Ainsley Phillips | 2025 I.S. Symposium
Name: Ainsley Phillips
Title: First Nations, First Knowledge: Indigenous Sovereignty and Environmental Governance in Australia, Brazil, and Aotearoa New Zealand
Major: Political Science; Environmental Studies
Advisors: Erum Haider; Matt Mariola
This research examines how Indigenous participation in early state-building processes shapes contemporary integration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in environmental governance. Through comparative analysis of Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Brazil, the study reveals how initial recognition of Indigenous sovereignty creates enduring institutional frameworks that either enable or constrain TEK integration. In Australia, the terra nullius doctrine established persistent barriers to Aboriginal cultural burning practices. Brazil’s delayed constitutional recognition resulted in inconsistent implementation despite formal protections. Aotearoa’s Treaty of Waitangi, while imperfectly implemented, provided foundations for substantive co-management arrangements reflected in innovative approaches like granting legal personhood to natural features. Drawing on Indigenous scholarship that conceptualizes sovereignty as emerging from relationships with land rather than territorial control, the research challenges state-centric sovereignty theories by demonstrating how Indigenous environmental authority persists despite colonial dispossession. The findings suggest that effective environmental governance requires reconsidering fundamental sovereignty concepts by recognizing Indigenous peoples not merely as stakeholders with useful knowledge but as sovereign nations with inherent authority derived from ancient relationships with lands and waters. This reframing has significant implications for addressing contemporary environmental challenges, indicating that successful climate responses depend not just on adopting Indigenous techniques but fundamentally reconsidering how we understand authority, responsibility, and relationship with the natural world.
Posted in Symposium 2025 on May 1, 2025.
