A Voice of Gratitude

Kalani Quiocho shares “Oli Mahalo,” a Hawaiian chant by Kēhau Camara (text and embedded/linked audio file)

From Sea to Ancestral Sea

Short personal reflections from two members of the Indigenous Editorial Team on their experiences in bringing this special issue of Parks Stewardship Forum into being

Mai Ka Pō Mai: applying Indigenous cosmology and worldview to empower and transform a management plan for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument

Environmental conservation management planning has an important role in creating conditions for social learning, adaptive governance, and improvements for co-management arrangements with Indigenous peoples. Incorporating Indigenous cosmologies, worldviews, and epistemologies within management planning processes can enable factors that support appropriate management practices for protected areas considered to be sacred natural sites by Indigenous peoples. Here, we review processes and outcomes of management planning led by Native Hawaiians with various positionalities that resulted in the Mai Ka Pō Mai Native Hawaiian Guidance Document for the Management of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. As we look back to look forward, we highlight the factors that supported knowledge co-production and expanded opportunities to develop management planning and evaluation processes informed by Hawaiian place-based knowledge and human-nature relations of care and reciprocity. These include collaborative approaches, long-term commitment to community and institution capacity-building; an enabling policy environment; and diverse and consistent involvement of Native Hawaiians

Empowering Indigenous agency through community-driven collaborative management to achieve effective conservation: Hawai‘i as an example

Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) around the world are increasingly asserting ‘Indigenous agency’ to engage with government institutions and other partners to collaboratively steward ancestral Places. Case studies in Hawai‘i suggest that ‘community-driven collaborative management’ is a viable and robust pathway for IPLCs to lead in the design of a shared vision, achieve conservation targets, and engage government institutions and other organisations in caring for and governing biocultural resources and associated habitats. This paper articulates key forms of Indigenous agency embodied within Native Hawaiian culture, such as kua‘āina, hoa‘āina, and the interrelated values of aloha ‘āina, mālama ‘āina, and kia‘i ‘āina. We also examine how Hawai‘i might streamline the pathways to equitable and productive collaborative partnerships through: (1) a better understanding of laws protecting Indigenous rights and practices; (2) recognition of varied forms of Indigenous agency; and (3) more deliberate engagement in the meaningful sharing of power. We contend that these partnerships can directly achieve conservation and sustainability goals while transforming scientific fields such as conservation biology by redefining research practices and underlying norms and beliefs in Places stewarded by IPLCs. Further, collaborative management can de-escalate conflicts over access to, and stewardship of, resources by providing IPLCs avenues to address broader historical legacies of environmental and social injustice while restoring elements of self-governance. To these ends, we propose that government agencies proactively engage with IPLCs to expand the building of comprehensive collaborative management arrangements. Hawai‘i provides an example for how this can be achieved

Cultivating sovereignty in parks and protected areas: Sowing the seeds of restorative and transformative justice through the #LANDBACK movement

Indigenous communities possess long histories of using land acknowledgments to reinforce their cultural ties with specific areas. Today, many public and private institutions use land acknowledgments to recognize the Indigenous peoples who inhabited and still live in local areas. However, an opportunity exists to move beyond institutional acknowledgments and into action-oriented frameworks that support decolonization efforts, especially within parks and protected areas (PPAs). PPAs present an opportunity for the actualization of the #LANDBACK movement, which could strengthen Indigenous land governance, conservation, and sovereignty. This thought piece uses decolonization and storytelling methodologies to demonstrate how current PPA management paradigms perpetuate harm against Indigenous communities. It also explores how these paradigms can evolve to improve the social-environmental efficacy of PPAs by highlighting three areas of change where PPAs could perpetuate the cultivation of Indigenous sovereignty: (1) addressing cultural tensions and transforming current management systems; (2) creating Indigenous Knowledge spaces in PPA-related educational settings; and (3) building decolonial futures by returning lands to Indigenous communities. This paper presents reflective frameworks with guiding questions for PPA managers to embrace the #LANDBACK movement in partnership with Indigenous communities. These frameworks provide opportunities for park managers, educators, and researchers to center Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, and community well-being. Additionally, this manuscript provides the scaffolding for PPA managers and Indigenous communities to implement restorative and transformative justice practices within current PPA systems. Implementing the proposed frameworks within PPAs could generate monumental social transformation

Cultivating sovereignty in parks and protected areas: Sowing the seeds of restorative and transformative justice through the #LANDBACK movement

Indigenous communities possess long histories of using land acknowledgments to reinforce their cultural ties with specific areas. Today, many public and private institutions use land acknowledgments to recognize the Indigenous peoples who inhabited and still live in local areas. However, an opportunity exists to move beyond institutional acknowledgments and into action-oriented frameworks that support decolonization efforts, especially within parks and protected areas (PPAs). PPAs present an opportunity for the actualization of the #LANDBACK movement, which could strengthen Indigenous land governance, conservation, and sovereignty. This thought piece uses decolonization and storytelling methodologies to demonstrate how current PPA management paradigms perpetuate harm against Indigenous communities. It also explores how these paradigms can evolve to improve the social-environmental efficacy of PPAs by highlighting three areas of change where PPAs could perpetuate the cultivation of Indigenous sovereignty: (1) addressing cultural tensions and transforming current management systems; (2) creating Indigenous Knowledge spaces in PPA-related educational settings; and (3) building decolonial futures by returning lands to Indigenous communities. This paper presents reflective frameworks with guiding questions for PPA managers to embrace the #LANDBACK movement in partnership with Indigenous communities. These frameworks provide opportunities for park managers, educators, and researchers to center Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, and community well-being. Additionally, this manuscript provides the scaffolding for PPA managers and Indigenous communities to implement restorative and transformative justice practices within current PPA systems. Implementing the proposed frameworks within PPAs could generate monumental social transformation