Indigenous peoples in Australia, and globally, are situated in an unusual context of both significant vulnerability and unique resilience to climate change which influence their perceptions of climate risk and uncertainty. Their vulnerability to climate change arises in part from their contexts of living in many of the harshest and isolated environments. Their resilience originates from their accumulated knowledge of specific environments over millennia, mediated through sui generis cultural institutions. Our results illustrate that indigenous groups primarily perceive uncertainties related to volition of actors and institutions. When they are involved in climate adaptation planning in ways that mobilise their cultural institutions and knowledge, they can safely manage these uncertainties through their agency to determine and control key risks. We demonstrate that climate justice approaches can be strengthened for indigenous peoples by applying a linked vulnerability-resilience analytical framework. This enables stronger consideration of how unique cultural institutions and knowledge, which are not available to all vulnerable groups, affect indigenous perceptions of uncertainty in climate adaptation planning. We use this analytical approach in a case study with Yuibera and Koinmerburra Traditional Owner groups within the Great Barrier Reef Catchment. We conclude that a specific focus on sui generis indigenous knowledge and cultural institutions as a source of resilience can strengthen climate justice approaches and work more effectively with indigenous peoples in climate change contexts.
In this case study, Traditional Owners in the Great Barrier Reef identified that protecting what is left of Indigenous material culture and socio-cultural relationships provides the best approach to climate adaptation planning. Protecting what is left supports decolonising and strengthens Indigenous customary practices and governance, thereby supporting their strategies for cultural renewal and survival. AbstractClimate change is disproportionally affecting Indigenous peoples' livelihoods across the globe. Despite this fact, climate adaptation planning and responses are not immediate concerns for most Indigenous people, whose key challenges are deeply embedded in colonial history. Through collaborative research centred on climate adaptation planning with the Yuibera and Koinmerburra Traditional Owner groups on the Great Barrier Reef catchments, we demonstrate that Traditional Owners' primary concerns are in aligning the climate adaptation opportunity with their own strategies for Indigenous cultural renewal and survival. Their Indigenous identity generates a responsibility to protect cultural landscapes, sites, and their connections with these places. In this case study, to "protect what is left" of Indigenous material culture and socio-cultural relationships emerged as the best approach to climate adaptation planning, providing both the decolonisation narrative and the means to strengthen their Indigenous practices. Planning for climate change adaptation is useful for Indigenous peoples when it supports decolonising, strengthens Indigenous customary practices, and recognises customary governance.
Co-production across scientific and Indigenous knowledge systems has become a cornerstone of research to enhance knowledge, practice, ethics, and foster sustainability transformations. However, the profound differences in world views and the complex and contested histories of nation-state colonisation on Indigenous territories, highlight both opportunities and risks for Indigenous people when engaging with knowledge co-production. This paper investigates the conditions under which knowledge co-production can lead to improved Indigenous adaptive environmental planning and management among remote land-attached Indigenous peoples through a case study with ten Traditional Owner groups in the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) Catchment in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. The research team built a 3D map of the river and used it, together with an interactive table-top projector, to bring together both scientific and Indigenous spatial knowledge. Participatory influence mapping, aligned with Traditional Owner priorities to achieve cultural governance and management planning goals set out in the Fitzroy River Declaration, investigated power relations. An analytical framework, examining underlying mechanisms of social learning, knowledge promotion and enhancing influence, based on different theories of change, was applied to unpack the immediate outcomes from these activities. The analysis identified that knowledge co-production activities improved the accessibility of the knowledge, the experiences of the knowledge users, strengthened collective identity and partnerships, and strengthened Indigenous-led institutions. The focus on cultural governance and management planning goals in the Fitzroy River Declaration enabled the activities to directly affect key drivers of Indigenous adaptive environmental planning and management—the Indigenous-led institutions. The nation-state arrangements also gave some support to local learning and decision-making through a key Indigenous institution, Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council. Knowledge co-production with remote land-attached Indigenous peoples can improve adaptive environmental planning and management where it fosters learning together, is grounded in the Indigenous-led institutions and addresses their priorities.
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