Indigenous environmental knowledge and climate change adaptation

Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples: The Search for Legal Remedies

Volumn , Issue , 2013, Pages 96-122

  Burkett, Maxine ^a  

^a University of Hawaii William S Richardson School of Law   (United States)

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EID: 84881928565     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Chapter

References (42)

1. S. Solomon, et al., 'Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions', PNAS, 28 January 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0812721106
2. T.M.L. Wigley, 'The Climate Change Commitment', 307(5716) Science 1766-9 (2005)..
3. W.N. Adger, S. Agrawala, M.M.Q. Mirza, C. Conde, K. O'Brien, J. Pulhin, R. Pulwarty, B. Smit and K. Takahashi, 'Assessment of adaptation practices, options, constraints and capacity' in M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden and C.E. Hanson (eds), Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 717-43 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007)
4. F. Berkes, J. Colding, C. Folke, 'Rediscovery of Traditional Ecological Knowledge as Adaptive Management', 10(5), Traditional Ecological Applications 1251, 1252 (2000).
5. IIED briefing, Community-based adaptation to climate change: an update (June 2009), available at pubs.iied.org/pdfs/17064IIED.pdf (last visited 8 September 2012).
6. Researchers identify indigenous knowledge as a 'crucial foundation for community based adaptation and mitigation actions that can sustain resilience of social-ecological systems at the interdependent local, regional, and global scales'. Gleb Raygorodetsky, 'The Key to Addressing Climate Change - Indigenous Knowledge', Nat'l Geographic News, 6 February 2012. The latter point - on the promise of integrating key governing principles based on indigenous world views - has not been explored adequately. In fact, the need to expand this research to benefit the law of climate change adaptation is the main thesis of this chapter.
7. See Mirjam Macchi et al., 'Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and Climate Change', Issues Paper, IUCN, March 2008 (describing the relegation of indigenous and traditional people to the least fertile and most fragile lands as a consequence of historical, social, political and economic exclusion). Neither the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change nor the Kyoto Protocol mentioned indigenous communities, despite their clearly vulnerable status. The Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC puts greater emphasis on the value of indigenous input, a sentiment affirmed in 2010 with the following: 'indigenous or traditional knowledge may prove useful for understanding the potential of certain adaptation strategies that are cost-effective, participatory and sustainable'. IPCC XXXII/ Doc. 7, InterAcademy Council, Review of the IPCC Processes and Procedures, Thirty-Second Session of the IPCC, at 33.
8. See infra Part II.A. for a discussion of the dangers of essentializing the indigenous experience and their worldview.
9. Clarence Alexander et al., 'Linking Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge of Climate Change', 61 BioScience 477, 478 (2001).
10. See infra Part III.A.
11. Bosire Maragia, 'The Indigenous Sustainability Paradox and the Quest for Sustainability in Post-Colonial Societies: Is Indigenous Knowledge All that is Needed?', 18 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 197, 202 (2006).
12. For example, in Hawai'i, while Native Hawaiian and Japanese-American communities in the state may hold local environmental knowledge in common, only Native Hawaiians hold indigenous environmental knowledge.
13. See also Justin Gilligan et al., 'The Value of Integrating Traditional, Local and Scientific Knowledge', in Rick Riewe and Jill Oakes (eds), Climate Change: Linking Traditional and Scientific Knowledge (Aboriginal Issues Press, Winnipeg 2006).
14. Sandra Styres et al., 'Walking in Two Worlds: Engaging the Space Between Indigenous Community and Academia', 33 Can. J. of Ed. 617, 619 (2010).
15. This definition is derived from Berkes' and Gilligan's definitions of traditional knowledge.
16. Melissa L. Finucane, 'Why Science Alone Won't Solve the Climate Crisis: Managing Climate Risks in the Pacific', 89 AsiaPacific Issues, at 3 (Aug. 2009).
