Learning from Tribal Knowledge to Protect the Environment
There is perhaps no more overused word in environmental policy than “science.” Politicians hope allusions to the scientific process will hide the lack of arguments for their policy proposals.
Government-run policies purportedly based on “science,” however, are often static and based on the false assumption that scientists have enough information to accurately plan decades into the future.
The idealized version of environmental policy starts with an understanding of scientific knowledge and builds a public policy plan based on that knowledge. This is the “idealized” version because while many policies claim to follow that path, most are influenced heavily by ideology, politics, and other non-science factors.
In Washington state, policies justified based on “science” have repeatedly failed to reduce CO2 emissions, failed to recover Puget Sound salmon, and have led to unhealthy and fire-prone forests.
The problem is not a failure of science. The problem is political misuse of science, ignoring uncertainty and confounding factors. Ignoring those caveats is unscientific and leads to the policy failures that have become endemic in our environmental policy.
We need a more dynamic approach that learns and adjusts over time, improving through observation and trial and error. There is already a model for this approach. It is the method of traditional, indigenous knowledge.
The knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities is now recognized as essential, alongside science, for developing effective and meaningful action world-wide. One tribal scientist I spoke with noted that while scientific rigor is important, it often seeks “universal context-free truths.” When facing real-world problems, “We are not working in labs. There are an awful lot of things that you can’t anticipate or know about. When you look at traditional knowledge you understand that things are not context free.”
The process of learning was strengthened by the incentives and accountability tribes felt. Tribes whose practices were effective were healthier and wealthier. The costs of mistakes, on the other hand, created incentives to change and learn.
The value of knowledge generated through a dynamic learning process is beginning to be appreciated around the world. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) statement on “Sustainable development and environmental change,” says, “While science contributes significantly to understanding earth systems, social systems and their interactions, there is growing awareness that scientific knowledge alone is inadequate for solving the emerging environmental crises.”
Applying a dynamic learning approach isn’t limited to tribal communities. Many scientific discoveries occurred because scientists followed up on an observation they didn’t understand. X-rays were discovered accidentally. So too was penicillin. Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin’s properties, explained his finding by noting, “When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.”
That process of discovery is unsuited to government planning. Planning assumes we have information up front and then establishes a path to a goal. New information that doesn’t fit the plan is too-frequently dismissed because it isn’t peer-reviewed. Planning creates inertia that works against new information because any change requires reformulating the plan, which can be difficult and costly and may remove advantages enjoyed by incumbents in the existing system. Nobody wants to admit their plan was wrong, so politicians and planners employ strategic myopia to ignore data that contradict their claimed expertise.
Addressing large environmental problems, like climate change, requires a dynamic and adaptable approach, more like the process of indigenous knowledge than the rigid approach of government planning.
It simply isn’t possible to anticipate the new discoveries, economic changes, and new technologies that will emerge over time. Papering over uncertainty with arrogance makes it more likely that plans will be unable to adapt to these changes. Rather than imposing “science” from the top, our strategies should empower those on the ground, who can see opportunities first-hand and have incentives to use that knowledge and adapt over time.
Washington state, among many places, is failing to meet its climate targets because the approach our leaders take is rigid and arrogant. We should learn from the robust approach of learning that characterized traditional tribal knowledge. Until we turn to a more adaptive approach, we will continue to fail in our environmental policy.
Todd Myers is the Director of the Center for the Environment at the Washington Policy Center.
