Politics & Policy

Indigenous peoples’ ecological expertise honed over centuries is increasingly being used by policymakers to complement mainstream science.

By Katie Surma

February 14, 2024

The past few years have been a triumph for traditional Indigenous knowledge, the body of observations, innovations and practices developed by Indigenous peoples throughout history with regard to their local environment. 

First, the world’s top scientific and environmental policymaking bodies embraced it. Then, in 2022, the Biden administration instructed U.S. federal agencies to include it in their decision making processes. And, last year, the National Science Foundation announced $30 million in grants to fund it.

Traditional Indigenous knowledge, also called traditional ecological knowledge or traditional knowledge, is compiled by tribes according to their distinct culture and generally is transmitted orally between generations. It has evolved since time immemorial, yet mainstream institutions have only begun to recognize its value for helping to address pressing global problems like climate change and biodiversity loss, to say nothing of its cultural importance.  

Traditional Indigenous knowledge has helped communities sustainably manage territories and natural resources—from predicting natural disasters to protecting biologically important areas and identifying medicinal plants. Today, more than a quarter of land globally is occupied, managed or owned by Indigenous peoples and local communities, with roughly 80 percent of Earth’s biodiversity located on Indigenous territories. Study after study has confirmed that those lands have better environmental outcomes than alternatives. 

But, just as the links between those outcomes and Indigenous expertise are becoming more widely acknowledged, the communities stewarding this knowledge are coming under increasing threat from land grabbing, rapid cultural changes and other factors.

Then there is the backlash from the right and the left. As traditional Indigenous knowledge has moved into the mainstream alongside science for a better understanding and management of the natural world, critics on all sides have emerged. Some have argued that just as Christian creationism is incompatible with science, so too is traditional knowledge—this argument is widely seen as premised on a misunderstanding about what traditional knowledge is. On the other end of the ideological spectrum, some progressives have balked at the notion that there are fundamental differences between the two systems. 

For a better understanding of what traditional knowledge is, Inside Climate News spoke with Gonzalo Oviedo, an anthropologist and environmental scientist who has worked on social aspects of conservation for more than three decades. This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

For people who may not know much about traditional knowledge, can you give some examples of what it is? 

One key element of traditional knowledge is the understanding of where key biodiversity areas are located in the landscape where communities have traditionally lived. 

This is exactly what conservation science does: identify areas that contain important genetic resources, or areas that contain important features that influence the rest of the ecosystem. 

Traditional cultures do exactly this with areas that are key for the reproduction of animal species, for conserving water sources or for harboring certain types of plants including medicinal plants. Often, those areas become sacred places that Indigenous communities protect very rigorously. Protecting those key biodiversity areas is one of the most important management practices and it’s based on an understanding of how an ecosystem works in a given area. 

Another element is closely related to the work of botanists, which is the creation of very sophisticated botanic taxonomy (the systematic classification of organisms). There are taxonomic systems generated by Indigenous peoples that are more sophisticated than mainstream taxonomy. In Southeast Asia, for example, Indigenous communities tend to recognize many more varieties of plant subspecies based on their practices and lifeways. They see the plants in a more detailed way and notice more differences. They also have more linguistic terms for diverse shades of green that represent different types of plants. 

A third element is the understanding of the biological succession of forests and other ecosystems. Communities have very detailed knowledge of how ecosystems have changed and evolved over long periods of time. People who live within ecosystems, and in a way where their livelihoods are connected to the ecosystem, are a fundamental source of direct knowledge of how ecosystems evolve. 

In places like the Arctic, where people are dependent on their ability to predict changes in the climate, there has been a lot of important research done with Indigenous communities to systematize their climate knowledge. In dry land climates, where traditional communities are very vulnerable to changes in precipitation, they’ve identified key biodiversity areas that serve as reservoirs for periods when droughts are prolonged and these communities strictly protect those reservoirs. Fishing communities in the Pacific are extremely knowledgeable about marine biodiversity and the management of those ecosystems.

