Indigenous knowledge and practices: A needed balance to recover ourselves and our ecosystems

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Dr. Farrukh A. Chishtie

In an era of intensifying climate crisis and impacts, we must return to and recover through our indigenous knowledge and practices.

In Islamabad, spring can feel like a betrayal.

The air looks gentle, even fresh, and the hills in the distance appear washed clean after winter. Yet for many families, this is the season of tight chests, burning eyes, relentless sneezing, and hospital visits that arrive like clockwork. People learn the routines of survival. Windows stay shut. Children are kept indoors. Inhalers become a constant companion. Some households plan errands the way others plan around monsoon rain.

For years, this suffering has had a quiet, uncomfortable twist: it was not simply “nature doing its thing.” It was, in part, the result of human choices about what belongs in an ecosystem and what does not.

Paper mulberry, planted widely decades ago, spread aggressively and displaced local vegetation. As it took over, it became linked to severe public-health harms during pollination season, including serious allergies and asthma, with reports of deaths and a near-impossible struggle to eradicate it because of its invasive nature. Even the city’s bird life changed in ways people could see. Where Islamabad was known as a sanctuary, birds other than crows became rare, while crows helped propagate the tree’s fruit.

This is not just a story about one invasive tree. It is a warning about imbalance, and a lesson about recovery.

Across Pakistan and South Asia, climate impacts are already amplifying stresses that ecosystems have been carrying for decades: heat extremes, shifting rains, floods, drought, food insecurity, polluted air, and biodiversity loss. But climate change is not the only force destabilizing our living systems. The quieter force is how we build cities, how we farm, how we plant, how we consume, and what we consider “development.” Sometimes, we chase fast solutions that look green but weaken the very relationships that keep land and people resilient.

Eucalyptus is a sharp example. It survives easily and was favored because it needed little post-plantation care, but it “guzzles” water, invades local vegetation, and offers little to birds, insects, or animals. More recently, the mass plantation of Conocarpus has repeated the same pattern, showing how quickly we can forget ecological history. The tragedy is not only ecological. It is social and bodily. When an ecosystem is pushed out of balance, our daily lives, health, livelihoods, and sense of safety shift with it.

So where do we begin to recover?

One powerful beginning is to stop treating Indigenous knowledge and practices as folklore or nostalgia and start recognizing them as living systems of ecological intelligence and ethical responsibility. Across South Asia, communities have long held place-based ways of reading weather, soil, water, forests, rivers, and species interactions, then shaping livelihoods around those realities. This knowledge is not separate from survival. It is survival, refined across generations.

But we also need a language that helps modern policy, planning, science, and public health take this wisdom seriously without reducing it to a “toolbox.” That is where the occupational security framework becomes useful.

Occupational security is defined as the interrelated, sustainable, just, and compassionate protection of humans’ and non-humans’ right to a safe, peaceful, and dignified life, including engagement in occupation, with measures and solutions that are authentic and accurate. It expands the idea of occupation beyond humans, insisting that non-humans also have agency and life patterns that matter in their own right. The framework is explicitly values-based, grounded in sustainability, justice, peace, compassion, and authenticity with accuracy.

That may sound academic, but the implications are deeply practical.

When we plant an invasive species because it grows fast and “looks tidy,” we are not only making a landscaping decision. We are interfering with non-human occupations: pollinators seeking nectar, birds nesting and feeding, native trees exchanging nutrients, soils breathing, waterways moving, and seasonal cycles that regulate heat. When those occupations are disrupted, human occupations also unravel: children miss school due to asthma, families spend more on health care, outdoor workers face higher risk, and communities lose shade, food sources, and biodiversity that buffers climate stress.

When ecosystems change, daily life changes. Climate resilience begins with the relationships we protect. In other words, ecosystem recovery is also self-recovery.

This cover story will explore Indigenous knowledge and practices across South Asia, including Pakistan, through the occupational security lens. We will ask a simple, urgent question: what would it look like to rebuild balance in a warming world by protecting the intertwined “daily lives” of humans and the living world around us?

We will visit mountain, desert, river, coastal, and urban contexts. We will look at stewardship traditions and the practical science embedded within them. We will also confront uncomfortable truths: how plantation drives can become ecological mistakes when they ignore native relationships; how “green” can become a performance; and how climate resilience cannot be imported as a slogan. It must be grown from the ground up, rooted in local ecology, ethics, and community leadership.

