Research project
The Indigenous Peoples Observatory Network (IPON): The Climate-Food-Health Nexus
- Start date: 1 October 2024
- End date: 1 October 2027
- Value: $3,519,247
- Partners and collaborators: Our Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Collaborators (Yon Fernández- de-Larrinoa) and World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborators (Robert Marten) will play key roles in IPON. FAO and WHO bring extensive networks and collaborations globally, with experience delivering interventions and advocating for Indigenous Peoples Food systems and in Global Health. Reflecting the urgency of threats posed by climate change to Indigenous food systems and health, and need for global action, FAO provided seed funding to support the development of this proposal. Partnerships, research infrastructure, and capacity developed in the partner regions will be built upon to enable rapid project deployment, and underpins feasibility of the ambitious project. For example, Observers associated with Indigenous Organizations and local partners including OMIASSEC in Peru (Elida De La Cruz Fernandez), SAMMA in Bolivia (Patricia Umbarilla), Variga Sabawa in Sri -Lanka, Makhanda Circle Unity (MCU) in South Africa (Sakhe Ntlabezo), Nadroga Navosa Provincial Council and Naidiri Youth Group in Fiji, Escuela de Gobierno en Salud Floreal Ferrara and Confederación Mapuche de Neuquén in Argentina. Additionally, the following join IPON as collaborators: • Ketty Marcelo Lopez, President, ONAMIAP (womens’ Indigenous organization), Peru • Ivonne Benites, Disaster Risk Management Functional Unit, Ministry of health, Peru • Renimer Huiñapi, Shawi Indigenous leader, Shawi Indigenous Autonomous Government (GTA), Peru • Masonwabe Nduna, Xhosa Manager, Assumption Development Centre, South Africa • Pumeza Mdingi, Manager, Umthathi Training Project, Umthathi Training Project, South Africa • Kamilya Kelgenbaeva, Professor, International University of Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzstan • Sarath Kodithuwakku, Professor & Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka • Tharani Gamage, Cultural Director, Religious and Cultural Affairs, Sri Lanka • Richard Nuwagira, Program Management Leader, National Health Research Organization, Uganda • Jovan Turyamureeba, Associate Executive Director, Batwa Development Program, Uganda • Alex Nimusima, Lecturer, Makerere University, Uganda • Freddie Kabango, Assistant Commissioner, MAAIF, Uganda • Samali Namukose, Nutritionist MoH, Uganda • Kingsley Agyemang, Climate & Food Security Focal Person, Ministry of Food & Agriculture, Ghana • Anita Sutha, Focal Person, Women Groups, I-Nye Women Association, Ghana • Rose Mensah-Kunton, Executive Director, Women Empowerment, ABANTU Development, Ghana • Antwi Bosiako, Director, Climate Vulnerabilities & Adaptation Unit, EPA, Ghana • Naa Puowele Karbo, Paramount Chief, Lawra Traditional Council, Ghana • Lui Manuel, Nadroga-Navosa Provincial Council, Fiji • Michelle Dickson, Director of the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, University of Sydney, Australia • Hans Justus Amukugo, Professor, School of Nursing and Public Health, University of Namibia • Olivia Nakwafila, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Namibia • Martha Hangula, Agriculture Economics, Ogongo Campus, University of Namibia • Pelenise Alofa, Kiribati Climate Action Network and Kiribati Health Retreat Association, Kiribati • Mayra Ponce Vargas, SAMMA Fundación de Apoyo a las Naciones Indígenas, Bolivia
- Primary investigator: Professor James Ford
- External co-investigators: Pearce, Tristan - Nominated Principal Investigator Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Cumulative Impacts of Environmental Change University of Northern British Columbia, Global and International Studies (Canada) Galappaththi, Eranga - Co-Principal Investigator Assistant Professor Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Geography (United States) Varghese, Anita - Co-Principal Investigator Director at Keystone Foundation, Biodiversity Conservation (India) Namanya, Didacus - Co-Principal Investigator Research Associate/Independent Researcher Uganda National Health Research Organisation - UNHRO. (Uganda) Mensah, Adelina - Co-Principal Investigator Senior Research Fellow University of Ghana, Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies (Ghana) Carlos Bezerra, Joana - Co-Principal Investigator Researcher. Rhodes University , Community Engagement (South Africa) Kaechele, Harald - Co-Principal Investigator Senior Scientist - Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Research Area Land Use and Governance (Germany) Togarepi, Cecil - Co-Principal Investigator Senior Lecturer University of Namibia, Animal Production, Agribusiness and Economics (Namibia) Miranda, Jaime - Co-Principal Investigator Head of School University of Sydney, School of Public Health (Australia) Zavaleta-Cortijo, Carol - Co-Principal Investigator. Researcher at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, School of Public Health (Peru) Chi, Guangqing - Co-Applicant Professor at Pennsylvania State University, Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education (United States) Cauchi, John Paul - Co-Applicant Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, Bart's Medical School - Malta Campus (United Kingdom) Hyams, Keith - Co-Applicant Professor of Political Theory and Ethics University of Warwick, Politics and International Studies (United Kingdom) Harper, Sherilee - Co-Applicant Professor & Canada Research Chair in Climate Change & Health at University of Alberta, School of Public Health (Canada)
- Postgraduate students: Ingrid Arotoma Rojas University of Leeds (United Kingdom)
Indigenous Peoples globally face profound threats from climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation — threats that are rooted in discrimination, land dispossession, and colonization, and span all of the IPCC’s representative key risks.
