Book

Description

The global environmental crisis—marked by accelerating climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution—exposes the profound limitations of dominant conservation paradigms. Fortress conservation models, rooted in colonial notions of pristine wilderness and command-and-control governance, have often displaced Indigenous peoples, created “paper parks,” and failed to address the root drivers of ecological degradation. Timeless Strategies: Indigenous Insights on Resource Conservation and Renewal argues that Indigenous knowledge systems offer proven, relational, and regenerative alternatives that have sustained human communities and ecosystems across millennia of environmental change. Drawing on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) from Asia, the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and the Arctic, the book synthesises the philosophical foundations of Indigenous resource management—reciprocity, kinship with nature (kincentric ecology), sacred ecology, cyclical time, and seven-generation thinking. It demonstrates how these principles manifest in sophisticated practices of conservation through use, including sacred groves, rotational harvesting, cultural burning, terracing, agroforestry, totemic protections, and ecological calendars. Moving beyond preservation, the volume highlights active renewal mechanisms such as seed sovereignty, ritual-based regeneration, and Indigenous-led restoration of degraded landscapes.Interdisciplinary in scope and grounded in ethical scholarship aligned with UNDRIP, FPIC, and the CARE Principles, the book bridges TEK with contemporary frameworks including Ostrom’s Common Pool Resource theory, Holling’s resilience thinking, and biocultural diversity. It critically examines successful hybrid models—Community Conserved Areas, Indigenous Protected Areas, and co-management arrangements—while confronting ongoing challenges of colonial legacies, land dispossession, knowledge erosion, climate impacts, and intellectual property injustices. Ultimately, the book calls for epistemic pluralism and the decolonisation of conservation.