The paper mulberry lesson is a doorway. It tells us what happens when we treat ecosystems as blank canvases for quick fixes. It also hints at the path forward: learning to plant and live in ways that honor the life that already belongs here.

Because in the end, recovery is not a single project. It is a relationship restored.

Not “old stories”: living instructions for survival

Indigenous knowledge is often described casually as “traditional wisdom,” as if it belongs to museums and memory. But across South Asia — including Pakistan — it has always been something far more practical: a living, place-based way of understanding how land, water, seasons, plants, animals, and people co-exist, and what happens when that balance is disturbed.

In many communities, knowledge is not stored in textbooks. It is stored in timing (when the winds change, when a river becomes dangerous), in observation (what flowering means for rainfall), in restraint (what must not be harvested, cut, or hunted), and in reciprocity (what is taken must be honored, and what is used must be protected). Occupational science research on Indigenous knowledge emphasizes exactly this: respectful, reciprocal human–non-human relationships, including protocols that prevent overuse and exploitation of plants and animals.

This is why Indigenous knowledge matters so intensely in an era of climate disruption. Climate change does not only bring new extremes; it also scrambles old patterns — the seasonal cues that communities have relied on for agriculture, water safety, grazing, fishing, and health. When patterns break, people naturally search for guidance. And often, the best guidance is not found in imported “one-size-fits-all” solutions, but in local ecological intelligence — updated, supported, and respected.

A South Asian reality: many ecologies, many ways of knowing

South Asia is not one ecosystem; it is many. From the Himalayas to the Indus plains, from deserts to deltas, from coasts to cities — each place has its own logic. Knowledge that works in a riverine floodplain may not apply in an arid rangeland, and what works in high-altitude forests may not work in a coastal mangrove system. Indigenous practices emerge from these specific conditions, and that specificity is their strength.

What often gets missed is that Indigenous knowledge is not only about “using nature.” It is also about ethics: how to live without breaking the cycles that sustain life. Many Indigenous cultures hold restrictions — taboos, seasonal limits, and community rules — designed to keep use within a threshold that ecosystems can regenerate. These practices are not anti-development; they are pro-future.

Why we need a new lens: from “human security” to shared security

In mainstream climate talk, nature is frequently treated like a backdrop — something we manage so that humans can be safe. But the crises we face now are telling us something uncomfortable: if we only protect humans while degrading the living world, we create a false safety that collapses later.

This is where the occupational security framework becomes a powerful lens for readers — because it makes the hidden connections visible. If we want to recover ourselves, we must also recover the occupations of the living world — because our safety is relational.

Occupational security is defined as the interrelated, sustainable, just, and compassionate protection of humans’ and non-humans’ right to a safe, peaceful, and dignified life, including engagement in occupation, through measures and solutions that are authentic and accurate. It also expands the very notion of “occupation” beyond being human-only, by including non-humans and their agency.

This matters because climate impacts are not only meteorological events; they are disruptions of daily life. And daily life is not just human. Pollinators have daily work. Rivers have seasonal rhythms. Birds migrate and nest. Trees exchange nutrients and anchor soil. When those non-human occupations are disrupted — through invasive plantations, habitat loss, pollution, heat stress — human occupations unravel too: farming fails, disease rises, floods hit harder, heat becomes deadly, livelihoods fracture.

Occupational security helps us speak honestly about this interdependence, without slipping into either romanticism (“Indigenous people are always perfect guardians”) or extraction (“Let’s take the technique but ignore the worldview”). It asks: Which lives are being protected, which are being sacrificed, and what values are guiding our decisions?

Indigenous knowledge includes spirituality—and that changes everything

A crucial difference between many Indigenous knowledge systems and modern technocratic policy is that Indigenous knowledge often acknowledges spirituality and relational responsibility — not as decoration, but as a core part of environmental decision-making.

Research discussed in the occupational security paper notes that acknowledging non-human agency and spirituality has major implications for environmental decision-making, including holistic approaches that recognize cultural, spiritual, and ecological factors together. This is not “anti-science.” It is an expanded ethics: a recognition that flourishing human societies are intimately tied to the health of ecosystems and their non-human members.

For Pakistan, where faith and spiritual meaning are woven into everyday life, this point can be transformative. It suggests that ecological care is not only policy — it is character, duty, and belonging.

The lens we will use: Occupational security (a practical field guide, not a slogan)

Climate conversations in Pakistan often reduce “security” to protecting people—homes, jobs, food, health. But what if our safety is inseparable from the daily life of the living world around us?

