Mountains, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Climate Adaptation: Struggles In Turbulent Times In the World's Highlands

Mountain societies are among those most exposed to the contemporary environmental and socio-economic changes. Climate change and state-led development are simultaneously reshaping highland ecologies environments in profound ways: glaciers are retreating, monsoons patterns are becoming increasingly erratic, springs are drying up and farming and pastoral livelihoods are under great pressure. This session explores how mountain communities draw on traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and collective practice to understand, adapt to, and respond to these changes and act upon those changes. It also how such knowledge is recognized, incorporated, appropriated, or marginalized within global environmental governance and development agendas.

This session centers the experiences and expertise of communities most affected by environmental change, examining the challenges such as displacement, the dispossession of community lands, and the ways mountain peoples are marginalized within climate policy, conservation initiatives, and development projects. Particular attention is given to how inequalities of caste, class, ethnicity, indigeneity and gender shape vulnerability and adaptive capacity, as well as the ways grassroots movements challenge extractive development and exclusionary conservation.

We invite ethnographic studies, participatory studies, historical and comparative studies, theoretical frameworks, and mixed-methods research from mountain regions across the world. Contributions may address, but are not limited to the following themes:

1) Climate adaptation, indigenous and local knowledge and resilience;

2)Environmental justice movements and community responses to the climate change;

3)Governance, resources and infrastructure development and its impact on society and environment; and

4) Comparative studies on environmental change, adaptation and development across mountain regions.

Format: Open Session