Latin Indigenous Peoples Hard Hit by Climate Change

 

SUBMITTED BY TOM GRUBISICH ON Development Marketplace

ome 28 million members of Indigenous Peoples live in Latin America, many of them in poverty and prone to flooding and other weather extremes caused or exacerbated by climate change.  A number of finalist projects aim to give Indigenous Peoples in Latin America a cushion against weather extremes.

Here’s a sampling of the projects:

In Mexico, ITESM at Tecnologico de Monterrey seeks “to help people from Tutuaca, Otachique, and Conoachi communities in Chihuahua through a biocultural rescuing program to maintain native maize genetic diversity facing climate change needs, including validation and verification mechanisms to preserve their diverse maize races.”

In Peru, an organization of women from four communities in the High Andean region proposes “to recover ancestral knowledge and techniques to mitigate the effects of cold spells, reducing the vulnerability of 2,758 comuneros belonging to 551 families in the district of Palca.”

In El Savador, Instituto para en Rescate Ancestral Indigena Salvadoreno  (RAIS) seeks to “recover, divulge, and make people aware of the knowledge of 100 wise indigenous women regarding the properties and interpretation of the language of both climate and earth as a support tool to prevent climate-change risks.” READ MORE »