What many celebrate as a win for nature conservation is, in my view, a significant step in the wrong direction for our relationship with the natural world (Scottish gannet chick hunt blocked for first time in 400 years, 3 August). The decision to prohibit the community on Lewis from collecting gannets runs counter to the spirit of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which recognises that safeguarding biodiversity will not be achieved by scientists and city dwellers alone. Instead, it affirms that indigenous and local communities hold a legitimate and essential role as stewards and caretakers of their own environments.
Too often, people in our part of the world assume that “indigenous and local communities” refers only to distant, exotic cultures or to the shameful legacies of colonialism. But the Kunming-Montreal accord makes clear that this category also includes small, place‑rooted communities in countries such as Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland – communities with ancient traditions, distinct languages and ways of relating to nature that have endured for centuries.
