Indigenous Thought and Global Environmental Change

Figure 1. Image from climate strike on March 15 in Melbourne with an estimated 40,000 attendants.

My name is Beatrice and I am focusing on Indigenous experiences of climate change. The Indigenous classification refers to "groups who have a special connection with the natural environment and...are often the first people to inhabit a particular territory" who tend to live in marginal and exposed areas such as small islands, tropical forests, high-altitude zones, coasts, desert margins and the circumpolar Arctic (Baird, 2008).

Many Indigenous communities have close, sustainable relationships with environments and enhance the 'resilience' of ecosystems existing in their lands and territories. According to the IUCN, they proportionally have the smallest ecological footprints yet are one of the highest risk groups from global environmental change. Colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization have historically harmed Indigenous communities (Whyte, 2017). The UN describes how Indigenous Peoples' experiences of ethnic and minority discrimination through "political and economic marginalization, loss of land and resources, human rights violations, discrimination and unemployment" will also be exacerbated by climate change.

Indigenous Thought as a Framing Tool

Indigenous voices have been historically excluded from decision and policymaking around climate change. Harmful stereotypes have been perpetuated in the context of environmental change; Indigenous communities have been perceived as "victims", instead of agents and stakeholders in environmental conservation with a unique knowledge base (Etchart, 2017). However, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change published in 2004 marked a shifting narrative that recognised the value of Indigenous and Local knowledge systems in climate change policy.

'Indigenous Thought' centres around Indigenous epistemological and ontological approaches and lived experiences of environmental change as part of a wider goal of decolonising knowledge production around it (Haig-Brown, 2008). It looks beyond the nature/ society dichotomy and top-down, technocratic solutions which prioritise modes of neoliberal economic growth. Instead, Raygorodetsky (2011) says traditional knowledge of ecosystems is utilised to create community-based solutions to manage forests and agro-ecological systems. There is an emerging research field supporting Indigenous communities' capabilities to address anthropogenically-induced climate change for themselves and across the globe. The video linked below gives some really interesting examples of how Indigenous knowledge can create solutions to climate change.

As a white, non-Indigenous person, I need to think carefully about how my positionality might impact my understanding and writing about Indigenous experiences and navigate this appropriately and respectfully.

I hope you enjoy my blog!