Traditional ecological knowledge

Traditional ecological knowledge is a place-based knowledge system rather than a fixed collection of folklore. It combines detailed observations of species, weather, soils, water, and seasonal change with practical techniques and ethical responsibilities toward human and nonhuman life. The word “traditional” refers to continuity and transmission, not unchanging content: communities revise knowledge when environments, technologies, and social conditions change.

Knowledge may be held by particular families, hunters, fishers, farmers, healers, elders, or governance institutions rather than by a community as a single, uniform voice. It can be encoded in Indigenous languages, place names, oral histories, songs, ceremony, material culture, and everyday work. Consequently, it is both empirical and normative: it describes ecological relationships while also addressing how people ought to behave within them.

Traditional ecological knowledge supports decisions about harvesting, habitat care, risk, and seasonal movement. Fishers may distinguish fine-grained changes in currents, spawning conditions, or animal behavior; pastoralists may track forage, water, and weather; and agricultural communities may maintain crop diversity, soil practices, and indicators of coming rainfall.

Its value is especially visible in collaborative monitoring and conservation. Indigenous observations have contributed to research on biodiversity, wildlife abundance, sea ice, wildfire, and climate impacts, while community rules can limit harvests, protect breeding areas, or maintain reciprocal obligations.¹ In the Arctic, for example, hunters’ observations can complement instruments and satellite data because they cover fine local scales and changing travel conditions. Effective partnerships treat these contributions as knowledge, not merely as raw data to be extracted.

International law recognizes the relevance of Indigenous and local knowledge to biological diversity, while also emphasizing the rights and participation of knowledge holders. Article 8(j) of the Convention on Biological Diversity calls for respect, preservation, and maintenance of relevant traditional knowledge, subject to the approval and involvement of its holders, and for equitable benefit-sharing.²

Research partnerships therefore require more than consultation. They should establish community-defined research questions, consent procedures, data governance, attribution, confidentiality protections, and arrangements for returning results and sharing benefits. Sacred sites, restricted harvesting knowledge, and information about culturally important species may not be appropriate for public databases. Indigenous data sovereignty frameworks address who may collect, interpret, store, and circulate such information.

Traditional ecological knowledge is often multilingual, gendered, seasonal, and distributed across generations, so a single interview rarely represents its full range. Specialized knowledge may be held by women, youth, navigators, craftspeople, or people responsible for particular species and places; overlooking these roles can distort an assessment.

Its apparent “traditional” character can also conceal extensive historical change. Communities have incorporated new species, tools, markets, and scientific observations while retaining locally meaningful principles of stewardship. Some knowledge is intentionally adaptive rather than conservative, and some practices have been disrupted by dispossession, schooling policies, pollution, climate change, or restrictions on access to customary lands. Revitalization may therefore involve language renewal, community-led mapping, youth mentorship, and the restoration of access and authority—not simply recording elders before knowledge disappears. Respectful work avoids treating knowledge as universally transferable or separating ecological insight from the relationships and responsibilities that give it meaning.

Indigenous knowledge

Knowledge, innovations, and practices developed by Indigenous peoples through relationships with their lands, waters, and communities.

Biocultural diversity

The linked diversity of biological life, cultural practices, languages, and knowledge systems in particular places.

Indigenous data sovereignty

Principles governing Indigenous peoples’ authority over the collection, ownership, interpretation, storage, and sharing of data about them or their territories.

Free, prior, and informed consent

A process through which affected peoples can understand a proposed activity and agree to it, or withhold agreement, before it begins.