Paper
Local Knowledge and Climate Science: Partners for Managing the Climate Crisis in Africa and the Global South
presenters
Geoffrey Nwaka
Nationality: Nigeria
Residence: Nigeria
Abia State University, Uturu
Presence:Face to Face/ On Site
Long after political independence, African knowledge systems have continued to be undervalued because of the dominance of Eurocentric mindsets and practices. We argue that climate science needs to be decolonized to integrate the traditional knowledge of local communities in Africa and the Global South. These communities contribute least to, but suffer the most from the negative impacts of climate change. The industrialized countries tend unjustly to blame the poor countries of the Global South for using natural resources in an unsustainable way, thus worsening the climate crisis; but in fact most of these traditional societies have deeply entrenched ideas about conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources because their livelihoods depend largely on the land and the stability of the ecosystem. They believe that land and other forms of nature are sacred, and are held in trust by present day users on behalf of dead ancestors and future generations. They have over the years developed intricate systems of forecasting weather systems in order to prevent and mitigate natural disasters. The unprecedented scale of climate change today may have undermined the reliability of many traditional indicators for predicting the pattern of climate variability, as well as the techniques for preventing and adapting to climate induced natural disasters. There is therefore a need for those who hold and use traditional knowledge to partner with scientists and other stakeholders to co-produce updated knowledge for better climate risk management. While Africa and the Global South stand to gain from global science and international best practices, we argue that researchers and the development community should recognize the value and continuing relevance of different knowledge systems, and the need for intercultural dialogue.
Keywords:
Africa, Local Knowledge, Climate Science, Partnershipp