Indigenous knowledge for alternative futures

For the podcast "treibhaus – der klimapodcast" I have designed and researched a three-part series. The main goal was to explore what kind of knowledge and research we need for the transformation to a more environment- and climate-friendly society. And in that process what we can learn from indigenous communities, their knowledge, and their practices. The first part is about the lives of indigenous people and the central role they inherit in climate action. We begin this episode in the Oriente, in the Amazon basin of Ecuador, where I met with indigenous communities in 2017 for a documentary film production. At that time, we observed how Kichwa, Cofan and Waorani are increasingly being displaced by oil companies, by palm oil and cattle farmers and how their knowledge about the rainforest and rivers is threatened. And I speak with the artist Ursula Biemann about her work with the Inga people in the amazon forest in Colombia and the project that resulted from that collaboration. In the second episode, I spoke with ETH professor Johanna Jacobi about the potential of agroecology; at once a technique, science and social movement. And I tell the story of Samba Khrj Diea, whose agroecological farm I visited when I was in Senegal in November 2022. His agroforestry and diverse farming practices point the way to more resilient agriculture. And it’s obvious that local, indigenous knowledge is central to that. In the third and last episode we portray the work of scientists who explicitly deal with indigenous knowledge or that have an indigenous background themselves. We explore the question of how teaching at our universities could be enriched by the knowledge of indigenous communities. And we are interested in how the Inga people in Colombia imagine a "Pluriversidad" a university where indigenous knowledge is taught and combined with academic knowledge. The series was produced in close collaboration with my colleagues Anna Fierz and Christoph Keller from «treibhaus – der klimapodcast». And it was partly funded by the research fund of the Swiss club of science journalists.