Archaeologist Kristina Douglass studies how human adaptation in the past can provide solutions to today’s climate challenges. She and her team worked at the Velondriake Marine Reserve in southwestern Madagascar, investigating how communities have adapted to environmental variability for thousands of years. They study archaeological sites, analyze remote sensing data and conduct oral history to reveal the ways in which the landscape and resources are managed in Indigenous communities are sustainable.
“It’s like in the library of human experience, looking for the perfect book to deal with the problems that just came up today,” said Douglass, a research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a professor at the Columbia Climate School.
“I really want to think that our work is serving the community and being guided by the needs of the community,” she said.
Learn more about Douglas’s work:
Olo Be taloha Laboratory
Madagascar fishing community can teach us about climate survival
The video is part of an ongoing science series on the Earth Interpretation series about how scientists and scholars from Columbia’s Climate School try to understand the impacts of climate change and help solutions.
