Transforming Biodiversity Governance: Respecting Indigenous and Local Knowledge

Transformative change in biodiversity governance requires more than new policies, technologies, and financial instruments. It demands rethinking whose knowledge counts, how authority is allocated, and how human–nature relationships are conceptualized, a concern central to IPBES TCA, for instance in its call for pluralistic and relational approaches to knowledge and metrics (5.6.4 and 5.5.4). Although biodiversity loss has global implications, its drivers and possible solutions are highly local, shaped by cultural relations with ecosystems and local community histories. As a result, the situated knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and other long-established local communities is indispensable to the effectiveness and justice of biodiversity action.

These communities are not only disproportionately affected by biodiversity decline; many have sustained ecological knowledge built over generations through ongoing interactions with their environments. Such knowledge can illuminate ecosystem dynamics and context-appropriate adaptation strategies that are epistemically robust while systematically undervalued (IPBES TCA 5.6.4; 5.3.1). Yet structural injustices continue to undermine the credibility ascribed to these knowledge systems in formal governance arenas. Cultural barriers and the enduring legacies of colonial policy not only unfairly exclude local voices, but also sideline forms of insight essential for place-specific conservation.

Drawing on philosophical work on structural and epistemic injustice, this paper diagnoses these dynamics and proposes tools for addressing them. First, we develop a conceptual vocabulary clarifying when Indigenous and local knowledges are marginalized and decontextualized in ways that diminish their epistemic standing. Second, we articulate key mechanisms to diagnose epistemic failures within conservation institutions, including testimonial and hermeneutical injustice.

Understanding these mechanisms in the context of biodiversity governance allows us to outline a practical roadmap for improving biodiversity policy, aligned with the TCA’s recommendations on knowledge co-production (IPBES TCA 5.7.4; 5.7.5). Our roadmap centers on (1) cultivating and embedding organizational epistemic virtue to recognize the limits of scientific authority, underscoring the validity of alternative epistemologies; (2) fostering reciprocal learning to enable iterative, long-term collaboration rather than one-off consultation; and (3) implementing shared decision-making procedures in which Indigenous and local knowledge holders act as epistemic authorities rather than sources of data.