New article in Nature Human Behaviour – Sustainable education should include Indigenous knowledge

On 1 October 2025, a new comment piece was published:
Hays, Jennifer, Edmond Dounias, and Velina Ninkova. “Sustainable education should include Indigenous knowledge.” Nature Human Behaviour (2025): 1-3.
Read full article: https://rdcu.be/eI1vt

Formal education systems often exclude, neglect, or devalue the traditional ecological knowledge and skills of Indigenous societies; this can lead to cultural erosion and knowledge decline. This article describes how these dynamics affect hunter-gatherer groups, small scale societies whose traditional livelihood depends primarily on non-domesticated resources obtained directly from their natural environments. Although they are only a tiny fraction of the global population, their languages, knowledge systems, and traditional educative practices are highly sophisticated and contain the keys to elaborate collective memory and important environmental understanding. Unfortunately, these knowledge systems, the environments in which they occur, and their modes of transmission, are under threat from many factors. We examine the role of education in this process, and argue that for education to be sustainable and aligned with SDG4, Indigenous hunter-gatherer knowledge and educative practices should be recognized and valued.

We invite you to read the full article here (https://rdcu.be/eI1vt), reflect, and share your thoughts.