Fighting Climate Change Using Native Traditional Knowledge
23.04.2009 - Human Dimension, Other, Arctic
The Indigenous People's Global Summit on Climate Change is being hosted by the Inuit Circumpolar Council in Anchorage, Alaska, April 20-24. This United Nations-affiliated conference is a way of gathering messages and recommendations that worldwide Indigenous communities would like to express to authorities, but also a way of strengthening participation of these communities in political discussion groups.
This conference has allowed indigenous groups to share observations and experiences of early impacts of climate change and discuss how traditional knowledge can both be used to mitigate and adapt to the anticipated consequences of change.
In the Arctic, where local populations are amongst the indigenous groups most at risk of climate change-induced events, people have been reverting back to the traditional dogsled instead of the modern snow machine. Dogs will not only warn the driver if the ice is not safe, their food is cheaper than the fuel that is used to power snow machines.
The Summit will close on Friday April 24th with a declaration and action plan. A call will also me made for world governments to include Indigenous populations in the post-Kyoto climate change regime, which will be discussed in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009.
