Plain Language Summary
Adaptation and mitigation are related components of anticipatory
capacity which informs a community’s action to secure its livelihood and
food systems. Anticipatory capacity to anthropogenic climate change
needs to be grounded in the local ecological and sociocultural context
to be effective. It relies on diversity of knowledge systems, that
consider the complex connectivity of relations between humans and their
habitat within a specific context. In this reflective essay, we make a
strong case for Indigenous knowledge systems as providing a foundational
base for strategic action to the climate crisis while also engaging
complementary knowledge sources from the biophysical and social
sciences. This grounded and “thick” understanding can be brought to
bear on actions that simultaneously mitigate and adapt to anthropogenic
climate change. We have argued that ecological calendars are an
important sociocultural and ecological mechanism to anticipate this
change. In an upcoming special issue of GeoEarth , we will be
presenting international research that will explore the role of
ecological calendars in diverse international Indigenous contexts.
1 Issue: Adaptation-Mitigation Binary
In scientific literature, actions
addressing the global climate crisis generally have been categorized as
either adaptation or mitigation. Currently, IPCC working groups for the
2022 Sixth Assessment Cycle continue to be divided in this manner (IPCC,
2021). Adaptation measures are taken in response to changing
circumstances. Rather than pursuing to solve a problem, the adaptation
framework adjusts to the new normal. Alternatively, mitigation is the
flip side of this coin as actions proactively work to prevent the causes
of climate change, minimizing its effects. Similarly, to adaptation, the
mitigation response is striving to reduce the impact (IPCC, 2014). While
conceptually useful, this binary does not convey the complexity of
considerations, subtlety, and nuance related to human responses to
environmental change. Therefore, like all notions constructed by humans
to help their understanding, they need re-examination to see if their
relevance has waned.
The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how anticipatory capacity
considers aspects of both adaptation and mitigation. Section II
highlights the inspiration stemming from Indigenous pluralistic
ontology, a way of being, while Section III considers the respective
role of ecological calendars. Examples are drawn from two Indigenous
communities in the Bartang Valley of GornoBadakhshan Autonomous Oblast,
Tajikistan, illustrating the communities’ generational use of ecological
calendars and the method in which they build anticipatory capacity. In
light of this analysis, Section IV concludes with a brief discussion of
future directions for addressing actions related to the climate crisis.
2 Insights from Indigenous
Pluralistic Ontology
Most Indigenous and rural communities do not view their climate as in
need of strictly either adaptation or mitigation approaches because
their perspective towards the planet and its “gifts” (resources) is
not based on human dominance but action that is in tandem with rhythms
of the earth (Kassam, 2021; Kimmerer, 2013). As a matter of practice,
Indigenous communities are constantly responding and adjusting to their
fluctuating environment (Norton-Smith et al., 2016; Whyte, 2017). The
seasonal variations are not only an integral foundation to food and
livelihood systems but extend to all cultural aspects embedded in the
local ecology. Therefore, they influence human behavior in a quantum
connectivity with their habitat illustrating that humans exist within
their ecosystem, not outside it (Kassam, 2021). Transdisciplinary
scholarship engaging Indigenous ways of knowing is questioning, not
ignoring, modern climate science by presenting an emerging
conceptualization that builds upon and embraces both aspects of
adaptation and mitigation as part of an ontologically pluralistic
pathway for effective climate action.
Imagine a connected range of
actions rather than two distinct approaches. As adaptation requires an
element of mitigation and vice versa, this can be visualized as a
two-dimensional system containing counterbalances on either end of the
extremes (Figure 1). Most Indigenous and rural societies do not
undertake actions addressing climate change in a sterile binary. Their
perspectives reveal new, intellectually complex, vistas from which to
imagine potential actions and solutions. This is precisely where one can
simultaneously be mitigating a crisis while building adaptive capacity.