By Peter Makwanya
THE discourse of climate change is not complete without nature-based solutions. Ever since humanity started engaging in climate change interventions, the phrase, “nature-based solutions” is overused in isolation. This comes as a result of leaving behind people who matter in driving sustainable and meaningful change in their communities. These are the local communities which live with nature.
Local communities are practical and they do their work experientially according to their worldview and cultural relevance.
They always take the climate change fight to where it happens and as it unfolds. They don’t exaggerate but they interact with nature for positive solutions.
As the impact of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution from extreme heat and storms is having a devastating effect on the land, local communities do not look for solutions further from their own horizons. Their situations provide them with solutions. Although research is a critical component in this regard, it taps more from these community knowledge and information repositories.
This research will be published later and become a body of knowledge for academics, students and professionals to access but nothing is said about the local communities who provided the information to the researchers.
From the time when local communities share their knowledge with researchers, they are ignored and their roles overlooked whereas credit is given to outsiders who travel from afar to document what locals already know.
Local communities have been presiding over nature-based solutions aimed at managing climate change impacts and protect biodiversity in the process, including human communities by bolstering ecosystems that store carbon underground.
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History has it that, the most effective nature-based solutions have been developed by local communities.
For these reasons, seeds of doubt have been sawn and it remains to be seen if the climate change protection policies being articulated to the people around the world are the best for the people and the planet.
Monetisation of nature cannot provide the right tonic for the environment. Monetisation of nature cannot help tell the stories which shame behaviours that promote environmental destruction around the world.
As nature is being monetised and incentivised, a new wave of fossil fuels exploration is happening around the globe, making these highly publicised interventions just a paradox.
While the multinational conglomerates are busy engaging in climate collapse activities, they are also at the forefront of funding green energy technologies.
They have traumatised the entire world through their sinister antics driven by the power of money, disregard of humanity and selfishness.
As they engage in a trajectory of destruction, they are also incentivising developing countries for doing green business. By adopting nature-based solutions, humanity is not only saving forests and the planet but itself as well.
In terms of the zeal and drive to save the environment, local communities are intrinsically motivated to do so.
Although monetary benefits are essential, they do not drive the local communities’ passion to save the environment.
What drives their passion is intrinsical motivation to secure their homelands, protect their sacred places, history, culture, identity and the resources that they depend on for their sustainable livelihoods. The unfortunate undoing about the whole conservation and climate protection scenario is that the local communities have a voice but its suppressed. Until such a time when the local communities can tell their own climate stories, there will not be any meaningful interventions across the globe.
They need to be their own voices and articulating issues from their local experiences. Local communities are duty-bound to protect both humanity and all living things.
The climate protection strategies are currently being driven in the absence of morals, values, ethical considerations and stewardship we all share in caring for the God-given resources.
The advantage of soliciting for the voices of the local communities is that they do not require policy in order to spearhead the climate protection strategies but protecting nature is their way of life.
There is no way the fight against climate change impacts can succeed without these important stakeholders and foot soldiers no matter how we may want to be smart in controlling reality.
Finally, local communities have one of the most important skills, which is listening. They do not pretend but they listen deeper and actively.
They follow their traditional knowledge and wisdom, they also listen to their elders and community knowledge banks.
They listen to the earth and build resilience in the process hence they are change makers in their own right. They also listen even to those who make them homeless due to their greed and expansionist policies.
Above all, they do not exaggerate their own value because they are human beings. They are wise in their local knowledge and wisdom but not otherwise in their manner of doing things and approaching reality.
- Peter Makwanya is a climate change communicator. He writes in his personal capacity.
