From Land and Waters to Code and Cloud: Indigenous Data Sovereignty for Biodiversity and Rights Based Governance

As Indigenous Peoples continue to steward the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems, they are also asserting their rights within rapidly expanding digital environments. This talk explores how Indigenous Data Sovereignty serves as a critical tool for advancing rights-based approaches to biodiversity governance—from the tangible realms of land and water to the domains of code and cloud storage. Drawing from community-based examples, policy frameworks, and Indigenous-led data infrastructures, the presentation will highlight how Indigenous Peoples are protecting knowledge systems, asserting governance over ecological and digital territories, and challenging extractive models of conservation and data use. In an era when environmental decision-making is increasingly driven by algorithms, remote sensing, and big data, ensuring Indigenous Peoples’ control over their data is inseparable from their rights to land, life, and future-making. This keynote invites us to reimagine digital ecosystems not as deeply connected to sovereignty, relationality, and the ethical care of all forms of life.