Indigenous Leadership & Vision for the Environment (ILVE)

Enhancing visibility in mainstream conservation for Indigenous leadership, culture, and knowledge

Photos © Cristina Mittermeier

The Opportunity

Indigenous Peoples are the traditional stewards of the land, and excel at its protection. The lands of tribal peoples are also home to 80% of Earth’s terrestrial species. For millennia, traditional knowledge has been at the center of their success.

Solution

Guided by respect for Indigenous leadership, WILD assists in creating opportunities to showcase Indigenous leadership, vision, and culture at mainstream conservation gatherings and decision-making bodies.

Chief Tashka of the Yawanawá People was one of the few Indigenous Peoples present at a national procession honoring the critically endangered vaquita.

Without WILD’s assistance, the event would have been attended solely by Western scientists and conservation professionals.

For Chief Tashka and the people present that day, the expression of his words and cultural wisdom on the extinction crisis was a rare opportunities for cross-cultural dialogue, and opportunity to learn from a worldview that is too often absent from conservation.

MISSION:

Encouraging Indigenous Peoples leadership in mainstream conservation for the benefit of all.

When you support ILVE, you strengthen conservation solutions and promote justice and equality for Indigenous Peoples.

I want to support Indigenous Leadership

How ILVE does it

Supports specific and target needs of Indigenous leaders to support their conservation solutions in community lands.

Promotes parity of traditional knowledge in mainstream conservation science.

Elevates the visibility of Indigenous leadership, recognizing the importance of the culture and knowledge it represents.

ILVE across the globe