The forgotten solution to our planets future - Indigenous communities

The forgotten solution to our planet’s future - Indigenous communities

You’re standing on the piece of land that you manage, the piece of land that reciprocally sustains your life. The Zamora river that flows through your land travels down from the lush Amazonian mountains that surround you. Everyday you wake and listen to nature's radio, the diverse bird calls and communication of various animals within the forest, watching monkeys swing and crash into trees in the distance. Spotting various species of wildlife isn’t abnormal in your day to day life as 10% of the world's wildlife species surround you. 

Hugo Ushpa is lucky enough to experience this everyday as he is the proud owner of this land. When he first arrived in the district he coined it as a ‘truly beautiful place’. He then stated how the land was densely populated by trees and forest land but he needed to cut a little back in order to grow his crops. Showing his love for the land he states,

‘While I had to cut down a small area of the forest, I also felt sorry for what I had to clear’.

In order to earn a reasonable income and care for his family, Hugo had to clear a small area of the forest to grow and rotate crops but only cleared what he needed. He is also mindful of the forest’s endless beauty and his role as an indigenous leader in protecting it. 

Forests cover 31% of the earth and are home to over 80% of all land-based species and many human populations. They are also a crucial way in which our atmosphere and climate is contained but are drastically under threat. Estimates now conclude that since 1990, 178 million hectares of forest land have been lost globally. More worryingly, since 2015 approximately 10 million hectares were lost annually all due to human induced deforestation. 

Today, there are a recorded 500 million indigenous people, 6% of the global population, representing thousands of languages and thought diversity. Lands owned and governed by indigenous communities only make up 20% of the global territory and yet 80% of the earth's remaining biodiversity lives alongside indigenous communities. What does this tell you? Yes, indigenous people are some of the best stewards of the planet and often the least thought of in relation to climate and nature negotiations and solutions. 

When it comes to climate change, indigenous people are some of the worst affected communities on earth due to their enhanced connection to the natural world and reliance on it for food and resources. Not only do they often already face political marginalisation and discrimination, loss of land and inevitably their livelihoods due to enhanced human-environmental conflicts is really threatening them. 

In the Kalahari Desert, Africa, due to rapidly increasing temperatures local indigenous tribes are dependent on government drilled boreholes for water. Coupled with loss of vegetation, droughts and high wind speeds these people cannot farm and maintain their traditional methods and keep their livestock alive.

Scandinavian indigenous communities across Finland, Norway and Sweden are noticing how the changing climates are affecting the growth patterns of lichen which the reindeer they farm are highly dependent upon for food. Without the reindeer, herders of the Saami communities are forced to feed their herds instead with fodder which is very expensive and not a natural food source. 

In Ecuador, Martha Antuash is an indigenous farmer who has witnessed and recorded the changing climate and its effect on her family's life.

‘I feel the sun is hotter and it rains more. It rains heavily. I feel this is harmful. My daughters ask me, Mom why does it rain like this? Why does it rain so hard? I tell them, my little daughters, the forests were cleared’.

Martha has a right to be worried with temperatures predicted to increase by 2-3 degrees celsius within the Amazon rainforest by 2050. These temperatures strike fear that the rainforest will reach its tipping point where the diverse forest dies and is replaced by barren fire-prone savannah land.

Indigenous communities have maintained close relationships with their surrounding natural environments for thousands of years, subsequently developing sustainable livelihoods that sustain and protect ecosystems around the world. Otherwise known as indigenous science or traditional ecological knowledge, indigenous knowledge contains diverse understandings of holistic stewardship to the natural world, something the western world has rapidly forgotten. 

The deeper connection indigenous people have to the land grants them a unique role in providing sustainable and regenerative adaptive plans in order for different countries to mitigate their climate risk. Even though they contribute the least to the drivers of climate change today, these communities are actually being affected the worse as they live alongside and deep within fragile ecosystems. 

However, indigenous communities are able to react to various climate impacts quickly by applying different traditional technologies which society is unaware of. For example, Bangladesh is experiencing an increased number of flooding events due to climatic changes of the intensity of their monsoon seasons. As a consequence, indigenous communities are creating floating vegetable gardens that are more resilient to climate events and planting more mangrove trees that will act as greater sea defences during future storm events.

Utilising their knowledge passed down over generations, indigenous communities from around the world are being called upon, taking active roles in nature-based solutions and policy making decisions. Younger members of indigenous groups are having a huge impact today by balancing traditional wisdom with modern technologies with an increased willingness to engage with modern officials. 

Widespread discrimination and a lack of understanding from government officials continues to threaten indigenous community survival, conservation success and only enhance local conflicts and violence. Many countries today are attempting to protect natural areas by denoting them as protected areas or state-owned in a controlled, fortress, conservation attempt. 

This is a rather damaging way of conserving land that often forces indigenous people off their land and creates a lot of animosity between indigenous people and local officials who have no plan of relocating them. For example, the Ugandan president Museveni announced last year that no people should be allowed in Mt. Elgon Forest in order to conserve it. However, this area of land has been the ancestral home of the Benet people who have been pastoralists and hunter-gatherers here for thousands of years. Is this an efficient way of conserving the area?

When it comes to solving local environmental issues and facing the wider climate emergency, there is no question that indigenous wisdom should be recognised and implemented within the formal system of sustainable governance. Last year Celia Xakriaba won a seat in congress standing for the Socialism and Freedom party stating that ‘it’s time to indiginize’. 

By no longer being able to bear genocide or the ecocide of her people and land she decided to do something about and stand up for indigenous knowledge in government. This is the result of a collective movement of indigenous people tired of voting for hope and instead wanting to turn that governmental green room into a reforestation of politics that consider indigenous lands before the profit they could be making. 

Finally, in a landmark decision at the latest conference for biodiversity in Cali Colombia, parties adopted a new program of work specifically about indigenous voices. This much needed initiative sets out to ensure the meaningful contribution and involvement of indigenous people towards the conference's three main objectives. The rights and wisdom of indigenous communities around the world will be incorporated into the conservation & sustainable use of biological diversity and the fair and equitable sharing of its benefits. A new subsidiary body has also been agreed that will oversee the implementation of this article and make sure it is enacted, globally. 

Considering the negative effects that climate change is already having on communities around the world, we cannot waste time with conflicts between people and policy making. We also must think of those that are already suffering the consequences of our exploitation of the natural world. By incorporating indigenous people into sustainable development plans we are enhancing the adaptive capacity of their people, land and inevitably our future combined. Their knowledge can be utilised in land use planning, disaster prevention and nature-based solutions across various industries that we include if we are to move forward with nature and not against it. 

Reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, the following quote concludes this piece rather poignantly. 

‘We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people. Now our minds are one’.