Hello Thirza,

Thank you so much for your kind words and for engaging so deeply with my article. I appreciate your thoughtful questions. These are incredibly important issues, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to reflect on them, especially within a professional community like WildHub.

What have you found to be the most effective strategies for building trust with Indigenous communities in a research setting?

The article emphasizes our respectful collaboration and relationship-building over time. Long-term trust was fostered by:

• Holding workshops in community settings (e.g., Cambridge Bay, Nunavut and Kuujjuaq, Nunavik) where Elders, hunters, and trappers were invited as equal partners.
• Listening first – Scientists approached communities with humility, acknowledging Indigenous Peoples as experts of their lands.
• Ensuring transparency about the goals of DNA research and aligning them with community concerns and priorities.

How do you ensure that traditional knowledge shared in workshops is appropriately credited and protected from misuse?

We are committed to:

• Community ownership of knowledge – Traditional knowledge was not extracted but shared voluntarily within a collaborative framework.
• Research efforts aligned with ethical practices that respect the cultural sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples.
• Shared decision-making around what knowledge could be used, documented, or published, implying a consent-based approach.

What mechanisms do you use to support true co-authorship and decision-making power among Indigenous participants?

We believe in collaborative research, and we made sure that we:

• Included Elders and community members as co-creators of knowledge, rather than subjects of research.
• Stressed community-guided research design, where Indigenous participants influenced research direction and priorities.
• Involved co-authorship or community representation in dissemination by the co-development process with their kind consent.

Could your community-based workshop model be adapted for other regions or species outside the Arctic? If so, how?

Absolutely. The workshop model is highly adaptable because it is based on core principles:

• Local engagement
• Mutual love and respect
• Integration of Indigenous knowledge with science

Other regions facing biodiversity or food security challenges, such as tropical rainforests, coastal fisheries, or savannah ecosystems, could use a similar model by:

• Holding in-situ workshops/hybrid workshops with local or Indigenous communities.
• Centering local knowledge systems and governance structures.
• Tailoring scientific tools (e.g., DNA analysis) to locally important species or ecosystem changes.

How do you manage potential conflicts or disagreements between scientific interpretations and traditional ecological knowledge?

We believe in the philosophy of knowledge complementarity rather than competition. When scientific findings and traditional knowledge differ:

• Dialogue and mutual respect are emphasized to explore the reasons behind differing perspectives.
• The goal isn’t to prove one right over the other, but to learn from both systems to create more robust understandings.
• Decisions are made with community input, acknowledging that scientific knowledge is one part of a broader cultural and ecological understanding.

Our work highlights how science can support and not override Indigenous stewardship, especially in complex, climate-impacted ecosystems. My approach offers a model of ethical, inclusive, and actionable conservation research.

Thank you again for your questions and for promoting this kind of meaningful exchange. I’m always happy to continue the conversation and learn from others’ experiences as well!!

Kind regards,

Shivangi

It's my pleasure, thanks 😊 

Hey, is this event happening?