UN chief touts traditional wisdom in disaster reduction

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday highlighted the importance of valuing traditional, indigenous and local knowledge in disaster reduction.

“Traditional and indigenous knowledge is the indispensable information base for many societies seeking to live in harmony with nature and adapt to disruptive weather events, a warming globe and rising seas,” said Ban in a message to mark the International Day for Disaster Reduction, which fell on Tuesday.

The focus of this year’s International Day for Disaster Reduction was placed on the traditional, indigenous and local knowledge which complement modern science and add to an individual’s and societies’ resilience.

In Cameroon, low-tech local knowledge passed down from generation to generation helps farmers to cope with drought by soaking maize and bean seeds before planting, said Ban. “Resilience is the sum of many such acts of disaster risk reduction at the local level.”

Ban pointed out that “local knowledge of the impacts of urbanization, population growth, eco-system decline and greenhouse gas emissions is especially important in an era when more and more disasters are climate- and weather-related.”

Moreover, building resilience to disasters is a key feature of the newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals, which charts the course to end poverty and promote shared prosperity on a healthy planet by 2030, said Ban.

“On this International Day, let us recognize the efforts of communities, large and small, who put their wisdom to use in reducing disaster risk and sharing their precious ‘knowledge for life’,” he said.

In 1989, the UN General Assembly designated the second Wednesday of October as the International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction. In 2009, the General Assembly decided to change the date to Oct. 13 and to change the Day’s name to International Day for Disaster Reduction. The objective of the observance is to raise awareness of how people are taking action to reduce their risk to disasters.