Decoloniality and anti-oppressive practices for a more ethical ecology

Perspective https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01460-w Decoloniality and anti-oppressive practices for a more ethical ecology Christopher H. Trisos 1,2,3,8 ✉, Jess Auerbach 4,5,6,8 and Madhusudan Katti 7 Ecological research and practice are crucial to understanding and guiding more positive relationships between people and ecosystems. However, ecology as a discipline and the diversity of those who call themselves ecologists have also been shaped and held back by often exclusionary Western approaches to knowing and doing ecology. To overcome these historical constraints and to make ecology inclusive of the diverse peoples inhabiting Earth’s varied ecosystems, ecologists must expand their knowledge, both in theory and practice, to incorporate varied perspectives, approaches and interpretations from, with and within the natural environment and across global systems. We outline five shifts that could help to transform academic ecological practice: decolonize your mind; know your histories; decolonize access; decolonize expertise; and practise ethical ecology in inclusive teams. We challenge the discipline to become more inclusive, creative and ethical at a moment when the perils of entrenched thinking have never been clearer. T he growth of ecological science as an academic discipline is embedded within colonialism1. European ecologists benefited from colonial access to land for expeditions and establishment of field stations that helped, and continue to help, form foundational theories in ecology and evolution2,3. For example, use of the terms Neotropics or Neotropical in ecology journals continues to increase rapidly (Supplementary Fig. 1). But whose tropical New World is this, and to whom are these megadiverse regions really so new? The answer is embedded in the concept of scientific discovery that described the world from the perspective of post-enlightenment Europe4,5 (Fig. 1). Moreover, insights from what would become Western scientific ecology were used to justify social and environmental control, including dispossessing colonized peoples of their land and ways of life and discounting existing knowledge systems. This benefitted colonial industries such as rubber, sugar and forestry that were critical to the emergence of the modern world order and ongoing violence of a global economic system largely based on extraction6,7. Recognizing the diversity of members who make up the ecology research community today, more ecologists need to reflect on the consequences of this colonial legacy for the discipline moving forward. Many ecologists still rationalize that organisms and ecosystems can be understood when stripped of their human-related histories of unequal social, economic and ontological relations5. Yet, these unequal histories have shaped, and continue to shape, the Earth system. For instance, the large-scale death of around 90% of the Americas’ Indigenous peoples as a result of European colonization is estimated to have resulted in successional vegetation growth on around 55 Mha of disused land and a 3.5 ppm drop in atmospheric CO2 before the Industrial Revolution8. An approach that continues to centre Western-trained scientists in understanding the world restricts research and limits ecology’s ability to address environmental crises, because it fails to recognize a diversity of people, knowledge systems and solutions. Adverse reactions to the dominance of Global North voices regarding the potential for mass tree planting campaigns to mitigate climate change are one recent example9–11. Recognizing that colonialism led to Euro-American centricity, dispossession, racism and ongoing power imbalances in how ecological research is produced and used is an important first step12. The next step is committing to decoloniality (meaning actively undoing those systems and ways of thinking), as opposed to post-coloniality (which is our historical reality and does not require taking responsibility for ongoing extractive, inequitable systems). Decolonization is not new. The work of scholars and activists from impacted places within the Global South (and North) towards undoing historical and ongoing systems of oppression over many generations must be acknowledged and amplified13–15. The research, teaching and policy relevance of decolonizing ecology is profound. For example, the rise of social–ecological systems thinking has emphasized human–environment feedbacks16, but if differences in cultural values or worldviews are ignored, social– ecological system approaches can actually damage people’s perceptions of well-being by emphasizing vulnerability and directing blame towards local communities17,18. Moreover, from climate and environmental justice19 to conservation movements20 and global environmental assessments21,22, it is increasingly recognized that inclusion of a diversity of worldviews on human–environment relations is necessary for a just transition to a more sustainable world. Here, we outline five positive interventions to help build a more anti-oppressive and decolonial ecology (Fig. 2). In doing this, we recognize that the work of decoloniality and promoting inclusive excellence cuts across multiple dimensions of power and privilege, including (among others): race; gender; sexuality; nationality; institutional and socioeconomic status; neurodiversity; and passport positionality (that is, the countries one can visit without a visa and African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa. 2Centre for Statistics in Ecology, the Environment and Conservation, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa. 3National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, University of Maryland, Annapolis, MD, USA. 4Department of Anthropology, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa. 5Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation, Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, South Africa. 6OBTENTIA Research Focus Area, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa. 7Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA. 8These authors contributed equally: Christopher H. Trisos, Jess Auerbach. ✉e-mail: 1 Nature Ecology & Evolution | VOL 5 | September 2021 | 1205–1212 | www.nature.com/natecolevol 1205 Perspective NaTurE Ecology & EvoluTion Number of bird species named after European surnames 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Fig. 1 | The fingerprint of colonialism on ecology today. Map showing the minimum estimate for each country of the number of bird species for which the Latin binomial name is based on a European person. Hundreds of bird species have been named after European surnames, with most of these species occurring outside Europe in formerly colonized countries. Taxonomy is used to organize the world into recognizable units, and taxonomists frequently name species after colleagues or wealthy patrons from the Global North. However, these names often carry little ecological info (...truncated)