17. Rebecca Tsosie, 'Tribal Environmental Policy in an Era of Self-Determination: The Role of Ethics, Economics, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge', 21 Vt. L. Rev. 225, 268 (1996).
18. IIED Briefing, Adapting agriculture with traditional knowledge (October 2011) (discussing the IPCC's acknowledgement of the role of IEK and the United Nations University's recent study that identified over 400 examples of indigenous peoples' roles in climate change monitoring, adaptation, and mitigation).
19. Jan Salik and Nanci Ross, 'Traditional Peoples and Climate Change', 19 Global Envtl. Change 137-9 (2009).
20. Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, 'Swinomish Climate Change Initiative Climate Adaptation Action Plan', available at http://www.swinomishnsn. gov/climate_change/Docs/SITC_CC_AdaptationActionPlan_complete.pdf (last visited 31 August 2012). At the country level, integration of IEK and climate adaptation planning can be found in National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA).
21. See, for example, Republic of Kiribati NAPA 2007.
22. Ariel Lugo, 'Management of tropical biodiversity', 5 Ecological Applications
23. J.B. Ruhl describes the 'no-analog future' as ecological variability unprecedented in the history of ecology, riddled with nonlinear feedback and feedforward loops, previously unknown emergent properties, and new thresholds of irreversible change. J. B. Ruhl, 'Climate Change Adaptation and the Structural Transformation of Environmental Law', 40 Envtl. L. 343 (2010). Recent hailstorms on the windward side of O'ahu, Hawai'i are evidence of the 'no-analog' future. http://kailua.hawaiinewsnow.com/news/news/86434-severe-weather-system-dumps-hail-waimanalo (last visited 31 August 2012).
24. Alaska Native Science Commission 2, 'What is Traditional Knowledge?', available at http://www.nativescience.org/HTML/traditional_knowledge.html (last visited 31 August 2012) ('At best, piecemeal extraction of traditional knowledge from its larger cultural context invites misrepresentation and misinterpretation. At worst, it represents a former misappropriation and cultural exploitation').
25. Indeed, community, connectedness, and humility have all been core principles identified in the emergent scholarship on the law of adaptation.
26. See discussion, infra Part III.A.
27. Conference (May 2011) (describing the importance of traditional knowledge for food security in their construction of their socio-ecological resilience framework).
28. Styres et al. may still argue otherwise.
29. See Sandra Styres et al., 'Walking in Two Worlds: Engaging the Space Between Indigenous Community and Academia', 33 Can. J. of Ed. 617, 619 (2010) (finding that historically and even contemporarily, indigenous ways of knowing and being have, for the most part, not found a space of legitimacy within academic disciplinary discourse).
30. Victor B. Flatt, 'Adapting Law for a Changing World: A Systemic Approach to Climate Change Adaptation', 64 Fla. L. Rev. 269, 275 (2012).
31. Sarah Krakoff, 'Radical Adaptation, Justice, and American Indian Nations', 4 Envtl. Just. 207 (2011).
32. J.B. Ruhl, 'General Design Principles for Resilience and Adaptive Capacity in Legal Systems - with Applications to Climate Change Adaptation', 89 N.C. L. Rev. 1373, 1375-6 (2011).
33. In re Water Use Permit Applications, Waiahole Ditch Combined Contested Case Hearing ('Waiahole I'), 9 P.3d 409 (2000).
34. See generally Kylie Wager, 'Atmospheric Trust Litigation and Hawai'i's Public Trust Doctrine', at 5 (manuscript on file with author).
35. Haw. Rev. Stat. Const. art. XI, § 1 (2011).
36. P.3d 409, 440-41 (Haw. 2000)
37. Robinson v Ariyoshi, 658 P.2d 287, 310-311 (Haw. 1982).
38. Fletcher, 'Hawai'i's Changing Climate', ICAP Briefing Sheet 2010, available at http://www.islandclimate.net/publications/ (last visited 8 September 2012).
39. Robin Kundis Craig, 'Adapting to Climate Change: The Potential Role of State Common-Law Public Trust Doctrines', 34 Vt. L. Rev. 781, 781 (2010).
40. Though not explicitly stated, the Hawai'i Supreme Court treats it as such.
41. See, for example, Robinson v Ariyoshi, 658 P.2d 287 (1982).
42. David Caron, 'When Law Makes Climate Change Worse: Rethinking the Law of Baselines in Light of a Rising Sea Level', 17 Ecology L.Q. 621, 653 (1990).