Executive summary
Coastal communities living in archipelago countries and small island states in Asia are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of hydro-meteorological hazards such as storms, droughts, landslides, and floods. Environmental degradation such as deforestation, desertification, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, and climate change, as well as social factors such as poverty and inequality, further compound their exposure to such hazards and make these communities extremely vulnerable to disasters.
Disaster risk reduction efforts in recent years are increasingly focussing not only on the hazard itself, but on the risks surrounding the hazard and the underlying components of vulnerability which can contribute to turning a hazard into a disaster. An important factor that can increase the resilience of communities is their local knowledge.
Since the 1990s, local and indigenous knowledge has received increasing attention in the fields of natural resource management, disaster risk reduction, and climate change adaptation. In the disaster risk reduction field, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami has been recognized as a turning point, when specialists and scientists began to show interest in such knowledge. However, local and indigenous knowledge is yet to be included in policies on disaster risk reduction or climate change adaptation, and the wealth of documented knowledge and practices have not led to increased efforts to make use of this knowledge to enable communities to increase their resilience.
A project officially launched in 2011 focusing on local and indigenous knowledge related to hydro-meteorological hazards and climate change in Indonesia, the Philippines and Timor-Leste addresses this gap. Funded by the Japanese government through UNESCO Funds-in-Trust (2010-2014) and by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (2012-2013), the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Jakarta Office implements this project in close partnership with government agencies, research institutes in the three countries, and experts from Japan.
After two years, the project has documented local and indigenous knowledge and practices that help communities to predict, mitigate and adapt to hazards; produced tools for integrating local and indigenous knowledge with science; and published information, education and communication materials that integrate local and indigenous knowledge and science on hydro-meteorological hazard risk reduction and climate change impacts.
This publication introduces the results of the research activities implemented between 2011-2013, based on which the action-oriented third phase of the project is being implemented. The publication begins with an introduction of the background, basic concepts and methodology used in the project. This is followed by Section 2, which consists of country-specific lessons and action points derived from activities implemented in the three countries, with a view to further promoting knowledge integration in the three countries in the final year of project implementation.
Sections 3 and 4 are policy briefs. The first policy brief focuses on steps taken to integrate local and indigenous knowledge with science and technology to increase community resilience. “LIVE Scientific Knowledge”, a community tool for documenting and validating local and indigenous knowledge, and integrating it with science and technology, is introduced. The second policy brief describes the process of incorporating local and indigenous knowledge and science in disaster and climate change education. Different media for information, education and communication materials, and factors to take into consideration when developing such materials to ensure effective impacts, are outlined.
Both policy briefs articulate specific policy actions and tools to be taken to promote the use of local and indigenous knowledge with science for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The publication ends with a set of recommendations of actions that can be taken by national and local governments, and communities.
The primary audience for this publication is national and local government entities and communities interested in promoting the use of local and indigenous knowledge and willing to take actions to integrate such knowledge with science and technology to increase coastal community resilience.
Experts, academics and practitioners working in the fields of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation will also find the tools and recommended actions in the policy briefs useful, in their efforts to integrate local and indigenous knowledge in their work.