In terms of their traditional strengths, tribal communities are well-endowed in several respects, which have a new relevance in terms of climate change adaptation and resilience.
Bharat Dogra
ALONG with a growing realisation of the various adverse consequences of climate change, there is an increasing concern regarding the communities that are more vulnerable and are likely to be more severely impacted by climate change.
This calls for multi-dimensional analysis as we need to explore which areas are more vulnerable to increasing heat or increasing disasters like floods, which communities are poorer and have less social security, whose livelihoods are more susceptible to climate change, what is the housing condition of people and what is the disaster-preparedness of people. At the same time, how the response to climate change can be improved at the community level to reduce adverse impact also has several dimensions. This involves improving the resilience of the community in several ways, as well as improving the kind of government assistance that is needed the most.
Tribals are often identified to be among the more vulnerable communities. In a recently published (2025) paper Amit Kumar and T Mohanasundari have stated that in terms of their own perceptions, tribal community members in very large numbers are confirming the manifestation of climate change in their communities and villages. In this paper titled ‘Assessing Climate Change Risks and Vulnerabilities among Bhil and Bhilala Tribal Communities in Madhya Pradesh, India’, the authors mention the percentage of Bhil community members who confirm the increasing impact of climate change in terms of their living experience. A total of 97% of respondents agreed that there is an increasing irregularity of rain; 98% said there are increased summer hot days, 85% said there is a decrease in the number of rainy days and 97% said there is an overall increase in temperature.
Another study by SK Das and JP Basu found the vulnerability of the Lodha tribal community in West Bengal to be particularly acute and serious. In yet another study for Tripura, N Roy and A Debnath looked at communities in terms of intensity of hazards and risks, sensitivity and exposure, and found that tribal communities have much greater vulnerability and exposure compared to non-tribal communities.
While all this confirms the urgency of making more extensive and well-thought-out efforts for better protection of tribal communities and their adaptation to climate change, there is another aspect, more on the positive side, which also needs to be emphasised.
In terms of their traditional strengths, tribal communities are well-endowed in several respects, which have a new relevance in terms of climate change adaptation and resilience. They have been practicing water conservation in ways that are very well suited to local needs. They have their own local systems, in terms of nutrition, housing, gardens, medicines, etc., for coping with heat stress. They have mixed farming and tree systems, which can give protective food yield even in times of below-normal rainfall. Keeping in view also their ability to meet several needs from forests and wildly growing trees, based on their rich knowledge of biodiversity, they have more self-reliant communities. They are in a better position to mobilise communities for collective or shared tasks and responsibilities. Many tribal communities are in a better position to save a diversity of traditional seed varieties.
All these are important traditional strengths which can be very useful in terms of climate change adaptation too. With proper recognition of the importance of these traditional strengths, present-day efforts can build further on these strengths to have a stronger climate adaptation capability in place.
What is more, several strengths of tribal communities are important not just for climate change adaptation, but in addition also for climate change mitigation. If we go back to the traditional ways of several tribal communities, these would be found to have very useful systems of protecting forests, using them in very sustainable ways, increasing the green cover in ways which are in tune with natural ways and having farming systems which conserve soil very well. All this would be very important today in terms of climate change mitigation as well.
This is not to say that all the traditional strengths can still be found everywhere. These have suffered erosion due to several factors. Due to the exploitative practices of outside forces, the resilience of tribal communities suffered. As several members became more dependent on migrant labour, the traditional skills could not always be passed from one generation to another, and regeneration and restoration work done by the community together also suffered.
Hence, a lot of efforts are needed so that tribal communities can firstly get back the traditional strengths which, quite apart from their intrinsic usefulness, have an increasing new relevance in the form of what they can contribute in various ways to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Secondly, a lot can also be done in numerous very creative and beautiful ways to add further to this traditional strength and to build on this based on its proper and participative understanding and cooperation.
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Bharat Dogra writes extensively on environment, development and welfare issues. The views expressed here are the writer’s own, and Clarion India does not necessarily subscribe to them. He can be reached at: bharatdogra1956@gmail.com
