suStaInaBility

Impacts of climate change on Indigenous peoples

In fact, most Indigenous peoples throughout the world live in areas that are being heavily impacted by climate change and forms of development (including timber harvesting and mining) that are quite damaging to the natural environment. Indigenous peoples, such as the Inuit people in Alaska, Canada and Greenland, are facing destruction of their homes by flooding and are having difficulty continuing their traditional, subsistence lifeways, given the destruction of sea ice and the impacts upon sea and land mammals in the Arctic.

In addition, Indigenous peoples throughout the world often lack the educational or professional training necessary to transition into an urban economy, and their very survival as distinct, land-based cultures would be jeopardized by such a shift. Inuit leader Sheila Watt-Cloutier made this point quite emphatically. In her 2005 statement in support of the petition filed by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference against the United States in the Inter-American Commission for harms caused by climate change, she stated, “Inuit are an ancient people. Our way of life is dependent upon the natural environment and the animals. Climate change is destroying our environment and eroding our culture. But we refuse to disappear. We will not become a footnote to globalization.”

Most experts agree that Indigenous peoples are among the most vulnerable populations in the world to the projected impacts of climate change. The question is how global nation-states should respond. The U.N. experts counseled that “the new Sustainable Development Goals present a unique opportunity to remedy [the] shortcomings [of current policy] and the historical injustices resulting from racism, discrimination and inequalities long suffered by Indigenous peoples across the world.” They encouraged states to “affirm that the human rights-based approach to development should be a key framework in achieving sustainable and equitable development.”

This advice accords with other current United Nations activities, including the continuing commemoration of an “International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples” and the conclusion of a second “Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.” Both are designed to bring continuing recognition to the place of Indigenous peoples within the global politics of cultural and environmental protection.

Sustainability practices of Indigenous peoples

Those lessons are equally applicable to the United States, which maintains a trust relationship with over 560 federally-recognized American Indian and Alaska Native Nations, and recognizes that these Indigenous Nations are separate sovereigns with governance authority over their lands, resources and members. In this respect, federal and state agencies ought to consult with tribal governments as they develop sustainability policies for the future, and there are executive orders and other policy mandates in the United States that require such consultations in many cases.

Indigenous peoples have survived as separate and distinct nations within often-challenging natural, political and economic environments precisely because they maintain cultural values consistent with sustainability. Indigenous peoples are unique because they have a long-standing and intergenerational presence upon their traditional territories, and this “ethics of place” is deeply embedded within their cultures and social organization. For most Indigenous peoples, “sustainability” is the result of conscious and intentional strategies designed to secure a balance between human beings and the natural world and to preserve that balance for the benefit of future generations.

Indigenous knowledge is the cornerstone of Indigenous sustainability practices, a fact which has also received global recognition. The United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, for example, highlights its “Traditional Knowledge Initiative,” which seeks to study contemporary Indigenous practices and the use of Indigenous knowledge systems as a way to understand how to use resources efficiently, improve waste management and adapt to climate change.

Indigenous peoples at the center of sustainability studies

Today, many scientists are studying Indigenous traditional knowledge as a tool to identify and document climate change, as well as to design adaptation planning strategies. However, it is necessary to realize that “Indigenous traditional knowledge systems” are complex and diverse. They are also holistic in nature and thus, can only be appropriately governed and maintained by each Indigenous group. Indigenous epistemologies represent important sources of information about the people and their natural environment, including systems of Native science and ethics.

Indigenous peoples are separate social, political and cultural groups who are now subsumed within the political structures of nation-states, but they also have an internationally recognized right to “self-determination,” which enables them to have a distinctive voice and place within larger governance structures. In the United States, tribal governments have an important role to play in the design of sustainability policy. Indigenous cultures are distinctive and often maintain significant knowledge about the natural world because Indigenous peoples have been part of their territories since “time immemorial.”

There are similarities and differences between Western and Indigenous knowledge systems. Because they often have different metaphysical constructions of the natural world, the agency of human beings and “other than human” peoples, it is necessary to understand the ways in which the two sets of systems complement one another and where they diverge. The dialogue about sustainability must be generated from within Indigenous thought systems, as well as from within Western thought systems, and the interchange must proceed from a platform of respect and mutual engagement. This type of intercultural sharing between and among diverse peoples will open new opportunities to discover our potential as human beings in an ever-changing natural world.

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