‘Indigenous Knowledge’ Pseudoscience Thrives in Newsom’s Government

“Indigenous knowledge,” a pseudoscience that posits Native Americans possess an innate understanding of how the world works, is thriving in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D.) administration has contended that “Western science” must embrace “the generations of knowledge held by Indigenous communities,” according to a Washington Free Beacon review of state documents.

Since Newsom entered office six years ago, the California state government has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars on programs promoting the idea, which the state also refers to as “traditional ecological knowledge,” and has leveraged it across several government functions, including wildfire mitigation, energy development, wildlife recovery, and land conservation, the documents show. The Newsom administration has made indigenous knowledge a central pillar of its climate agenda in particular.

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That strategy, the Newsom administration said, will be implemented over the next three years. According to the California Energy Commission, as part of that implementation, the state will develop its fifth climate change assessment, which will expand reliance on indigenous knowledge through its Tribal Research Program.

The Tribal Research Program establishes a new indigenous council to guide state climate policy, creates a report to summarize state-wide climate change impacts on tribes, and funds a grant-making initiative that provides $3.6 million for tribal-led climate change research that has an “indigenous knowledge focus.” {snip}

Separately, in April 2024, the Newsom administration distributed $107.7 million for 33 tribal projects, ostensibly to help implement traditional ecological knowledge and tribal expertise, though Newsom also portrayed the funding as a form of reparations. {snip}

In the most recent example of the state’s reliance on indigenous knowledge, the California State Board of Food and Agriculture formally recommended that state officials incorporate so-called regenerative agriculture techniques into food-related policies and programs. {snip}

And Newsom has entered into multilateral agreements—one with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in June 2022 and another months later with Washington, Oregon, and the province of British Columbia, Canada—that requires parties to “apply tribal and indigenous knowledge in managing natural systems” {snip}

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