The Impacts of Climate Change in Amazonian Indigenous communities: The role of human-ecosystem interactions in supporting adaptation and resilience

The Amazon rainforest is a climate change hotspot, with impacts relevant (and already evident) at local, regional and global scales. The ecosystem is changing. Numerous and diverse indigenous communities, with livelihoods and knowledge systems evolved through generations of close contact with the rainforest, are being forced to respond. Like many indigenous communities worldwide, they are amongst the first and more severely hit by environmental change. The situation thus offers a unique opportunity to investigate and improve understanding of the human-environment interactions that support resilience to environmental change. Given the pace of these changes and the risk of loss of cultural and environmental diversity, it is critically important to improve understanding of these interactions to better support positive adaptation.

Ecological-anthropological research was undertaken in 2014-15 amongst four Tacana Indigenous communities of the Bolivian Amazon. The research focuses on the communities’ perceptions of and responses to recent extreme events, such as the severe flood and ensuing drought of 2014; and changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures; each possible early examples of climate change. Ecological impacts, and changing interactions between these communities and their ecosystem, are also studied. Research findings offer insights into the factors important in supporting the resilience of these and similar communities, and their local ecosystems. Future challenges given the predicted acceleration in climate change impacts, and how positive adaptation can be supported in light of this, are considered. Finally, the potential significance of findings for understanding adaptation and resilience amongst human-ecological systems worldwide is considered.