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...

OTTAWA, Ontario, Sept. 24, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Governments and institutions increasingly recognize the importance of Indigenous knowledges but struggle to bridge knowledge systems in ways that sh...

OPI staff presented disaggregated proficiency and graduation trends showing a persistent achievement gap between American Indian and non‑Indian students, and recommended culturally integrated curriculum, language supports and family engagement to close gaps.

Organizers and researchers at an Indigapalooza panel said returning bison and ancestral seeds is a form of cultural resilience and resistance to industrial food systems, describing hands-on programs that pair students with land to rebuild foodways.

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 their mangrove and reef ecosystems, as well as their traditional Indigenous fishing grounds. The Bardi Jawi, according to Phillip “Bibido” McCarthy, are a “Saltwater People” whose traditional diet revolves around healthy oceans. Their land, located in the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia, is of “red earth, blue ocean, and green mangroves,” Bibido, the 59-year-old coordinator of the Bardi Jawi men’s ranger program, tells Mongabay. Bardi Jawi Country forms part of the 95,000-hectare (235,000-acre) Bardi Jawi Indigenous Protected Area (declared in 2013 and administered by the Bardi Jawi) and the 204,000-hectare (504,000-acre) Bardi Jawi Gaarra Marine Park (established in 2022, with a zoning scheme that came into force in July 2026). Among the most important findings in the study was the interconnectedness between reef and mangrove ecosystems for sustaining fisheries — an aspect long recognized in Bardi Jawi traditional ecological knowledge. The overall project and its...

Follow Knowledge Keeper Claire Beaulieu-Antoine as she teaches seniors in northern Alberta what berries are safe to eat, what plants are medicine and which plants make the best tea.

By Roxana Roos. What motivates researchers in choosing to work with local and indigenous communities? How do these motivations shape how much say local and indigenous people actually get in the res…

Canada could improve wildfire preparedness by strengthening farm advice, countering misinformation and supporting Indigenous-led knowledge and cultural burning.

HDCA Online Panel on inequality in global knowledge production, focusing on the benefits and challenges of conducting research in the Global South. Panel 1: Understanding inequality in global knowledg...