I stumped across the website Climate Atlas of Canada and an article called Indigenous Knowledges and Climate Change. The article discusses the connection between the land and how the “world is out of balance” due to the disregard for traditional Indigenous knowledge. The report and the video provide a short documentary of the Indigenous worldviews regarding culture and climate change. The article addresses how climate change is not just an environmental issue but a colonial issue rooted in politics, capitalism, and western ideologies.
The article discusses Indigenous ways of knowing are shaping climate solutions. It also guides some of the efforts that are being undertaken taken titled “Seven generation solutions.”
“What we’re trying to teach is that traditional knowledge is not just for Indigenous people, it’s for everybody… All you have to do, really, is start to respect and understand traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples and you will see there will be a groundswell of new creative and innovative ways and means in which to address these challenges that we face today in the world.”
This website provides an interesting perspective on how sustainable technology can be used within Indigenous communities to solve climate change. The article addresses how these solutions are rooted in a return to the land and, therefore, rooted in decolonization. This article is connected to my research project as it outlines how traditional knowledge and practices can be used to combat more significant issues such as climate change. The medium of the message and the sustainable technology practices are ways in which technology is integrated with these local knowledges.
This is a similar article, Climate Changed: First Nation balances Western science with traditional knowledge, which identifies how fake “beaver dams” can be used to restore stream flow for wildlife. “It’s not just about the watershed and the water — it’s about restoring the culture,”. . . “The Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) culture is directly connected to the land and the water. So, by restoring the watershed, we are actually helping to restore the culture.”