Events

Jointly organized by Indonesia and Malaysia Study Groups of Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Michelle Ann Miller, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

There is a broad consensus that empowering indigenous communities to leverage their traditional ecological knowledge is key to adapting to the local impacts of climate change. This consensus is largely based on studies of communities in ‘extreme’ environments, such as deserts and polar regions, where indigenous perceptions of climate change have been found to broadly correspond with instrumental climate data and to offer important insights that would otherwise be missed. There is, however, little comparative work focusing on communities in less ‘extreme’ environments, such as tropical rainforests. We address this gap in the literature by focusing on the Penan – a semi-nomadic tribe with an unparalleled knowledge of the Borneo rainforest. We combine high resolution gridded climate data and primary data from 200 individuals in six nearby villages in Sarawak, Malaysia to record individual perceptions of climate anomalies and to examine how perceptions correspond with instrumental data. Despite all individuals experiencing the same climate anomalies, we find that individual perceptions across and within villages vary widely in terms of occurrence and magnitude. Using Poisson regression analysis, our findings suggest that whether individuals are more likely to perceive climate anomalies that correspond to instrumental climate data can be largely explained by the salience of climate anomalies and unobserved variables at the village-level. These are important findings that highlight the potential limitations of leveraging traditional ecological knowledge to adapt to the local impacts of climate change.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Terry van Gevelt is Assistant Professor in Environmental Sustainability at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. Terry is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance at the University of Cambridge. Previously, Terry held research and teaching positions at the University of Cambridge and was a visiting scholar at Seoul National University. Terry’s research interests are in environmental policy, climate change adaptation, energy access and low-carbon transitions, and sustainable development. Terry holds a BSc (Hons) from the University of Warwick and MPhil and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge.

REGISTRATION

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