Vatican City, 15 March, 2024 / 1:20 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis on Thursday reflected on the importance of holding up Indigenous voices and incorporating “ancestral wisdom” as part of broader efforts to mitigate the effects of anthropogenic climate change.
“Open dialogue between Indigenous knowledge and the sciences, between communities of ancestral wisdom and those of the sciences, can help to confront in a new, more integral and more effective way such crucial issues as water, climate change, hunger, and biodiversity,” the pope observed at the Vatican on Thursday. ‘“These issues, as we know very well, are all interconnected.”
The remarks were addressed to participants of the conference “Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge and the Sciences,” sponsored by the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences, held at the Vatican from March 14–15.
This event brings together a plurality of voices from the pontifical academies, Indigenous groups, academics, and international organizations in order to evaluate how traditional Indigenous teachings and methodologies can be harmonized with conventional science to inform global policy on climate change, biodiversity loss, food security, and health.
According to the United Nations, Indigenous people are defined as those who “inhabited a country or a geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived” and retain distinct “social, cultural, economic, and political characteristics” from their native societies.
