The UNESCO Balkan regional workshop, held in Sarajevo on 8-9 September 2025, focused on harnessing Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) to address climate change, disaster risk reduction, and biodiversity protection. Experts from diverse fields—including biodiversity, ILK, and disaster risk management—gathered to explore how traditional knowledge can complement scientific approaches to environmental challenges. The workshop built on cooperation between UNESCO and the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre under the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net), which supported Bosnia and Herzegovina’s National Ecosystems Assessment (BiH NEA). The assessment highlighted how integrating traditional knowledge and scientific research can deepen understanding of environmental changes and inform restoration efforts.
In his opening remarks, Sinisa Šešum, Head of the UNESCO Antenna Office in Sarajevo, emphasized the importance of bridging science, policy, and community voices in South-East Europe. Participants examined practical examples, such as the Bosut forest restoration in Serbia, where collaboration between scientists and traditional pig herders helped revive forest biodiversity. UNESCO experts stressed that ILK can enhance early warning systems, disaster preparedness, public engagement, and responses to climate instability, including floods and droughts.
The BiH NEA demonstrated the value of combining diverse knowledge systems, engaging researchers from five universities and over 200 local elders and youth. Findings showed that much knowledge is transmitted orally and that natural resources remain central to local economies, cultures, and livelihoods. Experts from North Macedonia highlighted the region’s rich biodiversity knowledge but noted a gap in connecting rural expertise with national and regional policy-making.
Case studies from the workshop underscored the region’s long-standing traditions in natural resource governance and practices such as mountain pastoralism, wild food and medicinal knowledge, fishing, hunting, coastal zone protection, and agrobiodiversity preservation. Inspired by these discussions, Bosnia and Herzegovina has taken steps to register medicinal plant practices as cultural heritage, integrating strategies across culture, health, and environmental conservation.
Looking ahead, from 27-30 October, governments from the Balkan region and around the world will participate in the first session of the Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) on traditional knowledge under the Convention on Biological Diversity. This forum aims to guide sustainable development by leveraging traditional and local knowledge in environmental and biodiversity policymaking.
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