It is primarily through the nexus with Indigenous food systems that these stresses converge and interact to affect health and well-being.
Indigenous knowledges and practices underpin resilience across the food-climate-health nexus, yet they are overlooked and undermined by government policy.
New ways of working with Indigenous communities and informing decision-making are needed if we are to make sense of and address these interlinked stresses.
The Indigenous Peoples Observatory Network (IPON) transforms and rethinks how we understand the food-climate-health nexus from the bottom-up, building on multiple ways of knowing embodied in Indigenous knowledges and science, and in ways that strengthen community resilience to multiple stresses and support actions that benefit Indigenous Peoples.
We will develop, operationalize, and maintain Indigenous Observatories that are composed of community leaders, Elders, and youth, decision-makers, and researchers among Indigenous communities across the global south and north, and spanning all of the UN's seven social cultural regions.
The Observatories will document, monitor, and examine the lived experiences, stories, responses, and observations of how climate stressors interact with food systems, health, and well-being across partner regions and communities as they play out in real time and across seasons.
This allows us to tease apart the complexity of factors and drivers affecting community resilience and vulnerability and how they differ between and within communities, across seasons, and over time, rooted in the world views and cultures of our Observers.
We will co-generate knowledge and capacity to inform policy development and catalyze actions that build on community strengths and address potential vulnerabilities.
The Observatories provide a vehicle for strengthening the capacity of communities to document their own knowledge on the links between climate, food, and health, and a space to dialogue with decision-makers at regional, national, and global levels on what actions are needed to build resilience.
The global scope of IPON provides a grounding for developing scalable insights to inform decision-making and advocacy for our partners in UN and Indigenous organisations.
Impact
Community impact
Communities across the partner regions are developing (and in some cases) revising climate change plans and seeking support from regional/national governments for risk reduction initiatives. IPON will support these activities through each Pillar.
Specific activities which will underpin impact will vary by region, reflecting the diverse languages, cultures, and social contexts.
But, the partner regions have identified showcasing research results as they emerge through regular radio shows and community Facebook posts, with a focus on profiling community knowledge through the use of stories, photos, videos, maps; organization of discussion sessions; and locally-led data analysis that contributes to climate change planning.
Developing a curriculum on climate-food-health will be co-produced to address young children who are school-going (i.e. India) and pilot interventions based on climate-smart agriculture (i.e. Argentina, Kiribati, South Africa), and recovery of food biodiversity (i.e. Uganda, Peru, Bolivia).
IPON will also work to impart research and documentation skills to local staff of community-based organisations to prepare food diaries, diet timelines and ecological calendars (i.e. Peru, Bolivia and India).
Impact on the partner regions
Climate adaptation is emerging as a priority across the partner regions, yet our own work and that of others highlights significant gaps in preparedness for climate change.
These gaps reflect limited policy-maker understanding on Indigenous knowledge related to climate risks and responses, an absence of evidence on the effectiveness of potential adaptations, and limited knowledge on how non-climatic factors will shape risk.
IPON will provide timely and pertinent information for addressing these needs, aligned to ongoing and planned decision-making processes.
Specific activities to promote impact include production of targeted policy briefs summarizing research findings and policy implications; in-person meetings timed around fieldwork trips; active engagement of team members in climate planning activities; and participation in regional, national, and global working groups on climate policy.
Global impact
Global impact will focus on establishing a new area of research centered around Indigenous understandings of and responses to climate risk, which has wide-ranging potential for reshaping and reconceptualizing how climate risk is studied across diverse fields and regions.
Outputs to achieve this will include publishing findings from the research in high impact journals, including articles profiling and illustrating the approach, alongside presenting the work at leading international conferences.
Global impact will be leveraged by team members positions in various high-level international assessments (e.g. IPCC, IPBES, UNDESA SDG Reports, UNEP GEO-7, Lancet commission on Sustainability in Health Care (LCSH)).