Holders of traditional knowledge: The invisible stewards of global biodiversity

At the largest biodiversity summit in history, COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in November 2024, Indigenous Peoples and local communities secured a long-awaited breakthrough: a permanent role within the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Yet a new global study reveals that many governments still fall short of fully recognizing these actors’ contributions.

Analyzing the two most recent national biodiversity reports from 195 countries, researchers with the defining authorship of HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany found growing acknowledgment of traditional knowledge in conservation and agriculture, but consistently limited participation by Indigenous Peoples and local communities in decision-making and reporting. Hidden within these official reports are compelling, but often overlooked examples of stewardship, from community-managed fisheries in Samoa to culturally protected forests in Liberia and traditional haymaking landscapes across Europe.

“The findings of the study suggest that biodiversity thrives in landscapes where local knowledge holders exercise agency over land and resources, and declines where their practices are ignored. As countries prepare their 2026 reports, the meaningful recognition of on-the-ground stewards for their role in nurturing biodiversity—and their full inclusion in implementation efforts—will be critical to achieving the ambitious global biodiversity targets”, lead author Kinga Öllerer concludes.

Imagine a gathering of more than 23,000 registered delegates from nearly 200 countries, alongside over 900,000 visitors. These were the figures recorded at the most recent Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), held in Cali, Colombia, in November 2024. Beyond its impressive scale, this meeting marked a historic milestone for Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IP&LCs). After more than three decades of sustained advocacy, since the adoption of the CBD in 1992, IP&LCs secured a permanent subsidiary body within the Convention, guaranteeing their formal role in its implementation. IP&LC delegates celebrated in traditional dresses, visibly asserting their presence. Yet, even amid this progress, there were notable absences of IP&LCs, particularly in the European delegations, and important gaps in recognizing their role in the implementation remain.

The new global study published in Conservation Biology sheds light on one of those gaps: how national governments often fail to officially recognize the contributions of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and traditional knowledge in biodiversity governance. By analyzing nearly 400 national biodiversity reports submitted by 195 countries, the researchers provide the first comprehensive picture of how these contributions are acknowledged, or overlooked.

Only 33 countries articulated clearly both the benefits of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and their traditional knowledge for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and explicitly referenced contributions to cultivation and domestication in their fifth national reports. By the sixth reporting cycle, this number had nearly tripled to 80, but still representing just over 40% of Parties. Despite this increase, recognition remains low. Moreover, acknowledgment often failed to name the people behind the practices, and direct involvement of IP&LCs in reporting remained rare.

Europe emerged as a particularly revealing case in the analysis. Many countries extensively documented biodiversity-critical traditional land-use practices, such as extensive grazing, haymaking, and small-scale farming, while often denying the relevance of Indigenous Peoples and local communities altogether. Several governments stated that Article 8(j) of the Convention, which addresses traditional knowledge, did not apply to them, arguing that they have no Indigenous or “traditional” communities, even as they acknowledged that the abandonment of their practices has driven biodiversity loss, including shrub encroachment and declining species richness in grasslands and wetlands. In effect, traditional ecological knowledge is recognized, but its holders are rendered invisible. This pattern was mirrored at COP, where the Sámi, the only officially recognised Indigenous community in Europe, were the sole visibly delegates representing holders of traditional knowledge, despite the wider role of traditional farming communities in sustaining Europe’s biodiversity.

This disconnect highlights a broader conceptual gap: while Europe still harbors rich reservoirs of place-based knowledge maintained by farmers, herders, and rural communities, these knowledge holders are rarely framed as actors with agency, rights, or expertise in biodiversity governance. The study suggests that this invisibility may itself contribute to the erosion of both traditional practices and biodiversity across the region. A recent study frames this systematic invisibility of traditional knowledge holders not only as a conservation failure, but as a matter of social justice, in which the loss of recognition undermines both cultural dignity and long-term stewardship of biodiversity.

Together, these examples reveal a consistent message: biodiversity thrives where Indigenous Peoples and local communities retain agency over land and resources. The study concludes that while governments increasingly acknowledge these contributions in words, still few include them in their decision-making and reporting processes.

As countries prepare their next national reports in 2026, the challenge is clear. The success of global biodiversity commitments will depend not only on ambitious targets, but on whether the knowledge, practices and leadership of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are fully recognized, respected, supported and included.