Exploring the roles of local communities and local knowledge in integrated

solutions for adaptation and resilience: Case studies of APN activities in

Viet Nam and the Pacific cited in IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

1 Using indigenous knowledge to enhance community resilience g Project: Using indigenous knowledge to enhance community
resilience to climate change in the mountainous region of Viet Nam

to climate change in the mountainous region of Viet Nam

g Project leader: Ho Ngoc Son, Agriculture and Forestry Research
and Development Centre for Mountainous Region, Viet Nam g Email:
[email protected] g Grant DOI: https://doi.org/10.30852/p.4562

RESEARCH FINDINGS LESSONS LEARNED

Indigenous people have developed complex farming systems, cultural practices, and a knowledge If indigenous knowledge were better integrated into Combining indigenous and
base well-suited to their environments. Indigenous knowledge (IK) has the potential to further the adaptation planning and policies, its conservation
processes of developing and promoting sustainable local and community development. and application would enhance resiliency to climate scientific knowledge on social-
change in indigenous communities and beyond.
ecological systems is crucial for
Many communities globally, especially those populated by indigenous people, already have the
contextualized and relevant knowledge for addressing problems, including many climate risks. However, traditional coping and adaptation strategies understanding their resilience.
as employed by the indigenous people might only
prepare communities for some perceived risks, not Working within this collaborative framework,
necessarily for the uncertain and possibly different governments should seek to support this dualistic
The study found that ethnic In addition to native crops,
conditions brought by a rapidly changing climate. problem-solving approach and enhance access of
minorities produce many For many of these crops, farmers use native or heritage
local communities to relevant scientific information
native crop varieties and farmers can also save seed, livestock that are adaptable
Indigenous people’s observations and weather that both supports them and accommodates their
animal breeds. The varieties thereby reducing costs and to the local climate and are
forecasting systems in the future may become knowledge. The best strategy in the context of
cultivated are said to be more beneficially allowing further more disease resistant. For
less meaningful or even misguide them in their uncertain climate change is to increase the adaptive
resistant to drought and suffer genetic selection for local example, black pigs and black
decisions. In this way, communities might be well capacity of vulnerable communities.
less pressure from pests and conditions. chicken, many of which have
adapted to their current climate, but less able to
disease. been raised in the area for
adapt to climate change as existing knowledge is
over 50 years.
typically based on past experiences.

GAPS AND NEEDS FOR RESEARCH AND CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

populations, regions, and/or risks and few studies resilience to climate change. To best achieve this,
680+
Number of local people including
examine broader trends in understanding. more attention should be given to improving
Tay, Dao, and H’mong people with
communication and cooperation between
increased capacity to implement
Within the context of Viet Nam, the study found scientists, public officials, and the indigenous
agricultural practices that are more
the protection and development of indigenous people of Viet Nam or in other countries in general.
resilient to climate change.
knowledge remain limited due to the lack of
information and awareness by government As climate continues to change, the further
authorities. As a result, policies on all levels promotion of the use of indigenous knowledge in
pay scarce attention to the use of native plant agricultural production and management not
IPCC AR6-cited publications:
Research illustrates that Indigenous people in varieties and animal breeds or the conservation only becomes essential in this Vietnamese context 1. Son, H. N., Chi, D. T. L., & Kingsbury, A. (2019). Indigenous knowledge and climate
Viet Nam have significant resilience and are of indigenous knowledge. How this might impact but also comprises a crucial component of agency change adaptation of ethnic minorities in the mountainous regions of Vietnam: A case study
of the Yao people in Bac Kan Province. Agricultural Systems, 176, 102683. doi: 10.1016/j.
actively observing and adapting to change in indigenous people in the near future is of concern. and advocacy for the rights and voices of ethnic agsy.2019.102683
2. Son, H. N., Kingsbury, A., & Hoa, H. T. (2020). Indigenous knowledge and the
a diversity of ways. Yet the research remains A conscientious collaboration is essential to minority populations globally. enhancement of community resilience to climate change in the Northern Mountainous
Region of Vietnam. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 45(4), 499–522. doi:
fragmented in that most focus on specific achieving good stewardship in building community 10.1080/21683565.2020.1829777

