Philosophies of good living and values of nature: power and uncertainties in decision-making to achieve social-environmental justice in the Americas

Decision-making processes among Indigenous peoples and local communities are driven by the contextual and sociocultural integration of the intrinsic, relational, and instrumental values, worldviews, and knowledge of humans and other-than-humans. In this article, we review how the values of nature are articulated in the philosophies of ‘good living’ shared by Indigenous people of the Americas to inform decision-making processes. We further analyse how power dynamics and uncertainties impose certain values in decision making, and can therefore hinder or enable ways to achieve the socio–environmental justice. •Indigenous peoples’ philosophies of ‘good living’ express the diverse values of nature.•Nature implies dynamic relationships among humans, other-than-humans and cosmological beings.•Reciprocal-oriented worldviews influence knowledge and value expression.•Decisions on social and ecological vulnerabilities reflect history and power relations.•To achievejustice, policies need to balancthe relational, instrumental and intrinsic values of nature, depending on the context to reinforce customary laws and territorial arrangements of IPLCs.