Join Jane Anderson, Lydia Jennings, and Ann McCartney on March 18, 2026 from 2-3pm AZ for the Relational Data: Indigenous Data Governance in Global Biodiversity Applications webinar!
Registration is open to the public until March 17, 2026 at 5pm PST.
Webinar Description
Global biodiversity data infrastructures are often framed as neutral, technical systems designed to aggregate, standardize, and mobilize knowledge at scale. Yet biodiversity data are never merely technical; they are relational. They emerge from specific lands, communities, governance systems, and knowledge traditions. Drawing on recent efforts from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and Local Contexts initiative, this talk explores the tensions and opportunities at the intersection of open data, Indigenous data governance, and conservation policy. While platforms like GBIF advance open-access biodiversity data to support research and decision-making, Indigenous communities continue to raise critical questions: Who defines data standards? Who benefits from global data mobilization? How are place-based knowledge systems protected from extraction or misrepresentation?
The presentation argues that Indigenous governance frameworks—grounded in principles of collective stewardship, cultural authority, and territorial jurisdiction—offer necessary interventions into global biodiversity infrastructures. Tools such as Local Context’s Traditional Knowledge and Biocultural Labels demonstrate how data systems can embed provenance, consent, and community-defined use conditions without undermining scientific collaboration. Similarly, evolving policy discussions within the CBD signal growing recognition that biodiversity conservation must be inseparable from Indigenous rights and governance. By reframing biodiversity data as relational rather than merely extractive or transactional, this talk highlights pathways toward more accountable and context-aware global data systems. Indigenous governance is not a constraint on biodiversity science; it is an essential condition for its ethical and sustainable future.
Note: You will not receive the webinar information immediately following your registration. The webinar planning team will manually approve registrations for attendance to this webinar. This is in response to a previous Zoom webinar being recorded by an AI bot and posting the webinar to an AI podcast website without the consent of the team or the participants.
Featured Speakers:
Post Doctoral Fellow, University of Arizona
Associate Professor, NYU
This webinar is a collaborative effort involving the Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance, the Indigenous Data Exchange (IDX), the IndigeLab Network, the Sovereign Soils Research Collaborative, SBIKS, and the Indigenous Data Law Lab (NYU).