How a uniquely gifted, generous, and inspiring researcher-activist became a key Terralingua collaborator

Taking the road less traveled: Kanna Siripurapu is on a journey to witness reconciliation, restoration of the sovereignty and stewardship of Indigenous Peoples, and the resurgence of biocultural diversity. Photo: Uday Kalyanapu

In July, we introduced you to a group of dynamic youths, our Ambassadors for the Indigenous Youth Storytellers Circle (IYSC). Through the IYSC, Indigenous youths around the world tell stories about connecting with their ancestral languages, cultural traditions, and land-based knowledge and practices. In this way, Indigenous youth are playing a vital role in the intergenerational transmission of languages and cultural traditions. And the IYSC has become a unique forum for highlighting their efforts.

As the following numbers reveal, the IYSC continues to grow and attract interest around the world. Near the end of 2024, 67 young storytellers from 45 Indigenous groups on all continents had published in the IYSC. For some, like Natthu Maroti Gawade from the Madia ethnic group of Maharashtra, India (2023 Annual Report, p. 15), appreciation for his story inspired other members of his community to write or otherwise act to promote their biocultural heritage. In turn, the IYSC Ambassadors, who are also storytellers, play an important mentoring and promotional role for young Indigenous storytellers.

So, as we wrap up an eventful year at Terralingua, we’d like to introduce a truly inspiring figure. With his passion for biocultural diversity and talent for uniting people, Kanna Siripurapu now is, without question, one of Terralingua’s key collaborators.

Inspiring Storyteller and Mentor to Indigenous Youths

Even before he became Coordinator of the IYSC Ambassadors, Kanna was passionate about promoting the voices of Indigenous youths. Not only is Kanna a frequent contributor to Langscape Magazine and an inspiring storyteller in his own right, but he is also a brilliant mentor and activist. Following this interview, we provide links to Kanna’s own stories and those of the many Indigenous youths he supported.

And as you will see in the following interview, Kanna’s path was fated to cross Terralingua’s. Thanks to equal parts hard work, deep convictions born of extensive fieldwork, and some serendipity, Kanna has brought a tremendous positive energy to Terralingua’s mission. And, as our interview reveals, he is set to shift his life-long activism into high gear.

Welcome, Kanna! Shall we start at the beginning? Toward the end of 2023, you accepted Terralingua’s invitation to become Coordinator of the IYSC Ambassadors. What motivated you to officially step into the role at the beginning of 2024?

My official association with Terralingua began in 2017. That was the year my first story on the biocultural diversity of Indigenous Peoples in India appeared in Langscape Magazine. Ever since, my appreciation of Terralingua’s efforts to popularize the term “biocultural diversity” has only grown. And I have become a staunch supporter of Terralingua’s mission to foster unity in biocultural diversity around the world.

For many years, I have been studying the intricate relationships between nature and Indigenous communities in India. But for a long time, this remained a strictly personal interest, at the periphery of my professional responsibilities. Neither was biocultural diversity a focus of any of the organizations that I worked with.

Then along came an opportunity to publish my work in Langscape Magazine, the voice of Terralingua. As a result, my work gained a global audience and suddenly the door was flung wide open to new opportunities. Among these were a new career and admission to the doctoral program in the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph, Canada. I will be working under the supervision of Dr. Faisal Moola at the People, Plants, and Policy Lab. But more on that later!

Delivering a talk on cultural keystone species at the Sacred Species Retreat in Kalimpong, West Bengal, India. The retreat was organized by DiversEarth, an NGO based in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo: Brihat Rai

Happily, I had already formed solid friendships at Terralingua and had received much support and encouragement from its entire team. Furthermore, it had long been a cherished dream of mine to work with Terralingua. So, I was thrilled when Terralingua invited me to become the Coordinator of the IYSC Ambassadors program. Finally, I could work with IYSC Ambassadors around the world and encourage more Indigenous youths to join the IYSC!

By reaffirming and reclaiming their links to their ancestral lands, cultural heritage, and identity through storytelling for the IYSC, Indigenous youths truly strengthen our collective unity in biocultural diversity. As for me, this is a great opportunity to give back to the organization that has given me so much.

One of the reasons we invited you to become the Coordinator of the IYSC Ambassadors is that you were essentially already playing this role. Can you tell us more about how you began informally encouraging Indigenous youths to tell their stories for the IYSC about the ways they are reconnecting with four aspects of their biocultural heritage?

I feel that many youths from India’s Indigenous communities — which the Indian government refers to as Adivasi or tribes — are ashamed of their identity and cultural heritage. This realization came to me in 2007 when I taught a course, “Ethnobiology and Community Forestry,” to forest management students at Andhra University, India. Importantly, this course presents Indigenous knowledge and practices related to forest management in a very positive light.

