News > Indigenous people are the world’s biggest conservationists, but they rarely get credit for it

Indigenous people are the world’s biggest conservationists, but they rarely get credit for it

Indigenous people and local communities conserve far more of the Earth than, say, national parks and forests. Despite the outsize role that Indigenous peoples play in protecting nature, their contributions often go overlooked. 

The modern conservation movement was built on the false idea that nature starts out “pristine” and untouched by humans which put many of the movement’s early efforts at odds with Indigenous land management