Integrating Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge of land into land management through Indigenous-academic partnerships

Abstract

In this article, the authors use an environmental justice lens to review the history of land management practices: first practiced through stewardship by Indigenous Peoples and then taken over by Western science-based land management. There is a long history of environmental injustice in this Great Turtle Island (North America), and we specifically focus on what is happening in the land currently called the United States. The objective of this article is to explain how to integrate Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (Indigenous TEK) into Western land management practices through Indigenous-academic partnerships. We address this objective through: 1) a review of the literature on environmental injustice in Indigenous communities, the role Indigenous TEK has in providing sound ecological principles for land management, and examples of Indigenous co-management; 2) explaining how to engage in an Indigenous-academic partnerships; 3) through a quasi-case study we utilize qualitative narrative storytelling to tell the story and process through which some of our authors engaged in an Indigenous-academic partnership, the Earth Partnership-Indigenous Arts and Sciences (EP-IAS), with local Indigenous Tribal Nations through relationship building and dialogue to develop Indigenous-driven restoration and land management in the region; and 4) concluding with a discussion on how Indigenous-academic land management partnerships address environmental justice issues and create meaningful opportunities to address historical inequities. The quasi-case study we provide demonstrates the EP-IAS community engagement model, which exemplifies a mutually beneficial and respectful Indigenous-academic partnership through integrating Indigenous TEK and Western science in land management.