Indigenous knowledge is a living science, stop stealing it

Author Cristiane Julião, is a Pankararu Indigenous leader from Brazil and cofounder of the National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestry (ANMIGA).

The striking red patterns painted across Indigenous Peoples' faces and bodies have long fascinated the outside world. This red comes from urucum, a pigment derived from the seeds of a native plant from the South and Central American territories that has been part of our lives and rituals for centuries.

In my Pankararu community in Brazil, urucum also has health properties along with cultural and spiritual significance. More than just a pigment, urucum connects us to our ancestors, the land, and the deities that watch over us.

Through generations of careful observation and practice, we have discovered it does not cause irritation to the body, making it safe for newborns, youth, mothers, and the elderly.

Our knowledge of its properties, passed down through oral traditions and lived experience, represents Indigenous science in its purest form. Yet our wisdom has been taken without recognition.

Researchers and businesses who once came to our communities as friends later turned our shared knowledge into patents, claiming they had "discovered" what we had always known.

Sacred plants were broken down into fragments of genetic information—taken from our territories to their laboratories.

Today, urucum is marketed as a revolutionary, non-allergenic dye for medical procedures and cosmetics, without acknowledgment of the Indigenous scientists who first explored its properties in our forest laboratories.

This theft reflects a larger crisis — the erasure of Indigenous knowledge while biodiversity itself is under attack.

Species are currently going extinct at least ten times faster than the natural baseline, with monitored wildlife populations shrinking fastest in the Global South.

Nearly half of the world's remaining key biodiversity areas overlap with Indigenous lands. This is no coincidence. Our stewardship, guided by Indigenous science and land management practices, has maintained and enriched biodiversity. Yet our role as protectors is constantly overlooked.

Recognizing the urgency of this crisis, the Cali Fund was launched under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in February 2025 to mobilize new funding for global biodiversity conservation.

This initiative, under U.N. governance, provides Indigenous Peoples and local communities with at least half of the fund's proceeds, acknowledging that we are central to preserving biodiversity.

The Cali Fund will receive contributions from corporations that have profited from the genetic resources (Digital Sequence Information - DSI) provided through Indigenous conservation—like the synthetic chemicals originally derived from urucum.

Investing in the Cali Fund is not just a means of supporting Indigenous Peoples. It is a smart economic move for all.

Most of the private sector has long undervalued nature, treating ecosystems as external factors that don't figure into their economic equations.

Yet the services we receive from a forest like clean water, clean air, carbon storage, biodiversity protection are worth trillions of dollars.

Today, the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change threaten the global economy, with over half of the world's GDP, some $44 trillion, at risk.

The loss of healthy ecosystems could cause a global GDP drop of $2.7 trillion—$338 for every person on the planet annually, according to U.N. estimates.

In response, the governments of Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom, as well as the province of Québec, have pledged $163 million in initial support for the Cali Fund.

However, support from the private sector is essential, especially from industries whose business models rely on the genetic resources that only a healthy, biodiverse nature can provide.

Every act that erodes the foundation of ecosystems has consequences that, whether economic or social, impact business stability and global prosperity.

As an Indigenous woman, I have seen firsthand how our traditional practices and deep-rooted wisdom have long maintained the health of our ecosystems.

Our knowledge of land tenure and biodiversity is not an abstract concept. It is living science.

Investments like the Cali Fund are not cosmetic paint. Instead, like urucum, they serve many purposes.

They are investments in the resilience of our global economy, the wisdom of Indigenous Peoples, and the preservation of the natural world that sustains us.

It is time for businesses and governments to recognize that our future depends on the health of our Earth and to support us - the Indigenous, local and Afro-descendant Communities.