Healing Earth, Envisioning Space: Indigenous Knowledge and Partnerships for a Resilient Future

Outer space is a shared ancestral environment of immense cultural and scientific value. It connects our past and future, influencing ethics, policies, technologies, and dreams of living off-Earth. As the space community aligns Earth and space sustainability—without overshadowing Earth’s climate crisis— enduring philosophical and technical questions urge us to reflect on our diverse and global ecosystems and our relationships with them. Today, innovators and leaders in space are striving for regenerative, not just sustainable, systems to address our greatest challenges of climate change and interstellar travel.

Indigenous Peoples, on the frontlines of climate change for generations, have long been architects of climate resilience and complex systems. Through enduring relationships with the land, they have developed sophisticated understandings of complex environments via interaction, observation, experimentation, and stewardship. Known as Indigenous Knowledge, Traditional Knowledge, or Traditional Ecological Knowledge, the breadth of such oral and written understandings contains technologies, beliefs, methods, and innovations. Recognizing this knowledge is not a step backward but a step forward with the best data and methods available - knowledge that remains under Indigenous stewardship.

Indigenous Peoples, with their socioecological expertise, offer vital insights into what a resilient Earth and sustainable space future can look like. Honoring our shared responsibility for a healthy planet and cosmos requires meaningful partnerships with these original members of the space community. This panel brings together a diverse group of Indigenous and allied scholars, leaders, and researchers to discuss space technology, climate change, and relationship-building to inform and inspire the global audience of the IAC community.