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Find out more about what the ILED Network does on our webpage: https://www.rutufoundation.org/indigenous-led-education-network/

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Loss of ecological knowledge and the role of language

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Loss of ecological knowledge and the role of language

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Spiritual and traditional knowledge, rules, practices and skills generally weren't written down but passed on orally through songs, story-telling and learning-by-doing (where children and (grand)parents would go to the forest for different activities).

Transfer of cultural ecological practices to the next generations included taking children along on hunting and fishing trips, story telling, songs, weaving patterns, plant and animal names, etc.

Indigenous languages are key in transferring this knowledge as many indigenous vocabularies contain unique words for knowledge and natural resources that can't be translated.

The "Index of Language Diversity" shows the relationship between language loss and the loss of biodiversity and indicates a correlation of more than 90%.

Indigenous women are crucial keepers of knowledge, for instance in relation to traditional seeds, crops, medicinal plants, and food gathering.

With many indigenous languages already gone and elders no longer passing on their knowledge, the world is losing concepts, innovations and knowledge in tropical ecology, biodiversity, medicinal use of plants, pollination, food diversity, water management and protection, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

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The loss of culture and language creates lifelong negative impacts for Indigenous Youth.

“The loss of indigenous traditional livelihoods on the land can affect the mental health of indigenous youth, sometimes resulting in the forms of mental illness or suicide. The dispossession of land, the loss of language and culture therefore has an acute impact on the lives of indigenous youth; it undermines indigenous identity because it contributes to poverty and unemployment and threatens the survival of indigenous cultures.” (UN Expert Meeting on Indigenous Youth, 2013). These changes most times have very grave gendered impacts.

Language and culture protective factors for preserving health of indigenous youth
The good news is that speaking an indigenous language and engaging in cultural ecological practices dramatically protects indigenous youth from the risks of mental breakdown.

For example: In 2008, almost half of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth in Australia spoke an indigenous language. They were “less likely to engage in high risk alcohol consumption and illicit substance use than those who did not speak an Indigenous language. They were also less likely to report being a victim of physical violence” (Australia Bureau of Statistics, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Wellbeing: A focus on children and youth, April 2011).

Research in Canada suggests that First Nations communities who work to preserve their language and culture are considerably more successful in protecting their youth against risks of suicide. Indigenous communities that had all the "cultural continuity factors' like local control over education and community facilities for preservation of culture, had no youth suicides. In contrast, indigenous communities without any of these 'protective factors' suffered youth suicide rates far greater than the national average (Chandler, M. J. & Lalonde, C. E. (2008). Cultural Continuity as a Protective Factor against Suicide in First Nations Youth. Horizons -A Special Issue on Aboriginal Youth, Hope or Heartbreak: Aboriginal Youth and Canada’s Future. 10(1), 68-72.)

Outcomes of another study in Australia found similar results. Indigenous children whose parents promoted a strong sense of cultural identity in early childhood experienced better health and socio-emotional outcomes later in life. These findings suggest that an Indigenous child's strong cultural identity acts as a protective barrier to many of the challenges that Indigenous people often face in later life. "Our findings suggest that a change in social attitudes and institutional practices to support and celebrate the maintenance of traditional Indigenous cultures and Indigenous Australians' identification with their culture, particularly within the educational system, and the reversal of policies that are contributing to the disappearance of cultural practices, knowledge and languages would be beneficial." Alfred Michael Dockery. Inter-generational transmission of Indigenous culture and children's wellbeing: Evidence from Australia, International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2019).  See also this news-article on phys.org.

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Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. They have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.  ~UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Articles 11 and 14)

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Biological Diversity and Cultural Diversity: how are they linked?

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Biological Diversity and Cultural Diversity: how are they linked?

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Biological diversity and cultural diversity (including knowledge and language) are very closely linked.

Many indigenous communities have deep connections and spiritual relationships with their traditional lands and waters and, for generations, developed sophisticated holistic systems of protecting, sustainably using, adapting, and developing resources and landscapes they depend on for survival, with gendered divisions of labour and know how.

Many of the last biodiversity hotspots in the world are located in or near places where indigenous peoples live.

The world is increasingly realising the importance of indigenous knowledge to curb global crises like climate change, biodiversity loss and food insecurity.

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Having worked for over 20 years with indigenous peoples around the world, it has become abundantly clear to us - the founders of the ILED Network - that those Indigenous communities who are successful in maintaining their knowledge, languages, and customary laws and practices, are more effective in developing, governing and caring for and managing and protecting their lands and resources than communities whose cultures are eroding.

As a result, resilient communities have stronger traditional economies and food production and health systems, and vice versa.

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Indigenous lands hold 36% or more of remaining intact forest landscapes (16 Jan, 2020, Mongabay). More than one-third of the world’s remaining pristine forests, known as intact forest landscapes, exist within land that’s either managed or owned by indigenous peoples.

Nature is decreasing worldwide at an alarming rate – it is time to look to indigenous peoples and local communities to help find solutions. This was one of the key conclusions reached in the first global assessment of nature and biodiversity, released (6 May 2019) in Paris. The report shows that the situation of global nature looks dire, but there are glimmers of hope that could lead to a reverse in this trend. Scientists, governments and civil society agree that the answer lies in knowledge, both in ‘traditional’ science and also with knowledge generated by indigenous peoples and local communities, who have safeguarded nature for millennia. See  https://www.forestpeoples.org/en/international-processes-convention-biological-diversity-cbd/press-release/2019/media-release

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Threats to indigenous cultures, languages and lifestyles 

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Threats to indigenous cultures, languages and lifestyles 

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Indigenous cultures are under serious and many threats today. With the push for industrialization, western formal education and globalization over the past decades, the worlds’ indigenous peoples have become the most vulnerable to culture loss.

In many indigenous communities, urban employment and lifestyles influence cultural identities, and the dispossession, loss or degradation of indigenous lands and territories reduces areas of cultural practice and production.

Due to the effects of colonization, large scale mining, logging, commercial agriculture and other resource extraction, many indigenous peoples are currently struggling to preserve their land base and to educate their children and youth on how to take proper care of the natural environment.

It is estimated that half to ninety percent of the world’s languages will be gone by the end of the century, with most of these languages being indigenous.

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Secure land rights are a crucial determining factor

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Secure land rights are a crucial determining factor

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Secure land rights are a crucial determining factor in the resilience of communities.

Where communities have land rights security, their long-term futures are more secured, more autonomous decisions can be made, and lands can be protected from outsiders.

Where land rights are not secure, encroachments and negative influx are more likely. These lead to conflicts, internal disharmony, often with serious gendered effects and resulting in the loss of biodiversity.

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The greatest challenges hindering the revitalization and intergenerational transfer of indigenous cultures lie in education.

Most (state-led) schools in indigenous communities reflect urban, western lifestyles and values, not seldomly excluding and perceiving indigenous language and knowledge as invalid.

Children are often prohibited or discouraged to use or learn their own language at school.

Mainstream school materials rarely incorporate indigenous concepts, histories and cosmovisions while pedagogical methods often do not align with traditional ways of learning.

There is a focus on classroom-based and text-based learning rather than oral learning practices through songs, story-telling, or practical expeditions and fieldtrips to acquire, practice and apply knowledge and skills in the landscape.

“Learning a language is central to how children establish their participation in their families and cultures, and the primary means by which they gain access to cultural knowledge” (Prof. J. Ball, 2010).