Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) around the world are increasingly asserting 'Indigenous agency' to engage with government institutions and other partners to collaboratively steward ancestral Places. Case studies in Hawai'i suggest that 'community-driven collaborative management' is a viable and robust pathway for IPLCs to lead in the design of a shared vision, achieve conservation targets, and engage government institutions and other organisations in caring for and governing biocultural resources and associated habitats. This paper articulates key forms of Indigenous agency embodied within Native Hawaiian culture, such as kua'āina, hoa'āina, and the interrelated values of aloha 'āina, mālama 'āina, and kia'i 'āina. We also examine how Hawai'i might streamline the pathways to equitable and productive collaborative partnerships through: (1) a better understanding of laws protecting Indigenous rights and practices; (2) recognition of varied forms of Indigenous agency; and (3) more deliberate engagement in the meaningful sharing of power. We contend that these partnerships can directly achieve conservation and sustainability goals while transforming scientific fields such as conservation biology by redefining research practices and underlying norms and beliefs in Places stewarded by IPLCs. Further, collaborative management can de-escalate conflicts over access to, and stewardship of, resources by providing IPLCs avenues to address broader historical legacies of environmental and social injustice while restoring elements of selfgovernance. To these ends, we propose that government agencies proactively engage with IPLCs to expand the building of comprehensive collaborative management arrangements. Hawai'i provides an example for how this can be achieved.
Indigenous communities possess long histories of using land acknowledgments to reinforce their cultural ties with specific areas. Today, many public and private institutions use land acknowledgments to recognize the Indigenous Peoples who inhabited and still live in local areas. However, an opportunity exists to move beyond institutional acknowledgments and into action-oriented frameworks that support decolonization efforts, especially within parks and protected areas (PPAs). PPAs present an opportunity for the actualization of the #LANDBACK movement, which could strengthen Indigenous land governance, conservation, and sovereignty. This thought piece uses decolonization and storytelling methodologies to demonstrate how current PPA management paradigms perpetuate harm against Indigenous communities. It also explores how these paradigms can evolve to improve the social-environmental efficacy of PPAs by highlighting three areas of change where PPAs could perpetuate the cultivation of Indigenous sovereignty: (1) addressing cultural tensions and transforming current management systems; (2) creating Indigenous Knowledge spaces in PPArelated educational settings; and (3) building decolonial futures by returning lands to Indigenous communities. This paper presents reflective frameworks with guiding questions for PPA managers to embrace the #LANDBACK movement in partnership with Indigenous communities. These frameworks provide opportunities for park managers, educators, and PSF PARKS STEWARDSHIP FORUM Cultivating sovereignty in parks and protected areas: Sowing the seeds of restorative and transformative justice through the #LANDBACK movement PAPERS FROM THE 2021 GEORGE WRIGHT SOCIETY STUDENT SUMMIT SOCIOENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE researchers to center Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, and community well-being. Additionally, this manuscript provides the scaffolding for PPA managers and Indigenous communities to implement restorative and transformative justice practices within current PPA systems. Implementing the proposed frameworks within PPAs could generate monumental social transformation.
The world's oceans are often perceived as barriers that separate countries. To counter these divisions and improve protection of ocean resources, marine protected area (MPA) managers have formed alliances that bridge jurisdictional boundaries to share strategies and resources with other protected areas.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries has embraced this sister site approach to connect MPA management based on ecological and cultural links. Designed to strengthen the management of ecologically and culturally connected areas, these relationships between protected areas serve as catalysts for effective stewardship of the ocean's biological resources and show the important benefits of transnational cooperation.
This paper summarizes the lessons from over a decade of sister site partnerships, including case studies from Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and four sites in the Caribbean working together to protect a shared population of humpback whales; the Gulf of Mexico Sister Site Network being developed by the USA, Mexico, and Cuba; Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and Rapa Nui in Chile; and broader collaboration among MPAs in the USA and Chile on the Pacific coast.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.