What developments have contributed to more mainstream acceptance of traditional knowledge? It’s hard to imagine that Indigenous peoples’ advocacy for stronger protection of their rights hasn’t played a role. Have there been other developments contributing to the growing recognition of the value of this knowledge system to global conservation efforts? 

The process of integrating traditional knowledge into the mainstream is still relatively new. Only in the last 20 years or so has there been more significant progress on this. The Convention on Biological Diversity, the CBD, entered into force in 1993 and has a very important provision in Article 8(j) on the recognition of traditional knowledge and the need to “respect, preserve and maintain” it. As a result of that provision, there has been a lot of interest in how to integrate that into public policy, biodiversity management and related fields. 

The evolution of nature conservation paradigms in the last 20 to 30 years or so has also been an important driver. Three decades ago it was still very difficult to get conservation organizations to recognize that the traditional knowledge of Indigenous and local communities is a positive factor for conservation and that working together with those communities is fundamental. Today, the conservation movement universally agrees to this.

When you say “evolution of nature conservation paradigms,” are you referring to the shift away from “fortress conservation,” or the model where protected areas were fenced off and Indigenous and local communities removed from their traditional lands in the name of conservation? 

There have been several factors contributing to the change and moving away from the fortress conservation concept to inclusive conservation has been one of them. By inclusive I mean the understanding that Indigenous and community held lands are better protected through traditional management practices and the value of traditional knowledge associated with that. 

It is also better recognized today that working for sustainable livelihoods like subsistence farming and harvesting is good for conservation. In the past, livelihood activities were seen as a threat to conservation. Today, it is widely accepted that by supporting sustainable livelihoods, you’re supporting conservation as well. 

Also, today, it is recognized that humans have always managed ecosystems. The concept of “empty wilderness” is no longer viable for conservation and it’s not true in most parts of the world. These are several ways that the conservation paradigm is evolving. It’s safe to say that not everyone is on the same page. But things are evolving in the direction of inclusiveness. 

What are some of the biggest challenges to ensuring that traditional knowledge is protected and, if approved by communities, transmitted for use in mainstream conservation efforts?

There are two main challenges. One relates to how other knowledge systems see traditional knowledge. 

This is essentially the problem of getting people to understand what traditional knowledge is, and overcoming unhelpful and incorrect stereotypes about it. For example, some people say that, unlike science, traditional knowledge is not based on evidence or is not based on credible scientific processes that allow for verification. That is not necessarily true. 

There are, of course, differences between traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge. Traditional knowledge tends to use more qualitative methods and less quantitative approaches and methodologies compared to what science does today. 

But there are several aspects in which both are quite similar. To start, the key motivation in both systems is problem solving. The intellectual process of both sometimes works through comparisons and applies methods of trial and error. You also have in both the process of moving from practical knowledge to abstraction, and also feedback looping and adaptive learning.

Misunderstandings or stereotypes about what traditional knowledge is have led to unfriendly public policies in natural resource management and education systems. 

To address this, institutions like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) need to continue collecting evidence and information about traditional knowledge and communicate its value to policymakers. That is still a fundamental need. 

A second major challenge relates to the erosion of the intergenerational transmission of traditional knowledge. That transmission mostly happens through oral systems that require direct physical contact between different generations. That is being lost because of demographic changes, migration and the use of formal education systems that take children into schools and separate them physically from transmitters of traditional knowledge. This is a serious problem but there are examples of helpful actions that have been implemented in places like Ecuador, where the formal education system works together with Indigenous communities under an inter-cultural model. 

Another aspect of this is the loss of knowledge. If there is lack of transmission or insufficient transmission between generations, when elders die a significant amount of knowledge dies with them.

Cultural change is also a factor. People are coming into contact with other forms of knowledge, some that are presented in a more dynamic way, like on television, and that tend to capture the attention of younger people. 

