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Society for Anthropological Sciences
Oral Presentation Session
Giovanni Bennardo
Northern Illinois University, Department of Anthropology
A Cultural Model of Nature (CMN) is a fundamental part of any IK or TEK and it contributes to the generation of behavior including responses to environmental stressors, i.e., climate change. I have suggested a CMN for Tongans (Polynesians) after conducting extensive research in the Kingdom. It is now time to make these findings relevant to the local and international policy makers planning intervention in Tonga.
The Tongan Department of Climate Change, Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change and Communications (MEIDECC) issued in 2017 a document titled Tonga Climate Change Policy: A Resilient Tonga by 2035. In 2018, Tonga MEIDECC launched a revised Joint National Action Plan on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management supported by the European Union, Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit, Green Climate Fund, USAID and by UN Development Programme. Similarly, also funded by the European Union, the Global Climate Change Alliance: Pacific Small Island State project is currently under way.
After a careful reading of the many documents associated with this exemplary projects, one comes out with the idea that a well thought and extremely detailed intervention policy is not only planned, but also already being implemented on the ground, i.e., Tongan villages. However, none of the documents discuss or keep in mind the IK or TEK that it is held by the population involved. In this presentation, I suggest pathways that I intend to explore in order to make accessible and possibly relevant to all the stakeholders the CMN I suggested.