Empowering Indigenous agency through community-driven collaborative management to achieve effective conservation: Hawai'i as an example.

Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) around the world are increasingly asserting 'Indigenous agency' to engage with government institutions and other partners to collaboratively steward ancestral Places. Case studies in Hawai'i suggest that 'community-driven collaborative management' is a viable and robust pathway for IPLCs to lead in the design of a shared vision, achieve conservation targets, and engage government institutions and other organisations in caring for and governing biocultural resources and associated habitats. This paper articulates key forms of Indigenous agency embodied within Native Hawaiian culture, such as kua'āina , hoa'āina , and the interrelated values of aloha 'āina , mālama 'āina , and kia'i 'āina. We also examine how Hawai'i might streamline the pathways to equitable and productive collaborative partnerships through: (1) a better understanding of laws protecting Indigenous rights and practices; (2) recognition of varied forms of Indigenous agency; and (3) more deliberate engagement in the meaningful sharing of power. We contend that these partnerships can directly achieve conservation and sustainability goals while transforming scientific fields such as conservation biology by redefining research practices and underlying norms and beliefs in Places stewarded by IPLCs. Further, collaborative management can de-escalate conflicts over access to, and stewardship of, resources by providing IPLCs avenues to address broader historical legacies of environmental and social injustice while restoring elements of self-governance. To these ends, we propose that government agencies proactively engage with IPLCs to expand the building of comprehensive collaborative management arrangements. Hawai'i provides an example for how this can be achieved. This paper analyses collaborative management case studies from Hawai'i to then describe how shared governance between 'Indigenous peoples and local communities' (IPLCs) and govenrment institutions and reliance on various forms of Indigenous agency can lead to effective conservation and the achievement of sustainability goals. Broadening understanding of Indigenous agency can transform conservation biology being practiced where IPLCs are present, which in combination with shared governance can help to achieve environmental and social justice, while building IPLC autonomy and self-governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]