The case to recognise Indigenous knowledge as science | Albert Wiggan | TEDxSydney

[Music] Gordo million gala carnival Ambreen gala cargo lumbering bore no German word Nana na given an angered you I've acknowledged the people of this land past and present and this sacred land that we now find ourselves and I thank them for allowing me of the opportunity to come here and speak about my country and my people it's always protocol when you're an indigenous person traveling to someone else's boundary and so the beginning I grew up in two different worlds my father was a really traditional cultural man he lived and breathed his cultural identity my mother on the other hand was raised in a Catholic mission she was raised with the values of middle-class white Australia and I guess for me I had an opportunity to experience and to learn about life from these two different worlds for the first few years of my life my siblings and I only with our parents lived on a small isolated island off the remote coast of the Kimberley's colon gongoon in this island I learned to understand the unique symbiotic relationship I as a human being had with the natural world purely because our survival depended on it our lifestyle and our choices weren't influenced by politics it wasn't influenced by economics it was influenced by nature the tides the seasons the weather and so we started to appreciate this really fundamental concept is that we can't have one without the other we all need each other to depend on one another and so when it came to for my education my parents made a decision to move into Broome I was then sent to an all-boys private school in Perth where I was the only indigenous student amongst 2,000 non-indigenous children and it was there that I really started to face my challenges that were going to obviously present itself throughout my lifetime challenges around misunderstandings and misinterpretations about Who I am as an indigenous person and the value that my culture actually has a part of the fabrication of this country and so I've coming from such a beautiful natural untouched unspoiled area of the planet I was able to witness the impacts of capitalism the impacts of consumption extraction greed and I could come to this understanding in my life that I need to do something about this because the Kimberley's was not only important to me or my family or my tribe but somehow I feel that the Kimberley's is going to be important for all of us and so I started to learn I guess how different people interpret it what is it that they call knowledge Western science tends to refer to indigenous knowledge as traditional ecological knowledge and that's a really great interpretation take my hat off to whoever came up with that but for me I refer to it as indigenous science because it is a foundation of knowledge that was developed through the same principles as Western knowledge observation experimentation analyst you know and and so when you look at those aspects of how that knowledge was created sounds like science to me and so I feel that we as a nation are still growing in regards to how we bring these to knowledge 'iz together and I recognize that there are researchers and scientists all over the country that that really appreciate the value that indigenous knowledge can have in regards to sustainable management practices in regards to a sustainable social architecture in regards to what political and governance should actually responsibilities should look like and for me I think there's an incredible opportunity in that as a young indigenous man because we all are now facing a fundamental threat which is climate change nobody knows enough about it nobody knows the implications but I can refer to my mob that is witness for thousands of years floods droughts ice ages and so the knowledge that was collected and developed was then in order to adapt to those changes in order to become resilient to those sort of changes was passed on and embedded in my indigenous people's cultural practices and their management practices in their social systems we hear this term songlines it's all there baby and I think now we're at a really important time because one thing to understand about the Kimberley region is 94% of the region is indigenous own it's subject to Native Title which is a significant investment on behalf of indigenous people so we now see that as a valuable opportunity to use this knowledge to creating long-term solutions that not only benefit us and not only protect the principles and values that are important to us but it gives an opportunity to extend that on to everybody and this concept of separatism about their digitus non-indigenous when you start to look at the reality and roll back the time of evolution 3000 years ago we were all indigenous from somewhere and so that instinct that common ground about our indigenous makeup is in all of us and we can connect on that level we need to seriously appreciate and integrate indigenous knowledge as part of mainstream operating processes not only in conservation and land management it has to be in so many other industries in other aspects of our life the only reason why I say that is because this is a system of management has existed for 60,000 years and incredibly in Australia it still exists in certain parts of this country including the Kimberley's and so I think you know there's a really great opportunity here for science and indigenous knowledge to create a real force to be reckoned with when it comes to stabilizing our planet when it comes to stabilizing our existence as homo sapiens and I don't think you can have one without the other and they will both complement one another if we be serious about integrating that knowledge as part of mainstream awareness and practice I've dedicated the last 20 years of my life as an indigenous educator because I genuinely believe that the solution lies with all of us and capitalism oh my goodness which is driven by politics and economics it's killing us and what we really need to do is make a really strong decision and shift in our minds about what are we going to do with the legacy we leave behind and that's a really important concept because legacy is embedded in our culture it is the epitome of who we are is what we leave behind and so if you really would like some sort of reference or a guideline into what a positive legacy may seem like in the next hundred years I genuinely believe the answer lies with indigenous knowledge and Western science coming together and educating everybody about what are the most important values to us as human beings I'm really lucky to be able to stand here and share this story on behalf of all of my people that are so isolated and remote and give them a voice of hope hope that with this world really once change and hope that this world is going to achieve that change Gorna moyen thank you I'm Albert Wiggin [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 94,512

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Humanities, Climate Change, Community, Culture, Environment, Nature, Science

Id: X5QON5l6zy8

Length: 10min 27sec (627 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 15 2019