Engagement with indigenous people preserves local knowledge and biodiversity alike

Recent events have brought increasing attention to social inequities in
the sciences, including those stemming from the legacy of colonialism. In
biological classification, Western scientists have long benefitted from
traditional indigenous knowledge but have usually not engaged with it on
equal footing, often providing a biased assessment of biodiversity. We
illustrate how adopting a collaborative approach results in a better, more
complete understanding of biodiversity that promotes conservation of both
the environment and indigenous knowledge. This study concerns the Bornean
fruit tree species, Artocarpus odoratissimus, which has remained a single
species in Western diagnosis but corresponds to two species in the
traditional taxonomy of the Iban people. Molecular data from newly
collected and historical specimens unequivocally support the Iban
two-species framework. We advocate a more expansive approach to
standardized scientific taxonomy that welcomes indigenous peoples as equal
partners and that integrates diverse forms of taxonomic knowledge,
ultimately resulting in improved understanding of evolutionary history and
more effective conservation and management of biodiversity.