Authorities turn to native knowledge

The Under Secretary for the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology, Chanel Iroi, speaks to Wansolwara’s Rosalie Nongebatu, right, about disaster risk reduction efforts in Honiara, Solomon Islands. Picture: BEN BILUA

By ROSALIE NONGEBATU, Wansolwara

THE Solomon Islands is turning to native knowledge to boost current efforts in disaster risk reduction by incorporating traditional information in the establishment of early warning systems and plans on managing and coping.

And according to the Under Secretary for the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology, Chanel Iroi, the Solomon Islands Government recognised this in an effort to deal with climate change in the country.

During an environmental reporting project in Honiara, Solomon Islands in June this year, Mr Iroi told Wansolwara it was crucial to document knowledge and past experiences of people in communities as this would assist with predicting future outcomes in relation to climate change.

He said the ministry and other stakeholders were working together in this area.

“The ministry is working with the National Disaster Management Office to look at the usage of traditional knowledge in the area of early warning,” Mr Iroi said.

“We believe that information about the weather used by our ancestors in the past is very important, in terms of how this knowledge can be used in understanding weather patterns and the ability to accurately predict future events on how the climate is likely to affect our people.

“Our aim is to ensure this information can be incorporated in our early warning network and system and also in our overall work.”

Willie Masua, a final-year degree student in education at The University of the South Pacific’s Laucala campus in Suva, said it was high time local knowledge was recognised and practised to help people in communities mitigate and adapt to the changing weather.

“Our ancestors have survived over the years using local knowledge, whether it be fishing, travelling by sea, gardening, hunting or looking after the environment. They have been adapting and mitigating to changing weather patterns long before authorities regarded climate change as a problem,” he said.

“They hold invaluable insights into the direct and indirect impacts the changing weather has on their people and communities and the environment which could be the key in effectively rolling out national and regional climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives.”

The Government’s move is in line with a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) article on climate change titled ‘Indigenous Empowerment Is Vital for Climate Action’, which highlighted that traditional knowledge held by indigenous people was key to understanding what changing weather patterns meant for the people, communities, the environment they lived in and their culture.

*The original article appeared in Wansolwara Issue II, 2019, which was published as an insert in the Fiji Sun on December 1, 2019.

* Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from EJN’s Asia-Pacific program.