I n a world increasingly thought of as over-populated, sparsely populated spaces remain a dominant feature: ~57% of Asia, ~81% of North America, and ~94% of Australia have population densities below 1 person per square kilometer, equivalent to the population density of most of the Sahara desert (1). These vast, sparsely populated landscapes include rural settlements, towns, agricultural spaces, extractive economies , indigenous lands, and conservation areas. They are crucial for climate change adaptation and mitigation, from carbon se-questration to provisioning of water, food, and energy to cities. Yet governmental and nongovernmental initiatives tend to mostly pay lip service to the diverse views and needs of their populations. Without more inclusive governance, attempts to mitigate and adapt to climate change and conserve ecosystems will be compromised. To be politically legitimate and long-lasting, incentives and regulations for better conservation and climate change mitigation must engage with the claims, rights, and knowledge of local and indigenous populations (2), which may be spread over immense and distant territories. The importance of local and indigenous populations in governing ecosystems and biodiversity and in meeting global climate change mitigation goals has been firmly asserted in international conventions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity [CBD article 8(j)], the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (3), and in agreements and commitments made at the COP21 climate meeting in Paris in 2015. How