What if Indigenous lands were thought of as a kind of museum for climate action?

Indigenous groups often have long-established associations with particular places, whether they be forests, open grasslands, mountain landscapes, or the coast and oceans. Many Indigenous groups live in association with forests. Where they have stewardship of their lands, the forest is preserved and biodiversity flourishes, helping store vast amounts of carbon in vegetation. However, many groups have to fight to protect their lands from exploitation, especially deforestation for agriculture and cattle ranching. Indigenous people are harassed, and even killed. Their fight to protect their land and ways of life from unsustainable ‘development’ has become a critical part of the fight to protect our planet from the climate crisis.

The relationship between museums and Indigenous groups is often problematic, as museums have been involved in the removal of Indigenous communities’ cultural heritage, which is kept in museums. What if we thought of the Indigenous territory as a kind of museum, where forests and Indigenous peoples’ ways of life can be sustained? This approach, of Natural Future Museums, respects the human rights of Indigenous peoples and values their skills and creativity as the world’s best conservationists. Natural Future Museums would acknowledge the key part Indigenous peoples can play in preserving, documenting and interpreting the ecosystems they are part of.

Drawing from Takumã Kuikiro’s intimate archive of over ten years of filmmaking, this exhibit includes a film that invites you to meet the Kuikuro, a community of 650 Indigenous people living in harmony with the Amazon in the Xingu Indigenous Territory.

Project Team

Takumã Kuikuro and Thiago Jesus

Project Name

Natural Future Museums

Team Location

Brazil and UK