Table 1 Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ roles as agents of change

Many Indigenous Peoples and local communities embody diverse, dynamic, and place-based ways of living that are rooted in care, reciprocity, and responsibility toward kin, encompassing people, lands, waters, and all forms of life.

Protect and uphold Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ capacity to sustain their ontologies and practices

Resisting exploitation and harms

Through resistance, advocacy, and social movements, many Indigenous Peoples and local communities confront activities that cause environmental harm, assert their rights, and advance environmental justice.

Defending rights

Many Indigenous Peoples and local communities engage with existing mechanisms—such as legal systems and policymaking processes—to defend and advance their rights, as well as the rights of all life.

Extend and amplify Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ ontologies and practices

Shaping broader societal change

Many Indigenous Peoples and local communities influence broader societal transformation through active engagement in environmental action, while also inspiring processes of unlearning, reimagining, and undoing dominant systems and worldviews around the world.

Providing customary foundations for care-oriented ways of organizing

Many Indigenous Peoples and local communities uphold customary practices and societal structures grounded in relationships with self, others, spirits, ancestors, and all forms of life. These relational ways of being offer foundational insights for reimagining governance, legal, and economic systems rooted in reciprocity and care. They offer a paradigm for regenerating people and/with nature.