Happily, a few Indigenous students had signed up for the course. However, they seemed uncomfortable with the terms “tribe” and “tribal.” Suddenly, I realized the real impact of discrimination against Indigenous Peoples in India. It is not only mainstream Indian society that discriminates against them. In fact, an entire administrative and educational system inherited from India’s colonial past reinforces this discrimination. These systems, in turn, perpetuate an “internalized colonialism” experienced by Indigenous students.

However, I lacked both an understanding of this “internalized colonialism” and the means to counter its impacts. How to help my Indigenous students take pride in their cultural identity and heritage?

Fast forward to 2017: I was working on my first article for Terralingua’s Langscape Magazine. Among the other contributors, I noticed Indigenous people telling stories about their traditional knowledge and cultural heritage with great pride. Suddenly, I realized the power of storytelling and the need for a space where Indigenous youths could tell their stories. These might be about their cultural heritage, aspirations, and achievements. Or they might be about their struggles with their identities and discrimination in Indian society.

When Terralingua launched the Indigenous Youth Storytellers Circle in 2019, I knew this was the space I had dreamt of. Inspired, I started an informal project named INDIE-NARRATIVES to encourage Indigenous youths to submit stories for publication to the IYSC.

Like the IYSC, INDIE-NARRATIVES encourages Indigenous youths to write stories about biocultural diversity, traditional knowledge and practices, Indigenous cultural heritage, traditional arts and crafts, and values and belief systems. By telling their own stories, Indigenous youths gain a sense of ownership and pride in their cultural heritage and identities. Since 2020, around seven stories by Indigenous youths have been published in the IYSC through INDIE-NARRATIVES.

Let me repeat something I have said before: stories are powerful and powerful stories are to be told. Often the protagonists of powerful stories are common people doing common things in life. When observed through a different lens, they can transform our lives and societies.

Your motivational role with young Indigenous storytellers has grown along with your own frequent storytelling for Terralingua’s Langscape Magazine and your passion for biocultural diversity. What drew you to biocultural diversity and work with Indigenous Peoples in the first place?

I have been fortunate to work closely with local communities on rights-based approaches to natural resource governance in India. This, combined with my love of nature and wildlife, drove a lifelong desire to work for the conservation of biodiversity. Indeed, my first professional opportunity came in 2002 after graduating with a master’s in environmental sciences from Andhra University, India.

As a freshly minted graduate, I joined ENVID Group, an environmental consultancy headed by Dr. Kameswara Rao Kotamraju, my master’s research supervisor. My first assignment was a performance evaluation of the Joint Forest Management (JFM) program in India’s Andhra Pradesh state. There, I had the opportunity to visit some of the remotest forests in India and meet with Indigenous Peoples. Before long, I was learning about their cultures, interests, and aspirations in connection with the JFM program.

Admiring the beautiful landscapes of Malkangiri district, Odisha state, India. These ecosystems have evolved in interdependence with Indigenous and local pastoralist cultures. Photo: Uday Kalyanapu

After four months of rigorous field work, two things became very clear to me. First, natural resource governance is complicated. Second, the conservation of forests and biodiversity is next to impossible without the inclusion and active participation of local communities.

Clearly, the colonial concept of protected areas and resulting “fortress model” of biodiversity conservation is unsuitable for India. Furthermore, Indigenous Peoples protect their forests’ biodiversity for reasons that extend well beyond livelihoods, subsistence, local economies, and pristine ecosystems. Indeed, they also protect their ancestral links to these forests, which continue to ground them spiritually, culturally, and linguistically. Thus awakened, I set about to study the reasons that motivate local communities to conserve biodiversity.

Eventually, I learned about the importance of biocultural diversity in biodiversity conservation and the sustainable management of natural resources. When I realized that the web of life is held together by biocultural diversity, my desire to learn more increased.

Thanks to my Hindu background, an understanding of the importance of biocultural diversity comes quite naturally to me. Indeed, Hinduism is deeply rooted in ideas of biocultural diversity. Clearly, I have much to learn from my own culture in addition to the rich biocultural heritage of Indigenous cultures.

The more I learn, the more I feel I’m merely scratching the surface!

Moderating a session at Woxsen University with guest Hanae Bezad, a renowned poet and writer from Morocco. Photo: Woxsen University

Kanna, your stories for Langscape highlight your keen interest in the biocultural challenges and successes of pastoralist peoples in India. Why is pastoralism a focus of your research, activism, and storytelling?

