The global Sustainable Development Goals represent a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. The underlying imperative is that further development cannot be sustainable without protecting the environment and that the environment cannot be protected if development is not sustainable.  SDG #13 calls for urgent action to combat climate change and its impact. SDG#17 is to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss. 

 

With regard to these imperatives, four assertions stand out for the Institute of Borneo Studies at University Malaysia Sarawak (IBS-UNIMAS).

1. Borneo supports Asia’s last great rainforest, and its function as a carbon sink - absorbing more carbon than it releases - makes it vital to saving our planet,
2. there is growing international recognition of the crucial stewardship role played by indigenous peoples in the preservation of rainforests and the protection of the biodiversity that they nurture,
3. the cultural institutions and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples play an important role in understanding the impacts of climate change as well as in developing adaptation strategies that mitigate some of its adverse impacts,
4. development options that are based on short term gain by extracting resources that are vital for long term sustenance should be shunned in favour of alternatives that foster climate change adaptation responses and mitigation efforts through the negotiation, design and implementation of local and global knowledge systems in a genuinely participatory manner that includes indigenous peoples.

 

Accordingly, IBS-UNIMAS has been engaging with ground breaking on Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change in Borneo. One of which is to capture a first-hand account of how indigenous communities in Borneo are affected by climate change and how they are adapting to it (or failing to). The results make an important contribution to global knowledge on climate change in general and on its impact on indigenous communities in particular – knowledge that will be essential for policymakers and indigenous peoples’ organisations for crafting sustainable solutions to the challenges being faced by everyone. 

 

Climate change is already creating problems for global economies but its impact falls disproportionately on the poor, including indigenous – especially rural – communities, whose livelihoods are already fragile, depending as they do on threatened ecosystems and having restricted access to infrastructure and public services. Indigenous peoples in rural Borneo live off natural resources and they depend on cultural cohesion to maintain their livelihoods. Their knowledge systems are based on an intimate relationship with the environment and are passed on through generations via the practices and rituals that make up their cultural capital and institutions. All these are now under stress from contemporary orthodox development practices, at a time when they are urgently needed to assist in the global quest for the SDGs and the dangers emanating from a changing climate; dangers that affecting everybody’s livelihoods and well-being in multiple ways. 

 

The study by IBS-UNIMAS fosters an evidence-based response to the challenges presented by SDGs #13 and #17 that will help Borneo’s indigenous communities preserve their cultural institutions and disseminate their traditional knowledge in order to facilitate effective climate change adaptation and mitigation measures and by so doing contribute to the world’s development imperative.