Side Event

Indigneous and local communities, their traditional Knowledge and responses to Climate change

Organizer
UNESCO-LINKS, Climate Frontlines, Indigenous Peoples Climate Change Assessment, Climate Witness (WWF) and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity

Date and Time
22 October 2010 13:15 - 14:45

Meeting
Tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 10)

Global climate change is expected to transform the world’s biodiversity, with major impacts on livelihoods of indigenous and local communities. While scientists struggle to predict climate change outcomes at global and regional scales, indigenous communities grapple with assessing impacts on their well-being and building appropriate adaptation strategies within their biocultural systems. But adaptation requires partnerships that bridge, not only spatial scales, but also boundaries between actors and systems of knowledge. While community inputs and biocultural perspectives to climate change debates are an urgent necessity, they have so far been marginalized. This session brings together international efforts that highlight traditional knowledge, experience, resilience building and coping strategies as foundations for community-level response to climate change. The goal is to reinforce collaboration among these efforts so as to ensure that community perspectives become an integral part of climate change decision-making.