Routledge Handbook of Climate Change Impacts on Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

There is overwhelming evidence that the climate of the Earth is changing (IPCC, 2021), although our understanding of the myriad of ways in which these changes affect local social-ecological systems across the globe is patchier (IPCC, 2022). This is particularly the case in remote and/or marginalized areas of the world, where the scarcity of instrumental data challenges scientists’ ability to detect change (Maraun & Widmann, 2017; Rosenzweig & Neofotis, 2013). Moreover, there is also growing evidence that changes in weather patterns have and will continue to have far-reaching and disproportionate impacts upon Indigenous Peoples and local communities (Bardsley & Wiseman, 2016; Galloway-McLean, 2017), including impacts on livelihood activities and health, as well as social and cultural impacts (e.g., Green & Minchin, 2014; Maikhuri etal., 2018; Race etal., 2016). This is largely the case because climate change impacts are socially mediated: those already in social disadvantage, and particularly ethnic and political disadvantages, are likely to find themselves disproportionately affected by climate change impacts. However, Indigenous Peoples and local communities with a long history of interaction with the environment are not mere victims of climate change impacts; they are also legitimate custodians of knowledge regarding climate change and its impacts and rights-holders to participate in and con-tribute to climate change decision-making at both local and international levels. Indigenous Peoples and local communities have complex knowledge systems that allow them to detect changes in the local climate and the impacts of such changes in the biophysical systems on which they depend (Reyes-García etal., 2016; Savo etal., 2016), as well as the interactions of climate-driven changes with other drivers of local environmental change (Merten etal., 2020; Smith etal., 2017). Moreover, insights from Indigenous and local knowledge systems can also improve our understanding of how climate change affects local socioeconomic systems, livelihoods, and cultures, focusing on what matters to local people (Crate & Nuttall, 2016; Sillitoe, 2021). Therefore, Indigenous and local knowledge systems have the untapped potential to contribute to a deeper and more detailed understanding of the myriad effects of climate change on local social-ecological systems around the world, including in very remote areas.Indigenous Peoples and local communities directly experience climate change impacts, but each group experiences impacts in a different way, not only because such impacts are place-specific but also because climate change impacts on social-ecological systems and responses to those impacts are mediated by local socioeconomic systems and cultural aspects. For example, while sea-level rise is a climate-related phenomenon with potential effects on the millions of peo-ple living close to sea level, specific biophysical (e.g., magnitude of tidal influences, geologic subsidence, overall island size, and relief) and socioeconomic conditions (e.g., resources to cope with sea-level rise, livelihood strategy) mediate how different people perceive this change and the extent to which they feel affected by it. In that context, Indigenous peoples and local communities often rely on their knowledge systems to respond to the socially mediated climate change impacts (Schlingmann etal., 2021).Chapters in this book examine the diverse ways in which climate change alone or in interaction with other drivers of environmental change affects Indigenous Peoples and local communities (Part 1) and how Indigenous Peoples and local communities are locally adapting their responses to these impacts (Part 2). Cases featured draw on first-hand information collected from field research in diverse areas of the world and cover different climatic zones and livelihood activities. We argue that the approach is important in three ways. First, examining local perceptions of climate change impacts and local responses to them contributes to return to a human scale a discussion often focused on ‘mega-trends’ and ‘mega-drivers’ of change. Second, in generating human-scale data on the impacts of and responses to climate change, the chapters in this book help reframe scholarship on the human impacts of climate change, drawing its social, economic, and political dimensions, thus contributing to a line of scholarship that proposes that the global understanding of climate change impacts means recognizing their historical and political origins. Finally, by focusing on Indigenous Peoples and local communities, we hope to contribute to make climate injustices more visible and to emphasize the need to recognize Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ rights in climate research and decision making. The next section of this introduction addresses issues referring to authors’ common ground and yet diverging positionalities. The following two sections bring together the main findings from chapters in this book and associated research to give a global perspective of the lessons learned from multiple case studies across (1) climate change impacts on Indigenous Peoples and local communities and (2) responses to climate change impacts by Indigenous Peoples and local com-munities. The next section then presents lessons learned from working with different knowledge systems on the topic of climate change impacts. This general introduction ends with a general policy recommendation derived from our work accompanied by concrete steps for researchers and decision makers to put the general recommendation into action.

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https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/86189