Occupational security offers a clear way to see that connection. It is defined as the interrelated, sustainable, just, and compassionate protection of humans’ and non-humans’ right to a safe, peaceful, and dignified life, including engagement in occupation, through measures that are authentic and accurate. It also insists that “occupation” is not human-only: non-humans have their own agency and life activities that matter in their own right.

This matters because many climate “solutions” look impressive on posters but quietly damage ecosystems. When we replace native vegetation, drain wetlands, harden riverbanks, or plant invasive exotics for fast greening, we interrupt non-human occupations — pollination, seed dispersal, soil renewal, water filtration, migration, nesting. And when those break, human occupations break too: farming becomes riskier, heat grows deadlier, disease increases, and public health costs rise.

Occupational security helps us ask the missing question: Is this action protecting life—or just looking modern?

Why this connects naturally to Indigenous knowledge

Indigenous knowledge systems often begin with reciprocity and respect in human–non-human relationships. Many traditions include rules and restraints — what not to take, when not to harvest, how to give thanks — so ecosystems are not overused or exploited. They also recognize that spirituality and the voices of non-human beings can be part of ethical environmental decision-making.

So, when we place Indigenous practice inside the occupational security frame, we get a powerful “balance”: knowledge + values + accountability.

Occupational security is explicitly values-based, grounded in sustainability, justice, peace, compassion, and authenticity with accuracy.

• Sustainability: Does it sustain life long-term — not just survive this season?

• Justice: Who benefits, and who pays the price (especially marginalized communities and ecosystems)?

• Peace: Does it reduce conflict and harm — between people, and between people and nature?

• Compassion: Does it treat suffering (human and non-human) as morally important, not collateral?

• Authenticity with accuracy: Are claims truthful — based on evidence, ecology, and long-term monitoring, not PR?

  
  

What stewardship looks like across South Asia: many places, one principle — reciprocity

Across South Asia, Indigenous and local communities have long acted as stewards —not through a single “model,” but through a shared principle: life is sustained through relationship. In the occupational security framework, this relationality is explicit: security is not only about humans; it is about the interdependence of humans and non-humans within daily life and occupation. And Indigenous knowledge repeatedly returns to reciprocity and respect in human–non-human relationships.

To make this real, picture four South Asian landscapes, each with its own climate stresses and recovery pathways.

1) Mountains: “Hold the soil; hold the future”

In highland environments, the land teaches quickly: when soils slide, livelihoods slide with them. Many mountain communities have historically relied on practices that reduce erosion, protect water pathways, and spread risk across seasons. The “knowledge” here is not a slogan; it is generational reading of slope, snowmelt, vegetation cover, and timing. Occupational security helps us name what is really being protected: not only human farming and shelter, but also non-human occupations — soil organisms, watershed flows, forests regenerating, and species that depend on stable habitats.

2) Drylands and rangelands: “Restraint is an ecological skill”

In arid regions, survival often depends on knowing when not to take. Indigenous approaches commonly include limits, taboos, or community rules that prevent overuse— because ecosystems do not recover on human schedules. The occupational security paper notes that many Indigenous cultures use restrictions around plants and animals specifically, so they are not overused or exploited. In climate terms, that restraint is not “backward”— it is resilience: a way of keeping grasslands, shrubs, and soil moisture from crossing a point of no return.

3) Rivers and deltas: “Let the water breathe”

Floodplains and deltas teach a different lesson: water is not merely a hazard; it is a life system. Stewardship traditions often focus on protecting river edges, wetlands, and natural buffers that absorb shocks. When we remove those buffers, climate impacts hit harder. Occupational security’s insistence that non-humans have agency and occupations of their own reminds us that a river is not an inert channel — it is an actor in the network of life, shaping and being shaped by human decisions.

4) Cities: “Recovery begins with what we plant and what we stop planting”

Urban ecology is where the story becomes personal for millions. Cities feel “separate” from nature, but they are ecosystems — made fragile by heat islands, pollution, and poor species choices. When exotics replace native vegetation, disharmony can spread across the entire life cycle, affecting humans, animals, birds, and insects. This is why occupational security demands authenticity with accuracy: if an intervention looks green but weakens biodiversity and health, it is not security — it is delayed insecurity.

The hidden engine underneath all four landscapes: spirituality and ethics

A key difference between many Indigenous knowledge systems and modern “management” is that Indigenous stewardship often carries spiritual meaning and moral responsibility. The occupational security paper describes spirituality and reverence for the natural world as intrinsic elements of Indigenous knowledge, guiding environmental stewardship and community well-being. It also emphasizes that many knowledge systems are passed through oral traditions and embed deep understanding of ecosystems and the cultural significance of species.

