with TCD alumna Victoria Reyes-García, LICCI (Local Indicators of Climate Change Impacts) Consortium & UF Distinguished Alumna Award Winner
Indigenous Peoples and local communities, whose livelihoods are closely tied to nature, are disproportionately impacted by climate change, yet their knowledge and needs are often overlooked in research and policy. I will present three key findings of a collaborative research consortium arising from the Local Indicators of Climate Change Impacts project. First, reports of climate change impact by these communities offer holistic, place-based understandings of environmental change that reflect both climate impacts and longstanding marginalization. Second, drawing on generations of knowledge, these communities respond to change through local strategies, though these responses can carry significant social and economic costs. Finally, recognizing and engaging with their distinct ways of understanding change can offer vital insights for more inclusive and effective climate research and policy.
About Victoria Reyes-García
Victoria Reyes-García (PhD in Anthropology, 2001, University of Florida) is ICREA Research Professor at the Institut of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Spain. Her research focuses on Indigenous and local knowledge, particularly on the contribution of these knowledge systems to help address the contemporary environmental challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change. She has contributed to the IPBES Global and Transformative Change Assessments and the IPBES-IPCC report. In 2021, she was elected International member of the National Academy of Sciences, US.