My engagement with pastoralism grew organically. Since 2002, I have been involved with community-based conservation, rights-based approaches to biodiversity conservation and natural resource governance, Indigenous agro-ecological systems, and the biocultural diversity of Indigenous Peoples in India.

In 2018, I joined Revitalizing Rainfed Agriculture Network (RRAN) as a professional fellow. My prior work experience with rural communities led to an assignment with the Living Lightly Mobile Exhibition. Curated by Sahjeevan, an NGO based in Bhuj-Kutch, India, this exhibition featured mobile pastoralism in India. As with previous research projects, I traveled to many different rural areas in India and interviewed many pastoralists.

Simultaneously, I conducted research on three Indigenous cattle breeds in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states for potential registration as unique cattle breeds of India. Both studies involved the documentation of traditional knowledge, biocultural diversity, and challenges associated with mobile pastoralism in India.

Discussion with Indigenous cattle keepers in Malkangiri district, Odisha state, India, on conserving the unique Motu cattle breed through improvement of the breed value chain. Photo: Uday Kalyanapu

Eventually, I realized that Indigenous Peoples and pastoralists in India suffer systemic injustices, which have deep roots in colonialism. In fact, the British Colonial Government officially designated many pastoralist and nomadic communities “criminal tribes” and prosecuted them under the Criminal Tribes Act 1871.

Furthermore, their customary rights were curtailed and their traditional governance structures dismantled during colonization. This led to the marginalization of Indigenous Peoples and pastoralists and caused unprecedented destruction, degradation, and over-exploitation of natural resources. In today’s India, these systemic and structural injustices persist through neo-colonialism and internalized colonialism.

Unsurprisingly, the pastoralist way of life, which has endured roughly 6000–9000 years, boasts the most resilient livestock production system, adapted for rainfed and arid climatic conditions. Yet this unique way of life still does not benefit from protection by any institution or policy in India. Instead, Indian society and institutions stigmatize Indigenous cultures, pastoralism, livestock production systems, and livestock breeds. They brand them as inferior, backward, unproductive, and detrimental to the environment, biodiversity, and forests, further marginalizing them.

Vilification of these rich and vibrant Indigenous cultures, their knowledge systems, and their traditional practices is a result of internalized colonialism and neo-colonialism. So, this injustice has compelled me to focus my research, activism, and storytelling on the biocultural diversity and heritage of Indigenous and pastoralist peoples.

Discussion with pastoralist communities at a remote village in Nagarkurnool district, Telangana state, India, about their customary rights and co-existence with wildlife. Photo: Saleem M.A.

You have long been preparing for — and are now finally launching — a project that will have a momentous impact on your life and that of many other people: you will soon be moving to Guelph, a city in the Canadian province of Ontario, to start your PhD at the People, Plants, and Policy Lab in the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph. What are your biggest hopes for this great adventure?

Pursuing a doctoral program has been my dream for the past 25 years, and I could not have made it happen without the help of many well-wishers. I’m especially grateful to my younger brother, Siva Ganesh Siripurapu, Dr. Ravinder Tadi, Kumar Mamidala, my PhD supervisor Dr. Faisal Moola, Akshara Sangiorgio, and Terralingua Director Dr. Luisa Maffi.

The journey to my PhD admission is the culmination of a 25-year struggle. Indeed, my first attempt ended in disaster after four and a half years, decimated my confidence, and left me feeling hopeless. At first, I told myself that it was not meant to be and gave up on my dream.

Everything changed when I met Akshara Sangiorgio, Editorial Coordinator for Langscape Magazine, and her husband Prabodh Sangiorgio during their visit to Maata Amritanandamayi ashram in India in 2023. Suddenly, I found myself pouring my heart out to Akshara. I told her about my struggles, my dream of obtaining a PhD, and my failed first attempt.

Moved, Akshara shared my story with Dr. Luisa Maffi. With incredible generosity and kindness, Dr. Luisa Maffi wrote a strong recommendation letter to Dr. Faisal Moola. In turn, Dr. Moola responded very positively and has supported me ever since. Despite several major snags with PhD funding and my visa approval, he never gave up on me.

Canada — the land, the people — has already given me so much. Whatever recognition I have today as a biocultural diversity researcher is thanks in large part to Terralingua. Also, I am indebted to GRASSROOTS JOURNAL, Montreal, Quebec, which has extensively published me in Pastures & Pastoralism, bringing further credibility to my work on pastoralism.

My PhD focuses on the biocultural diversity of First Nations in Newfoundland, Canada, and of Adivasi (tribal) peoples in India. I’m excited about this opportunity to work closely with First Nations in Canada and Adivasi peoples in India, learn about their rich and vibrant biocultural heritage, and contribute to scholarship in this area. Besides my PhD program, I will also participate in an exciting research study commissioned by Ărramăt, an NGO that focuses on Indigenous-led biodiversity conservation across the globe.

