Biden Interior Dept puts together handbook to apply ‘indigenous knowledge’ into agency practices
- November 19, 2024
Alec Schemmel, Fox News
Officials at the Department of the Interior are pushing to finalize a new “implementation handbook” to guide agency decision makers on how to “apply indigenous knowledge” in their day-to-day work.
The notion of “indigenous knowledge” puts forward that Native groups possess an understanding about the natural world that others do not, due to their ethnic background.
The Interior Department’s new handbook supplements a Departmental Manual chapter added last year, entitled “Departmental Responsibilities for Consideration and Inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge in Departmental Actions and Scientific Research, 301 DM 7.”
The aim of the new chapter in the agency-wide manual is to “equitably promote the inclusion of indigenous knowledge,” but this new supplemental handbook lays out methods for “applying” indigenous knowledge into departmental practices, such as scientific research, environmental compliance work, community resiliency and more.
“President Biden came into office loudly stressing scientific integrity and creating new rules to supposedly ensure government scientific findings were never ‘distorted or influenced by political considerations.’ No matter how well-intentioned, elevating indigenous knowledge to being on a par with results obtained through rigorous application of the scientific method opens a Pandora’s box whereby desired results, even if at odds with reality, can be imposed to serve political ends,” Michael Chamberlain, director of the conservative nonprofit Protect The Public’s Trust, told Fox News Digital.
Chamberlain and his nonprofit dug into how the Biden administration has implemented indigenous knowledge across the federal government, including through the use of public disclosure laws.
“We’ve already seen [indigenous knowledge] in action as the Department of the Interior elevated indigenous knowledge that supported their position over indigenous knowledge that didn’t in canceling oil and gas leases in Alaska,” Chamberlain pointed out. “The fact that the administration explored ways to exempt indigenous knowledge from FOIA adds to the potential for misuse.”