2 Risk and resilience in the Pacific: Influence of peripherality

on exposure and responses to global change

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND LESSONS LEARNED

The current trend of increasing dependency of ineffective or unsustainable [2]. Research shows culturally-grounded knowledge for coping with
developing countries on their richer counterparts that this is because these involve unfamiliar environmental adversity [4, 5]. Such knowledge
for addressing the impacts of climate change global/western worldviews, scientific reasoning is often superior to external/global knowledge
is unsustainable [1]. Developed countries and and foreign languages, none of which encourage because it is locally applicable and has been ▲ Having cleared their mangrove fringe in the 1950s, the coastal village of
Navunievu (Bua, Fiji) started to experience shoreline erosion and lowland
international aid agencies need to consider the adoption of these interventions by local tried and tested and is, therefore, trusted by key flooding to which they responded by building seawalls, now degraded. Today
shifting their focus towards growing the communities. In the Pacific in particular, many stakeholders. Research concludes that local or Navunievu is often underwater at high tide but, after talking to village elders,
an autonomous adaptation strategy was developed that requires every young
autonomy of developing countries to address their communities become disenchanted, especially traditional knowledge should be foregrounded man from the village to build his family home upslope behind the village. This
own climate change adaptation needs. after their funding ends, because they ignore or in adaptation interventions if these are to will see the gradual upslope migration of Navunievu over the next few decades,
allowing the community to remain viable. (Photo: Patrick Nunn)
subordinate their traditional knowledge [3]. succeed. There is clearly much work to be done
Over the last few decades, most externally- to revive and disseminate such traditional
sponsored interventions for climate change Many Pacific communities (and others in the knowledge within the Pacific in order to ensure
adaptation in the Pacific have either been Global South) have considerable stocks of its sustainable future [6].

GAPS AND NEEDS FOR RESEARCH AND CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

Many western/global researchers talk about conversations for adaptation in the Global may be unprecedented, Pacific peoples have
the barriers to climate change adaptation they South. had similar experience of climate change and
encounter in developing countries without disasters in the past. The exclusion of traditional
realizing that people in these countries also In many developing countries (including those knowledge will never produce the deep
perceive similar barriers—around worldview, in the Pacific), sustainable futures depend on engagement with diverse communities that is ▲ In many Micronesian (Pacific) cultures, the construction of meeting houses
language and justification for adaptive action [7]. combining traditional knowledge and climate needed to sustain climate change adaptation [8, 9]. (faluw) is key to cultural/group identity. This faluw at Waalooy on Maap Island
(Yap, Federated States of Micronesia) has been rebuilt twice to accommodate
There should be more research into equitable science. For while the present climate emergency rising sea level over the past few decades, as you can see from the three stone
platforms. Pacific Island societies often have considerable cultural resilience
that is not easily visible to outsiders but which should be harnessed for future
References (* cited in IPCC AR6): climate change adaptation. (Photo: Patrick Nunn)
* 1. Nunn, P.D. and R. Kumar, Cashless adaptation to climate change with Climate Change on Small Islands: Towards Effective and Social Sciences, 2019. 8: p. #225. Pacific islands might facilitate future relocations. Environmental
in developing countries: unwelcome yet unavoidable? One Earth, Sustainable Adaptation, C. Klock and M. Fink, Editors. 2019, 6. Korovulavula, I., P.D. Nunn, R. Kumar, and T. Fong, Peripherality Development, 2020. 35: p. #100546.
2019. 1: p. 31-34. Gottingen University Press: Gottingen. p. 19-44. as key to understanding opportunities and needs for effective and * 9. Nunn, P.D., R.F. McLean, A. Dean, T. Fong, V. Iese, M. g Project: Risk and resilience in the Pacific: Influence of
2. McNamara, K.E., R. Clissold, R. Westoby, A. Piggott-McKellar, 4. Nunn, P.D., E. Joseph, I. Korovulavula, and R. Kumar, sustainable climate-change adaptation: a case study from Viti Levu Katonivualiku, C. Klöck, I. Korovulavula, R. Kumar, and T. Tabe,
R. Kumar, T. Clarke, F. Namoumou, F. Areki, E. Joseph, O. Warrick, Peripherality as key to understanding climate-associated risk and Island, Fiji. Climate and Development, 2019. 12(10): p. 888-898. Adaptation to climate change: contemporary challenges and peripherality on exposure and responses to global change
and P.D. Nunn, An assessment of community-based adaptation resilience for Pacific Island communities. APN Scientific Bulletin, 7. Luetz, J.M. and P.D. Nunn, eds. Beyond Belief: Opportunities for perspectives, in Climate Change and Impacts in the Pacific, L. g Project leader: Patrick Nunn, University of the Sunshine
initiatives in the Pacific Islands. Nature Climate Change, 2020. 10: p. 2019. 9(1). Faith-Engaged Approaches to Climate-Change Adaptation in the Kumar, Editor. 2020, Springer: Berlin. p. 499-524. Coast, Australia g Email: [email protected] g Grant DOI:
628-639. * 5. Nunn, P.D. and R. Kumar, Measuring peripherality as a proxy Pacific Islands. 2021, Springer Nature: Cham.
* 3. Nunn, P.D. and K.E. McNamara, Failing adaptation in island for autonomous community coping capacity: a case study from Bua 8. Nunn, P.D. and J.R. Campbell, Rediscovering the past to negotiate https://doi.org/10.30852/p.4554
contexts: the growing need for transformational change, in Dealing Province, Fiji Islands, for improving climate change adaptation. the future: how knowledge about settlement history on high tropical

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