MOTH & the Sciences

Bridging Indigenous and Western Sciences

Indigenous and Western sciences have both made important and distinctive contributions to our collective understanding of the more-than-human world. Now, more than ever, these types of collaborations and the ideas and practices they generate are needed to tackle ecological challenges and protect human and nonhuman life.

Recognizing this, the MOTH Program works with partners to offer answers through action to the question, how can Indigenous and Western sciences join forces to create and transform legal protections for the more-than-human world? 

One such effort undertaken to craft answers to this question is the Science Across Cultures Initiative (SACI). 

SACI is a collaboration between the Sarayaku Indigenous People of the Ecuadorian Amazon; the MOTH Program; Cosmo Sheldrake, a multi-instrumentalist, music producer, and field recordist; the Fungi Foundation, an organization dedicated to the protection of fungi; SPUN, a scientific organization uncovering and sharing the importance of the underground fungal world; and Local Contexts, an organization which creates pathways to make explicit and protect Indigenous data sovereignty.

SACI was launched to demonstrate how Indigenous and Western sciences—in this case, mycological sciences—and expertise on the “invisible forces” of the forest—including their varied sounds—can be used to advance the implementation of the Living Forest (Kawsak Sacha) Declaration. This Declaration is an initiative of the Indigenous People of Sarayaku. It reflects their recognition of their territory and its many beings as deserving of protection and rights and works to secure those protections and rights in various legal and political settings. 

As part of this effort, in September 2024, MOTH, Cosmo Sheldrake, the Fungi Foundation,  and SPUN were invited to the territory of the Sarayaku, where they, along with Sarayaku scientists, comprehensively documented the fungal life in the territory along with the various soundscapes of the jungle. 

To protect Sarayaku sovereignty over the data generated through this effort, members of SACI worked with Local Contexts to design and implement Memorandums of Understanding as well as data labels which explicitly assign sovereignty over and control of the data to the Sarayaku and the Kawsak Sacha (the Living Forest). 

The Sarayaku will use the evidence developed through this effort in their legal and political efforts to protect their territory, their rights over it, and the rights of the Living Forest. SACI is also working to produce and publish papers detailing the knowledge generated through the collective effort as well as examining the role of and possibilities for intercultural and interdisciplinary conversations to protect the more-than-human world.