Indigenous peoples have a unique connection to their lands and dependency on natural resources, making them highly vulnerable to climate change. While traditional knowledge has allowed adaptation over generations, increasing climate impacts and loss of land and resources have reduced indigenous peoples' ability to adapt. This document examines how climate change and other pressures are constraining the room to maneuver of indigenous groups in five regions, threatening their livelihoods, cultures, and resilience. Adaptation will require securing indigenous rights and lands, empowering local institutions, and recognizing diverse knowledge and strategies through collaborative approaches.

1. Limited room for manoeuvre: Indigenous
peoples and adaptation strategies
Jakob Kronik
Seminar
Climate Change Adaptation and
Development:
Transforming Paradigms and Practices
Friday 23 January at Norad, Oslo

2. What do these people have in common?
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• 380mio. indigenous peoples (compared to USA 318mio.)
• unique ways of life and connection to land and highly dependency
upon natural resources
• marginalized status in the states they live
• among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change
• the conditions necessary for the reproduction of their culture, social
structures, and knowledge systems are under severe pressure

3. Traditional knowledge based adaptation
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• knowledge systems are based on experiments with nature
• juxtaposed with a stock of knowledge developed over time
• and passed on through generations
• The ability to predict and interpret natural phenomena, incl.
weather conditions, has been vital for survival and well-being
• and has also been instrumental in the development of local
cultural practices, social structures, trust, and authority
Photos: Kasserine, Tunisia

4. Institutions under pressure
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• However, while the importance and sophistication of
indigenous knowledge is well-documented
• by itself it can rarely provide an effective approach to
adaptation to climate change and variability today
• because of the increasingly limited room for manoeuvre
accorded to indigenous peoples.
Photos: Kasserine, Tunisia

5. room for manoeuvre is…
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• people’s ability to strategically exploit livelihood options
• constraints to people’s ability to react and adapt to changing
conditions, such as…
• limitations on water, arable land, or wild plant and animal
resources, and defined by
• Political, legal and economic space and capacity for
diversification, that allows for, or limit
• innovations and responses developed locally
Photos: Tozeur, Tunisia

6. 4 dimensions, 5 countries in LAC and MENA
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Colombian
Amazon
i) Climate change phenomena and impact
ii) vulnerability
iii) Adaptation strategies, and
iv) how shifts in CC and other conditions define
peoples room for manouevre
Nicaraguan
Caribbean coast
Bolivian Andes
Tunisian arid and
semi-arid regions
Syrian Badia – arid
steppe region

7. i) Climate change impact
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Colombian
Amazon
Severe drought, irregularity of seasons, profoundly
affecting tropical forests
Nicaraguan
Caribbean coast
Increased intensity of hurricanes, endangering entire
ecosystems, and human lives. Warming & acidification
of oceans threaten mangroves and coral reefs.
Bolivian Andes
Increasing mean temperatures, causing drought and
glacier retreat; variations in seasonality. changes in
patterns and intensity of rainfall, hailstorms, frosts.
Tunisian arid and
semi-arid regions
Combined impact of increasing temperatures, reduced
and variable precipitation and sea-level rise (increasing
salt-water intrusion) projected to increase water
scarcity and frequency of droughts and flooding.
Syrian Badia – arid
steppe region
Greatest warming in summer night-time temperatures,
average and extreme minimum temperatures up across
the region, increased drought & water scarcity.

8. ii) vulnerability
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Colombian
Amazon
Out of sync seasonal events directly affect livelihoods;
unprecedented changes in the timing of frosts, heavy rains,
and drought disrupt the agricultural cycle. Traditional
knowledge and practices under pressure
Nicaraguan
Caribbean coast
Increased intensity of storms limit access to fisheries, forests,
arable land, and destroys infrastructure. Increased
vulnerability of those relying on mangroves & coral reefs
Bolivian Andes
Increase in crop and livestock pests and diseases; reduced
ability to produce small-scale crops due to shorter season
and fewer viable locations
Tunisian arid
and semi-arid
regions
Seasonal cycle of arboriculture species is affected by
temperature peaks. Oases particularly vulnerable to water
scarcity and encroachment by urban areas and sand dunes.
Syrian Badia –
arid steppe
region
Disturbances in seasonal rhythms affect crop and livestock
production and natural forage availability. Longer dry
seasons reduce grazing time. Loss of vital social and cultural
assets. Migration: livelihood strategy - community resilience.

