Putting Indigenous Communities Back at the Center of Climate Decisions: Five Governance Cards for Taiwan's 55 Indigenous Townships

On October 5, 2026, Taiwan's Ministry of Environment and the Council of Indigenous Peoples, Taiwan jointly convened the international forum “Indigenous Strength in a Changing Climate.” Representatives of Indigenous Peoples and communities in Taiwan met with Māori representatives from New Zealand and Temuan representatives from Malaysia to discuss climate adaptation, traditional ecological knowledge, climate justice, and a just net-zero transition. The official forum report identified a frequently overlooked gap: climate policy can fail not only because commitments are inadequate, but also because knowledge, technology, and funding do not actually reach communities.

The forum advanced four directions: jointly deciding the course of transition; making traditional knowledge and modern science work together as climate solutions; sharing the gains of green transition fairly; and enabling green growth to support community development. To enter the daily work of Taiwan's 55 Indigenous townships, these directions cannot remain conference language or one-time programs. They must become a process that Indigenous communities, township offices, central agencies, researchers, and technical service teams can examine together. The following five governance cards offer one way to translate the forum's principles into locally actionable fields.

The first is a “local risk and living-systems card.” Every community faces a different combination of heat, drought, intense short-duration rainfall, slope hazards, river sediment, coastal erosion, road disruption, and unstable water supply. These risks can simultaneously affect housing safety, farming, forestry, fisheries, livestock, cultural sites, ceremonial routes, care services, and transportation. A local record should not consist only of a hazard map. It should distinguish hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and existing capacity, then identify the relevant season, place, population, critical facility, livelihood activity, cultural use, and possible action. Official scientific data can provide a shared baseline, while local observation supplies details that monitoring stations do not capture. When the two differ, the system should retain their sources and dates rather than letting AI automatically declare one invalid.

The second is a “traditional ecological knowledge and permissions card.” The forum placed traditional ecological knowledge at the center of climate adaptation. Before knowledge enters a database, model, or policy process, however, the system must identify the knowledge holder, its collective character, disclosure level, protocols or restrictions, season, territory, language, permitted purpose, and withdrawal process. Permission to share an environmental observation does not automatically authorize disclosure of related ceremonies, place names, gathering routes, or species-use practices. Permission for internal education does not automatically authorize external model training or a commercial product. A digital system should support labels such as public, community-only, project-specific, time-limited, and prohibited from AI processing, and it should preserve who authorized which use, when, and through what process.

The third is a “participation, consultation, and decision card.” Climate adaptation often intersects with land development, resource use, ecological conservation, academic research, energy infrastructure, and public works. Holding one briefing does not complete participation. Depending on the matter and the applicable legal process, the responsible body should first identify the Indigenous Peoples or communities concerned, the competent authority, the decision at issue, the scope still open to change, and the timing and language of information. It should then record how comments were answered, which alternatives were revised, and who is responsible for follow-up. Free, prior and informed consent cannot be reduced to an online checkbox. AI may compare versions, organize questions, and assist with meeting records, but it cannot select representatives, presume consent, or vote for a community.

The fourth is a “technology, funding, and benefit-flow card.” Because the forum specifically identified the failure of knowledge, technology, and funding to reach communities, every action should disclose its resource source, eligibility conditions, intended beneficiaries, local contribution, maintenance period, equipment ownership, data ownership and use rights, and method for sharing results or revenue. If sensors, satellite imagery, drones, climate models, or AI alerts are introduced, the record should also cover update frequency, error, offline backup, maintenance contacts, licensing cost, and professional staffing. Delivering equipment is not the same as building capacity. Technology without local operators, a maintenance budget, and an exit plan can become a new burden when a project ends.

The fifth is an “action, evidence, and feedback card.” Each adaptation measure should first state the risk it is meant to reduce and then define indicators that local people can verify together. These might include hours of water-supply interruption, road-restoration time, completeness of agricultural-loss reports, the share of elders and people with mobility limitations who receive information, coverage of Indigenous-language risk communication, the share of community members in decision-making and paid work, and compliance with conditions governing traditional knowledge. The system must preserve successes, failures, incomplete work, and unintended effects instead of displaying only favorable results. When environmental conditions, population, or knowledge permissions change, indicators and measures must also be revised through the proper process.

The Ministry of Environment reported that international guests would travel to Hualien on October 6 and 7 to exchange views on a community co-creation project for higher-value use of sediment from the Matai'an flood disaster and circular pottery making. They would also visit the heritage park and cultural interpretation program of the Puyuma community of Nanwang. This extension from the conference room to disaster material, community livelihoods, cultural places, and territorial resilience carries an important warning for outside teams: field visits should not merely collect images and stories. They must explain the boundaries governing data, images, knowledge, revenue, and continued cooperation.

Taiwan's National Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan identifies critical infrastructure, water resources, land use, oceans and coasts, energy and industry, agricultural production and biodiversity, and health as major fields. Indigenous community life already crosses all of these administrative categories. A local service entry point should therefore not require residents to understand separate ministerial forms. It should use the same community, season, and risk event as an index so people can see the connections among roads, water, farming, care, culture, and livelihoods. Central agencies retain their statutory authorities, while the local integration layer connects responsible offices, versions, deadlines, and response status.

The UNFCCC Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform organizes its functions around knowledge, capacity for engagement, and climate change policies and actions. It also emphasizes free, prior and informed consent of knowledge holders when traditional knowledge is used. This supports the forum's recognition of Indigenous Peoples as leaders of climate solutions. Communities are neither beneficiaries informed only after a policy is complete nor data sources from which outsiders may extract knowledge. They are governance actors who jointly define risk, select measures, manage knowledge, and evaluate results.

AI can connect rainfall, temperature, roads, water, agricultural losses, and service records; generate scenario-based reminders; and convert long plans into Indigenous-language, audio, or easy-read formats. Every input, however, needs a source, date, permission level, and uncertainty statement, while every recommendation must show whether a person has reviewed it. When an issue concerns evacuation, land use, natural resources, cultural restrictions, or funding, the system must return users to formal offices and collective decision-making rather than treating the most probable model output as the community's answer.

The forum's most durable contribution should not be the phrase “listen to Indigenous voices.” It should be a verifiable path for resources and decisions: who defines risk, who authorizes knowledge, who jointly selects a measure, how funding and technology arrive, and who evaluates and revises the result. If Taiwan's 55 Indigenous townships use these five governance cards to retain a responsible party, date, legal or procedural basis, version, permission, and next step at every node, an international forum can become a traceable everyday climate public service—and a just transition can become more than the name of a policy.

Verified sources

• Ministry of Environment: Indigenous climate forum aligns with PreCOP31 and amplifies Pacific voices and Indigenous leadership
• Climate Change Administration: meeting information for the international forum “Indigenous Strength in a Changing Climate”
• Climate Change Administration: National Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan, 2023–2026
• Council of Indigenous Peoples, Taiwan: The Indigenous Peoples Basic Law
• UNFCCC Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform: functions of the platform