This paper explores how community-authored multilingual ethnotestimonials serve as both cultural documentation and pedagogical intervention in the context of mangrove conservation education. Drawing from eight seafaring cultures, including Wayuu, Yucatec Maya, Mopán Maya, Q’eqchi’ Maya, Garifuna, Miskitu, Ulwa, Burmese, Bahasa and Belizean Kriol, I analyze a series of reflective Introductions to conservation textbooks written in Indigenous languages and translated into either English or Spanish. These ethnotestimonials reveal how language, place, and ecological knowledge are intertwined in the lived experiences of coastal communities, and how these connections can inform more inclusive and effective conservation education. I propose that these ethnotestimonials are not only vehicles of memory and identity but also instruments for hybridizing ecological knowledge systems and operationalizing decolonial science education. This work supports the foundation for the first author’s previously published frameworks on the Ethnotranslation Model and the Hybridization Hypothesis of Ecological Knowledge Systems, and informed the development of a related Maya-language master’s thesis project, which found that culturally resonant, mother-tongue instruction improved both science learning and cultural identity among students.
