ABSTRACT
Without denying the significance and value of indigenous knowledge and indigenous perspectives on human-environment relationships, in this chapter I put forward some critical reflections on knowledge gathering and consider whether, in advocating indigenous environmental knowledge, we run the risk of idealising it and perpetuating the myth of primitive ecological wisdom. The ability of indigenous peoples to present themselves as being in a position to protect the Arctic environment rests on how far they are able to construct an identity as nature conservationists and represent themselves as having environmentalist cultures, or at least cultures that can accommodate environmentalist ideas in order to take a protectionist stance. I also consider, therefore, what happens when indigenous knowledge is gathered, decontextualised, reified, packaged and used in a political sense by indigenous representatives to inform and underpin an indigenous environmentalism.
