Traditional Ecological Knowledge as a Contribution to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: The Case of the Portuguese Coastal Populations

Abstract

Climate change is responsible for mean sea level rise. Coastal flooding and erosion put at risk infrastructures and activities that humans have been developing in the littoral during the twentieth century. Perceptions about this space changed and people forgot that coasts are instable territories. Solutions to mitigate the impacts of climate change in coastal zones are now being searched. Looking back, to the past, can help. For centuries, the fishing communities developed strategies to survive in this hostile environment. Their ecological traditional knowledge can provide practical responses to present challenges. The last IPCC report recognizes that local and traditional knowledge, being a major resource in response to climate change, have not been used consistently. The aim of this chapter is to address the case of the Portuguese fishing populations to show how they developed coping practices using the available resources and simple technical means. Fishers’ key-strategies included special architecture forms, seasonal activities and a specific local knowledge that permitted them to recognized climate and coastline changes. Their lessons are compared to mitigation and adaptation measures being proposed nowadays. This allows to establish which ones are more suited to the Portuguese coast specificity and therefore will probably be more effective. These examples are useful for improving communication with decision-makers and increasing public awareness of future changes stressing the need for a more sustainable development.