Focali member Carlos Alberto Hernández-Vélez will defend his thesis in Sustainability Science. It is titled: Knowledges Beneath the Canopy - Indigenous Knowledges for Forest Fauna Management in the Colombian Amazon.

Download the PhD Thesis here
Read more about the research collaboration and local researchers in this Focali article

External discussant: Victoria Reyes-García, ICREA Research Professor at the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Spain.

Abstract:
Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) is increasingly recognised for its importance in environmental governance. However, despite this recognition, most research on tropical forest fauna lacks the inclusion of Indigenous epistemologies.

My thesis addresses what I refer to as the Inclusion-Participation-Dialogue-Coproduction Gap through four years of Participatory Action Research (PAR) with two Indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon: Tipisca and Ceima Cachivera.

Guided by transformative science, decolonial theory, and the Multi-Evidence Base Approach, I draw on 42 community workshops to study the role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in wildlife management, its current state, and its potential to contribute to sustainability transformations. Furthermore, I investigate how PAR can weave TEK and non-Indigenous knowledges for decolonial forest fauna management.

My thesis consists of four articles and a synthesis chapter, using the Exchanging Research Seats (ERS) methodology, which integrates Indigenous protocols such as ceremonies and territorial walks.

My findings show that forest fauna within Indigenous Knowledge Systems is understood relationally, embedded in cosmology, ceremony, and governance, and functions as a sophisticated management system grounded in principles of shamanic knowledge. Moreover, the Exchanging Research Seats methodology redistributed epistemic authority and enabled Indigenous researchers to present TEK to regional authorities, thereby strengthening Indigenous self-determination and intercultural networks.

My work offers empirical data on Amazonian TEK, a conceptual framing of ILK and the ERS methodology as a decolonial practice. Thus, I demonstrate that biocultural resilience depends on positioning Indigenous knowledge as a guiding force rather than merely data, thereby urging sustainability practitioners to become knowledge weavers.