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This book is about Indigenous Peoples’ food systems and how important local knowledge about foods and the ecosystems that provide them can be used to improve health and well-being. The authors describe processes and activities in nine cultures of Indigenous Peoples, where interventions were developed and implemented with local knowledge, and explain how this information can benefit Indigenous Peoples everywhere, and all of humankind.

Food and nutrition insecurity and the burden of high incidence of non-communicable diseases reach all corners of the globe. This “nutrition transition” is driven by changing lifestyles, loss of livelihoods for all those engaged in food production, increasing poverty and urbanization, and sedentary lifestyles with changing dietary patterns. The result is increasing global obesity and non-communicable diseases, including malnutrition in all its forms. The situation is especially critical for Indigenous Peoples, who often experience the most severe financial poverty and health disparities in both developing and developed countries, particularly where they depend on ecosystems under stress to support their needs for food and well-being.

The programme of work that concludes with preparation of this book was developed from the view that Indigenous Peoples with cultural homelands in the most rural areas of developing regions experience common challenges in relation to their traditional food systems, food security and health. The authors’ view is that Indigenous Peoples’ existing resources and knowledge about their cultures and ecosystems can be used to develop and implement effective health promotion activities.