Traditional knowledge integrated with climate information at VanKIRAP workshop
Experience shows that communities with strong traditional knowledge on weather and climate are better able to adapt to extreme climate and weather events.In some parts of Vanuatu, though, these skills are starting to disappear. Reasons for this include language loss, knowledge holders being unable to pass information on to the next generation, and the impact of climate change on the traditional indicators when animal and plants change behaviours and habitats in response to the warming climate.Maintaining traditional climate knowledge is critical for community climate resilience, so the Vanuatu Klaemet Infomesen blong Redy, Adapt mo Protekt (VanKIRAP) Project is gathering existing traditional knowledge used in forecasting to produce integrated forecasts for Vanuatu that combine traditional knowledge with scientific model-based data.