2. Environmental Justice and Indigenous Perspectives

The complex link between environmental justice and indigenous viewpoints is examined in this chapter, with a focus on the critical role that indigenous communities play in protecting ecosystems while battling environmental and socioeconomic injustices. The chapter illustrates how indigenous knowledge systems, cosmologies and traditional practices support environmental stewardship by looking at instances from throughout the world. It also shows how these people often suffer the most from environmental degradation brought on by industrialization and policy marginalization. Indigenous beliefs on environmental justice are firmly anchored in holistic worldviews, which see nature as a living being that merits respect and preservation rather than simply as a resource. This chapter examines important cases, including Native American tribes’ fights in the US for control over natural resources and the preservation of sacred sites under laws like the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. The Te Awa Tupua Act, 2017, which gave the Whanganui River legal personality and acknowledged Māori cosmology in New Zealand, is another example of how indigenous worldviews are influencing creative approaches to environmental justice.