WISN is an indigenous created and directed organization that has established itself in the international arena. Indigenous Science is a way of perceiving the world that is holistic, participatory, and in balance with the Earth's life support systems. WISN indigenous science research seeks to restore traditional knowledge to the forefront of dialogue on the world’s most pressing ecological issues.
Cultural Survival envisions a future that respects and honors Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights and dynamic cultures, deeply and richly interwoven in lands, languages, spiritual traditions, and artistic expression, rooted in self-determination and self-governance.
Indigenous peoples have wide-ranging knowledge of the land and its ecology. Through collaboration with Indigenous partners, Parks Canada and Canadians are benefiting from traditional knowledge systems that have been handed down over many thousands of years.
Native Science is a study of the whole; Indigenous technologies emerge from the implicate order to reflect the art of skillful living – and these bodies of knowledge employ the precision and rigour associated with western science.
When it supports their claims, Western scientists value what Traditional Knowledge has to offer. If not, they dismiss it.
Below are examples based off of a Decolonizing Conservation Reading List of conservation work, resource management, and research that has been led by and/or done in partnership with Indigenous peoples
This article shows how sound integration of western science and indigenous knowledge depends on the possibility to accommodate different interpretations of reality and knowledge criteria, in addition to the value of pluralism and mutual learning.
This article explores aspects of multicultural science and pedagogy and describes a rich and well-documented branch of indigenous science known to biologists and ecologists as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK).
Traditional systems of management including weirs – fences built across rivers to selectively harvest salmon – supported sustainable fisheries for millennia. In collaboration with the Heiltsuk First Nation these researchers revived the practice of weir building in the Koeye River.
Researchers present results from a molecular genetics study of grizzly bears inhabiting an important conservation area within the territory of the Heiltsuk First Nation in coastal British Columbia. Noninvasive hair sampling occurred between 2006 and 2009 in the Koeye watershed, a stronghold for grizzly bears, salmon, and Heiltsuk people.
The Iinnii Initiative is a Blackfoot-led conservation effort to restore free-roaming bison to
Blackfoot traditional territory around the Waterton-Glacier region in Alberta and Montana.
Creating new conservation law that more holistically and comprehensively supports hapü and iwi leadership in conservation management should be embraced as a critical step towards reversing the decline of Aotearoa New Zealand’s biodiversity.