FAIR and CARE

One of the pillars of the IPBES Data and Knowledge Management Policy is the compliance with the FAIR and CARE Principles.

Especially for IPBES, transparency and just handling of Indigenous and local knowledge is of utmost importance. Specifically this means, that all metadata, and if possible also data, should be:

• Findable: data, reports, data management reports, references, figures and scripts should have an identifier, such as a doi or url, so that they can be found (by humans and computers), tracked and used.

• Accessible: when a file has been identified (using a search engine or identifier), it should be accessible. This does not mean that everything has to be open access, in some cases subscriptions or restrictions are needed. In any case, metadata should be accessible, which also explains the terms of the restrictions if there are any.

• Interoperable: data and metadata should be shared in a way that they can be combined with other data, using vocabularies that are understandable by humans and machines.

• Reusable: data and metadata should be described in a way that they can be reused in the future.

Proper and just handling of ILK includes

• Collective benefit: Indigenous Peoples should derive benefit from the use of their data, which could be achieved through thorough citations.

• Authority to control: The rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples in Indigenous data must be recognised, and Indigenous Peoples should be the ones to determine how their data are used.

• Responsibility: users of ILK should show how working with ILK supports the self determination and collective benefit of Indigenous Peoples.

• Ethics: The rights and well-being of Indigenous Peoples should be the primary concern at all stages of the data life cycle.

Effectively, this means that special care should be taken to ensure that each cited reference is linked to Zotero, so that it is linked to its metadata. When data are collected, analysed or visualised, the steps and processes taken should be documented in a data management report. This report will be published on Zenodo, giving it a doi, and it can be properly cited in the assessment chapters. Good care should be taken to write all names correctly, to take specific care when handling Indigenous and local knowledge, and to ensure that data should never stigmatise or portray Indigenous Peoples, cultures or knowledges in terms of deficit.