Indigenous spiritual and cultural values to guide climate change adaptation
Paris, Dec 7, 2015
Respect for the spiritual values and traditional
knowledge of indigenous peoples is a key component in the response to
climate change, as was today asserted by an agreement between the Center
for Earth Ethics (CEE) of Union Theological Seminary, the Center for
Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) at Columbia University and
the Indigenous Peoples Biocultural Assessments Initiative (IPBCCA) of
Asociacion ANDES. These organizations are joining efforts to promote the
cultural and spiritual values of indigenous peoples as central elements
of the struggle against global warming.
“Indigenous spirituality seeks powerful
connection to larger purposes and meaning, celebrates biodiversity and
promotes inclusion”, says Karenna Gore, Director of CEE. She added,
“The world especially needs that kind of worldview at this time. This
great body of knowledge has a wealth of adaptive capacity. It not only
protects the wellbeing of indigenous peoples; it also promotes an
awareness of our deep interconnected relationship with nature that can
enhance our world as a whole."
A key goal of the IPBCCA Initiative has been to
promote the capacity of spiritual traditions to help with local
adaptation to climate change. “Spiritual traditions provide meaning and
identity, assist in building resilience in communities that are key for
developing locally sound mitigation and adaptation responses”, says
Alejandro Argumedo, Director of Asociación ANDES, an NGO based in Cusco,
Peru and serving as Secretariat of the IPBCCA initiative. “Concepts of
ecosystem and community-base adaptation intersect with indigenous
concepts and experiences of spirituality; this provides a unique
framework to harmonize wellbeing and resilience in climate change
adaptation responses”. The IPBCCA is an indigenous led initiative
carrying out local assessments in all regions of the world to provide a
deeper understanding of local processes and how they relate to climate
change. Its goal is to develop locally sound mitigation and adaptation
responses for indigenous communities, and feeding into effective
policies across scales.
Technical and scientific support to these local
assessments will be provided by the Center for Research on Environmental
Decisions (CRED) at Columbia University, to enhance the results of the
assessments and provide evidence for effective local adaptation. “Local
approaches demonstrate the importance of valuing both western and
traditional knowledge” says Ben Orlove of CRED. “Concrete and practical
examples, like these local assessments of the IPBCCA, release Indigenous
knowledge from preconceptions that it is ‘exotic’ or romantic. They
remind us that we scientists and traditional knowledge holders are all
grappling with the same questions about climate change. We both take the
view that this is an event subject to external control of a
transcendental nature”.
“Spirituality and traditional knowledge are
dynamic, evolving expressions of Indigineity” concludes Argumedo.
“Spirituality and ancestral knowledge connect past, present and future.
They remind us that there are many ways of knowing, that science too has
limitations, and that dominant world cultures need not be accepted
uncritically”. Mindahi Bastida, Otomi spiritual leader and scholar in
Residence at CEE adds: “Indigenous spirituality draw our attention to
our common humanity, to the importance of family and community, to the
importance of celebration and ritual, and to the values of humility and
compassion. These cultural practices provide some measure of certainty
in an otherwise uncertain world that climate change has brought upon
us”.
The agreement of collaboration between the CEE,
CRED and ANDES will serve as a platform to exchange information on
climate change, identify critical institutional and technical gaps, and
explore the role that indigenous peoples' spiritual traditions,
scientific understanding and traditional knowledge can play in the
development of culturally appropriate responses to climate change. A
synthesis report of the IPBCCA initiative will be produced for early
2016 as a result of this agreement.
Contacts:
Karenna Gore, Director, Center for Earth
Ethics (CEE):
kgore@uts.columbia.edu
+1 212 280 1425
Ben Orlove, Director, Center for
Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED)
bso5@columbia.edu
+1
212 854 1543
Alejandro Argumedo
alejandro@andes.org.pe
+51984706610