The first maps I learned to read weren’t drawn on paper. They were stories told by farmers in the hills of San Germán, Puerto Rico: when to plant before the rains, when the soil “sounded tired,” how birds warned of drought ... These weren’t metaphors. They were tools for survival.
Aydasara Ortega Torres
That kind of knowledge, what we now call Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), is geographic. Not in the bureaucratic sense of borders and zones, but in the lived sense of place, pattern, and practice. TEK is a slow science, grown from generations of watching the land and listening.
In many rural and coastal regions, especially across southern Europe and Latin America, TEK has kept communities in balance with their environments far longer than any external intervention. From rotational grazing systems in the highlands of Andalucía to communal water sharing in rural Catalonia, people have long worked with the land, not just on it (Berkes, 2018).
But the climate is changing, and fast. The rhythms are out of sync. Still, the people most connected to their geography are often the first to notice and the first to adapt. Unfortunately, they’re also the last to be included in official climate plans.
This disconnect is dangerous. Policy built without local insight risks becoming abstract, ungrounded. As a researcher in environmental geography and community resilience, I believe TEK is not “alternative.” It is essential. It teaches us to map risk differently, by observing changing tides, dying pollinators, drying soils, or shifts in wind. This is geography as a way of life.
The logic of TEK doesn’t treat nature as separate from the human. It understands that ecosystems are cultural too. That’s why its survival is tied to social survival, languages, oral histories, even ritual. And it’s why adaptation must include both ecological and social strategies: protecting native seeds, rethinking governance, and investing in local economies that are place-rooted and circular.
If we are to meet the challenge of climate adaptation, we must reimagine who the “experts” are. Not only scientists, but those whose lives are shaped by the land. The ones who name the wind, remember the last true flood, and know when the trees begin speaking.
This is not about romanticizing the past. It’s about using every form of intelligence we have, especially those that have already endured.
References
Berkes, F. (2018). Sacred Ecology (4th ed.). Routledge.
Genius. (n.d.). Bad Bunny & Los Pleneros de la Cresta – Café con Ron (English translation) [Lyrics]. https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-bad-bunny-and-los-pleneros-de-la-cresta-cafe-con-ron-english-translation-lyrics
Rebollo, V. (2025, June 25). Aprovechar el conocimiento ecológico tradicional para la adaptación al cambio climático. Ethic. https://ethic.es/conocimiento-ecologico-tradicional-adaptacion-cambio-climatico