Indigenous Climate Observatories: Local knowledge for Local action
Facts
- Contact person:
- Lizette Reitsma
- Financer:
-
- The Crafoord Foundation
- Responsible at MaU:
- Lizette Reitsma
- External project members:
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- Meshack Dludlu & Gugu Sibandze from the Eswatini Institute for Research in Traditional Medicine Medicinal and Indigenous Food Plants
- Molibeli Taele from the National University of Lesotho & Charles Tseole from the Lesotho Meteorological Services
- Tariq Zaman from University of Technology Sarawak
- Time frame:
- 15 September 2022 - 31 December 2024
- Faculty/department:
- Research environment :
- Research subject:
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- Sustainability Studies
- Arts-based Research
- Participatory Design
About the project
Indigenous communities are amongst the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss, yet their ways of knowing are often excluded from climate research and policymaking. This is done while they hold local knowledge relevant to understanding change from a local perspective.
Local climate change
Therefore, we focus in the project Indigenous Climate Change Observatories - Local Knowledge for Local Action, on the question: How can we learn together to understand local climate change better?
We work with different Indigenous communities in different places in the world on shaping Indigenous Climate Observatories:
- Two in Borneo, Malaysia (focused on connections to the river/forest),
- three in Eswatini (focused on biodiversity),
- and two in Lesotho (focused on weather patterns).
Aim
Central in the manifestation of the observatories is the understanding of indicators of change: How can we understand change and what indicators do/could the communities use to observe or reflect on change? Each of the Indigenous Climate Observatories is manifesting uniquely, bringing together the communities, their concerns, local researchers, and different indicators of change - thereby morphing into something unique.