Merging science, traditional knowledge could benefit climate adaptation

Johann Earle in AlertNet: A conservation and research organisation in Guyana is teaming up with indigenous people to benefit the country’s forest communities and provide insights into weather and climate change.

A team of water experts this year has begun research to determine the effects of climate change on two ecosystems – tropical forests and savannah wetlands – straddled by the Iwokrama reserve, an area of 371,000 hectares (917,000 acres) in the centre of Guyana. People living on reserve are using their traditional knowledge of the land to help the researchers, and at the same time learning new ways to strengthen their food and economic security.

Isabella Bovolo, resident scientist at the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development (IIC), an international organisation established in 1996 by the government of Guyana and the Commonwealth Secretariat, said that the goal of the research is to examine the changes likely to take place where the two ecosystems border each other as temperatures warm.

 “We are expecting that any effects of climate change will be more prominent at the boundary because we have the forest and the savannah meeting. Whether the forest is advancing or the savannah is advancing, we would see that at the boundary first,” Bovolo said.

...Sydney Allicock, an Amerindian community leader from North Rupununi, believes it is important for science and traditional indigenous knowledge to work together on solutions to problems, including those caused by growing population pressure on forests and savannahs lands. Allicock emphasised that local communities have traditionally used their environmental knowledge to live in a sustainable way....

Kaietur Falls in Guyana, shot by Sorenriise, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license