In Pakistan, where spirituality shapes daily life, this matters: it offers a bridge between climate adaptation and values people already live by — care, restraint, gratitude, and responsibility. This is indeed the values inherent in Islam and other faiths, and stewardship of our ecosystems is a spiritual responsibility, which needs to be implemented with commitment.

Pakistan’s simplest climate lesson: what we plant decides what survives

If ecosystem recovery sounds abstract, Pakistan’s plantation history makes it painfully concrete. When paper mulberry spread in Islamabad, it invaded local vegetation and became a serious public-health threat during spring pollination. Thousands suffered, with reported deaths linked to allergies and asthma, and eradication efforts struggled because of its invasive nature. The ecological damage was visible too: birds other than crows became rare, while crows fed on and propagated the tree’s fruit.

Then there is eucalyptus — chosen for ease and survival yet described as a tree that “guzzles” water, invades local vegetation, and offers little to birds, insects, or animals. And the same pattern repeats: the mass plantation of Conocarpus is presented as evidence that authorities do not learn from past experiences. These are not side stories. They reveal a central climate truth: a fast green solution can create slow harm—to biodiversity, water security, and human health.

Life forms evolve in harmony with local conditions, and local vegetation is interlinked with humans, animals, birds, and insects; disturbing it can cause imbalance across the entire life cycle. This is why “indigenous plantation” is not a preference—it is an ecological necessity.

Occupational security: turning planting into a values-based climate decision

This is where the occupational security framework becomes more than theory. Occupational security is defined as the sustainable, just, and compassionate protection of humans’ and non-humans’ right to safe, peaceful, and dignified life, with measures and solutions that are authentic and accurate. It expands “occupation” beyond humans by explicitly including non-humans and their agency.

So, when a city plants an invasive exotic for aesthetics or quick survival, it is not merely changing scenery. It is interfering with non-human occupations (pollination networks, nesting habitats, soil–tree relationships, water cycles), and that disruption eventually returns to human occupations as illness, heat stress, livelihood disruption, and ecological instability.

Occupational security is also values-based. Its five underlying values are sustainability, justice, peace, compassion, and authenticity with accuracy. These values give Pakistan a simple “compass” for climate action that looks green but may not be safe.

Compassion matters especially because it must extend to non-humans through actions like conservation, affirming their right to coexist alongside humans; degrading ecosystems threatens non-human species and human survival together. Authenticity and accuracy matter because occupational security calls for transparency and full disclosure about security solutions — so the public can question motivations, efficacy, and long-term impacts rather than accepting PR narratives.

Why Indigenous knowledge deserves respect (and why it matters for climate recovery)

In this worldview, non-human beings — animals, plants, and even geographical features— are not background scenery, but vital participants in the ecological web. Crucially, this knowledge is not shallow or vague. It is often carried through oral traditions across generations and contains deep understanding of ecosystems and the spiritual and cultural significance of species.  That spiritual dimension is not “unscientific”; it is an ethics of care. The same text notes that spirituality and reverence for the natural world are intrinsic elements of Indigenous knowledge, guiding environmental stewardship and community well-being.

It also describes a profound respect grounded in spiritual beliefs, where ecological principles are often inseparable from what is sacred.  This is exactly what climate change demands from us: not only smarter techniques, but better relationships — with truth, with land, and with the living world.

How to honour Indigenous knowledge while acting fast (ethics + action together)

Respect is not symbolic. It shows up in how decisions are made and who leads. Indigenous ecological knowledge recognizes that humans are not superior and that we have a responsibility to take care of each other and our non-human kins, as we are part of a larger ecological community.  It is reflected in detailed understanding of interdependent relationships between species and habitats.  This knowledge can also shape education and public responsibility: the paper notes call to include Indigenous ecological knowledge in education to foster responsibility and interconnectedness with the living world.

Respect in practice: do not extract, instead partner

Indigenous knowledge emphasizes reciprocity and respect in human–non-human relationships.  It often includes protocols and ceremonies to honor animals and harvest sustainably, and taboos/restrictions that prevent overuse of plants and animals.  So “using” Indigenous knowledge while ignoring Indigenous rights, consent, credit, or benefits is not only unjust — it breaks the very logic that makes the practice sustainable.

