Brijal Chaudhari, President, Global Home for Indigenous Peoples (GH4IP)

Background

Indigenous sciences and their epistemologies are often questioned and disregarded as primitive and invalid. Indigenous Peoples have always been the object of scientific-social sciences research but not the co-creators of knowledge. Many scientists rely on Indigenous Peoples to guide their work by helping them to find wildlife, navigate rugged terrains or to understand weather trends (Sidik, 2022) but these relationships feel colonial, extractive, and unequal. Researchers drop into our communities with similar intentions as a mining company. They gather data and leave – never contacting the individuals of the communities involved in the research and excluding them from the publication process (Sidik, 2022). Similarly, Indigenous-led research also faces well-documented institutional barriers that limit full participation and visibility of Indigenous worldviews (Artelle, 2024).

Although the value of bridging Indigenous science with Western science has been recognized to provide solutions for mutual thriving of lands and cultures, we have only begun to scratch the surface of its benefits (Popp, 2018). Hence, this conference on Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge and Sciences –combining traditional knowledge and science on innovations for resilience to address climate change, biodiversity loss, food security, and health is a step towards epistemic justice and an acknowledgement that we need other ways of knowing to illuminate a different way forward when we are faced with wicked challenges of a rapidly changing environment. The efforts from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences in partnership with Indigenous Peoples will hopefully take a concrete step to replace the present-day monoculture of Western scientific thinking that attempts to homogenize valid knowledge with an ecology of knowledge.

Why Indigenous Peoples are indispensable partners?

Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami shaman, recounts how the Yanomami legend Omama, the creator and the father of Yanomami, hung in the sky. Initially, he propped the sky up on a single rock, but that was not firm enough, and the sky fell, killing many. So, he hung it up again, but this time propped more rocks, so it would hold steady. The Yanomami believe that the sky will fall again only when there are no more Yanomami Peoples to keep the earth and sky in balance (Krenak, 2020).

Hence, Kopenawa’s story speaks volumes about the knowledge systems of Indigenous Peoples around the world and how Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems are extremely important to the resilience of our socio-ecological systems. World Bank research in 2016 showed that indigenous peoples make up 5% of the world’s population but safeguard 80% of the world’s biodiversity.[1] This resilience is based on centuries of interaction with, and adaptation to, environmental change and the Indigenous Peoples’ capacities to assess interrelated ecosystem functions (IWGIA, 2022). Indigenous perspectives are holistic and founded upon interconnectedness, reciprocity, and the utmost respect for nature and can complement Western science and vice-versa. Consequently, Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems are associated with better management, conservation, and sustainability of biodiversity and therefore fundamental to the well-being of the planetary health.

Indigenous Peoples are the oldest living memory of what it means to subsist on this planet. Indigenous Peoples and their institutions are like an old-growth forest that is mature, stable, and able to regenerate if there is a disturbance (Kimmerer, 2020). Indigenous Peoples’ culture and our knowledge systems did not come about overnight, it is thousands of years of work. Kimmerer (2020) also asserts that Indigenous Peoples’ old-growth cultures, like the old-growth forests, still exist that could serve humanity in solving the issues of climate change, biodiversity loss, green transition, and transformation of our food systems. Western science and research institutions must incorporate the knowledge and ingenuity of Indigenous Peoples in their work as equal partners. Hence, Indigenous Peoples are indispensable partners for climate solutions, protecting biodiversity conservation, and improving our food systems. Indigenous territories that cover a quarter of Earth’s surface and overlap with a third of intact forests often have reduced deforestation, degradation, and carbon emissions, compared with non-protected areas and protected areas (Jocelyne S. Sze, 2022).

The national parks, conversation areas, and wildlife reserves of today were Indigenous territories that our ancestors had protected and lived in harmony with nature. However, the national parks, conversation areas, and reserves are guided by a fortress conservation model that ignores the worldviews of Indigenous Peoples and their reciprocal relationships to nature. This model that assumes that protected areas should be created and governed by States and the goal of protected areas should be strict nature preservation with emphasis on biodiversity conservation and protected area management required protected areas to be uninhabited and without human use of natural resources.

