Indigenous scholar Tyson Yunkaporta (Apalech clan (Wik) Lostmob Nungar) joins the Mongabay Newscast to detail the Aboriginal perspectives behind his latest book, Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking. The book explains how stories shape society, how they can harm us and the environment, and how they may save our species and the natural world.

Yunkaporta explains how Indigenous laws, systems and lore can help us improve modern society, specifically in how humans relate first to the land, then to each other, and why this shapes how we exploit nature and care for it.

Identifying the "wrong story" is critical, Yunkaporta explains, to correcting harmful behaviors or ways of governing. Ultimately, it's a lie, he says. Personified by what he characterizes as narcissistic or selfish behavior, it's generally seen by those who exploit the natural world at the expense of community well-being.

"It's a terrible thing to … misrepresent things, make false claims, bear false witness in a way that is bending story, the story that everybody follows. The narratives that people tell that weave together to make a community and to hold a community on the right path that's sustainable for thousands of years."

Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, here.

Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

Image Credit: Mt. Taranaki, Aotearoa New Zealand, captured March 16, 2022. Image courtesy of Planet Labs PBC.

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Timecodes

(00:00) What is 'Wrong Story'?

(14:26) The 'Sacred Mind'

(17:54) First Law

(27:24) The environment and Wrong Story

(38:13) The tale of Tidalik the frog

(42:28) Totems and kinship

(47:06) Serpent law

Mongabay Latam's multiyear, *award-winning **investigation that uncovered 67 clandestine airstrips in the Peruvian Amazon used for drug trafficking sent waves across the local media landscape. It drew attention to the Indigenous communities impacted by these illegal airstrips and the 15 Indigenous leaders who were killed defending their territory. To communicate this story to a wider audience, Mongabay Latam director Maria Isabel Torres and managing editor Alexa Vélez adapted it into an interactive live theater performance for an audience of 100.

They join this week's podcast to tell the "story behind the story" of what they, their reporters, and Indigenous leaders experienced during this investigation, and how their play adaptation brings that to the eyes and ears of a theatrical audience.

"I think that all the journalists in these times, we are very worried [about] trying to find ways to understand our audience and to get their attention. We know that there are news avoiders. We know that there are fake news. So we are trying to look for different ways," Torres says.

*This story was first published by Mongabay Latam in Spanish on Nov. 12, 2024, and won the 2025 Global Shining Light Award for investigative journalism and the Digital Storytelling prize given by the 2025 Future of Media Awards.

**This investigation was conducted in partnership with the Consortium to Support Independent Journalism in the Region (CAPIR), which leads the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in Latin America.

Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, here.

Image: In the Indigenous community of Galilea, drug traffickers abandoned this airstrip a year ago. But they could revive it at any time. Image by Mongabay Latam.

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Timecodes

(00:00) Chasing answers on narco airstrips

(13:38) Ground-truthing the data and building relationships

(18:41) Risks, impacts and beyond

(28:55) Bringing the story to the stage

(36:13) "The story behind the story"

(44:48) Plans for the future

National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yuyän returns to the Mongabay Newscast to share his experience creating his new book, Guardians of Life: Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Science, and Restoring the Planet from specialty publisher Braided River. This book documents the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of nine Indigenous communities worldwide, featuring contributions and essays from many members of these communities, along with Yüyan's own photography.

TEK, Yüyan says, isn't exactly traditional so much as it is ecological knowledge that is place-based. While it draws on thousands of years of knowledge, it also innovates in society as we know it, and can offer social, cultural and ecological benefits that neoliberal economics does not.

Yüyan highlights that some of the most significant environmental victories of the past few years, such as the removal of the Klamath River dams in the United States — the largest dam removal project ever — were led by Indigenous people. Yüyan's imagery captures the essence of the decades it took for Lisa Moorehead-Hillman, Leaf Hillman and others to advocate for their removal.

"I think what the great power of the book is in a lot of ways is the power of photography … actually seeing it. That this is what it means when we're talking about what is shamanism, what does it mean when you remove a dam … and you see it in people's faces."

Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, here.

Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

Image Credit: Lisa Morehead-Hillman and Leif Hillman, both Karuk, celebrate the removal of the dams on the newly exposed reservoir floor in 2024. The former head of the Karuk Natural Resources Department, Leif spent two decades working with other Indigenous groups, environmental organizations and government officials to bring back the Klamath River. Image courtesy of Kiliii Yüyan.

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Timecodes

(00:00) What is traditional ecological knowledge?

(08:00) When values and governance go together

(17:38) Why and when hunters share their bounty in Greenland

(27:26) In Mongolia ceremonies are conservation

(39:12) How to get a dam removed

(46:08) Why the buffalo is the best environmentalist