Grounded Futures in the Highlands
As climate impacts intensify across Highland Asia, Indigenous communities—often the most exposed and least supported—are already drawing on generations of ecological knowledge to adapt, resist, and reimagine their futures. At the Highland Institute, our Indigenous Climate Resilience Programs are shaped by this understanding: that resilience is not simply technical or infrastructural, but deeply cultural, collective, and rooted in place.
We work alongside local communities to co-develop adaptive strategies that respect and revitalise traditional knowledge systems. These programs are embedded within broader research collaborations, including Earthkeepers, MyCClimate, and Ekologos, and are carried out in close partnership with elders, women’s groups, farmers, and local institutions.
Key Areas of Focus
Food Sovereignty & Seed Heritage:
- Supporting traditional agricultural practices and community seed banks to strengthen resilience against erratic rainfall, pest outbreaks, and crop failures.
→ Recent work includes documentation of highland millets, indigenous pest control methods, and wild edible plant use.
Water Security & Watershed Stewardship:
- Collaborating on community-led efforts to restore springs, build climate-adaptive water infrastructure, and revitalise traditional water-sharing norms.
→ In several villages, this has involved linking oral histories of landscape change with practical water planning.
Community-Based Climate Observations:
- Training citizen scientists to monitor weather patterns, soil conditions, and ecological indicators, while preserving traditional systems of environmental knowledge.
→ Local terms for cloud forms, seasonal winds, and insect behaviour are documented and interpreted in collaboration with elders.
Participatory Climate Planning:
- Facilitating inclusive, locally-led planning processes that integrate Indigenous knowledge with scientific insight to guide adaptation priorities.
Projects in Focus
Earthkeepers (funded by IDRC Canada)
- Intergenerational storytelling and environmental education initiatives that connect climate change awareness with cultural identity and resilience.
MyCClimate (funded by DIIS, Denmark)
- A multi-sited ethnographic and participatory research project focused on how communities experience, interpret, and respond to climate variability and risk.
Ekologos (with UiT Norway)
- A platform for transdisciplinary exchange, creative pedagogy, and decolonial approaches to environmental knowledge.
Our Approach
We prioritise slow, attentive engagement with communities. We value listening as much as technical planning. Whether through long-term fieldwork, oral history recording, or collaborative data gathering, we aim to amplify Indigenous voices and support pathways that emerge from within communities themselves.
Climate resilience in the highlands is not only about survival—it’s about sovereignty, dignity, and the right to shape one’s ecological future.
Interested in learning more or collaborating?
We welcome conversations with researchers, donors, and community organisations who share our commitment to locally grounded climate justice.
info@highlandinstitute.org
The Highland Institute, Meluri Road, Kohima, Nagaland, India
The Highland Institute, Meluri Road, Kohima, Nagaland, India