Auditing latent risks in transformational climate interventions in indigenous territories
Keywords:
transformational interventions, Indigenous territories, TEK as governance, latent risks, justice auditAbstract
Sustainability transformation is increasingly used to justify major changes in forest, land, and climate governance. Yet critical scholarship suggests that interventions labelled transformational can generate latent risks when they intersect with Indigenous territories and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), particularly through how recognition, standards, and participation are designed and enforced. This article presents an integrative and critical literature review (2012–2025) to synthesize recurring risk patterns and to develop a justice-oriented audit tool. The synthesis identifies five risks that repeatedly surface across cases: (1) depoliticisation of transformation, (2) shifting adaptation burdens onto communities, (3) narrowing or loss of territorial access through recognition arrangements, (4) administrative burdens and exclusion driven by standardisation (legibility traps), and (5) extraction and erosion of TEK through procedural participation, including gendered inequities. Building on these findings, the article proposes a transformation audit framework that treats TEK as governance, complemented by high-risk indicators and a rapid checklist to assess power relations and policy consequences beyond technical outputs.
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