Indigenous food sovereignty is one of the most overlooked conservation strategies (commentary)

Indigenous communities manage or hold tenure over roughly a quarter of Earth's land surface, encompassing over a third of its remaining intact forests, according to the commentary. It argues these territories sustain thousands of locally adapted crop varieties, wild foods, and traditional livestock breeds, standing in contrast to a global food system where three crops supply more than half of humanity's plant calories.

Examples cited include Taiwanese communities reviving traditional millet, Peruvian Quechua custodians maintaining over 1,300 native potato varieties, and Filipino Manobo communities recovering heirloom seeds after years of commercial agriculture dependence. The piece frames these as evidence that biodiversity and Indigenous land control rise and fall together.

The authors call for governments to move beyond symbolic recognition — consultation slots at conferences — toward enforceable rights under UNDRIP and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, including real decision-making authority over land, seeds, and genetic resources.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.