Relationality is a concept that forms part of Indigenous thinking about existence.
At the frontier where genomic science meets the living world, researchers at the University of Illinois are asking an ancient question in a new form: who holds the right to decide what lives, what is restored, and what is remembered? Two new papers argue that Indigenous peoples — long the stewards of the species and ecosystems now being catalogued, edited, and resurrected — must be centered in conservation genomics, not consulted as an afterthought. The ethical frameworks built to protect Indigenous data in human genomic research have never been extended to nonhuman life, and as biotechnology accelerates, that gap is becoming a moral fault line.
- Genomic tools now powerful enough to resurrect extinct species are advancing far faster than the ethical frameworks meant to govern them, leaving Indigenous communities without voice or protection in decisions that directly affect their lands and culturally significant species.
- The high-profile resurrection of the dire wolf by Colossal Biosciences captured global attention but sidestepped the harder questions — whether such animals could survive in modern ecosystems, and whether the communities who know those ecosystems best were ever asked.
- Biobanking practices are quietly accumulating biological blueprints of countless organisms, yet the Indigenous peoples who hold irreplaceable knowledge about which species matter — ecologically, culturally, spiritually — are rarely consulted about what gets preserved or prioritized.
- Researchers from Illinois, Oregon State, and multiple disciplines including anthropology and American Indian Studies are proposing a concrete framework: treat nonhuman genomic data with the same sovereignty protections already established for human Indigenous data.
- The call is not to slow the science, but to redirect it — toward endangered living species over extinct spectacles, toward holistic ecosystem thinking, and toward genuine collaboration with the communities who have been practicing that thinking for millennia.
We live in a moment when the tools to remake the living world — gene editing, species resurrection, biological archiving — have outpaced our wisdom about how to use them. A team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is pressing that point through two new papers, published in Ethnobiology Letters and Conservation Biology, that make a case both urgent and overdue: Indigenous peoples must lead the conversation about how genomic science reshapes nature.
The Conservation Biology paper identifies a striking ethical asymmetry. Robust frameworks exist to protect Indigenous rights and data sovereignty in human genomic research — ensuring consent, consultation, and benefit-sharing. No equivalent protections apply to nonhuman genomic work. As biobanking grows — the collection and storage of genetic material from animals, plants, and other organisms — the communities with the deepest knowledge of those species are rarely asked what should be preserved, studied, or restored. Indigenous peoples have guided reef restoration and managed bison populations across continents. Their knowledge is not supplementary; it is foundational.
The second paper takes on de-extinction directly, using Colossal Biosciences' dire wolf project as a cautionary example. The announcement generated global spectacle, but researchers argue it revealed more about what responsible de-extinction is not than what it is. The company edited gray wolf genomes to produce dire wolf traits, yet could not address whether such animals could survive in modern ecosystems or what ecological role they might fill. Meanwhile, the company's work on living, critically endangered red wolves received far less attention — a telling inversion of priorities.
The framework the researchers propose is straightforward: understand species within their full ecological relationships, prioritize the living endangered over the extinct and charismatic, and bring Indigenous communities in from the beginning rather than the margins. The papers themselves were written collaboratively across anthropology, American Indian Studies, and natural history — a practical enactment of the principles they advocate. This is not a rejection of genomic science. It is an argument that the most durable knowledge about how to live alongside other species belongs to those who have been doing it the longest, and that science ignores that knowledge at its own peril.
We have always shaped the ecosystems around us, playing different roles across different landscapes and different eras. But in the age of genomics—this moment we call the Anthropocene—we have acquired tools of unprecedented power to remake the living world. We can now edit genes, resurrect extinct species, collect and store the biological blueprints of countless organisms. The question that matters, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is now insisting, is not whether we can do these things, but whether we are doing them wisely, and with whom.
Two new papers, published this year in Ethnobiology Letters and Conservation Biology, represent a sustained argument for something that sounds obvious but remains rare in practice: that Indigenous peoples must lead the conversation about how we use genomic science to reshape nature. The work emerges from the Center for Indigenous Science at the Carl R. Woest Institute for Genomic Biology, a research group committed to extending science beyond the narrow frameworks of academic institutions and toward the knowledge systems that Indigenous communities have developed over millennia. Alida de Flamingh, a postdoctoral scholar at the center, frames the mission plainly: the research promotes Indigenous data sovereignty and ensures that communities share in the benefits of work conducted on their lands and involving species central to their cultures.
The Conservation Biology paper makes a striking observation. For years now, scientists have developed ethical guidelines for research involving human genomes and ancestry data from Indigenous communities. These frameworks protect Indigenous rights, ensure consent, and guarantee benefit-sharing. Yet no equivalent safeguards exist for nonhuman genomic research—the study and storage of DNA from animals, plants, and other organisms. As genomic technologies have accelerated, allowing researchers to rapidly sequence and analyze biological data, the ethical conversation has lagged. De Flamingh and her colleagues propose extending the same principles that protect human Indigenous data to the nonhuman world. They point to biobanking, an emerging practice in which researchers collect and store biological samples and genetic information from diverse organisms, creating libraries for future study and restoration. Indigenous communities hold irreplaceable knowledge about which species matter most—culturally, ecologically, spiritually. They have guided restoration of the Great Barrier Reef and managed bison populations across North America. Yet these communities are rarely consulted about what gets preserved, studied, or brought back.
The second paper focuses on a more dramatic case: de-extinction. Last year, the biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences announced that it had successfully resurrected the dire wolf, an extinct species, using genomic data and CRISPR gene-editing technology. The announcement captured global attention. But August Hoffman, lead author of the Ethnobiology Letters paper, sees a troubling gap between the spectacle and the science. Colossal is working on critically endangered red wolves too—work that matters for living ecosystems—but the dire wolf project has overshadowed it. The company chose dire wolves partly because the logistics were feasible, but also because the public finds them captivating. A resurrected dodo would generate a different reaction entirely. The researchers point out that the dire wolf project, for all its technical achievement, did not establish what an ecologically sound de-extinction effort would actually look like. The company edited gray wolf genomes to produce offspring with dire wolf traits, but the scope of the work could not address whether dire wolves could survive in modern ecosystems or what ecological role they might play if they did.
Amanda Cortez, an anthropology professor and co-author, emphasizes what gets lost in the rush to resurrect the extinct: the Indigenous peoples who have stewarded these ecosystems for thousands of years, and the living animals caught up in experiments designed primarily to generate headlines. As biotech companies advance these projects, she argues, the focus must shift to the people most affected by ecological change and to genuine collaboration with Indigenous communities.
Hoffman and his colleagues propose a framework for responsible conservation genomics: consider ecosystems holistically, understanding the roles species play within them; prioritize currently endangered species over extinct ones; and center Indigenous communities and their knowledge from the beginning. The papers themselves were written collaboratively, involving researchers from Oregon State University and multiple departments at Illinois, including anthropology, American Indian Studies, and the Illinois Natural History Survey. Hoffman describes the process as organic, a practical demonstration of what Indigenous science ethics can accomplish when genuinely practiced. The work is not a rejection of genomic technology. It is a call to use it differently—with humility, with consultation, with the understanding that the most powerful knowledge about how to live with other species often comes from those who have been doing it longest.
Citas Notables
There's already a really phenomenal foundational set of work that has been done by Indigenous scholars and communities that informs how to think about genomes in a culturally grounded way.— Alida de Flamingh, postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Indigenous Science
We should forefront the individuals who are most impacted and continue moving toward collaboration with Indigenous communities that are heavily affected by ecological changes.— Amanda Cortez, anthropology professor and co-author
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does it matter that Indigenous communities weren't consulted about nonhuman genomic research? Isn't the science the same either way?
The science might be the same, but the questions being asked are entirely different. If you're not consulting Indigenous communities, you're deciding what species to study, preserve, and potentially resurrect without input from people who have the deepest knowledge of those species and their ecosystems. You end up with a dire wolf instead of a red wolf—more glamorous, less ecologically necessary.
But doesn't de-extinction itself seem like a good thing? Bringing back extinct species?
That's the seductive part. But the researchers are asking: good for whom? And at what cost? A resurrected dire wolf in a modern ecosystem is a different creature in a different world. Without understanding its ecological role, without considering whether it can actually survive, you're creating a spectacle rather than doing restoration work.
What would it look like if Indigenous communities actually led this work?
It would start with asking them which species matter most—not just ecologically, but culturally and spiritually. It would mean prioritizing endangered species that Indigenous communities are already working to restore. It would mean sharing the benefits and the decision-making power, not just the data.
Is this about stopping genomic research, or changing how it's done?
Changing how it's done entirely. The technology isn't going away. But it could be guided by people who understand ecosystems as relational systems, not just collections of organisms to be studied and manipulated.
What happens if companies like Colossal don't listen?
That's the open question. The researchers are making a case now, while these technologies are still new enough that precedent matters. If de-extinction becomes routine without ethical frameworks, it will be much harder to establish them later.