Introduction
The project “Research and Advocacy on Indigenous Language, Concepts and Values on Sustainability” aimed to contribute to strengthening the vitality and practice of important indigenous concepts and values in the implementation of indigenous peoples’ sustainable and self-determined development.
Indigenous concepts and values relating to sustainable use, control and management of lands, territories, and resources are part of indigenous peoples’ knowledge systems and practices. These concepts and values are embedded in indigenous languages.
Maffi (2011, p. 7) sees language, culture, and the environment as being “bound together in an interrelated and interdependent whole.” This intimate link is reflected in the complex knowledge and value systems that indigenous peoples have developed through their long-term interactions with the natural world on which they depended for survival (ibid).
Collectivity, reciprocity, cooperation, and solidarity are important principles guiding the interactions of Indigenous peoples with their human and natural environment. These principles may be thought of as aspects of mutual support systems that have been put in place by indigenous communities to help them manage their natural resources sustainably through time immemorial, thus ensuring their survival. For this reason, in this study we shall refer to collectivity, reciprocity, cooperation and solidarity as sustainability-related principles.
Download the full report here: Indigenous Concepts and Values on Sustainability
