Crushed shells helped young clams grow larger shells in laboratory tests, showing how a long-standing Indigenous coastal practice can offer local protection against ocean acidification. For a young...

At successive UN climate conferences, two ideas have appeared side by side. Developed countries promise more adaptation and loss-and-damage finance, while official declarations celebrate Indigenous knowledge as essential to planetary survival. Together, they create an appealing picture of climate justice: historical emitters provide restitution, while communities that have long protected vulnerable ecosystems help guide the response. But this apparent synthesis conceals a deeper failure. Recognition is expanding much faster than either finance or political authority. The finance gap is stark. The Glasgow Climate Pact called on developed countries to double adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025 – commonly understood as a target of about US$40 billion. Yet theUN Environment Program concluded (Opens in new window) that the target would not be met, while developing countries’ adaptation needs could reach US$310 billion annually by 2035. The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage presents a similar mismatch. Anofficial board report (Opens in new window) recorded US$788.8 million in pledges but only US$361 million received by June 2025. The fund’s creation carried political weight, but its resources remain far removed from the scale of irreversible losses already confronting climate-vulnerable states. In this setting, praising Indigenous knowledge becomes inexpensive moral currency. Negotiators...

The northern wet season has officially commenced, coinciding with the annual arrival of the Top End's largest resident.

In a recent scientific article in the journal Ocean & Coastal Management, alongside the list of scientist-authors were the Bardi Jawi and Oorany Rangers and the Bardi Jawi Traditional Owners. For the past decade, Bardi Jawi rangers and traditional owners have been working with the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) to study and protect […]

It may not look like much now - but this small plot of land will soon bear blueberries, apricots, mandarins and more. A team of Lincoln University researchers are trying their hand at growing a ngahere kai, or food forest - a food system used by indigenous communities around the globe. "If you think of the Amazon - that would be one of the oldest living examples, that Mayan have cultivated for between 2000 to 3000 years," Dr Chystal O'Connor told Country Life at a planting day. Audio player for " Future-focussed food forests " removed for printing Visit page to play audio: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9._f0.YIZs2-J2FpwgcBcJJb29s1vXmFAWHLh_p1oUyv-l-RA/country/2118903%2Fcountry-life-indigenous-knowledge-fuels-food-forest-trial Future-focussed food forests Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts. It is what it says on the tin: edible bushes, tubers and trees are planted in a layout which mimics a natural forest. The forest-like layers mean multiple plants can grow in one area, she said. "There're usually up to seven layers, and a food forest creates the climate of a natural forest, so it increases the humidity and helps everything else to grow." A food biochemist and former Whanake Ake appointee, O'Connor is one of three Lincoln lecturers...

At a Missoula workshop, first-grade teacher Amy Ray Grant asked educators to teach with primary sources that recognize Indigenous creation stories, reciprocal stewardship and the history of the Badger Two Medicine ceded strip, saying teachers should 'seek our guidance' and include tribal perspectives in classroom materials.

Researchers in the North say they’re noticing more and more Indigenous women doing field research — and that it’s inspiring a new generation of female scholars.

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Australia’s native bees face habitat loss, climate change and other threats, but researchers say more data is urgently needed to protect these vital pollinators

First Nations language speakers share how words and phrases carry so much identity and context that they are almost impossible to convey in English. CBC's Terri Trembath travelled to visit elders who ...

Tyler Lee didn’t need to read a national report to know that the way his family has ranched cattle on the west side of Lake Manitoba comes from somewhere older than any government program. “A lot of traditional Métis land practices came from paying attention to the land, the animals, the seasons and what was happening around you, then adjusting as needed,” said Lee, a Red River Métis rancher and owner of Mossy Rock Cattle Co. That same idea sits at the centre of a new report from the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) called Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Food Sovereignty, which argues that Indigenous knowledge systems and healthy food systems are so closely linked that one cannot be strengthened without the other. It also posits that Canadian agriculture and food policy has a long way to go before it treats that knowledge as equal to western science, rather than simply adding it to the pile. The report was commissioned by the federal government’s Indigenous Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (I-STEM) Cluster and produced by an eight-member expert panel chaired by Treena Wasonti:io Delormier, Kanienke’há:ka (Mohawk) from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawá:ke and associate professor in the School of Human...

City staff proposed updates to the 2012 general plan text to align with the 2022 Climate Action Plan and the 2025 Local Hazard Mitigation/Climate Adaptation Plan, including added language from tribal consultation on indigenous ecological knowledge and new drought language recommended by Cal OES. The Geological Survey review window runs through Oct. 12 and staff noted potential Council consideration of any survey findings.

Increasingly, health, food, and environmental policy recognize the interconnectedness of climate change, food systems, water security, and health. The pronounced impacts of climate change, including disruptions to ecosystems, agricultural practices, water availability, and traditional harvesting, compound food insecurity and adverse health outcomes, particularly for Indigenous communities. (1) However, despite some policy reform, dominant approaches often remain fragmented, emphasizing infrastructure, market-based food access, scientific monitoring, or adaptation technologies without adequately addressing colonial land dispossession, socioeconomic inequities, environmental degradation, and the governance structures that shape vulnerability in the first place. In Canada, policy frameworks increasingly acknowledge Indigenous leadership in climate adaptation and stewardship. Recent federal initiatives demonstrate progress toward joint climate action with First Nations, but recognition alone is insufficient, as Indigenous peoples will remain merely participants in externally designed programs, rather than actual decision-makers with authority over lands, waters, food systems, and adaptation priorities. (2) For many Indigenous peoples, however, the relationships between food, land, water, health, and climate are inherent to cultural understandings and lived experiences. These interconnections have long been understood through lived relationships on the land. What is changing is not necessarily the existence of this knowledge, but policy and research institutions’ willingness to recognize it as knowledge...

“In today’s context, we always talk about sustainability, but it’s not an option. It is something compulsory if we want humanity to survive,” Ratnabali said at the discussion, titled Indigenous Knowledge Systems as Drivers of Economic Transformation in Northeast India: Institutional Pathways and Sustainable Development, held at Delhi’s India International Centre (IIC). “The learnings people have acquired over generations, because they have learnt to live with nature and safeguard it along with their own livelihoods, are very critical,” she said. The Department of Political Science, IIC and the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) jointly organised the discussion. The panel included Nani Gopal Mahanta, Vice Chancellor of Gauhati University, G Amarjit Sharma, Special Centre for the Study of North East India, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and Professor Rekha Saxena, who moderated the discussion. IIC director KN Shrivastava chaired the panel. The speakers argued that the region’s development needs to be rooted in its distinct geography, institutions and traditional practices, while combining these with modern science and technology. “The knowledge system can also be recognised as a source of innovation, entrepreneurship and livelihood. Indigenous knowledge should not just be confined to a heritage symbol, but should be taken as...