ABSTRACT
Indigenous knowledge systems provide a complex picture of the relations between humans and the environment. Using interviews and focus group discussions, this chapter explores perceptions of environmental change and its drivers among the Tsimane’, an Indigenous population of the Bolivian Amazon. The Tsimane’ report many changes in their local environment, although -as a group-they do not fully agree with all the changes reported in individual interviews. They attribute these changes to multiple drivers and describe cascading effects mainly going from the atmospheric and physical systems to the life system. Tsimane’ perception of environmental change acknowledges the importance of the interactions between different drivers of environmental change and their cascading effects, thus offering a political view of the environment emphasising that changes go beyond biophysical relations. A higher emphasis on understanding the complex relations captured by Indigenous knowledge systems contributes to our understanding of the network of interactions connecting elements of social-ecological systems.
