Environmental sustainability movements have faced criticism for their often mechanical, anthropocentric approach that maintains standards of overconsumption within healthcare and has perpetuated planetary harm. Environmental stewardship, as practised within many Indigenous communities, instead focuses deeply on the interconnectedness of human and planetary health, and offers insights from which the health community can learn.
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N.R is a member of the Deninu K’ue First Nation from Denendeh, or the Northwest Territories, Canada. She is an Indigenous and planetary health scholar rooting community-based approaches to research, policy and practice. C.Z.-C. is a medical doctor from Peru and belongs to an Indigenous Quechua family from the Northern Peruvian Andes. Her clinical practice in the Peruvian Amazon and graduate studies in Canada inform her work as an Indigenous health scholar conducting participatory, intercultural and transdisciplinary research on climate change, health and resilience.
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Redvers, N., Zavaleta-Cortijo, C. Environmental stewardship and health systems: Indigenous-centred reflections. Nat Rev Nephrol 22, 167–168 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41581-026-01049-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41581-026-01049-1
