It is no exaggeration to describe indigenous peoples as the first human army on the front line of the war against climate change that is ravaging the planet. They are the minority leading climate action without retreat or laziness, based on a long history of connection to the land.
Indigenous peoples represent only 6% of the human population, but they inhabit 28% of the Earth's land area, an area that contains 11% of the world's forests and protects 80% of the world's biodiversity.
These communities are on the front lines of the climate crisis, but they can play a pivotal role in finding solutions to this dilemma. Over centuries, indigenous peoples have developed strategies to adapt and survive in changing environments. This accumulated and inherited experience that can help humanity confront climate risks, build a sustainable economy, and live in harmony with nature.
There are around 200 indigenous groups living in 90 countries around the world. Simon Steele, the UN’s executive secretary for climate change, describes them as “the future custodians of the planet.” Indigenous youth have important insights about climate action and sustainable resources management, passed down from generation to generation, and these insights are invaluable and essential to helping the world deal with the crisis it is facing today.
So what are these lessons or climate ideas and solutions that we should learn from indigenous peoples to preserve nature?
Ecuador's Waorani people… an ongoing environmental struggle
The Waorani tribe lives on 2.5 million acres of the Amazon rainforest. In addition to being one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, home to 800 species, the Amazon rainforest generates more than 20% of the world’s oxygen. The tropical forests help slow climate change by acting as giant carbon sinks, absorbing and storing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
All this biological heritage was threatened by money and oil revenues. The story goes back to 2012, when the government allocated indigenous lands to oil companies to ease their international debts.
Fearing the destruction of their land, water and culture, the Waorani people waged a historic seven-year legal battle against the government, ending with a court ruling that protects half a million acres of Amazon forest from oil exploration. The ruling also blocks other government plans to set aside more than 7 million acres of indigenous land for oil exploration.
The Waorani victory in court is a historic victory for indigenous communities fighting to protect the world's last remaining wild forests, and is the first lesson learned from indigenous peoples who stand firm in their struggle to defend the Amazon ecosystem, the lungs of the world, on behalf of all humanity.
Taiwanese Kavalan People and Sustainable Economy Approach
Part of the indigenous peoples community of the Taiwanese Plains, living in the country's northeastern coastal region, adopted a lifestyle based on agriculture and hunting, producing enough for their needs.
The Kavalan people have achieved self-sufficiency through a sustainable economy that focuses on resources management and waste utilization.
The abundance of banana trees in Kavalan lands led to the introduction of banana stems and peels into the clothing industry, which became a handicraft for the Kavalan people.
The Kavalan people weave cloth to make their traditional clothing, as well as everyday accessories such as belts, cloaks and handbags. The craft is preserved by indigenous elders as part of the important intangible cultural heritage of Taiwan's indigenous peoples, passed down through generations.
As the textile industry moves towards a more environmentally friendly future, banana fibers, which has been used by the Kavalan people for centuries, has proven to be one of the most important natural fibers and sustainable alternatives in textiles. It is strong, durable, low-cost and biodegradable, and is based on the concept of using waste; instead of taking the banana trunk to the waste, its outer fibers are dried, woven and transformed into useful products that can be recycled again.
The Witoto People and Sustainable Agriculture
They are a South American people who live in southeastern Colombia and northern Peru. The Wituto people's farming methods are efficient and sustainable, and rely on slash-and-burn agriculture, a system of agriculture in which farmers routinely move from one arable area to another.
These systems have been environmentally sustainable for thousands of years, because the soils in many tropical regions, such as the forests of South America, are very poor in nutrients, so slash-and-burn farming is one of the only types of agriculture that can be practiced in these regions, and it relies on a variety of crops rather than monocultures.
These traditional agricultural practices, such as crop rotation and the use of organic fertilizers, contribute to improving soil health, in addition to good water management through the adoption of advanced water collection and irrigation systems that reduce waste. Shifting cultivation contributes to increasing biodiversity by creating new habitats.
Native people of North America
Known in the media as American Indians or Red Indians, they have adopted many traditional techniques that have proven their sustainability and provide solutions to the repercussions of climate change. One of these practices that has re-emerged after the spread of forest fires around the world due to drought, low humidity and high temperatures is the "Fighting Fire with Fire" technique.
It relies on deliberately setting small, controlled fires to burn brush and remove trees that tend to shade the forest. This traditional practice safely mimics nature, with the goal of making the forest open rather than closed and dense, because forest habitats shaded by large tree crowns are more susceptible to fire spread and catastrophic fires, as is currently the case.
This technique has been used for centuries by indigenous peoples of North America, as fire is a natural part of the ecosystem and has played an important role in preserving forest structure and biodiversity in ancient times.
