Climate studies fail to credit Indigenous communities

29 Apr 2019

Most climate science studies based on Indigenous knowledge systems fail to adequately engage local communities, according to a literature review. As a result, researchers are overlooking centuries’ worth of data, and leaving important contributions uncredited.

“Indigenous communities maintain intergenerational longitudinal data, on the scale of hundreds to thousands of years, regarding geophysical and biological processes,” says Dominique David-Chavez of Colorado State University, US.

 “These knowledge systems remain vastly underrepresented and unacknowledged in the sciences despite countless contributions. Among academic scientists this would be considered ethical misconduct, yet it persists between non-Indigenous scientists and Indigenous knowledge holders.”

David-Chavez and Michael Gavin of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Germany, ranked 125 studies published in the last 20 years by how closely the authors collaborated with the community. At the bottom of the scale was work described as “extractive”: all decisions were made by researchers, with community members involved on a merely contractual basis.

A growing number of Indigenous community members – myself included – represent the first generation in their family with access to higher education and leadership roles in the sciences    Dominique David-Chavez

The team found that levels of community participation varied globally, with engagement appearing greatest in North America. But overall 87% of the articles were extractive. What’s more, these extractive studies were far less likely to measure up to six criteria David-Chavez and Gavin adopted from United Nations and other expert working-group guidelines. 

These measured the work’s accessibility and relevance to the community; whether Indigenous community members’ contributions and intellectual property were acknowledged and respected; whether appropriate ethical standards were followed; and whether the outcomes were of benefit to the community.

At the other end of the scale from “extractive” were studies where the community had control of the research process. “These studies were initiated in mutual agreement between Indigenous community members and outside researchers, requiring that the community provide explicit consent for a study to occur,” says David-Chavez.

The methods in the high-ranking studies show how climate-science research can employ Indigenous knowledge systems more collaboratively. Measures include disseminating findings among the community, using Indigenous languages, and training local researchers. For these practices to become commonplace, however, all participants in the process must take the issue seriously.

“We have developed a series of guiding questions for publishers, proposal reviewers and researchers alike to reflect on their own role in addressing ethical integrity in research,” says David-Chavez.

The researcher sees one of the most promising long-term pathways for addressing these challenges as supporting and learning from a new generation of Indigenous research scientists and data stewards.

“A growing number of Indigenous community members – myself included – represent the first generation in their family with access to higher education and leadership roles in the sciences,” she says. “As they engage in their respective fields, they often do so with the added perspective of Indigenous knowledge systems and values, including an unparalleled relational accountability when engaging with their own communities and homelands.”

David-Chavez and Gavin reported the findings in 

Environmental Research Letters (ERL), 

a sister publication of Physics World.