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Livelihoods that rely on Indigenous and traditional knowledge include pastoralism, artisanal fishing, rotational (swidden) agriculture, and the collection of wild species, including non-timber forest resources.

The Asian mainland has substantially diverse ecosystems and biomes, ranging from deserts to glacial mountain ranges, agricultural plains, some of the planet's most important rivers, and important tropical rainforest. The Pacific includes thirteen Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and seven more associate countries, some in low lying atolls, others on mountainous volcanic islands.

The Pacific Region has a unique heritage of sea voyaging and navigation. Human civilization flourished throughout the region due to the exceptional skills of different peoples to navigate the high seas and live sustainably on small islands. The different civilizations that established themselves in the Pacific lead to tremendous linguistic diversity while maintaining a shared heritage of the ocean and inter-island communications, trade and belief systems.

91�鶹������Ʒ���� concentrated on a range of issues related to the use and knowledge of the ocean, wayfaring, transhumance and navigation. This has involved a long cooperation with Indigenous sea nomads and Ancestral Voyaging Knowledge (AVK) holders. The following initiatives attempted to capture some of the Pacific's rich assets.

First, subregional networks of Observatories have been established based on Indigenous knowledge and community observations in the Pacific, for instance using traditional seasonal calendars.

The main work in this area however is The Canoe is the People project, which promotes Indigenous Pacific knowledge of the ocean environment including traditional open ocean wayfaring. Through audiovisual documentation with Master navigators and canoe builders, as well as animations, images and texts in a website, available in both English and Maori, The Canoe is the People offers a vehicle for elders and experts from several Pacific countries to transmit their specialised knowledge, skills and worldviews to Pacific youth.

In 2020, UNESCO-LINKS joined the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net) initiative, co-implemented with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), that aims to build capacity and commitment for biodiversity action across the world by translating the latest Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) products into action on the ground. UNESCO-LINKS leads the BES-Net Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) Support Unit. UNESCO-LINKS is supporting Thailand and Cambodia to incorporate ILK in their national ecosystem assessment.

The inclusion of Indigenous and local knowledge in the framework of the IPBES process was advocated for, initially, by experts from the Asia and the Pacific region. This advocacy informed all subsequent IPBES Assessments, with extensive attention given to the role of Indigenous Peoples in sustaining biodiversity and ecosystems within the Regional Assessment for Asia and the Pacific.

LINKS continues to engage with the diffusion and uptake of the IPBES assessments in Asia and the Pacific. In 2019, a Dialogue across Indigenous, local and scientific knowledge systems reflecting on the IPBES Assessment on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production was co-convened and jointly designed by the Inter Mountain Peoples Education and Culture in Thailand Association (IMPECT) and Pgakenyaw Association for Sustainable Development (PASD) together with SwedBio at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and UNESCO. The dialogue involved a meeting of Assessment science authors and Indigenous Peoples from different regions who had participated in the Pollinators Assessment. The Karen community of Hin Lad Nai village in Chiang Rai hosted the walking workshop, and the Thai National Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment spent a day with participants at the University of Chiang Mai.

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LINKS provided support for a Sub-regional workshop for West Asia and South Asia on the IPBES Regional Assessment. Three sub-regional workshops were held in Asia and the Pacific, funded by the Japan Biodiversity Fund and implemented jointly by the Asia Pacific Network and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES).