The findings challenge a longstanding assumption about conservation: that in order to protect biodiversity, people must be kept out.

This isn’t unique to indigenous cultures. If there is no one living on the land and stewarding it, of course someone is more likely to come along and deforest it, regardless of what some paper in some government office says about its “protected” status. But if there is someone living there and actually protecting the land, then any would-be deforesters face resistance and are more likely to go elsewhere to find easier targets. The key is that the people who live on the land need to protect the forest, and the people who would protect the forest need to live on the land.

😲 Who could have guessed?!