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I guess all of you have
a smartphone or an iPhone,

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and this morning, probably
you checked on the weather,

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if its going to be rainy
to carry your umbrella,

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if it is going to be sunny
to use your sunglasses,

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or if it is going to be cold
to have an extra coat.

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It's going to give you, sometime,
good information and sometime not.

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Let me tell you,

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my best app is my grandmother.

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(Laughter)

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She's called Mamadda.

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She can tell you not only today's weather

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but she can predict the next 12 months,

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if it's going to be
a good rain season or not.

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She can tell you just
by observing her environment,

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by observing the wind direction,

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the cloud position,

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the bird migration,

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the size of fruits,

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the plant flowers.

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She can tell you by observing
the behavior of her own cattle.

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That's how she knows better
the weather and the ecosystem

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that she's living in.

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I'm coming from a pastoralist community

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who are cattle herders.

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We are nomadic.

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We move from one place to another one

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to find water and pasture.

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We can move up to a thousand kilometers,
the size of California, within one year.

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And this life helps us to live
in harmony with our ecosystem.

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We understand each other.

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For us, the nature is our supermarket,

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where we can collect our food,

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our water.

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It's our pharmacy where we can
collect our medicinal plants.

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But it's our school,

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where we can learn better
how to protect it

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and how it can give us back what we need.

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But with the climate change impact,

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we are experiencing a different impact.

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In my community,

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we have one of the top five
fresh waters in Africa.

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It's Lake Chad.

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When my mother was born,

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Lake Chad used to be
about 25,000 kilometers square of water.

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When I was born, 30 years ago,
it was 10,000 kilometers square.

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And actually now,

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it's about 1,200 kilometers
square of water.

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Ninety percent of this water
just evaporated, disappeared.

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And you have more than 40 million people

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living around this lake
and depending on it.

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They are pastoralists.

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They are fishermen.

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And they are farmers.

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They do not depend on
the end of the month's salary.

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They depend on the rainfall.

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They depend on the crops that are growing

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or the pasture for their cattle.

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The shrinking resources,

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you have many communities
that are fighting to get access.

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The first come is the first served.

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The second have to fight unto death.

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So climate change
is impacting our environment

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by changing our social life,

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because the role of man and woman
in this region, it's different.

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Man is supposed to feed his family,

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take care of his community,

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and if he cannot do that,

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his dignity is under threat.

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He cannot do anything else to pay it back.

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So climate change takes our men
far away from us.

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That is the migration.

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They can migrate to a big city
where they can stay for six or 12 months,

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where they get a job,
they can send back money.

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If they didn't get it,

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they have to jump into the Mediterranean

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and migrate to Europe.

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Some of them die there,
but none of them stop going.

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Of course, it's sad
for the hosting country,

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who are developed countries,

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who have to adapt
to host the migrants coming.

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But how about those who are left behind,

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the women and the children
who have to play the role of men,

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the role of women,

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who have to take care of the security,

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of the food, of the health
of the entire family,

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children and old people?

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So those women for me, they are my heroes,

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because they are innovators,
they are solution makers,

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they are changing
the little of the resources

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into the big for the community.

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So those are my people.

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So we use our indigenous people's
traditional knowledge

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to get better resilience
to what we need to survive.

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Our knowledge is not only
for our communities.

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It's to share with each
and others who are living with us.

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And indigenous peoples around the world

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are saving 80 percent
of the world's biodiversity.

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That's the scientists who say that.

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Indigenous peoples in the Amazon,

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you can find the most diverse ecosystem,
better than the national park.

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The indigenous peoples from the Pacific,

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the grandma and the grandpa,

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they know where to get food
after the hurricane hits them.

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So the knowledge that our peoples know

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is helping us to survive and helping
other peoples also to survive

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the climate change impact.

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The world is losing.

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We lost already 60 percent of the species,

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and it's increasing every day.

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So one day, I took a scientist
to my community.

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I said, you are giving the good weather
information through the TV and radio,

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but how about coming to my people?

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And then they come,

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they sit around,

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and suddenly, as we are nomadic,
we just start packing our stuff,

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and then they say, like, "Are we moving?"

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I'm like, "No, we are not moving.
It's going to rain."

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And they're like, "Oh, there's no cloud.
How do you know it's going to rain?"

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We're like, "Yeah, it's going to rain."
We pack our stuff.

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Suddenly, heavy rain starts coming,

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and we are seeing the scientist
running around, hiding under trees

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and protecting their stuff.

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We already packed ours.

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(Laughter)

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After the end of the rain,
the serious discussion starts.

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They say, "How do you know
that it's going to rain?"

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We say, "Well, the old woman
observed the insects

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taking the eggs inside their homes,

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and while the insect
cannot talk or watch TV,

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they know how to predict
to protect their generations,

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how to protect their food.

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So for us it's the sign
that it's going to rain

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in at maximum a couple of hours."

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And then they say,

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well, we do have knowledge,

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but we do not combine ecological knowledge
and weather knowledge all together.

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So that's how I started working

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with meteorological scientists
and my communities

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to give better information
to get peoples adapted to climate change.

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I think, if we put together
all the knowledge systems that we have --

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science, technology,

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traditional knowledge --

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we can give the best of us
to protect our peoples,

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to protect our planet,

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to restore the ecosystem
that we are losing.

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I did that in another way, also.

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I used a tool that I really love a lot.

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It's called a 3D participatory mapping:

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participatory, because it can bring
women, men,

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youth, elders,

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all the intergenerational peoples.

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Then they use science-based knowledge,

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and the community comes together,
they build this map,

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they figure out all
the knowledge that we have

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about where is our sacred forest,
where is our water point,

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where is our corridor,

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where is the place that we move
during each season.

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And these tools are amazing,
because it's building capacity of women,

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because in our communities

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women and men cannot sit together.

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Men talk always, women just sitting there,

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but in the back.

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They are not there to take any decision.

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So after the men figure out
all the knowledge,

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we say, well, you call the women,
"Come and have a look."

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They say, "Yes, sure,"

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because they've already done 
the first work.

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(Laughter)

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When the women come,

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and they look at the map,
they're like, "Mm, no."

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(Laughter)

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"This is wrong.

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Here's where I collect the medicine.
Here's where I collect the food.

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Here's where I collect --"

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So we changed the knowledge in the map,

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and we called the men.

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Well, they think about what women said.

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All of them shaking their heads.

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"They are right. They are right.

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They are right."

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So that's how we build
the capacity of the women

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in giving them a voice

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in this 3D participatory mapping,

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so women get the detailed knowledge

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that can help the community to adapt.

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And man have the bigger picture knowledge.

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So when we put it together,

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this map helps them to discuss

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but to mitigate the conflict
between the communities

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to access the resources,

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to share better these resources,

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to restore it

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and to manage it for the long term.

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Our knowledge is very useful.

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Indigenous peoples' knowledge

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are very crucial for our planet.

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It's crucial for all the peoples.

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Science knowledge
was discovered 200 years ago,

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technology 100 years ago,

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but indigenous peoples' knowledge,
it's thousands of years ago.

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So why we cannot put
all of these together,

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combine those three knowledges

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and give the better resilience

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to the peoples who are getting
the impact of climate change?

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And now it's not only
the developing countries.

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It's the developed countries also.

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We saw the hurricane.
We saw the flood around all the places.

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We saw the fire, even here in California.

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So we need all this knowledge
to come together.

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We need the people in the center.

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And we need the decision makers to change,

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scientists tell them,

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and we tell them,

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and we do have this knowledge.

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We have 10 years to change it.

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Ten years is nothing,

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so we need to act all together

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and we need to act right now.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)