Short Abstract:

This panel explores the importance of deep time perspectives for moving conservation practice, policy and philosophy beyond the integration of Indigenous Knowledge into Western adaptive management regimes, to those guided by Indigenous and other non-Western, place based and relational ontologies.

Long Abstract:

This panel explores the importance of deep time perspectives for moving conservation practice, policy, and philosophy beyond the integration of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) or Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into Western adaptive management regimes, toward those guided by Indigenous and other non-Western, place based and relational ontologies. Specifically, the aim of this panel is to explore through case studies drawn from different geographical and cultural settings how contemporary application of Indigenous, bio-cultural heritage management practices and the ancient customary laws that govern them challenge Western, science-based concepts of what it means to 'conserve', 'protect', and 'manage'. The panel also aims to explore the non-Western conceptualisations of aspects of the obverse of these, such as 'collapse', 'ruination' and 'mismanagement'. Mirroring Indigenous scholarly discourse from around the world, we propose that preservation of the world's remaining biodiversity may well depend upon broad adoption of Indigenous, relational, and place-based management regimes and attendant customary laws. To explore the practical implications of this assertion, we invite submissions from anthropologists, archaeologists, ecological scientists, and cognate fields such as wildlife and landscape conservation, especially those who self-identify as Indigenous, aimed at discussing how understanding of the creation and practice of later Holocene-era management regimes and related deep-time perspectives can inform contemporary conservation practice in different settings.