Boozhoo News River Readers,

We're back (a touch late, sorry about that!) with four reads we think are worth your time. This summer format keeps us close to our plants and our people while the best links still land in your inbox.

This week is about “the how” of Indigenous Data Sovereignty. While many agree Indigenous data should be governed using Indigenous-led principles like OCAP or CARE, this week’s four pieces get into what this looks like in conservation work, in Canadian law and an Australian perspective from inside the organizations holding the data.

Curated Articles

Data is kin: 9 ideas reshaping Indigenous-led conservation

Conservation Futures Academy, ASU

A conservation project is also a data project. That's the premise of this plain-spoken list of nine ideas, drawn from the Indigenous scholars who built the field. It walks through CARE, OCAP, and FPIC, and why "open" data can quietly strip a community's control. Traci Morris of ASU writes, 

"If research is ceremony, then data is sacred.

Indeed, data is kin."

We also wanted to draw attention to this section as it felt particularly relevant this late in summer as a harvest time reflection:

Global Futures Professor of Indigenous Conservation Melissa Nelson, carries the shift down to the level of grammar. In "The honorable harvest of Indigenous data," she draws on Anishinaabeg language and concepts to reframe what gathering data is. One root sense of the word "data," she points out, is "to dare to give," which raises a question few research plans ever ask: is data taken, or is it given?

Her answer runs through the honorable harvest, the instructions many land-based peoples follow when gathering from the Earth.

Ask permission and abide by the answer. Take only what is given. Never take more than half. Give thanks, and give something back.

Applied to a conservation dataset, they become a field method and an ethical practice.

Bringing the Privacy Act into the digital age

CBA National Magazine

As Canada modernizes its federal Privacy Act, the Canadian Bar Association's submission flags a specific risk: de-identified data about small Indigenous communities can be re-identified, so it has to be handled in ways that respect Indigenous Data Sovereignty. The CBA recommends consulting Indigenous groups directly and extending data-sharing and enforcement rules beyond nations with self-government agreements to include those exercising law-making powers under other federal laws. A short read, but we think it’s interesting Indigenous data sovereignty is being advocated for by one of the largest professional organizations in Canada. 

Indigenous data governance: CARE Principles in practice

CASRAI

CASRAI lays out how CARE fits with OCAP in Canada, Te Mana Raraunga in Aotearoa, and Maiam nayri Wingara in Australia, plus where FPIC and Traditional Knowledge Labels come in. Its honest throughline is the work can't be self-certified from the outside:

"The CARE work is relational and ongoing rather than one-time and administrative."

This is a handy article for folks who keep hearing these acronyms and want a refresher. 

Indigenous Governance of Data Held by Organisations

Data Science Journal (CODATA)

Large amounts of data already held inside a government agency, a university, or a statistical office, outside community control. This Australian focused  peer-reviewed guide, from authors including Maggie Walter and Raymond Lovett, shows how to put the Maiam nayri Wingara principles to work inside those organizations. Communities and institutions can also use it to check their own progress.