Indigenous territories, often managed as community-governed commons, host some of the most valuable biodiversity areas and Indigenous rights have gained prominence in the debates on biodiversity conservation. For example, Indigenous and Other Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) have become a permanent part of global conservation. Yet, these Indigenous commons and Indigenous Peoples also bear the burden of long and painful histories of colonization and neocolonial dominance of western models of resource extraction. This author meets critics roundtable is organized as a reflective conservation around the key themes from Kashwan & Hasnain’s Decolonizing Environmentalism: Alternative Visions and Practices of Environmental Action (Bloomsbury 2024) to distill lessons for the constitutions and governance of commons. The panel will engage with debates on the role of Indigenous communities in biodiversity conservation, the praxis of Indigenous environmentalism, and social movements acting collectively to protect community rights to seed commons, food sovereignty, and decolonization of resource management regimes. Participants: Kiran Asher (Professor & Department Chair, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, UMass, Amherst). Gendered and racialized dimensions of social and environmental change in the global south as well as the meanings and practices of feminist “field work.” Mwangi wa Gĩthĩnji (Associate Professor of Economics, UMass, Amherst). Political economy of development with particular interest in Africa and issues of inequality, poverty, rural development and the environment.