In addition to my research, I am going to Canada with a spiritual purpose: to deliver a message from the late Olga Letykai, a shaman with ancestral roots in Siberia, to the spiritual leaders and knowledge keepers of First Nations in Canada. I met Olga in May of this year at the DiversEarth Sacred Species Retreat, held at the Buddha Pāda Institute in Kalimpong, India.

When I learned that Olga was a shaman, I sought her blessing and advice, as I knew I would be moving to Canada within a year. Would the ancestral spirits of Indigenous Peoples welcome me there, and how might I ask for their permission?

Accordingly, Olga performed a ritual and we waited for a sign. Immediately, it came from behind us in the form of a bird call, which sounded clearly like “go, go, go!” Olga looked calmly at me and said, “Go, you have permission.” Additionally, she gave me three rolls of sacred tobacco and instructed me to offer them to a spiritual leader or knowledge keeper in Canada. Along with this offering, I am to convey her message: a call to join the global movement to restore the cultural heritage, rights, and responsibilities of Indigenous Peoples. 

Olga passed away a few months ago, but her phenomenal work and strong spirit continue to inspire and guide us. As an advocate of decolonization and recognition of the customary rights of Indigenous Peoples, I see great value in Shaman Olga Letykai’s message.

Finally, Kanna, what advice would you give to youths, Indigenous or otherwise, as they prepare to tackle adulthood, with both nature and culture in a critical crisis globally?

Today, everywhere youths look, they see endless human conflict and destruction of their natural world. As they approach adulthood, they begin to understand that colonialism is at the root of these global crises.

Indeed, colonialism has caused inconceivable worldwide suffering and destruction, not only to Indigenous Peoples themselves, but also to their food systems and biodiversity in general. Similarly, traditional Indigenous natural resources management and land governance have been colonized, commercialized, and exploited. In the name of modern (colonial) scientific and reductionist approaches to nature, Indigenous values, belief systems, languages, and spirituality have been suppressed and undermined. This, at a time when the world is realizing just how crucial a role Indigenous cultures play in the future of our species.

However, I also want to say to today’s youths, Indigenous or otherwise: Take heart, change is afoot!

Slowly, the global scientific community, citizens, and governments are realizing the importance of Indigenous Peoples’ way of life for the conservation of biodiversity and the mitigation of climate change. The shifting tide is a great opportunity for Indigenous Peoples, especially youths, to reclaim their heritage. To do this, I encourage Indigenous youths to rediscover and reinvigorate their ties to their ancestral lands and traditions.

Increasingly, I see Indigenous youths playing an active role in research, documentation, and policy advocacy. Specifically, they are raising their voices for the restoration of Indigenous lands and traditional resource governance, stewardship, and sovereignty. This gives me great hope and I encourage youths everywhere to join the global biocultural resurgence by making their unique voices heard! To start, I encourage them to tell their stories.

You know, I have great confidence in youth, Indigenous and otherwise. All around the world, youths are heeding the call of their Indigenous communities, their leaders, and allies such as myself for an Indigenous biocultural resurgence. Without a doubt, the spirits of Indigenous leaders and ancestors everywhere, such as our late friend Olga Letykai, will guide Indigenous Peoples on this journey of biocultural restoration and resurgence.

So, I say to youth everywhere: Tell your story and tell it powerfully.

Kanna, the entire team at Terralingua thanks you for sharing your experiences with us and our readers. We are thrilled to count you among us, and we wish you a speedy and safe transition to your exciting new life in Guelph, Canada. May your PhD program allow you to stretch your wings as never before!

Read Kanna’s stories in Langscape Magazine:

• Radicle Reclamation
• Wellsprings of Territories of Life
• Women Do It Differently: Realizing the Responsibilities of Rights in an Indigenous Community of India
• A Chicken for Every Occasion: Exploring the Significance of India’s Native Poultry Breeds
• Locking Horns to Save the Sacred Cow: India’s Indigenous Pastoralists Fight for Their Livelihoods and Cultural Traditions
• Monocultures of the Fields, Monocultures of the Mind | The Acculturation of Indigenous Farming Communities of Odisha, India

Read stories by Indigenous youths whom Kanna has supported for the IYSC:

• Aroli, the Shepherds’ Alarm Call
• Nature Is Our Culture
• Is the Environment for Taking From or for Giving To? A Young Indigenous Economist Finds Answers in His Own Culture
• In Pursuit of Dreams: An Odyssey of Self-discovery and Homecoming of a Young Dhangar Man
• Flower Gardens and Collective Knowledge