And in climate decision-making, the paper highlights something powerful: acknowledging non-human agency and spirituality leads to holistic approaches that include cultural, spiritual, and ecological factors — recognizing the “voices” of non-human actors and widening ethics to include non-human welfare.

Pakistan action note: respect also means ecological accuracy

This article is blunt indeed: invasive exotics outcompete native species and can create serious health threats; it explicitly flags paper mulberry and Conocarpus as invasive species.

It also urges: all plantation, big or small, should be done with indigenous species alone— “please do not plant that one small exotic.”  So, in Pakistan, respect for Indigenous knowledge includes respecting local ecology itself: native trees, local water realities, local biodiversity, and long-term stewardship — not quick “green” aesthetics. If we honour Indigenous knowledge as living ecological intelligence — grounded in reciprocity, spirituality, and interdependence — we don’t just “adapt to climate change.” We rebuild the balance that allows ecosystems to recover and allows us to recover with them.

A pact with place: recovery as a shared way of living

This story began with a simple truth: when ecosystems are pushed out of balance, our bodies, livelihoods, and communities pay the price. The way forward is not to reject modern science — but to restore balance by treating Indigenous knowledge and practices as living ecological intelligence, worthy of respect, protection, and partnership.

The occupational security lens makes the promise — and the responsibility — clear: it is the interrelated, sustainable, just, and compassionate protection of humans’ and non-humans’ right to a safe, peaceful, and dignified life, through solutions that are authentic and accurate. The framework insists that “occupation” is not human-only; non-humans have agency and daily life patterns that also deserve security. Its guiding values — sustainability, justice, peace, compassion, authenticity with accuracy — are a practical compass for climate action.

And Pakistan already holds powerful examples of conservation in practice —approaches that save water, protect soil, and work with local ecology rather than against it. Occupational security warns us about solutions sold through slogans. It argues that authenticity and accuracy require full disclosure and transparency from authorities — so people can question motivations, efficacy, and long-term impacts. In Pakistan, that means plantation drives, water projects, and “beautification” schemes must be evaluated honestly: survival rates, water demand, biodiversity outcomes, health effects — not PR. And compassion must be extended beyond humans: conservation becomes a direct expression of compassion in an era of ecosystem collapse, because degrading ecosystems threatens non-human species and human survival together.

A quick “acid test” for climate actions in Pakistan

Before we celebrate a project — plantation drives, river works, “beautification,” new housing schemes — ask:

1. Is it native to this ecology, or imported for speed and appearance?

2. What non-human lives does it support or erase? (birds, pollinators, soil life, aquatic systems)

3. Who is safer afterward — and who is less safe?

4. Can we measure the truth of its benefits over time?

   
   

Some notable Indigenous trees (a beginning, not a full list)

Sukh Chain provides thick shade, attracts birds and bees, and has potential for biodiesel.Kachnar attracts birds; its buds are a popular vegetable. Chanar offers strong canopy shade and changes color with seasons.Sheesham is valued for timber and is a favorite of birds for its flowers.Phulah has hard, durable wood with traditional uses.

Indigenous conservation practices in Pakistan (water wisdom you can still use)

Matka / Pitcher irrigation (clay-pot irrigation): A porous clay pot is buried near a seedling; water in the pot seeps slowly into the root zone — reducing evaporation and delivering moisture where it matters most. Research continues to study pitcher irrigation as a viable water-conservation approach under water-scarce conditions.

Karez (Qanat) systems, Baluchistan: Community-managed underground channels that bring water by gravity in arid landscapes — an ancient, still-functional form of water management that avoids pumping and reduces losses.

Rod-Kohi / Sailaba (spate irrigation): Seasonal hill-torrent floods are diverted to fields using bunds and temporary structures; long-standing local rules govern distribution and maintenance, making livelihoods possible in semi-arid zones.

Kunds (Thar region water storage): Covered underground tanks — built with local materials — designed primarily to secure drinking water in desert conditions. These are not “primitive” techniques. They are climate adaptation practices — refined through lived experience, aligned with local ecology, and often more water-wise than many modern habits.

Closing call for real recovery

Choose one place, your street, school, park edge, canal bank, village boundary, and make a local pact:

• Plant and protect indigenous biodiversity (and refuse invasive “fast green” fixes).

• Treat water like a living relationship—learn from matka irrigation, kunds, karez, and Rod-Kohi traditions.

• Demand truth in climate projects—authenticity with accuracy is non-negotiable.

Because the real balance we need is not only ecological. It is moral: a way of living where human recovery and ecosystem recovery happen together, as shared security.