Indigenous Knowledge For Climate Adaptation

Climate change has resulted in an increase in temperature, erratic and extreme rainfall patterns, frequency of floods, landslides and droughts. Such disasters lead to significant losses of life and property each year. On an average, temperature is expected to rise 1.4oC by 2030, 2.8oC by 2060, and 4.7oC by 2090. Climate change is predicted to increase climate-related hazards in the coming decades. Nepal is among more vulnerable nations to climate crisis. New knowledge and capacity are required for people to cope with emerging dangers and uncertainties. 

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007), agriculture productivity will decrease due to climate-induced threats such as drought, flood, and degraded soil, which would then impair food security. The consequences of these changes are particularly detrimental to individuals whose food, housing, and livelihoods depend on forest, land, and biodiversity. Households who depend on natural resources for their livelihoods have been negatively impacted by climate change and are finding it difficult to adapt. Increasing temperatures are affecting rainfall amounts and patterns. The resultant extreme events are factors causing a loss of human life and property. 

Vulnerabilities

These changes have increased uncertainty and undermined the development processes. In order to reduce vulnerabilities, it is necessary for governments and individuals to integrate climate change into the planning process, which requires an understanding of the climate change variability and vulnerability of people. The growing impacts of climatic disasters have serious implications for the resilience-building capacity of Nepal’s economy and ecosystems. Rising temperatures cause Himalayan glaciers to melt and form lakes with a high probability of breaching and causing flash floods. The average winter temperature is rising at a faster rate than the average summer temperature, and this is happening so quickly to alter ecosystem services, plant lifecycles, and ecosystem functioning.

Climate change is predicted to increase climate-related dangers and make Nepal and Nepalis more vulnerable. Against this backdrop, new knowledge and capacities are needed to tackle the dangers and uncertainties. National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA, 2010) indicates that Nepal has just 0.4 per cent of the world’s population and is responsible for only about 0.025 per cent of the annual greenhouse gas emissions. However, the nation is disproportionately vulnerable to climate change impacts. Such effects have been more severe amongst people living in rural areas, whose livelihoods are still dependent on subsidiary farming, because of the lack of information on climate change and inability to understand the changing patterns of climate. 

Climate Change Policy (2011) focuses on the community-based adaptation programme in the country. This policy aims to maximise positive impacts and mitigate negative effects of climate change. It focuses on enhancing the resilience capacity of local communities for efficient management and optimum utilisation of natural resources in climate change adaptation. The policy provisions to allocate at least 80 per cent of available funds for field-level climate change adaptation activities, but it lacks clear mechanisms on how indigenous peoples and other vulnerable lots get its benefit. 

Nepal is a mountainous country with three ecological zones; mountains, hills and plains. It has a rich cultural diversity that comprises 125 castes/ethnic groups, out of which the Nepal government has already recognised 59 indigenous nationalities with unique languages, tradition and cultural practices. People’s knowledge about and skill in managing the environmental systems they live in and its relationships with social systems form an important element of their culture and identity as well as their capacity to adapt. However, the use of indigenous and local knowledge and practices (ILKP) in climate change adaptation in Nepal is not yet well-documented. Indigenous knowledge and local practices are increasingly recognised and used as a valuable resource for planning climate change adaptation.

Vulnerable communities use indigenous practices to plan adaptation and disaster risk reduction activities at the local level. ILKP are also specific to agriculture and animal husbandry, natural resource management, rural transport, human dwellings, traditional medicine and biodiversity conservation. Globally, indigenous knowledge has been acknowledged as 'an invaluable basis for developing adaptation and natural resource management strategies in response to environmental and other forms of change', according to the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Having lived in the same place for decades, indigenous people have learned through systems of knowledge, practices, and beliefs to conserve, maintain and promote their resources.

The indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) of Nepal possess rich and diverse traditional knowledge, technologies and practices that are increasingly being used to find Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)-related solutions. Historically, people in mountains, mid-hills and Terai plains of Nepal have adapted to seasonal weather patterns that result in either too much or too little rains at certain points every year. For that, they have used local and indigenous knowledge and skills to manage both drought and flood situations. Some of the traditional and cultural practices demonstrate a long history of water resource management and flood water-induced disaster risk reduction. 

Integration of knowledge

The traditional or local practices are those that a group with a specific ethnic/social/cultural identity has practiced over a long period of time, evolving through continuous processes of learning by doing and trial and error. As defined by Nepal’s Indigenous/Nationalities Act, 2002, “people having their own mother tongue, distinct traditional values, and cultural identities, including social structure and written/non-written history, are indigenous nationalities”. Climate sensitive sectors are generally affected by limited human capacity and narrow access to technology and capital to invest in risk reduction activities. Thus, it is imperative that climate change adaptation is not separated from other priorities but is integrated into development planning, programmes, and projects.

To sum up, climate change is posing threat to all aspects of development and wellbeing of plants and animals. There is a need to integrate indigenous traditional and scientific knowledge in climate change/ecosystem-based adaptation. Indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK) is fast vanishing because young generations are not found interested in learning from elders. More inclusive research on exploration of traditional knowledge and climate change adaptation is needed.

(The author is a PhD scholar at the Tribhuvan University pursuing climate change impacts. kpsigdel@gmail.com)