If Indigenous Peoples have a share in management and conservation, there is an incentive to ensure sustainability, given that the ecosystem is inextricably bound up with their identity, spirituality, livelihood, and long-term survival (Amnesty International, 2022). However, state policies, laws and practices governing national parks, protected areas, and wildlife reserves have disenfranchised Indigenous Peoples around the world. Indigenous Peoples are criminalized when they demand their inherent rights to self-govern and their collective rights to their land’s territories and forests. We can investigate West Papua, Myanmar, Chittagong Hill Tracks of Bangladesh, and India where the Indigenous territories are extremely militarized.

Indigenous Peoples’ Food systems

Traditional food systems of Indigenous Peoples touch the full spectrum of life in ways that modern food systems do not. Agricultural technological developments in the six decades of FAO’s existence have led to great disconnections between people and their food. Globalization and homogenization have replaced local food cultures; high-yield crops and monoculture agriculture have taken the place of biodiversity; industrial and high-input farming methods have degraded ecosystems and harmed agro-ecological zones; and modern food industries have led to diet related chronic diseases and other forms of malnutrition (Harriet V. Kuhnlein, 2009).

Indigenous Peoples’ food systems are diverse and unique, comprising a wide variety of wild, semi-domesticated, and domesticated plants and animals that are rich in nutritional value. These systems pay special attention to the relationships between different elements within ecosystems, unlike modern agri-food systems. Indigenous Peoples’ food systems have endured for centuries, surviving climate variations, periods of colonization, and displacements. They adapt their food generation and production to the seasonality and natural cycles observed in their surrounding ecosystems. Consequently, Indigenous Peoples’ food systems are multifunctional and holistic, producing food, medicines, shelters, and energy, while also supporting cultural and spiritual practices. Additionally, the concept of food waste is unknown in these systems. Hence, Indigenous Peoples’ food pathways are crucial knowledge that western science must collaborate with for the sustainable future of our food systems.

For the Tharu Peoples of Nepal, everything begins with the monsoon rains. These rains dictate their ecosystems, food systems, knowledge systems, social institutions, and worldviews. With the arrival of the monsoon, rice seedlings are planted. As the water drains from the rice fields, fish are trapped and dried, providing sustenance throughout the year. Tharu diets are highly diverse because we not only cultivate crops but also gather a variety of foods and medicines from the forests and riverine areas. They harvest only what they need, leaving the rest for the future.

Similarly, to ensure that the Tharu Peoples have healthy diets and food throughout the year, we dry and store food while maintaining its nutritional value. The Tharu are experts in diverse food storage systems, but the pressure from Western development models, modernization, land privatization, and the commodification of food poses a serious threat to our culture, identity, and knowledge systems. Consequently, Indigenous food systems and the associated biocultural knowledge are now under threat. We are no longer saving seeds, trapping, or gathering from the forests. Do you know why? Agrochemicals were introduced in the 1980s when Nepal signed the structural adjustment policies. This has taken a lot from us and undermined our collective vision for the future.

Longevity of Indigenous Peoples Knowledge systems

Indigenous Peoples transmit their knowledge systems to the next generations orally and they have been quite successful in transmitting their knowledge. However, Indigenous youth are migrating to the urban centres for opportunities and education at an alarming rate. Additionally, the education provided by the governments is not culturally adapted to the worldviews of Indigenous Peoples. To keep the Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge thriving and transmitted to the new generations, our land and traditional territories are important. The health of Indigenous Peoples territories is interlinked with the well-being of Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems. We need our land, forests, mountains, and rivers because they are our schools, pharmacies, grocery stores, and spiritual sites – if we are removed from our territories, and our social institutions, our gift economy starts to degrade. Still today, in Asia where two-thirds of Indigenous Peoples live they are fighting for the legal recognition of their identity and access to their territories and are fighting legal battles with their national governments to amend their national park laws. Our national laws do not align with our laws, there is often tension and I see this everywhere around the world. We need to work together in reforming the existing constitution or laws that work for Indigenous Peoples and their realities as well.

Recommendations

Indigenous Peoples are indispensable partners for climate, biodiversity, food, and nutritional agenda. Hence, their knowledge systems are instrumental. Their knowledge systems can immensely complement western science. Research institutions must move away from conducting research on Indigenous Peoples to conducting research with Indigenous Peoples as equal partners when it comes to issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, food systems, and nutrition agenda. Indigenous Peoples’ leadership and their ingenuity must be recognized, and their leadership is important in complementing western science. Research institutions must abide the principle of free, prior, and informed consent when working with Indigenous Peoples.

