Can Indigenous ecotheology save the world? Affinities between traditional worldviews and environmental sustainability

This article reviews and synthesises the conspicuous affinities between Indigenous knowledge, spirituality, and sustainable development. Development initiatives in countries of the majority world have tended to privilege outsider orientations that uncritically perpetuate scientific and technocratic perspectives that contrast sharply with Indigenous worldviews. In consequence, many development programmes and climate change adaptation initiatives have been neither effective nor sustainable, having been guided by external agendas and funded by foreign donors. Relatedly, ideas about modern development are frequently perceived by traditional knowledge-holders as being steeped in values of materialism, consumerism, and profligacy and therefore do not resonate strongly with Indigenous ideals and worldviews. Set against this background, this article posits that the time is ripe for development policy and practice to be more closely attuned to Indigenous spirituality, given that such a focus will facilitate climate change adaptation initiatives that are more effective and sustainable, in addition to being more equitable, ethical, and culturally appropriate.