COP28 in UAE: Meet the indigenous people at the frontlines of climate fight

Indigenous people are essential for climate action. As people who live in direct contact with nature, they are the first to be impacted by climate change. Having seen the environmental changes, these people have long resisted attempts to tamper with it; one of them has been the fight against deforestation.

These natives have the knowledge garnered over generations to live in harmony with nature. As the world fights climate change, the knowledge of indigenous people can be scaled up and implemented for tangible progress.

The world’s 370 million indigenous people cover 24% of land worldwide and contain 80% of the world’s biodiversity, according to the United Nations. The global community should learn sustainable management of biodiversity from them to fight climate challenges effectively.

The Maori communities of New Zealand face the wrath of climate change after they were forced out of traditional lands due to colonisation. Their new habitats in river or coastal floodplains are susceptible to flooding, coastal erosion, storm surges and tidal inundation.

Changes in the environment, wrought by global warming, pose significant challenges to indigenous people, many of whom depend on forests for sustenance. But they have been adapting well for centuries, and these lessons should be built into climate action.

Native tree plantation in Nepal, community-managed natural forests in Bangladesh, and restoration of sustainable fishpond system done by the Native Hawaiian community are among the practices of indigenous peoples in protecting their local biodiversity.

There have been calls to uphold the rights of indigenous peoples —enshrined in international law — as they are the first line of defence in human attempts to destroy the environment in their incessant greed for resources.

Indigenous Peoples are leaders in developing effective nature-based solutions. Deforestation rates on tenured indigenous forestlands were two to three times lower than outside these areas and indigenous and community lands store at least 24% of the above-ground carbon in the world’s tropical forests.

The Amazonian region east of Ecuador is home to indigenous communities such as the Huaorani, Sapara and Sarayaku Kichwa. These forest people have always resisted the occupation and deforestation of their lands. Now, they are aware of their responsibility to protect the forests to combat climate change, according to a report in the journal Nature.

“Consulting with local people gives you a more complete and holistic picture than you would ever get just using measurements,” says Sergio Jarillo, an anthropologist at the University of Melbourne.

Asking indigenous people about the changes they are witnessing helps us to understand what matters to them and what issues require attention, says Victoria Reyes-García, a Spanish anthropologist.

Listening carefully can reveal the actual depth of the challenges faced by indigenous communities, too — so by recording their climate change observations, there is an opportunity to work on climate justice.

Inuit communities on Baffin Island, Canada, say passing on traditional harvesting and hunting techniques to the younger members have become difficult since it depends on the climate, which is no longer predictable, a BBC report says. Here, climate change is erasing an indigenous culture.

Indigenous people say their knowledge is not a compilation of facts but is about relationships with plants, animals, and nature. That’s why the natives take care of them.