Locally Based, Regionally Manifested, and Globally Relevant: Indigenous and Local Knowledge, Values, and Practices for Nature

Abstract

The knowledge, values, and practices of Indigenous peoples and local communities offer ways to understand and better address social-environmental problems. The article reviews the state of the literature on this topic by focusing on six pathways by which Indigenous peoples and local communities engage with management of and relationships to nature. These are ( a) undertaking territorial management practices and customary governance, ( b) contributing to nature conservation and restoration efforts with regional to global implications, ( c) co-constructing knowledge for assessments and monitoring, ( d) countering the drivers of unsustainable resource use and resisting environmental injustices, ( e) playing key roles in environmental governance across scales, and ( f ) offering alternative conceptualizations of the interrelations between people and nature. The review shows that through these pathways Indigenous peoples and local communities are making significant contributions to managing the health of local and regional ecosystems, to producing knowledge based in diverse values of nature, confronting societal pressures and environmental burdens, and leading and partnering in environmental governance. These contributions have local to global implications but have yet to be fully recognized in conservation and development polices, and by society at large. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 46 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Overcoming racism in the twin spheres of conservation science and practice

“…Conservation scientists who are also conservation practitioners are at the nexus of the twin spheres, and as such have both the greatest potential and responsibility to create positive change. We recognize that many individuals, organizations and groups are taking meaningful steps towards modes of conservation that empower BIPOC communities [1][2][3][4]59,60,77,78]. Nevertheless, there is still more to be done, and we must accelerate away from the exclusive and harmful institutions we have inherited, towards more inclusive and innovative institutions that promote conservation spaces in which people and nature thrive (figure 2).…”

“…Diversify and broaden the curriculum; teach a more comprehensive representation of past and present conservation practice, including the work and perspectives of BIPOC scholars, and ultimately produce new 'standard' textbooks that encompass this history. Recommended reading [2,[59][60][61][62][63].…”

Naturalness Is in the Eye of the Beholder

“…Their current composition and structure are the result of intimate social-ecological interactions among Indigenous Peoples, plants, animals, and other non-humans (Balée, 2013;Fausto and Neves, 2018; Mendes dos Santos and Henriques Soares, 2021). These interactions are ongoing wherever Indigenous Peoples and other traditional communities have rights to their lands (Brondízio et al, 2021). It follows that conservation in these forest landscapes is not only about nature, as many conservationists imagine; it is about culture also.…”

“…Forests of high naturalness are variously termed intact forest landscapes, primary forests, pristine forests, and wilderness (Clement et al, 2020;Fletcher et al, 2021). Around the world, these forests are inhabited by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who are co-responsible for the composition and conservation of their forests (Garnett et al, 2018;IPBES, 2019;Clement et al, 2020;Brondízio et al, 2021;Fernández-Llamazares et al, 2021), which makes all of the terms describing forests of high naturalness problematic. Worse, the people who inhabit these landscapes are seldom consulted by national governments or conservation organizations about forest conservation initiatives that affect their livelihoods (Clement et al, 2020;Brondízio et al, 2021;Fletcher et al, 2021), although numerous studies have shown that these people are responsible for the most preserved forested areas on Earth (Garnett et al, 2018;Fa et al, 2020).…”

“…The majority of world cultures do not conceptualize a Nature/Culture divide in the way Western modernity came to do (Ducarme et al, 2021). Since Amazonia is on most world conservationists' wishlists for conserving nature, understanding Native Amazonian perspectives is essential, especially as Amazonian Indigenous Peoples and local communities are efficient stewards of their territories when they have legal rights (Garnett et al, 2018;Fa et al, 2020;Brondízio et al, 2021). In this essay, we explore how Amazonian Indigenous Peoples and local communities conceive and relate to the forests in which they live and which they are fighting to conserve.…”