Indigenous communities around the globe face profound threats from climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation. Now, an international team that includes researchers from Penn State have been awarded $5 million by the U.S. National Science Foundation, along with funding from Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, to investigate how to mitigate these threats.

“Research into Indigenous communities is underfunded, and their knowledge and practices are often overlooked and undermined by government policy,” said Guangqing Chi, professor of rural sociology, demography and public health sciences at Penn State. Chi is a co-investigator on the project. “We want to interlink Indigenous knowledge with Western knowledge in ways that will strengthen community resilience to climate change and support actions that benefit Indigenous peoples.”

According to the investigators, climate change is more impactful on Indigenous communities versus other communities, since it has more direct effects on their lifestyle, health and nutrition.

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