Conversations with the Earth: Indigenous Voices on Climate Change

Traditional and indigenous communities depend on a healthy relationship with the Land and therefore possess a wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and practical experience in adapting to long-term changes in their environment. And yet indigenous communities are extremely vulnerable to the current unprecedented rate of global climate change, with its large-scale external disruptions to the web of life. This threat to traditional communities is a threat to the entire human family. Proposed or implemented responses to the common challenges of climate change will fall short, unless they are grounded in a recognition of the territorial, land, and resource rights of indigenous peoples. The traditional ecological knowledge, wisdom and practices of indigenous peoples comprise the global biocultural heritage that must inform and guide climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies at global, regional and local scales.