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‘Traditional knowledge’ is not one input when knowledge, labor and authority are gendered

A Pacific Islands review finds adaptation knowledge distributed through different roles and responsibilities—and warns that formal inclusion can still overlook who holds and transmits it.

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Pacific Island communities; emphasis on Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati
System
Small-island social–ecological systems

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A critical narrative review organizes Pacific evidence across food and agriculture, water and marine management, disaster-risk awareness, caregiving and recovery. It finds complementary gendered knowledge and roles, while women's ecological expertise and recovery work are frequently undervalued in formal decision-making.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Locally led adaptation is not strengthened merely by adding a generic ‘traditional knowledge’ box to a plan. Governance has to identify who actually holds particular knowledge, who performs the work, who has decision authority and whose knowledge is systematically excluded.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a critical narrative review rather than a quantitative effectiveness meta-analysis. Evidence is uneven across the Pacific, concentrated in several high-island contexts, based largely on localized qualitative studies and restricted to English-language literature; findings should not be flattened into a universal Pacific gender model.

SOURCE

Regional Environmental Change
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