Indigenous Wisdom
“We value the forest as much as we value people because we believe it has a spirit,”
- Helena Gualinga of the Sarayaku community, Ecuador.
Indigenous people are increasingly considered “the custodians of our Earth’s precious resources”, according to DESA (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs), in an overdue recognition of the huge role these cultures play in protecting the natural environment for all of us collectively facing the climate crisis.
Indigenous or traditional wisdom refers to the ancestral knowledge carried through generations within the customs and traditions of native communities, usually associated with their region. It includes subsistence practices such as hunting and agriculture, as well as holistic medicine, crafts, ecological preservation, midwifery, and navigation techniques; all gained through observation and longstanding interaction with their living environment; each providing essential tools for their survival and that of the local ecosystem.
This wisdom enshrines an intimate understanding of local ecosystems, as well as a wealth of conservation methods vital to ensuring biodiversity, making Indigenous groups some of the most uniquely important voices in the ongoing conversations about land rights and climate change.
Many even live and work as land defenders, risking their own lives out of a deep need to care for the lands which provide their livelihoods. As such, the modern world has a lot to learn from Indigenous people, who are informed by a reverence for the Earth’s cycles and limitations, which likewise forms the basis of many Indigenous people’s spiritual beliefs. This awareness of humanity’s dependence upon nature is the foundation of their respect for nature and impulse to conserve it.
However, it is precisely this expertise that places Indigenous communities under threat of eviction or even death, as governments and private corporations alike attempt to undermine any claim to natural resources that might otherwise provide profit for extractive industries (despite destroying the environment in the process).
Some Indigenous and First Nation groups preserve wisdom for future generations through the Seven Generations concept, a practice of environmental stewardship—believed to have begun with the Iroquois (a First Nation people of modern-day North America)—that teaches the current generation to live and work for the benefit of the seventh generation to come, in part by holding onto information from seven generations prior. It is a direct communication with learned ancestral knowledge and provides a model for sustainable practice by always looking about 150 years to the future in every action.
In a recent study from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the eleven featured Indigenous communities all showed themselves to be “self-reliant and resilient, living sustainably and in harmony with their ecosystems, even when inhabiting harsh environments”. Resilience is a key lesson to take from each of these different communities, who sustain themselves without depleting the natural resources around them. Indigenous lifestyle traditions include hunting, gathering and fishing; alongside conscious cultivation and shifting of crops, as well as nomadism, which are all essential to regenerative agriculture.
Adaptability too, is a principle for sustainable living seen among Indigenous communities: it is this quality that allows them to be so resilient, in fact. According to Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Anne Nuorgam,
“Indigenous peoples adapt their food generation and consumption to the seasonality and natural cycles observed in their surrounding ecosystems, not in the opposite way as most other societies do.”
In the pressure-cooker context of the climate emergency and the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be wise then for mainstream societies to learn from this proven adaptability and resilience.
One of the greatest lessons we can learn from the myriad Indigenous groups operating in harmony with their ecosystems is humility. For modern society to become sustainable, we must restructure the current paradigm, rather than recreating more top-down procedures. Ecological conservation needs to be a grassroots movement, starting with the voices of those whose way of life best demonstrates how to avoid the worst of climate change (and whose way of life is most threatened by it). Indigenous knowledge comes from patterns of observation and awareness of the living environment, so it is through observation and awareness of our own limitations that we must begin this journey of healing.
As demonstrated in the Seven Generations concept, the best way to provide for the future is by looking to the wisdom of the past. By turning to our ancestral roots and to the keepers of indispensable knowledge for advice, we will be better able to foster planetary health for the years to come. This starts with protecting those who have continued to live in communion with the natural world.
