Similarly, climate change and associated increase in weather variability, especially in the arid and semi-arid ecosystems (Sivakumar et al., 2005), have resulted in decrease in the reliability of many of the traditional weather forecasting knowledge systems as a result of this, many indigenous people are abandoning the use and generational transmission of such knowledge (Roncoli et al., 2011, Kalanda-Joshua et al. However, in many indigenous pastoral communities in Africa, factors such as land and natural resource dispossession (Balehegn 2015), state policies that favour centralization at the expense of bio-regionalism (Fratkin and Roth 2006 McGinnis 2005) and globalization (Gilberthorpe and Hilson 2014) have resulted in generational degradation and decline in the use of indigenous weather forecasting and other traditional knowledge. Indigenous societies observe bio-physical animate and inanimate entities to make predictions about future and current weather variables that cannot be directly observed by the human senses (Acharya 2011). Local communities in the world observe climatic changes taking place in their environment which affect their livelihood choices (Nyong et al. Understanding, predicting and anticipating changes in weather and other climatic variables is very important for rural communities, whose livelihoods rely directly on weather and climate conditions. This shows the value of indigenous knowledge in contemporary pastoral communities, while highlighting synergies with the modern weather and climate knowledge system for co-production of knowledge that serves the objectives of local people. This first-time systematic documentation of indigenous weather and climate forecasting knowledge among the Afar communities demonstrated the dynamic process of indigenous weather and climate knowledge production, analysis and communication. These institutions include (1) the Edo or range scouting where traditional rangeland scouts are sent on a mission to assess weather and other spatially and temporally variable attributes on rangelands (2) the Dagu, a traditional secured and reputable network, where weather information is shared among users and (3) the Adda or the traditional Afar governance system, which analyses traditional weather information before community decisions are made. Before any forecasting information is used, it is evaluated through three traditional institutions that collect, share and analyse the information. No single indicator is taken at face value weather forecasting is undertaken in a dynamic process where information collected from different sources, including weather information from the modern weather forecasting system, is triangulated to make the safest livelihood decisions. The Afar pastoralists traditionally predict weather and climate variation through the observation of diverse bio-physical entities including livestock, insects, birds, trees and wildlife. In this study, we used individual interviews and focused group discussions to systematically document indigenous weather and climate forecasting knowledge among Afar pastoralists, with the aim of making such information available, and enhance use of this knowledge in climate change adaptation and explore synergies with modern weather forecasting system. In many pastoral communities in Africa, traditional weather and climate forecasting remains the most accessible and affordable source of weather and climate information. Traditional weather and climate forecasting is used by many indigenous communities worldwide as a guide in making important decisions that enable them cope and adapt to climate change-induced extreme weather variation.
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