Sustainability, indigenous peoples and global pandemics: What have we learned so far?

This class will examine the links between indigenous knowledge, environmental management and the lessons derived from the effects of massive catastrophic events on the ideal of sustainability in our society. In this new pandemic context, ensuring the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations can lead to unexpected results. Although numerous pandemics have occurred throughout human history, causing important transformations in the relationship between our natural and social environment, the affected geographic has never been this large scale before. Currently, we are trying to adapt to new environmental and social, economic, and political relationships whose scope we do not know until now. Within this framework, indigenous peoples can pass on their own lifetime experiences to us, as well as the lessons they have accumulated, especially about their relationships with natural resources and the environment.