Collaborative Research: NSF-NFRF: The Indigenous Peoples Observatory Network (IPON): The Climate-Food-Health Nexus

Climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation are profound threats to Indigenous Peoples globally. These threats are rooted in discrimination, land dispossession, and colonization. The convergence and interaction of these stresses that affect health and well-being are primarily through the nexus with Indigenous food systems. Government policies often overlook and undermine Indigenous knowledge and practices, which underpin resilience across the nexus of food systems, health, and well-being. The Indigenous Peoples’ Observatory Network (IPON) transforms and rethinks our understanding of this nexus from the bottom up. It builds on multiple ways of knowing, including Indigenous knowledge and science, to strengthen community resilience to multiple stresses and support actions that benefit Indigenous Peoples. The project promotes the progress of science through transdisciplinary approaches that investigate the links among food, climate, and health. This project will establish Indigenous observatories that include community leaders, Elders, and youth, along with decision makers and researchers from Indigenous communities worldwide, covering the United Nation's seven social cultural regions. The observatories will document, monitor, and examine how climate stressors interact with food systems, health, and well-being across partner regions and communities as they play out in real-time and across seasons. This will be done by recording the lived experiences, stories, responses, and observations of the affected people. The teams will work together to create knowledge and capacity that can be used to develop policies and actions that build on community strengths and address potential vulnerabilities. The observatories strengthen the capacity of Indigenous communities to document their knowledge about the links between climate, food, and health, and provide a space for dialogue with decision makers at regional, national, and global levels to determine necessary actions to build resilience. IPON's global scope provides a foundation for developing scalable insights that inform decision making and advocacy for our partners in United Nations and Indigenous organizations. This is a project jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as funding agencies from Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom via the 2023 International Joint Initiative for Research on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Competition. This Competition allowed a single joint international proposal to be submitted and peer-reviewed by Canada. Upon successful joint determination of an award recommendation, each agency funds the proportion of the budget that supports scientists at institutions in their respective countries. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.