global collaborative

Indigneous Knowledge and Climate Change

Climate Change is a global phenomenon. Up to the remotest indigenous communities, the impacts has been felt dramatically. Some of the most concrete impacts of this to the Limos tribe is that they no longer can predict the weather thus affecting the economic cycle. The immediate impact to them now is food insecurity. This project form part of a strategic campaign to increase the resiliency of the community to combat the effects of the climate crisis. It is designed to popularize the knowledge and practices towards next steps in combating the impacts of climate crisis

Our project is called “Promoting Indigenous Knowledge and Practices in Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change Through Traditional Songs and Music of the Limos Tribe". It will conduct the following activities: produce a music video–album of indigenous songs, music and chants focused on traditional knowledge and practices of the tribe, a 2-day seminar-workshop on Climate Change aimed to provide information on climate change, identify its impacts and share on indigenous practices and knowledge of climate mitigation and adaptation and sustaining the environment while thriving for economic sufficiency, filming, recording and reproduction of the music-video album, a collective viewing and open forum on the output, a launching concert via the traditional singing (sossolay) to be held in the urban center of the province and a planning-workshop for next steps with the community. As part of the preparations, community meetings will be conducted to unify the community on the project and the partnership.

The twin goal of the project is to increase the resiliency of local communities to the impacts of climate change and to promote indigenous knowledge and practices of sustainable development and management of resources. In particular, the project also intends to :

1. Broaden awareness of the community on climate change and how this affects them concretely;

2. Promote traditional knowledge and practices as alternatives to combat the effects of Climate change;

3. Influence local policies in relation to environmental and economic sustainability and ;

4. Reinvigorate positive cultural practices of the community.

The Limos tribe is a sub-tribe of the Kalingas, found in the Northernmost part of the Cordillera Philippines. As a tribe, they have retained practices keeping biodiversity and sound environmental practices throughout the centuries. The tribe is fully dependent on subsistence agriculture though they have been slowly engaged in cash crop economy (banana and native coffee) during the recent years to sustain other needs like sending their children to school. At least 5% of the population are also employed in the local government mostly as teachers in public run elementary and high school and as members of the barangay council  of the local government unit. Also, traditional music, songs and other forms of oral tradition  remain vital in the tribe. Despite MP3s, the tribe’s music, chanting, storytelling (allalim), or declaim (pukaw) persist. These have been proven effective means to convey the messages to generations of the tribe and to other communities.

As soon as the required budget is in place, we will start with the project though some preliminary discussions has been going on with the community in relation to the planning of implementation. Ideally, we have set to start with the seminar-workshop on Climate Change in October 2010. In November, the identification and other research aspect will continue so that in December the recording and filming will start. Since this will be the start of the harvesting season, we expect that the participants will only be available during the night and on Sundays so the whole process will likely stretch out through the month. In January 2010, editing will pursue and we will be able to conduct the community viewing and get some comments. In February, we will reproduce in dv/cd copies, launch the product in a concert-forum and conduct the evaluation with the community. We will be able to accomplish the final report in March.

Details of partners

We have submitted this proposal to the the Local Government of Pinukpuk through its municipal council. The LGU has jurisdiction over the political socio-cultural and economic affairs of the Limos tribe. The LGU also is composed of indigenous peoples elected by people of the tribe but work on the framework of the government code of the Philippines and not thru the customary law. They will provide some in kind and cash support.

At the community level, the MALUDA (Community organization) is our direct partner to implement the project. This is the organization of men and women in the community whose  primary goal is to strengthen traditional knowledge, reinvigorate the cultural values of the tribe, and build economic sufficiency and sustainability. They will be both the direct beneficiaries of the project and will also provide in kind counterpart.

General comments can be shared with Jennifer Awingan