ISFMI’s Cissy Gore Birch Addresses the GEF Council

ISFMI Advisory Committee member Cissy Gore Birch on 4th December 2020 addressed the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council in one of the few thematic presentations made during their consultations with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on the theme, “The Application of Traditional Knowledge by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Stewards of the Global Environment.” This meeting was organized in collaboration with the Indigenous Peoples Advisory Group (IPAG), the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP), and the GEF CSO Network. Participants discussed the value of traditional knowledge in supporting the conservation of biodiversity, climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as combating other global and local threats, including responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ms Gore Birch informed the Committee about her work in Indigenous community led savanna burning in the Kimberley region of the north west of Australia with local communities, and the work of the ISFMI in Southern Africa and globally. Ms Gore Birch spoke about the value of Indigenous fire knowledge in the context of global fire crises, and noted the importance of having Indigenous people being at the table in policy making and decision making to fully advance the potential of traditional ecological knowledge. Reflecting on Ms Gore Birch’s and others testimonies, Gabriella Richardson-Temm of the GEF noted the idea of “wisdom that becomes science” and emphasised how the examples that had been shared demonstrated that when we talk about Indigenous peoples knowledge we are also talking about long term cultural understanding of the environment, and that the skills and methods and management practices that come within that knowledge are also important to acknowledge and value. Ms Gabriella Richardson-Temm also noted how the example discussed by Ms Gore-Birch and others showed how these practices relate to the global discourse on climate change and biodiversity and the potentials for these examples to link and scale to that level.

The full consultation was recorded and is available to watch here. Cissy Gore Birch’s presentation starts at 1:40:20 and she speaks about having Indigenous people around the table in decision making at 2:06:46.

The IISD report on the consultation is available here.