Western science and western institutions must decolonize the way they gather their information and should move away from creating a monoculture of mind. In their work, they must incorporate other forms of knowledge including Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews and their knowledge systems to ensure epistemic justice. As a result, Indigenous-led research must be supported, and we must remove institutional barriers Indigenous Peoples face. What we need is Indigenous leadership in decision-making to restore the harm that colonialism, and neo-liberalism policies and their institutions have done to Mother Earth and Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems and their leadership are the future. Western institutions, including universities, states, and UN bodies must adapt and include Indigenous Peoples at all levels of decision-making because they were not created for Indigenous Peoples and their worldviews and their livelihoods. They must adapt their working principles as outlined by UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). We have many foundations here today and representatives of UN bodies that know this very well, yet there are still doubts in your minds about our leadership, organizational capacities, and scientific knowledge. We all need to unlearn and relearn to engage meaningfully with Indigenous Peoples. Learn our songs, learn

Finding new innovative ways to understand and reimagine our relationship to the natural world is an important step towards bridging science and Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge. How are we preparing the new generations of Indigenous leaders to tackle the issues of climate change, biodiversity loss, cultural revival, and intergenerational knowledge exchange? We all must ponder on this question and work on infrastructures needed to bridge the gap between Indigenous elders and youths as youths are migrating at an alarming rate.

We need to change the way we are selling the idea of sustainability and transition into a green economy. We need to change the way development is planned and implemented. We need to move away from the production paradigm and move into the holistic way and regenerative paradigm that Indigenous Peoples have championed for generations. We need to drive away that spirit of Daliddar[2] through our songs. My mother signs even today to chase such spirit out of us. Daliddar is the greedy side in us. Daliddar’s energy and spirit also drive the agribusiness, mining industries, and multinational corporations. We also need to think about the degrowth paradigm because perpetual growth is not compatible with natural law. Hence, we must incorporate Indigenous knowledge systems in policies that decide the future of our planet.

We all are looking for low-hanging fruit. But let’s nurture long-term reciprocal relationships with Indigenous Peoples. My mother tracks and maintains relationships with individuals and families that go beyond 15 generations. We need to go beyond the project life cycle. I invite you all to work like the mountains, Himalayas, forests, winds, rivers, winds, and the ocean that brings monsoon to my land that sustains all forms of life and beings. Through kindness and deep respect, I hope we will continue this conversation as there is a lot of work to do in bridging western science and Indigenous worldviews together. 

References

Artelle, K.A. (2024, 01 18). Time to support Indigenous science. Science. Retrieved May 14, 2024, from https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado0684

Harriet V. Kuhnlein, B.E. (2009). Indigenous Peoples food systems. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Amnesty International. (2022, April). Amnesty International. Retrieved May 16, 2024, from https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IOR4054812022ENGLISH.pdf

IWGIA. (2022, 03). An analysis of the IPCC report on impacts, adaptations, and vulnerability. Retrieved 05 14, 2024, from https://lcipp.unfccc.int/sites/default/files/2022-03/IWGIA_IPCC%20Briefing_March%202022_ENG.PDF

Jocelyne S. Sze, D.Z. (2022, 10 26). Indigenous lands in protected areas have high forest integrity across the tropics. 50 Current Biology. Retrieved 05 15, 2024, from https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01540-8

Kimmerer, R.W. (2020). Braiding Sweetgrass. Penguin Random House.

Krenak, A. (2020). Ideas to postpone the end of the world. House of Anansi Press Inc.

Popp, J. (2018, 01 03). How Indigenous knowledge advances modern science and technology. The Conversation. Retrieved 05 14, 2024, from https://theconversation.com/how-indigenous-knowledge-advances-modern-science-and-technology-89351

Sidik, S.M. (2022, January 11). Weaving Indigenous knowledge into the scientific method. Retrieved May 14, 2024, from https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00029-2

Winfield, N. (2023, 03 30). AP News. Retrieved 05 15, 2024, from https://apnews.com/article/vatican-indigenous-papal-bulls-pope-francis-062e39ce5f7594a81bb80d0417b3f902

[1] https://ifnotusthenwho.me/about/demands/

[2] Daliddar is a Tharu word for a spirit that is full of greed and thinks of acquiring more and more without giving consideration to others.