Data Sovereignty in Community-Based Environmental Monitoring: Toward Equitable Environmental Data Governance

Indigenous peoples and local communities have environmental knowledge systems that are fed by different sources of information stemming from their communities’ often long histories of place-based living. Such information allows them to monitor environmental status and steward territories and resources (Brondízio et al. 2021). The rapid spread of mobile devices and digital platforms has accelerated the possibility of applying such knowledge to scientific monitoring (Starkweather et al. 2021), particularly in remote areas difficult and expensive to access for scientists (Johnson et al. 2021). Therefore, community-based monitoring is increasingly proposed as a way to further scientific understanding of biodiversity status and trends, land-use changes, habitat loss, local uses of plants and animals, drivers of environmental change, and the presence of pollution or invasive species, among other processes (Danielsen et al. 2021). A recent special section of BioScience highlights that communitybased environmental monitoring not only delivers credible and legitimate knowledge in use but also informs local decision-making and empowers Indigenous peoples and other rights holders in environmental governance (Bonney 2021, Tengö et al. 2021). However, articles in the special section and previous research on the topic also note that community-based environmental monitoring projects, when they are externally led, can come with their own challenges and impacts, from relegating local actors to data collectors (Turreira-García et al. 2018) to increasing inequities by engaging only with a local elite (Eicken et al. 2021). In this Viewpoint, we discuss an additional challenge: adhering to data sovereignty principles. In recognition of the historical and ongoing misappropriation of Indigenous knowledge systems and acknowledging Indigenous peoples’ unique rights over their knowledge (article 31 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), we focus on projects drawing from or informed by Indigenous knowledge. However, our argument also applies to other community-based environmental monitoring projects, particularly those involving local communities with long-term cultural connections with their lands and waters.