STOCKHOLM – As 2025 continues to unfold as another year of climate extremes, scholars warn that the hard-earned wisdom of Indigenous communities, rooted in generations of observing subtle changes in land and weather, still struggles to find a respected place in national and global decision-making. Scholars underscore that unless Indigenous knowledge is fully included, climate responses risk repeating the same mistakes that brought us here.
According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, this past January was the warmest on record globally, with average surface temperatures 1.7°C higher than the pre-industrial baseline. Arctic sea ice hit its lowest January extent ever measured. February and June followed with near-record highs, and although the year is not yet complete, analysts at Carbon Brief report that 2025 is on track to be one of the hottest years in history.
These changes are more than just numbers on a chart; they are daily realities for Indigenous peoples who live closest to the land and ice. For the Sámi of northern Scandinavia and Aboriginal communities in Australia, the warming climate is not an abstract threat but a lived disruption. And while governments increasingly acknowledge the importance of Indigenous knowledge, new scholarship examines the challenges and opportunities of meaningfully including that knowledge in decision-making.
A glacial stream in the Gates of the Arctic National Park [Paxson Woelber, Wikimedia Commons, CCA-SA 3.0]
A new article released yesterday (September 2, 2025) by the Stockholm Environment Institute and published in Arctic Review on Law and Politics synthesizes five international case studies on the incorporation of Indigenous knowledges into land use governance. The authors highlight both the promise of Indigenous insights and the persistent barriers that limit their influence.
One recurring issue is the unequal status of knowledge systems. As the researchers write, planners often treat Indigenous observations as valid only when Western science supports them. As Jacobson and Stephens observe, “[e]ven when it is recognized that local knowledge is insightful, an expectation exists that it must be contrasted against science for it to be considered true.” This bias devalues Indigenous voices and creates an uneven playing field in negotiations over land, water, and resources.
The case studies identified by the scholars each reveal how lofty policy commitments can break down in practice, leaving Indigenous voices struggling for space in decisions that directly affect their lands.
The first of the case studies, focused on Sápmi, the Sámi homeland across Norway and Sweden, illustrates these tensions vividly. In northern Sweden, reindeer herders worked with researchers to map decisions around winter feeding when pastures are locked in ice. Their conclusion was clear: feeding is a last resort, not a solution. Yet as pastures shrink from climate change and development, herders feel forced into this strategy. The study warns against normalizing such emergency measures instead of protecting grazing grounds.
In Sweden’s forestry sector, dialogue tools known as Reindeer Husbandry Plans were designed to ease tensions between industry and herders. But the researchers found that corporate priorities still dominate, reducing Sámi worldviews, grounded in the relationships between land, people, and animals, to secondary concerns.
The contested Násávárre mining case on the Norway–Sweden border highlights the political dimension. Sámi representatives pointed to flaws in the impact assessment process and lack of compliance with international law, yet the structures of dialogue favored industrial interests. Despite the appearance of consultation, the underlying power imbalance remained intact.
Wind power development in Norway raises similar questions. While government actors now consult reindeer experts earlier in the process, Sámi knowledge still struggles for equal footing. The researchers emphasize that real inclusion requires stronger participation rights and control over how Sámi knowledge is used in official assessments.
By contrast, the Australian case study offered a rare example of centering Indigenous perspectives. At Lake Illawarra in New South Wales, the Moolawang Ngayagang Yanba program deliberately privileged Aboriginal ways of knowing. Scientists, planners, and community members engaged with the land, not as a resource to be managed, but as a living relationship. The program demonstrated that when Indigenous epistemologies are placed at the center, governance can be transformed rather than merely adjusted.
Across these diverse contexts, researchers observed five recurring challenges that prevent Indigenous knowledge from being meaningfully integrated into environmental governance.
Sami flag circle [Public Domain]
The first is the gap between promises and practice. Governments and international bodies often proclaim the importance of consulting Indigenous peoples in land use decisions, and many legal frameworks even mandate such consultation. Yet in reality, Indigenous perspectives rarely shape the final outcomes. Consultation is too often treated as a procedural step rather than a genuine attempt to share authority, leaving communities frustrated and disillusioned.
This leads directly into the second challenge: power imbalances. Decision-making processes are usually designed and controlled by state institutions or corporations. They set the agenda, determine the terms of engagement, and ultimately retain the authority to decide. Indigenous communities may be invited to participate, but they do so in an arena where the rules are stacked against them. This imbalance of power means that even when Indigenous voices are present, they seldom carry equal weight.
A third obstacle lies in epistemological divides; that is, in how different societies define and validate knowledge. Western science is often regarded as objective and authoritative, while Indigenous knowledge, which is rooted in lived experience, oral tradition, and deep relationships with land and animals, is treated as anecdotal or unreliable. Indigenous insights are often dismissed unless they can be “proven” by science, creating a double standard that undermines their independent value.
The complexity of governance itself creates further barriers. In regions such as Sápmi, reindeer herding is regulated by a tangle of local, national, and international laws, each with its own procedures and requirements. This overlapping system makes it difficult for Indigenous rights to be clearly recognized or consistently enforced. Even when courts affirm those rights, bureaucratic and legal complexities often blunt their impact, leaving communities caught in a maze of regulations that dilute their influence.
The fifth challenge is tokenism and marginalization. Too often, Indigenous input is sought only after key decisions have already been made. Communities may be asked to comment at the end of a process, when the scope of a project has been set and the outcome largely predetermined. In these cases, consultation becomes a symbolic gesture, included to meet legal requirements or to give the appearance of participation, rather than a genuine effort to share authority. Indigenous representatives describe the experience as being invited to the table only to find that the meal has already been served. This pattern not only diminishes the value of their knowledge but also erodes trust in the very institutions that claim to prioritize inclusion. Over time, it reinforces a sense that Indigenous perspectives are reduced to a box-ticking exercise, offering legitimacy to projects that continue to undermine traditional ways of life and relationships with the land.
The research concludes that recognition alone is not enough. Inclusion must mean shifting power, respecting Indigenous sovereignty, and valuing all ways of knowing equally. Without such changes, Indigenous participation risks remaining symbolic, an empty gesture in the face of an accelerating climate emergency.
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