Indigenous Knowledge and Modern Technology in the Management of Natural Disasters: Exploring the Linkages

Abstract

The increasing frequency of disasters, coupled with a number of emerging threats and trends, are leaving more people vulnerable to the effects of disasters and inflicting greater damage, loss, and dislocation on vulnerable people worldwide. According to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), in 2008, more than 235,000 people were killed by disasters, 2.14 million affected, while the cost of disasters was over 190 billion US$. In developing the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015, a review of progress made in implementing the Yokohama Strategy adopted in 1994 stressed the importance of disaster risk reduction being underpinned by a more pro-active approach to informing, motivating and involving people in all aspects of disaster risk reduction in their own local communities. After the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, two success stories emerged, bringing new interest to the concept of indigenous knowledge. The Simeulueans living off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia and the Moken, living in the Surin Islands off the coast of Thailand and Myanmar both used knowledge passed on orally from their ancestors to survive the devastating tsunami. According to Shaw et al. (2008), in spite of increased investments in the area of disaster management in recent decades, the losses continue to mount. There is an evident gap between practice and policy. The need to bridge this gap with adequate recognition of the domain of indigenous knowledge and local coping capacities is very urgent. Shaw, et.al. (2008), avers that there is a strong need to recognize the potential of community knowledge and actions, and of switching to a bottom-up approach that uses appropriate community practice as the base for policy formulation. This paper will review secondary sources of data related to areas such as use of modern technology and indigenous knowledge in natural disaster management. The relationship between indigenous knowledge and natural disasters has developed more interest in recent years. The new discussions around indigenous knowledge highlight its potential to improve disaster risk reduction policies through integration into disaster education and early warning systems. Modern technology has also been employed in disaster risk reduction with its own level of success. However, the questions that this paper begs to ask are; what are the linkages and how can the two approaches interlink in enhancing disaster risk reduction? This is the crux of this paper that looks at natural disasters by arguing that both the application of modern technology and indigenous knowledge can present a viable option as an effective approach to disaster management.