Indigenous justice frameworks for relational ethics in land-based design

In the face of systematic expropriation, massive biodiversity loss, and the ongoing climate crisis, Indigenous peoples, knowledge, and labor have protected over 80% of the global biodiversity. This is remarkable given that Indigenous management or tenure remains over 20–25% of the planet’s terrestrial surface. Indigenous people’s capacity to protect biodiversity within their territories cannot be separated from the ethical frameworks that shape their relationships with land. These frameworks have been articulated by a diverse array of Indigenous scholars across the globe, and while they cannot be generalized, many share principles that go beyond dominant Western Scientific approaches that normalize utilitarian or idealized (e.g. ideals of wilderness) ethical systems. We argue that dominant policy and research discourses around land-based practices such as nature-based solutions and green infrastructure, will not be effective ‘solutions’ to ongoing crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. Instead, we must go beyond paradigms of improvement and anthropocentric utility and ground land-based practices in the paradigm of relational ethics. Through this perspective paper, we argue that rather than seeking solutions through redesigning ecosystems for utilitarian reasons, all interventions on Indigenous ancestral lands (recognized by settler states or not) should first center relational ethical approaches for land-based design practices and ground efforts in Indigenous justice. Our proposed ‘Indigenous Justice Frameworks for Relational Ethics in Land-based Design’ is based on the inseparability of bodies, lands, and knowledges, and is guided by the following elements: (1) generative refusal, (2) centering healing, reparation, and right relations, and (3) restoring and evolving Indigenous governance.