Indigenous-Led Nature-Based Solutions for the Climate Crisis: Insights from Canada

Abstract

This article provides an international and national overview of climate change and biodiversity frameworks and is focused on emerging evidence of Indigenous leadership and collaborations in Canada. After introducing the international context and describing the national policy landscape, we provide preliminary evidence documenting emerging national, regional, and local examples of Indigenous-led collaborative conservation projects and nature-based climate change solutions for the climate crisis. Based on our preliminary data, we suggest that Indigenous peoples and communities are well-positioned and currently have and will continue to play important roles in the protection, conservation management, and restoration of lands and waters in Canada and globally. These efforts are critical to the global mitigation, sequestration, and storage of greenhouse gases (GHGs) precipitating the climate crisis while also building adaptive resiliency to reduce impacts. Emerging Canadian evidence suggests that there are a diversity of co-benefits that Indigenous-led nature-based solutions to climate change and biodiversity protection bring, enabled by creating ethical space for reconciliation and conservation collaborations.