Environmental justice must include the rights of all species to life and respect: integrating indigenous knowledge into education

This article focuses on the relationships between social justice, environmental justice, and sustainability from the local to global levels. We envision social and environmental justice as involving not only human beings, but also the rights of all species to life and respect. We advocate an ecological justice approach based on the equality and intrinsic value of all existence. This standpoint also forefronts core values and world views of marginalized people and epistemologies, such as Indigenous knowledge systems. With the understanding that there is much heterogeneity among Indigenous communities and individuals, we delve into core commonalities which embrace the perspective that humanity's relation to the cosmos is ever-salient, that the Earth is a living being, and all species, as interconnected co-habitants of Earth, are intelligent, equal, and divine.