The Importance of Traditional Knowledge and Indigenous Leadership

Thomas Joseph (Hupa/Karuk/Paiute)

Carbon Policy Educator, Indigenous Environmental Network

have witnessed firsthand the destruction of our biodiversity by the State of California as well as the federal government, which also con trols a lot of the territory in our region. We’ve been protecting biodiversity since time imme morial in our home place. We use cultural practices of putting fire on the land. We know the importance of making sure that our watersheds are taken care of for the vast biodiverse river systems that we have, which are complicated with the implications of dams that the federal and state government have put in. We have fought for the removal of those dams. We have continued to fight for stopping the diversion of our waterways to central California for agriculture, farming, and cities.

It’s concerning to see California bring a large delegation of elected officials proclaiming that they have the blueprint on how to protect biodiversity when I know firsthand that they have destroyed the biodiversity in my homelands. They are the fifth largest economy in the world. They have come here shouting that they have money and proposals and ideas to move forward, which mimics the European Union and the United Kingdom and Canada, and these other parties who are dictating the direction of this conference.

The world looks to the EU for leadership, but they have proven that they cannot protect the biodiversity in their own lands and that they have destroyed biodiversity on a global scale. Indigenous people have proven that we can protect biodiversity. Eighty percent of the world’s biodiversity is in the tenure of Indigenous Peoples. Why don’t we move forward with the plan of actually giving land back and extending the tenure that they have over all their ancestral territories, not just the lands that are recognized by their nation States back home?

It’s fundamental that as we continue to move forward to address biodiversity loss and climate change, we must understand that these colonial tactics, this heavy consumption of our Mother Earth, is what caused climate change; that capitalism is a root cause and that patriarchy plays a vital role in this. When we continue to use the mechanisms of white males leading the direction of this conference, heavily embedded in the patriarchy using colonial tactics like 30x30 (which will be the biggest land grab of Indigenous lands since the western expansion of the US), and when we use market-based mechanisms such as “naturebased solutions” of carbon offsets, we will not protect biodiversity. It will continue to be lost. We need to move away from these types of structures and understand the importance of Indigenous leadership and Traditional Knowledge and move that to the forefront of solutions for these issues.

IWorking Hard to Get Recognition for Indigenous Territories

Aslak Holmberg (Saami)

President, Saami Council

Saami have been conserving biodiversity through co-management and restoration work that has been done in the watershed East of my home area in Njaudd̂am. There, Saami have been collaborating with researchers to identify lost spawning grounds in the rivers that were heavily modified due to forestry and timber rafting. The Saami have been restoring these spawning grounds with good success. This is linked to co-management practices where the Saami, together with State authorities, decide what management actions to take.

The other example is the Laponia World Heritage Site, an extensive area in traditional Saami territories in areas of nine different Saami villages. There, after some 16 years of negotiations, the Saami managed to establish the World Heritage Site. The governance model, which is a Sámi majority board, also includes representatives of the municipalities and works on consensus. That’s one way that the Sámi have managed to bring protection in this Nordic or Western legal framework. Our traditional ways of using our lands are ways of conserving nature—if we manage to keep more intensive forms of land use away from our areas. That is the most important way that we have managed to preserve our lands.

It’s a good link to these negotiations here because we’re also working towards getting formal recognition of the importance of Indigenous rights in conservation; it is in the Indigenous Peoples’ territories where most of biodiversity is left. In the Saami territories, we still have some unmodified nature left. What we’re working here for is to get recognition for Indigenous territories and our customary use, which should not be negatively impacted by conservation actions. Our knowledge should also be part of the process informing decision making. We have to be at those tables where decisions are being made, but also when you’re evaluating, for example, the success of a conserved area, that has to include Indigenous Knowledge, rights, and participation.