Studies on IKLK and climate change adaptation conducted in various African countries and across ecosystems indicate that Indigenous environmental knowledge is negatively affected by several factors. Local farmers who depend on this knowledge system for their livelihoods hold the view that African governments do not support and promote it in policy development. Most government agricultural extension workers still consider IK to be unscientific and unreliable . At the national level, there is a lack of recognition and inclusion of IKLK in adaptation planning by African governments, partly because most of the IK and LK in African local communities remains undocumented, but also because IKLK are inadequately captured in the literature . This knowledge is predominantly preserved in the memories of the elderly and is handed down orally or by demonstration from generation to generation. It gradually disappears due to memory gaps, and when those holding the knowledge die or refuse to pass it to another generation, the knowledge becomes extinct . The way in which IK is transmitted, accessed and shared in most African societies is not smooth . IK is also threatened by urbanisation, which attracts rural migrants to urban areas where IKLK use may be more limited . Further, most African societies that use IK were once colonised, whereby the African Indigenous ways of knowing were devalued and marginalised . There are concerns about the effectiveness of both IK indicators and related adaptation responses by communities in predicting and adapting to weather events under future climate conditions .
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report