Guide on Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples

Some of the impacts are as follows:• Loss of Life. Gender impositions combined with their alreadymarginalized situations result to more indigenous women casualtiesand victims during weather disasters and emergency situations. Insome areas in Southeast Asia, women are not forewarned because earlywarnings are placed in public places where women rarely go. Girls andwomen, in some indigenous communities, are not taught to swim andare prohibited from going out oftheir homes unaccompanied bymale relatives. These lessen theirchances for survival during theoccurrence of disasters. Womenalso risk their lives because of theirtendency to stay behind to rescuetheir children and the elderly. 1• Loss of livelihood and foodinsecurity. The non recognition of rightto ownership, access and useby indigenous peoples of theirlands, territories and resourcesimplies the loss of women’straditional livelihoods.“In Aceh (Indonesia), collectingshellfish in the mangroveforests is part of the indigenouswomen’s daily routine. In Maluku,women work to productive tidalarea where they also collectshellfish...”Source: Anggraini, Devi. “IndigenousWomen’s Workshop at AMAN Congress“ in Down to Earth No. 74, August 2007.http://dte.gn.apc.org/74din.htm accessed4 April 2004.Disrupted rainfall or drought find indigenous women without waterto irrigate their rice fields and other traditional farms resulting to aJosefina Lagus, from the remote village of Benguet in Northern Philippines,42 yrs old and mother of five, notes that when the rainy and dry seasonsbehave erratically, these affect their crop production.“Our situation has gone from bad to worse. I can’t understand why.Sometimes our fields are flooded and sometimes we experience drought,”Josefina told me during an interview.Josefina adds that in their community, a typical day begins at the break ofdawn with women and sometimes children walking a considerable distanceto fetch water using small buckets. They must walk even longer distances tocollect firewood.“Most women here are silently bearing the brunt of changing climateconditions. But we pray that these problems will be addressed by ourgovernment and other agencies concerned for the sake of our children,”Josefina said.Source: Imelda V. Abaño, “Women Bear the Brunt of Climate Crisis: Their Stories From the UNConference in Bali,” The Women’s International Perspective, Friday 04 January 2008, , accessed on April 4, 2008.110 <strong>Guide</strong> on Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples