As we face an unprecedented environmental crisis, the time-tested knowledge of Indigenous Peoples, paired with modern science, may well hold the key to our collective future.

This podcast episode transports you to the four corners of the world, from the Brazilian Amazon to Samoa, via the African bushland and Sámi territory in Northern Europe, to find out how.

We hear how traditional fire management, ancient fisheries conservation, climate-resilient architecture, and deep environmental observation are proving their value on a global scale. An immersive soundscape of authentic field recordings and community voices accompanies insights from Samoan journalist Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, Navajo archaeologist Ora Marek-Martinez, and Nigel Crawhall, Chief of Section of Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) at UNESCO. Across these diverse perspectives, a clear message emerges: language, culture, and environmental stewardship are deeply bound. Safeguarding them requires sustained effort to ensure Indigenous voices are heard and valued.

An episode by Anuliina Savolainen, production by Emmanuel Rudowski.

Narration by François Wibaux, with excerpts read by Tariq Talal Mosaad, Peter Bates, Victor Soo, Nolwazi Mjwara.

Media Credits: Special thanks to Pierre Costard and the Internet Archive, the Endangered Languages Archive, and the National Collections of Music, Theatre and Dance (Sweden) for providing field recordings under Creative Commons licensing.

©Image: The UNESCO Courier/ Sylvie Serprix

Further Reading:
-The UNESCO Courier’s January 2026 issue, How Indigenous knowledge drives scientific discovery.
- UNESCO and Indigenous PeoplesFrom founding the LINKS initiative in 2002 to launching the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032), UNESCO continues to support Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems.
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Imagine a world without glaciers – a future defined by rising tides, drinking water scarcity, and a global ecosystem transformed. In the wake of the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation 2025, this UNESCO Courier podcast investigates the "great melt" and the global urgency to act.

The scale of the crisis is vast: Antarctica’s ice is melting three times faster than it was just a decade ago, while half of the world’s mountain ice could vanish by the end of the century.

In this episode, we revisit our Vanishing Glaciersissue, bringing together perspectives from scientists, Indigenous communities, and artists witnessing this shift. We explore the global response and how the loss of our "frozen reservoirs" is redrawing local lifestyles and cultural heritage. This journey features recorded insights from Anil Mishra (UNESCO) and Ko Barrett (WMO), alongside Douglas Hardy, a glacier specialist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Harvard researcher Emil Karpinski.

Credits: An episode by Anuliina Savolainen, production by Emmanuel Rudowski. Narration by Clare O’Hagan, with excerpts read by Max Kendrick and Anuliina Savolainen.

Media credits:

• 00:01:31 – 00:01:56 News extracts (Creative Commons Attribution license): “Record Ice Melting In Greenland” (Paul Morgan); “Devastation in Switzerland Today! Massive Glacier Collapse Buries The Village of Blatten” (DisasterToday); “Everest is melting. What does it tell us about climate change?” (Context News)

• 00:04:25: 00:04:53 Recording by the World Meteorological Organization: Launch of the International year of Glaciers’ Preservation; opening remarks by Ko Barrett, WMO Deputy Secretary-General.

• 00:14:39-15:24Music extract “someone, not something” from the album “Crying glacier” by Ludwig Berger and Vadret da Morteratsch

©Visual: The UNESCO Courier/ Sylvie Serpix

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What if 20th-century economic models no longer fit today’s world? British economist Kate Raworth thinks it’s time for a rethink–and she’s sparking the shift with doughnut economics, a bold framework already shaping new policies in cities worldwide.

Building on the work of thinkers like Herman Daly, who questioned endless growth in the 1980s, Kate Raworth’s doughnut-shaped model outlines a space where human needs are met without breaking the planet’s limits. With Earth scientists warning that we’re nearing critical environmental tipping points–from climate change to biodiversity loss–the need for a new economic compass has never been clearer.

From a model that offers a healthier vision of prosperity to the outdated economic systems we’ve inherited, Kate Raworth invites us to rethink economics through the lenses of equity, ecology, and indigenous wisdom. A shift from growth for its own sake to economies that truly thrive.

In March 2025, The UNESCO Courier team sat down with Kate Raworth at UNESCO in Paris, on the sidelines of the University of the Earth event, to explore what this model could mean for the future of progress.

Curious what a doughnut has to do with economics? Hit play and find out.

An episode by Katerina Markelova, produced by Emmanuel Rudowski, with the voice of François Wibaux.

Photo: © UNESCO/Marie ETCHEGOYEN

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