The Value of Indigenous Knowledge to Education for Sustainable Development and Climate Change Education in the Pacific

Abstract

Pacific knowledge systems have always had to deal with change. Living in the vastness of the Pacific and exposed to environmental challenges has resulted in communities that are constantly needing to adapt to improve their conditions. Climate change (CC) is a more recent and indeed urgent phenomenon to which to respond. The Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) agenda established by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is an attempt to encourage communities to set in place educational responses and strategies and to make informed choices regarding sustainable issues now and in the future.

The authors have worked on educational responses to ESD and CC in the Pacific over many years. Central to their approach has been the acknowledgment that both ESD and CC require a broad based, interdisciplinary, and holistic approach and any approach must uphold culture as its underpinning driver. Being critically sharpened by experiences of living in the colonized reality of Aotearoa/New Zealand and familiar with old Polynesian values, the authors are able to work alongside communities to coconstruct innovative solutions to assist in fulfilling the ESD agendas in the Pacific. Such experiences can be made relevant to other contexts.

This article will review approaches to ESD and CC education in two case studies in which Indigenous concepts were made central. Firstly in Kiribati, where the research was undertaken in partnership with Ministries, UNESCO Apia, and NGOs to firstly map the current school curriculum to include and strengthen climate change education (CCE) by creating a CCE framework which is culturally and contextually relevant.

Secondly, in the nonformal sector, the authors led work with an NGO in Samoa to train “Taiala” (pathbreakers) to incorporate the principles of ESD and CC adaptation into their villages through a leadership training workshop.

On both occasions, the approaches allowed for an innovative mix of Indigenous models to form an integral part of finding solutions to the ESD and CC challenges and to also ensure that the application was appropriate and allowed for successful educational outcomes as determined by the communities themselves and also for themselves.