Framing co-productive conservation in partnership with Arctic Indigenous peoples.

Abstract

Indigenous communities at the front lines of climate change and biodiversity loss are increasingly shaping the conservation of lands, waters, and species. The Arctic is a hotbed for emerging local, national, and international conservation efforts, and researchers, managers, and communities alike will benefit from a framework that improves approaches to Indigenous partnerships. Co-productive conservation is a framework that encompasses both the co-production of knowledge and the co-production of public services to pursue ethically conscious, culturally relevant, and fully knowledge-based approaches to biodiversity concerns. Co-productive conservation recognizes that conservation can be practiced in a way that embodies Indigenous perspectives, knowledge, rights, priorities, and livelihoods. Six iterative and reflexive co-production processes (i.e., co-planning, co-prioritizing, co-learning, co-managing, co-delivering, and co-assessing) focus on the human dimensions that allow research, management, and conservation to affect change. By opening discussions on how to structure conservation efforts in partnership with Indigenous communities, the conservation community can move away from narratives that perceive Indigenous participation as an obligation or part of an ethical narrative and instead embrace a process that broadens the evidence base and situates conservation within Indigenous contexts.