In a world experiencing destructive economic development, land-use change, climate change, species invasions and habitat loss, the sustainable use of natural resources is challenging. Human cultures that depend on biologically diverse landscapes for their livelihoods are responding to these challenges by also changing rapidly. Rapidly changing interactions between subsistence-oriented peoples, their environments and the present world order demands regularly updating our research and management approaches to align with our evolving understanding of socio-ecological complexity. In response, research and management are converging through adaptive management, creating new knowledge about societies and ecosystems. Participatory approaches are becoming a research norm when working with indigenous communities and indigenous people are progressively joining the academic research community, generating novel insights and new research directions. These transformations require new conceptualizations of contemporary indigenous societies and their environments. This organized oral session presents innovative research and management conducted by and with indigenous peoples. The session will showcase 1) novel approaches to applied ecological research in first nations and tribal contexts and 2) contemporary implementation of traditional indigenous resource management systems. Session presenters do their work in a variety of locations around the world, relying on a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary methods. They include a mix of indigenous community members (resource practitioners as well as researchers) and non-indigenous researchers who have positive working relationships with tribes. This array of presenters and research approaches brings a wide range of perspectives to the session.