<p>The Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK) is the collective lived experiences, oral histories, place-based wisdom, and inter-generational knowledge that guides on how Indigenous communities perceive, relate, interact, and manage their local ecosystems. It informs their culture, and practices, and includes an endemic understanding of agency, personhood, and rights that inform their relationship and interactions with nature. However, when legal structures attempt to adopt the concept of RoN without engaging with Indigenous Peoples, they may inadvertently undermine the IEK of these communities, effectively robbing them of their wisdom and stewardship. Drawing on evidence from Kattunayakans, a hunter-forager community in Southern India, we show how Indigenous understandings of agency, rights, and personhood are active but often overlooked in RoN debates. By highlighting Kattunayakan ontologies of IEK, we argue that insufficient (or in many cases without) engagement with the RoN framework can reinforce distorted perceptions of Indigenous Peoples as “ecologically noble” and romanticize their relationship with nature. This places the burden of protection on Indigenous peoples while also excluding them from conservation. As observed, granting forests legal personality can restrict their access, cultural practices, and subsistence activities, similarly rivers with personhood may limit spiritual use, daily needs, and fishing. In this paper we explain that RoN in India should integrate bottom-up to engage with the complexity of Indigenous-nature relationships appropriately. Moreover, integrating IEK into legal frameworks allows the RoN to function by leveraging Indigenous knowledge, deconstructing its colonial legacy, and building Indigenous support for its implementation. This ensures that RoN promotes ethical and equitable environmental governance.</p>