Indigenous peoples have used forest thinning to protect against wildfires for millennia. These traditional methods – including cultural burning – have often been neglected in modern times, which is thought to have contributed to wildfires in the US and elsewhere. Now, researchers have shown for the first time in a regional hotspot for wildfire risk and drought risk that forest thinning with modern tools has an additional benefit: it increases the snowpack in winter by 16 to 30%, thus recovering lost water and helping to safeguard its supply for natural and human needs.

New research reveals that the Old Irish Goat - Ireland's only indigenous breed - shares a 3,000-year genetic link with goats living during the Late Bronze Age. The findings suggest the critically endangered breed represents a continuous Irish lineage stretching back millennia.

The drought-tolerant shrub affectionately known as Old Man Saltbush is mostly used as stock fodder, but can also be added to salads or cooking and has been enoyed by Indigenous Australian for thousands of years. Now, early research suggests it could be a healthy and sustainable alternative many more of us should be eating.  

Birds currently inhabiting many territories across Africa, Latin America and Asia are, on average, considerably smaller than those that predominated in 1940. This is the conclusion of an international study led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), which documents—drawing on the collective ecological memory of ten Indigenous Peoples and local communities—a reduction of up to 72% in the mean body mass of the bird species present in their territories between 1940 and 2020.

Krystal Tsosie, an expert in Indigenous genomics, bioethics, and data governance, will deliver a talk titled The Future of Science Is Indigenous at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting. Tsosie’s presentation examines how Indigenous science offers frameworks for equity, accountability, and stewardship as genomics, artificial intelligence, and precision health reshape research and society.