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Why Indigenous land rights are key for saving the planet

  • The Oregon Institute for Creative Research 1826 Southeast 35th Avenue Portland, OR, 97214 United States (map)

By Joycelyn Longdon

When it comes to the climate crisis, questions about carbon seem to dominate everything. But there is more to this crisis than carbon. At the same time as experiencing climate change, we are also living amidst a biodiversity crisis. 

My doctoral research at the University of Cambridge is embedded in developing community-designed, Indigenous-led technology to monitor biodiversity. As I prepare for my first field trip set for March 2022, speaking with conservationists on the ground in Ghana, the importance of biodiversity protection for the planet and people has grown ever clearer. The biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis are essentially one and the same. Despite being extremely vulnerable to climate change, our ecosystems (and the biodiversity they hold) help the earth regulate its climate and so their protection becomes a key solution to the climate emergency. For example, the reversal of biodiversity loss could account for around 30% of the global action required to stabilise our climate. 

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