Climate Change through an Indigenous Perspective

By Aidan Burt

As climate change becomes an ever-pressing issue, there are many ways in which we as a species can take action to create more sustainable relationships with the environment we are a part of. There is however, one interesting perspective on maintaining a codependent relationship with the environment that is often overlooked — that of the indigenous communities living across the world. Indigenous communities have built up a wealth of information gathered over generations about the organism populations they have been living with. Now that I think about it, it would make perfect sense that they would have this knowledge about the species they maintain relationships with and depend on for food. Nonetheless, incorporating this knowledge into our efforts to combat climate change presents a few challenges. Communication is essential for the transfer of information, and when two entities live and analyze information differently, it becomes hard for each side to adjust and collaborate with the other. Nowadays, we place a lot of trust in our modern methods of science, and it may be hard to trust indigenous knowledge that seems to be based off of purely empirical evidence instead of being backed by studied and researched observations that are proven to work. That being said, I believe the indigenous way of living with the populations they are surrounded by is just as credible, if not more so, because of their mutually dependent relationship with the natural environment. Although I am simply scratching the surface of a larger matter at hand, I hope we as a society can begin to learn from them and listen to their perspectives as we collaborate and incorporate their knowledge with our own. One can only wonder how many answers to important questions about our climate today there are to be found through the knowledge of indigenous communities. The ideas I have introduced here came from an article I read given to me by a teacher, which can be found here: Understanding Our Environment Requires an Indigenous Worldview. I strongly encourage reading it, especially if you are more interested in this topic!