14, 31, 47, 67 Eurasia · 59 Norway · 59 Russia · 59, 79

Asia Bangladesh · 68 China · 85, 92 Himalayas · 76, 88 India · 49, 63, 88 Japan · 51 Philippines · 25, 87 Sri Lanka · 66 Tajikistan · 19 Tibet · 76, 92 Vietnam · 44

Aymara (Andes) · 60, 83

B

Baka pygmies (Cameroon) · 53 Baniwa (Amazon) · 36 Biodiversity · 39, 55, 57, 63, 76, 83

C

Calendars · 17, 36, 74 Capacity-building · 19

Ch

Chiapas (Mexico) · 78

C

Coastal communities · 85 Coastal dwellers · 24 Coastal erosion · 27

D

Delta (Niger-Delta) · 61

Desana (Amazon) · 17 Disaster management · 27, 57, 66, 70, 73 Drought · 36, See Water management Dzao (Vietnam) · 44

F

First Nations (Canada) · 42 First Nations (USA) · 72 food security · 57 Food security · 14, 16, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 38, 39,

42, 45, 47, 51, 63, 67, 72, 81, 88 Fishing · 45 Hunting · 47

Forest dwellers · 29, 53, 68, 87

G

Gender · 14, 19, 29, 51, 85 Glacier loss · 19 Global project · 85 Global study · 31, 32

H

H’Mong (Vietnam) · 44 Health · 31, 32, 63, 67, 76 High altitude zones · See Mountains

I

Impacts of climate change · 17, 53, 61, 79, 92 Inuit (Arctic) · 14, 67 Inuvialuit (Arctic) · 67 Iñupiat (Arctic) · 75 Islands · 24, 27, 31, 45, 51, 73

K

Kamchatka (Arctic) · 79 Kokonukos (Colombia) · 57 Konso (Ethiopia) · 40

L

Latin America Amazon · 17, 36, 64 Andes · 39, 60, 64, 83 Bolivia · 83, 85 Brazil · 17, 36 Colombia · 38, 57 Costa Rica · 13 Guatemala · 55 Mexico · 16, 21, 70, 78 Nicaragua · 22, 29


Panama · 13 Peru · 60 Peru · 39 Peru · 64

Livestock · See Food security Loita Maasai (Kenya) · 74

M

Māori · 48 Marine resources · 51 Maya (Guatemala) · 55 Migration · 28, 45, 59, 66 Mitigation · 66, 74, 87 Mountains · 19, 39, 44, 57, 60, 76, 85, 88 Mundas (Bangladesh) · 68

N

Navajo (USA) · 72 Negro River (Amazon) · 36 Ngöbes (Costa Rica) · 13 North America

Canada · 42 USA · 72

Nyangatom (Ethiopia) · 90

O

Ondo (Niger-Delta) · 61

P

Pacific Melanesia · 24 Micronesia · 28 New Zealand · 48 Papua New Guinea · 24 Tonga · 27 Tuvalu · 31, 73 Vanuatu · 24

Pastoralism · 59, 74, 81, 90 Pidlisan tribe (Philippines) · 25

Q

Quechua (Andes) · 60, 83

R

Remote sensing · 59

S

Sami (Arctic) · 59 Sea-level rise · 28, 45, 73, 75 Seasonal cycles · See Calendars Small islands · See Islands Socioeconomic factors · 67, 72, 79, 90 Socioeconomics · 14

T

Tay (Vietnam) · 44 Tlicho (Canada) · 47 Traditional knowledge · 17, 27, 28, 31, 36, 40, 47, 49,

59, 61, 63, 64, 66, 70, 72, 73, 74, 83, 87, 92 Traditional Knowledge · 76, 88 Traditional medicine · 63, 76 Tuapi community (Nicaragua) · 29 Tukano (Amazon) · 17 Tuyuka (Amazon) · 17

W

Water management · 13, 25, 40, 49, 53, 57, 66, 68, 72, 81, 88

Women · See Gender

Y

Yap islanders (Micronesia) · 28

Indigenous Peoples, Marginalized Populations and Climate ...

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