Jarrel De Matas

Earlier this year, a remarkable discovery occurred which revealed pottery belonging to the Amerindian group known as the Nepoio.

I call it remarkable for two main reasons. Firstly, the archaeological discovery did not involve hi-tech machines or computers but instead one man, Shaheed Mohammed, and his dog, Dogface.

Secondly, the discovery has the potential to stimulate further archaeological expeditions around the area of Mayo Village, east of Claxton Bay in central Trinidad. "Potential" can only go so far, however. We need action. Mohammed’s discovery should propel us to revise the regional CXC history syllabus, given its woefully outdated status which is ironic because Caribbean history education seems to be stuck in, well, the past.

Further, the recent discovery can draw our attention to the very real existence of our local indigenous communities and how those very communities can prompt us to take a different kind of action: climate change action.

As outlined in the 2020 edition of The State of the Caribbean Climate – a report prepared by The Climate Studies Group of the UWI Mona, Jamaica – indigenous groups are often vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This is because the geographical remoteness of many indigenous communities, added to their general lack of access to resources, increases consequences related to evacuation procedures after storms and hurricanes.

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Paying attention to our at-risk indigenous communities as part of a robust climate action plan achieves a positive knock-on effect. Such an action plan improves the national response and responsibility to a global climate change movement which in turn results in preserving indigenous knowledge about environmentally friendly practises leading to a more effective climate response on a local level. This knock-on effect forms the basis of this column: Where can national development plans involve, not exclude, indigenous communities and how can our climate response incorporate indigenous knowledge.

National development plans

Among the exhaustive research on indigenous climate change activism, the concept of land defenders stands out as a possible way to ground our national climate response in not just local, but indigenous communities. Without state partnerships between our local indigenous communities, however, our attempts at encouraging land defenders will suffer a fate similar to that of the Wet’suwet’en peoples in Canada who in June 2022 were arrested on their territory by Canadian police after opposing the construction of a liquefied natural gas pipeline.

While a nation’s energy project may clash with indigenous communities, there is the potential for investment to redound to the benefit of those very communities under threat.

For example, last year the Guyana government announced that ART – the Architecture for REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) Transactions – which certified Guy