How tribals' traditional strengths can be useful for climate change mitigation

By Bharat Dogra 

Along with growing realization of the various adverse consequences of climate change, there is increasing concern regarding the communities that are more vulnerable and are likely to be more severely impacted by climate change.

This calls for multi-dimensional analysis as we need to explore which areas are more vulnerable to increasing heat or increasing disasters like floods, which communities are poorer and have less social security, whose livelihoods are more susceptible to climate change, what is the housing condition of people and what is the disaster-preparedness of people. At the same time how the response to climate change can be improved at community level to reduce adverse impact also has several dimensions. This involves improving the resilience of the community in several ways as well as improving the kind of government assistance that is needed the most.

Tribal communities are often identified to be among the more vulnerable communities. In a recently published (2025) paper Amit Kumar and T. Mohanasundari have stated that in terms of their own perceptions tribal community members in very large numbers are confirming the manifestation of climate change in their communities and villages. In this paper titled ‘Assessing Climate Change Risks and Vulnerabilities among Bhil and Bhilala Tribal Communities in Madhya Pradesh, India’, the authors mention the percentage of Bhil community members who confirm the increasing impact of climate change in term of their living experience. 97% of respondents agreed that there is increasing irregularity of rain. 98% said there are increased summer hot days. 85% said there is decrease in number of rainy days. 97% said there is overall increase in temperature.

Another study by S.K. Das and J.P. Basu found the vulnerability of Lodha tribal community in W. Bengal to be particularly acute and serious. In yet another study for Tripura, N. Roy and A. Debnath looked at communities in terms of intensity of hazards and risks, sensitivity and exposure, and found that tribal communities have much greater vulnerability and exposure compared to non-tribal communities.

While all this confirms the urgency of making more extensive and well-thought out efforts for better protection of tribal communities and their adaption to climate change, there is another aspect, more on the positive side, which also needs to be emphasized.

In terms of their traditional strengths, tribal communities are well-endowed in several respects which have a new relevance in terms of climate change adaption and resilience. They have been practicing water conservation in ways which are very well suited to local needs. They have their own local systems, in terms of nutrition, housing, gardens, medicines etc. of coping with heat stress. They have mixed farming and tree systems which can give protective food yield even in times of below normal rainfall. Keeping in view also their ability to meet several needs from forests and wildly growing trees, based on their rich knowledge of biodiversity, they have more self-reliant communities. They are in a better position to mobilize communities for collective or shared tasks and responsibilities. Many tribal communities are in a better position to save a diversity of traditional seed varieties.

All these are important traditional strengths which can be very useful in terms of climate change adaption too. With proper recognition of the importance of these traditional strengths, present-day efforts can build further on these strengths to have a stronger climate adaption capability in place.

What is more, several strengths of tribal communities are important not just for climate change adaption, but in addition also for climate change mitigation. If we go back to the traditional ways of several tribal communities, these would be found to have very useful systems of protecting forests, using them in very sustainable ways, increasing the green cover in ways which are in tune with natural ways and having farming systems which conserve soil very well. All this would be very important today in terms of climate change mitigation as well.

This is not to say that all the traditional strengths can still be found everywhere. These have suffered erosion due to several factors. Due to exploitative practices of outside forces, the resilience of tribal communities suffered. As several members became more dependent on migrant labor, the traditional skills could not always be passed from one generation to another, and regeneration and restoration work done by the community together also suffered.

Hence a lot of efforts are needed so that tribal communities can firstly get back the traditional strengths which, quite apart from their intrinsic usefulness, have an increasing new relevance in the form of what they can contribute in various ways to climate change adaption and mitigation. Secondly, a lot can also be done in numerous very creative and beautiful ways to and further to this traditional strength and to build further on this on the basis of its proper and participative understanding and cooperation.

---

The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Saving Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, and A Day in 2071