Introduction: Indigenous knowledges impacting the environment

Abstract

This special issue of AlterNative explores the theme of Indigenous knowledges impacting the environment. While the focus is on Australia, one paper discusses the Canadian context, and the issue as a whole has international relevance. The six articles form part of the research outcomes of an Australian Research Council (ARC) project entitled Indigenous Knowledge:Water Sustainability and Wild Fire Mitigation, awarded to senior Kaurna elder “Yerloburka” Uncle Lewis O’Brien. The articles complement each other in exploring how the narrative of terra nullius has sought to obfuscate the “rich and layered understanding of our relationship to country” of Indigenous peoples (Watson, this issue, p. 509). The papers in this issue reflect on the colonial narrative for Indigenous peoples in Australia and across the globe. Undeniably, Indigenous environmental knowledge that may have once been dismissed as “primitive” or “unsophisticated” is now increasingly sought by dominant postcolonial societies in efforts to protect scarce and valuable natural resources. The arguments and supporting evidence investigated in this issue contribute to the positioning of Indigenous knowledges at the forefront of debates around urgent environmental issues including climate change, sustainability, and the tension between development and the environment. Each contributor confronts the imposition of Western ideas on Indigenous communities from within Indigenous knowledges research frameworks or in collaboration with Indigenous elders. A theme of the issue, therefore, is the interplay between Western science and law and Indigenous reasoning and philosophy.