Understanding how indigenous knowledge contributes to climate change adaptation and resilience: a systematic literature review

This research seeks to understand how indigenous knowledge (IK) contributes to climate change adaptation and resilience, analysing a total of 71 papers from Scopus in a systematic literature review. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method was used for the analysis, which entails a systematic progression of four stages: identification, screening, eligibility assessment, and inclusion of literature for final analysis. The review was used by the researchers to investigate three research questions:

1. How is IK understood in climate change studies?
2. What kind of IK is used to address climate change and enhance adaptation and resilience?
3. What could be done to maximise the use of IK towards enhancing climate adaptation and resilience?

Their findings show that the topic is multidisciplinary without any authoritative researcher - as indicated by the diverse authorship of the final papers. These final papers were also geographically skewed towards Africa and Asia, with 53 papers (75%) from the two continents. The research found that Indigenous people use IK to predict extreme climatic conditions, prepare for it, and live through it making use of Indigenous adaptation strategies in multiple manifestations. For example, in planning for climate emergencies through traditional food storage strategies and in the use of climate-smart crop varieties. To maximise the benefits of using IK towards climate change adaptation and resilience, the research presents a set of solution options under two dominant themes. One, is the need for more research on multiple dimensions of IK and bridging it with scientific knowledge using culturally appropriate approaches to research. Two, is to consider a wide range of solutions including the need to mainstream IK and embrace an approach to development based on its principles.