9. iii) adaptation strategies
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Colombian
Amazon
Livelihood depend on forest and water resources, and fish
and game for protein. Those close to urban centres depend
on secondary forest horticulture, cash crops, commercial
fishing, wage labour, tourism, handicrafts sale.
Nicaraguan
Caribbean coast
Heavy direct and indirect reliance on natural resources for all
populations. The Miskitu occupy all the productive zones in
the area (fishing, agriculture, and hunting)
Bolivian Andes
Agriculture, including arable crop and livestock production.
Crop production for own consumption and local market sale
Tunisian arid
and semi-arid
regions
Pastoralism and agriculture, some using the traditional
three-tier cultivation system of the oases.
Syrian Badia –
arid steppe
region
Migratory pastoralism and herd management; intricate use
of natural resources and livelihood strategies heavily
dependant on cultural, human, and social assets.

10. iv) How shifts in CC ao.conditions define peoples room for manouevre
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Colombian
Amazon
Effects of climate change exacerbated by deforestation and
forest fragmentation.
Western Colombian Amazon: colonization, armed conflict,
illegal crops, and deforestation have had a great impact.
Nicaraguan
Caribbean
coast
Colonization limit control over resources after hurricane
destroyed forest. Coastal communities are slowly inserting
themselves into an market economy
Bolivian
Andes
Strong indigenist and workers’ unions translate into political,
social and legal opportunities; however pressure on NR from
mineral & hydrocarbon extraction
Tunisian arid
and semi-arid
regions
Land degradation due to expansion of crops and arboriculture,
overgrazing, etc. Lack of social capital = shame and uncertainty
about being able to repay debt.
Syrian Badia –
arid steppe
region
Traditional herding has become a business, = current lack of
resilience to long-term droughts = increased pressure on
grazing and water resources = increased dependence on loans
from feed traders

11. Key assets under pressure
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Photos: Douz, Kebili & Zafrane
Medenine. Jakob Kronik
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
Perceived drought intensity
Physical Assets
Financial Assets
Environmental Assets
(water)
Environmental Assets
(grazing)
Cultural Assets
Social_Assets
1990 2010
Bedu perceptions of drought intensity and assessments of
key livelihood strategy indicators
Badia steppe region of Syria, 1990 and 2010

12. Some serious cause/ effect relationship between
changing climactic conditions and livelihood
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• This combined pressure has extreme effects on
social structures:
• – on the formal and informal institutions,
networks, relations of trust, kinship, and
friendship that constitute the ‘glue’ of rural
communities and have crucial implications for
livelihoods.
• It undermines ritual practices, joint social
memory, and the ability of elders to maintain
social order.
• Societal and institutional disintegration –
unrest, migration…
Photos: Tozeur, Tunisia

13. Adaptation within a limited
room for manoeuvre -
threats and opportunities
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• High level international policy and political
economy decisions carry the potential to
resolve long-term sustainable development
issues for poverty-ridden regions
• however, the development dynamics and
actors seems to make local communities ‘more
polarized, more uncertain, more worried, and
still poor’
Photos: Gafsa, Tunisia

14. Adaptation within a limited
room for manoeuvre –
what to do?
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• securing the long-term social, cultural and
environmental conditions for sustained
indigenous livelihoods.
• real consultation, capacity building and
institutional strengthening of the parties
involved
• including local and national institutions and
their civil servants
• and with full participation
Photos: Gafsa, Tunisia

15. 27-01-2015 15Limited room for manoeuvre: Indigenous peoples and adaptation strategies
• Climate change as one of many factors and linked to
holistic subsistence strategies and social structures.
• Cultural and lifestyle losses, loss of identity, self-
determination and influence in predictive models about
the impact of CC
• Access to information about the global and national
dimensions of CC and culturally sensitive institutional
support
Photos: Gafsa, Tunisia
Adaptation within a limited room for
manoeuvre – What to do?
Address:

16. Rights! But they are not enough
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• secure rights to land and resources, and the
capacity to fulfil livelihood aspirations in the
territories they inhabit
• Colombian Amazon: the exercise of rights and
autonomy, and the practice of cultural
livelihood strategies, have proven to be no
guarantee for successful adaptation.
Photos: Tozeur, Tunisia

17. As we struggle to adapt
and to prepare for those
that are predicted…
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• The world needs approaches to climate change and to
‘development’ that are viewed, not as unidirectional aid,
• but as a collaborative exercise focused on improving the
wellbeing of all peoples,
• and recognizing the value of the diversity of human
knowledge, culture,
• and adaptive strategies in a rapidly-changing world.
Photos: Douz, Kebili & Zafrane
Medenine. Jakob Kronik

18. Thank you
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Jakob Kronik - jkr@forestsoftheworld.org
Photo: Zafrane