Indigenous theories and practices are fundamental to creating holistic conservation and restoration sciences and multidimensional actions to promote a sustainable Amazon.
The Scientific Panel for the Amazon (SPA) emphasized the urgent need for the convergence of scientific findings with Indigenous knowledge in order to generate solutions for the sustainable development of the Amazon. Inspired by this challenge, we assembled a multidisciplinary team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars to discuss points of consonance and dissonance between Indigenous and Western theories and practices on sustainability, conservation, restoration, and planetary health. Professors João Biehl and Agustín Fuentes (Anthropology) and Professor Marina Hirota (Federal University of Santa Catarina) are co-PIs of this project jointly developed by the Department of Anthropology and PIIRS's Brazil LAB.
Our guiding questions are:
- What are some of the basic principles of indigenous sciences and how do these principles differ from or dialogue with Western academic sciences?
- How can the theories, methods and practices of indigenous sciences contribute to: sustainability, conservation and restoration of ecosystems, human and planetary health, and changes in scientific paradigms.
Our research group is supported by the Office of the Dean of Research and the High Meadows Environmental Institute (Thomas A. and Currie C. Barron Family Biodiversity Research Challenge Fund) at Princeton University, and works in collaboration with several initiatives from the Serrapilheira Institute and the Federal University of Santa Catarina.
Through an innovative proposal of cross-pollination between the socioecological theories and practices of Amazonian Indigenous communities and the Western scientific community, we aim to develop co-creative and inclusive approaches to conservation and restoration sciences and policies, based on principles and methods that have guided sustainable ways of life in tropical ecosystems for millennia.
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