The Summary for Policymakers of the Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report was approved, and the full report accepted, by the IPCC yesterday (30 March 2014).
This contribution focused on impacts, adaptations, and vulnerabilities associated with climate change. While a great deal of the report's conclusions were expected, there was noteworthy mention of the impact of community-based approaches to climate change, coupled with scientific and traditional knowledge as being mitigators for change with high confidence.
While traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) has long been thought a valuable tool when working to make communities more climate resilient and in the protection of natural resources, it is still widely underutilized and [I argue] viewed by many practitioners/donors in development as "second hand" science.
The IPCC report acknowledges the importance of parallel approaches to adaptation planning and project implementation.
“Indigenous, local, and traditional knowledge systems and practices, including indigenous peoples’ holistic view of community and environment, are a major resource for adapting to climate change, but these have not been used consistently in existing adaptation efforts. Integrating such forms of knowledge with existing practices increases the effectiveness of adaptation.”
So why are development projects still slow at incorporating and taking advantage of this important knowledge sharing mechanism? Using community-based approaches to NRM and climate change adaptation are not novelty, however they seem to still be viewed by many donors as too costly, time consuming, and inadequate. While there has been more interest as of late in merging more participatory approaches to development, conservation, and climate change adaptation, we are still lagging behind... in spite of the known positive result that could be attained from these partnerships.
The report highlights several examples, to include (p.9):
In the Arctic, some communities have begun to deploy adaptive co-management strategies and communications infrastructure, combining traditional and scientific knowledge.
In Central and South America, ecosystem-based adaptation including protected areas, conservation agreements, and community management of natural areas is occurring. Resilient crop varieties, climate forecasts, and integrated water resources management are being adopted within the agricultural sector in some areas.
In small islands, which have diverse physical and human attributes, community-based adaptation has been shown to generate larger benefits when delivered in conjunction with other development activities.
Indigenous peoples "low carbon" traditional ways of interacting with the environment have contributed little to climate change. In fact, development practitioners could learn a lot from the inextricable link that these populations have to their surrounding environment. With collective knowledge of the land, sky and sea, these peoples are excellent observers and interpreters of change in the environment. It's time to bridge the gap between climate science and TEK, giving traditional knowledge a role in the global climate change discourse.