Indigenous people on the front line They are the key in the fight against climate change - and the first victims
The island of Gardí Sugdub ("crab island") is in danger of sinking into the sea due to climate change.
Image: Matias Delacroix/AP
Around 1,350 people from the indigenous Guna ethnic group have been forced to leave their island and move to the mainland.
Image: Matias Delacroix/AP
Pastoral peoples such as the Maasai in Kenya have had to leave some of their settlement areas due to climate change.
Image: dpa
Severe droughts are threatening the traditional way of life of pastoral peoples in East Africa.
Image: dpa
In Indonesia, huge areas of forest are being cut down because of the global palm oil boom.
Image: dpa
Palm oil is used in the production of chocolate cream, cookies and many ready-made products.
Image: dpa
The island of Gardí Sugdub ("crab island") is in danger of sinking into the sea due to climate change.
Image: Matias Delacroix/AP
Around 1,350 people from the indigenous Guna ethnic group have been forced to leave their island and move to the mainland.
Image: Matias Delacroix/AP
Pastoral peoples such as the Maasai in Kenya have had to leave some of their settlement areas due to climate change.
Image: dpa
Severe droughts are threatening the traditional way of life of pastoral peoples in East Africa.
Image: dpa
In Indonesia, huge areas of forest are being cut down because of the global palm oil boom.
Image: dpa
Palm oil is used in the production of chocolate cream, cookies and many ready-made products.
Image: dpa
They are considered key in the fight against global warming, but are also the first victims of rising sea levels and melting glaciers: for indigenous peoples, climate change is a matter of survival.
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- Due to their special knowledge of the ecosystems in which they live, indigenous peoples are considered key in the fight against climate change.
- At the same time, they are the first to feel the consequences of global warming, such as rising sea levels or melting glaciers.
- Although indigenous peoples make up only five percent of the world's population, they manage around 80 percent of global biodiversity.
Indigenous peoples around the world are something of an early warning system for climate change: as indigenous peoples in Africa, Asia, the South Pacific and Latin America often live in close contact with nature, they are the first to feel the consequences of global warming.
Due to their special knowledge of the ecosystems in which they live, they are also considered by experts to be key in the fight against climate change.
Guardians of large forest areas and ecosystems
According to a study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), where indigenous communities have documented rights to their land, for example, significantly less land is deforested than in other areas.
"Indigenous peoples are important actors because although they make up only five percent of the world's population, they manage around 80 percent of the world's biodiversity and are the custodians of large forest areas and ecosystems that are crucial to the well-being of the planet," says Germán Freire from the World Bank.
Severe droughts and rising sea levels, deforestation and the destruction of their habitat, environmental pollution and extreme weather events - the challenges facing indigenous groups are many and varied. Here are some examples of the dangers faced by indigenous peoples and how they are dealing with them:
New home due to rising sea levels
Due to the threat of flooding caused by rising sea levels, the inhabitants of a small island in Panama were relocated to the mainland last year. Around 1,350 people from the indigenous Guna ethnic group moved to the newly built settlement of Nuevo Cartí on Panama's north coast. The exodus of the Guna is considered one of the first resettlements forced by climate change in Latin America.
The island of Gardí Sugdub ("Crab Island") is located around two kilometers from the Atlantic coast of Panama. Experts believe that it is likely to sink completely by 2050 due to climate change.
In the South Pacific, the inhabitants of island groups such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and Fiji will also soon have to look for a new home. Tuvalu in particular, which lies to the north-east of Australia, will be largely submerged in the coming decades. Last year, Australia announced that it would take in affected people from the South Pacific state and grant them permanent residency.
Traditional food sources in danger
The Walande community in the Solomon Islands, south-east of New Guinea, had to relocate years ago. Until then, the 800 indigenous people lived on a small island off the coast. After devastating spring tides in 2009, all the inhabitants moved to the mainland. But even there, the people are not safe, as the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently warned. "At the new location, seawater is breaking through the protective dykes," it said in a report.
Traditional food sources are also under threat: gardens and fields are simply being washed away and there are fewer and fewer fish. "Walande's story is a warning that communities cannot tackle the climate crisis alone," said Erica Bower, climate displacement expert at HRW. The government has a duty to help those affected.
Pastoralists in Africa flee drought
In East Africa, on the other hand, there is a lack of water: pastoralists such as the Maasai, Turkana, Samburu and Borana are having to leave their traditional grazing areas due to persistent droughts and irregular rainfall. According to the World Bank, climatic conditions in the region led to the death of more than ten million livestock in 2021 and 2022.
According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), around 2.1 million people became climate refugees in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia alone in 2022. In addition, many pastoralist families have been forced to abandon their nomadic lifestyle and move to cities.
In order to stem the climate exodus of pastoralists, various initiatives in the Horn of Africa aim to restore degraded soils through sustainable grazing techniques and reforestation. To bridge periods of drought, water sources are protected by building rainwater catchment systems and dams. There are also projects to diversify sources of income for herders, for example by growing drought-resistant crops or processing dairy products.
Traditional ways of life under threat
Rising temperatures and droughts in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana are threatening the animal and plant species on which the indigenous San people, who are mainly hunter-gatherers, traditionally depend, according to the United Nations' International Biodiversity Council (IPBES).
According to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the loss of biodiversity is also affecting the spiritual and healing practices of the San. For example, the thorny Hoodia plant, which has been used by the San for centuries for medicinal purposes, is severely threatened by climate change, but also by excessive harvesting by the pharmaceutical industry.
Possible solutions: Sustainable agriculture and reforestation
Namibia's government has allocated communal nature reserves to the ethnic group, such as the Nyae Nyae Conservancy in the north-east of the country. Here, the cultural and economic practices of the San are to be protected through reforestation, sustainable hunting and agriculture as well as ecological education measures.
Land rights for indigenous people are key in the fight against climate change
The indigenous Dayak Tomun from the village of Kinipan on Borneo have been fighting for years against the advance of palm oil plantations and for the protection of the rainforest in which they live. The region in Kalimantan, Indonesia, is home to some of the last remaining orangutans and other endangered wild animals.
Rainforests play a crucial role in the global climate: they remove greenhouse gases from the air and serve as huge carbon reservoirs. But on Borneo in particular, huge areas of forest are being cut down because of the global palm oil boom.
The Dayak Tomun have been trying for years to secure the rights to the forest area. They have submitted all the necessary documents and expert opinions several times - so far without success. "In reality, indigenous communities are only recognized after great effort and extremely rarely, although they lived here long before the state of Indonesia existed," wrote the organization "Save the Rainforest". Companies, on the other hand, can easily obtain concessions for timber, plantations and mining without the indigenous people even being consulted.
