Press Release: 13 June 2012
UNU-UNESCO Book Launch: “Weathering Uncertainty: Traditional knowledge for
climate change assessment and adaptation”
Turning tables on climate change: indigenous and local community
assessments of impacts and adaptation
“In recent years there has been a growing awareness that scientific knowledge
alone is inadequate for solving the climate crisis. The knowledge of local and
indigenous peoples is increasingly recognized as an important source of climate
knowledge and adaptation strategies.”
--From the book: Weathering Uncertainty (2012)
On 13 June 2012, UNU and UNESCO launched their new book “Weathering Uncertainty:
traditional knowledge for climate change assessment and adaptation” at the International
Council for Science’s Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable
Development, linking science and policy at Rio+20. This unique resource draws attention to a
rapidly growing scientific literature on the contribution of indigenous and traditional
knowledge to understanding climate change vulnerability, resilience and adaptation. It
broadens the awareness and understanding of these knowledge systems for climate change
scientists and decision-makers, including authors and reviewers of the forthcoming Fifth
Assessment Report (AR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
For indigenous communities around the world, climate change impacts are not a future
prospect. Familiar homelands are already disrupted by unusual occurrences that fall outside
the lived experience of community elders. Seasonal rains arrive late or fail altogether, sea ice
platforms break-up earlier than in previous springs, king tides flood villages and contaminate
food gardens with saltwater. Indigenous peoples bear witness to these worrisome
transformations of hereditary territories and their life-giving resources. As they have always
done in the past, they make careful observations, exchange information and experiences, and
debate their significance and implications for the future. This growing indigenous knowledge
of the unfolding of climate change and its effects on people’s lives is an immense, but as yet
little known resource for the global community. It constitutes the very heart of indigenous
peoples’ resilience in the face of change.
For generations, we have managed ecosystems nurturing their integrity and
complexity in sustainable and culturally diverse ways… Traditional knowledge,
innovations and adaptation practices embody local adaptive management to the
changing environment, and complement scientific research, observations and
monitoring.
--Statement from the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (2009)
Despite the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) in Rio two decades ago, the global debate has been dominated almost exclusively
by climate scientists and policy-makers. Only in 2007, with the release of IPCC’s iconoclastic
Fourth Assessment Report, did the centre of gravity shift away from climate science and
towards climate change adaptation. In its Fourth Assessment Report, IPCC also recognized
traditional knowledge as ‘an invaluable basis for developing adaptation and natural resource
management strategies in response to environmental and other forms of change.’ The
challenge for the Authors and Reviewers of the Fifth AR to be released in 2014 is to convert
that recognition into a genuine incorporation of indigenous observations, knowledge and
interpretations, alongside science, into the processes of climate change assessment and
adaptation.
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Gretchen Kalonji, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for the
Natural Sciences, emphasized that “This new UNESCO-UNU book underlines the critical
role that indigenous peoples and local communities can play in ongoing international efforts
to monitor the progress of global climate change impacts and to develop capacities to
respond.” Professor Govindan Parayil, Vice-Rector of the UNU, added, “One of the most
valuable outcomes for us during this collaborative process has been the intimate interaction it
is encouraging between IPPC authors, climate scientists, indigenous experts, and community
representatives. This sort of collaboration is providing important support for effective
adaptation action on the ground.”
Resilience in the face of change is rooted in indigenous knowledge and know-how
--From the book: Weathering Uncertainty (2012)
For the global community, climate change adaptation is a new challenge. Neither scientists
nor indigenous knowledge holders know the shape of things to come. But even though the
climate change challenge is global, adaptation will happen locally. For this reason, it is
essential to understand local impacts and to build adaptation planning and action around
community-level concerns, priorities and aspirations. Indigenous knowledge and communitybased coping strategies provide a foundation for national adaptation planning that can be both
appropriate and effective.
Effective adaptation policies will need to be formulated on the basis of interdisciplinary
research that brings together indigenous knowledge holders and scientists, both natural and
social, to build mutual understanding and reinforce dialogue. It is essential that indigenous
peoples – who are active resource users and bearers of traditional knowledge – play a central
role in this process. Recent partnerships between indigenous peoples and scientists are
producing new knowledge in response to the emerging challenges of climate change. This coproduced knowledge that derives from synergies between both systems of knowledge may
point the way forward to promising and productive ways to address the complexities of
climate change adaptation.
The choice of adaptation policies is significant as they may either reinforce
community resilience, enabling them to mobilize fully their endogenous adaptive
capacities, or hamper or undermine their response.
-- From the book: Weathering Uncertainty (2012)
Further information:
About the publication:
Weathering Uncertainty: traditional knowledge for climate
change assessment and adaptation”. Co-published by UNESCO
and UNU, the volume is the product of an inter-agency
partnership that also includes the Secretariat of the Convention
on Biological Diversity and the UNDP GEF Small Grants
Programme. The document was first planned and its preparation
discussed at the international experts meeting on “Indigenous
Peoples, Marginalized Populations and Climate Change” that
was held in Mexico from 19-21 July 2011, jointly organised
with IPCC’s Working Group II on Adaptation, SCBD, UNDPGEF SGP, UNESCO and UNU.
In its 120 pages, Weathering Uncertainty references 280
publications from the scientific literature (peer-reviewed and
grey) and covers themes at the core of the Fifth AR such as
foundations for decision-making on indigenous knowledge, traditional livelihoods,
vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation policy and planning. The report, which is freely
available to specialists, indigenous communities and the general public, can be downloaded at
www.ipmpcc.org
About the launch event:
Speakers
 Gretchen Kalonji, UNESCO ADG for the Natural Sciences
 Professor Govindan Parayil, UNU Vice Rector
 Myrna Cunningham, UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (TBC)
 UNDP Director of Energy & Environment Group (TBC)
Additional details:
 The full publication will be available for download at www.ipmpcc.org and
http://www.unutki.org/news.php?news_id=135&doc_id=103 following the launch.
 Media representatives are cordially invited to attend the launch. It will be held on 13
June 2012 (17h40 to 18h00) in Rio de Janeiro at the ICSU Science and Technology
Forum (Plenary Thematic Session Indigenous Knowledge and Science: From
Recognition to Knowledge Co-production).
 Lead authors are available for interview and comment: Kirsty Galloway McLean
(g_mclean@ias.unu.edu, Melbourne, Australia, English), Ameyali Ramos Castillo
(ramos@ias.unu.edu, Washington DC, USA, English/Spanish) and Jennifer Rubis
(j.rubis@unesco.org, onsite in Rio de Janeiro, English/French).
 Publication details: Nakashima, D.J., Galloway McLean, K., Thulstrup, H.D., Ramos
Castillo, A. and Rubis, J.T. 2012. Weathering Uncertainty: Traditional Knowledge for
Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation. UNESCO/UNU Paris/Darwin.
 For more information on the partners supporting this initiative, please visit:
o Indigenous Peoples, Marginalized Populations and Climate Change
www.ipmpcc.org
o United Nations University - Traditional Knowledge Initiative
http://www.unutki.org
o UNESCO - Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems
www.climatefrontlines.org and http://www.unesco.org/links
o Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) www.cbd.int
o UNDP-GEF Small Grants Programme http://sgp.undp.org/