Science
10 June 2016 Vol 352, Issue 6291
http://www.sciencemag.org/current.dtl

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Perspectives
Environmental governance for all
By Eduardo S. Brondizio, Francois-Michel Le Tourneau
Science10 Jun 2016 : 1272-1273
Summary
In a world increasingly thought of as overpopulated, sparsely populated spaces remain a dominant feature: ~57% of Asia, ~81% of North America, and ~94% of Australia have population densities below 1 person per square kilometer, equivalent to the population density of most of the Sahara desert (1). These vast, sparsely populated landscapes include rural settlements, towns, agricultural spaces, extractive economies, indigenous lands, and conservation areas. They are crucial for climate change adaptation and mitigation, from carbon sequestration to provisioning of water, food, and energy to cities. Yet governmental and nongovernmental initiatives tend to mostly pay lip service to the diverse views and needs of their populations. Without more inclusive governance, attempts to mitigate and adapt to climate change and conserve ecosystems will be compromised.

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Perspective
Environment
Bridging indigenous and scientific knowledge
Jayalaxshmi Mistry1, Andrea Berardi2
Science 10 Jun 2016:
Vol. 352, Issue 6291, pp. 1274-1275
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf1160
Summary
Indigenous land use practices have a fundamental role to play in controlling deforestation and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Satellite imagery suggests that indigenous lands contribute substantially to maintaining carbon stocks and enhancing biodiversity relative to adjoining territory (1). Many of these sustainable land use practices are born, developed, and successfully implemented by the community without major influence from external stakeholders (2). A prerequisite for such community-owned solutions is indigenous knowledge, which is local and context-specific, transmitted orally or through imitation and demonstration, adaptive to changing environments, collectivized through a shared social memory, and situated within numerous interlinked facets of people’s lives (3). Such local ecological knowledge is increasingly important given the growing global challenges of ecosystem degradation and climate change (4).