The pace of change is happening so fast. Traditional knowledge is transmitted slowly through in person contact and in the context of daily life. If the pace of cultural change isn’t managed, and communities aren’t supported in their maintenance of knowledge transmission, then that knowledge will be irreversibly lost. 

There has been some pushback to the incorporation of traditional knowledge alongside science in policy making and into education curriculums. Critics have analogized traditional knowledge with “creationism.”  What do you make of this? 

It’s important to understand precisely what traditional knowledge is and to differentiate it from spirituality. 

Communities often connect spirituality with traditional knowledge. Spirituality is part of the traditional life of the communities, but spirituality is not in itself traditional knowledge. For example, people in Laos fishing communities that live around wetlands have a sophisticated knowledge of how wetlands function. They have for generations fished and taken resources from the wetlands.

Based on their traditional knowledge of the wetlands, they understand the need for rules to avoid depletion of fish populations by preserving key areas for reproduction and ecological processes. They have developed a set of norms so people understand they cannot fish in certain areas, and those norms take place through spirituality. They say, “You can’t fish in this area because this is where our spirits live and these spirits shouldn’t be interfered with.” This becomes a powerful norm because it connects with a deep spiritual value of the community. 

This doesn’t mean that when recognizing the traditional knowledge of the community, one has to take the topic of the spirits as knowledge that has to be validated. The spiritual aspect is the normative part, articulated around beliefs, it is not the knowledge. The same thing goes for practices protecting key biodiversity areas. Traditional cultures all over the world have sacred sites, waters, and they are based on some knowledge of how the ecosystem works and the need to protect key and sensitive areas. Traditional knowledge is essentially problem solving, practical and develops through empirical processes of observation and experience. You have to distinguish it from spirituality, that develops through stories, myths and visions from spiritual leaders. 

The relationship between knowledge and spiritual beliefs happened in a similar way in the history of western science and with traditional Chinese medicine. Historically, you will find that Chinese medical science was intimately linked to Taoist religion and Confucianism. Yet the value of Chinese medicine doesn’t mean that you have to adopt Taoism or Confucianism. It takes a long time for societies to understand how to distinguish these things because their connections are very complex. 

What is at stake if traditional knowledge is lost? 

First, that would be a loss for all of humanity. There has been recent research showing that traditional knowledge can benefit the whole of society if understood and transmitted to other knowledge systems.

There are certain aspects of traditional knowledge that, if lost, will be difficult to recuperate like elements of botanic taxonomy that are not recorded. If lost, we’re losing an important part of human knowledge. 

Second, traditional knowledge is important for cultures that have generated and use that knowledge, especially for their adaptation to climatic and other changes. If properly recognized and supported, that knowledge can be a factor of positive development and evolution for those communities. Change is happening everywhere and will continue to happen in traditional societies. But there are different types of cultural change and some are destructive to traditional communities, like the absorption of invasive external values and mythologies that completely destroy young peoples’ cultural background and erode the fabrics of traditional societies. 

There is also cultural change that can be positive if it is well managed. Young peoples’ use of technology could be a good source of change if it is used to help maintain and transmit their traditional culture. That can prompt pride and value in communities, and promote intercultural understanding which is fundamental in a world where there is still so much cultural discrimination against Indigenous peoples and a lack of understanding of their cultures and value systems.

Traditional knowledge can play an important role in intercultural dialogues. We need healing processes within societies so that cultures can speak to each other on equal footing, which unfortunately isn’t the case in many places today. 

Katie Surma – Reporter, Pittsburgh

Katie Surma is a reporter at Inside Climate News focusing on international environmental law and justice. Before joining ICN, she practiced law, specializing in commercial litigation. She also wrote for a number of publications and her stories have appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times and The Associated Press, among others. Katie has a master’s degree in investigative journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, an LLM in international rule of law and security from ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, a J.D. from Duquesne University, and was a History of Art and Architecture major at the University of Pittsburgh. Katie lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with her husband, Jim Crowell.