Lets give them back before its too late for all!

Traditional Knowledge treasured by Indigenous People is the real Vaccine for developing immunity against shocks like COVID19 and resilience for Climate Change. Let us give them land that they rightfully own before it is too late. We all urbanites have robbed their land . Only then we will be in position to celebrate today's International Day for World’s Indigenous People. 

The knowledge of living with nature, expertise in being resilient to shocks due to disasters are now with only 476 million, 6 percent of the world population, in over 90 countries in the world . Their territories are home to most of the 80% of the world’s biodiversity. That means only 20 percent of biodiversity of the world is with people like us , so called modern society, that gets locked in epidemic without understanding the cause and forgetting the past experiences. 

This year’s theme is 'COVID-19 and indigenous peoples’ resilience. It is expected to focus on the how preservation and promotion of indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge and practices and vital ancestral knowledge and expertise on how to adapt, mitigate, and reduce climate and disaster risks.

Indigenous peoples’ traditional expertise and relationship with nature show that the degradation of the environment can unleash disease.They can teach us much about how to rebalance our relationship with nature and reduce the risk of future pandemics. Now more than ever, we must safeguard their knowledge.

-Dr Rajendra Shende