Resumen
Precipitous declines in biodiversity threaten planetary boundaries, requiring transformative changes to conservation. Colonial systems have decimated species and ecosystems and dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of their rights, territories, and livelihoods. Despite these challenges, Indigenous-governed lands retain a large proportion of biodiversity-rich landscapes. Indigenous Peoples have stewarded the land in ways that support people and nature in respectful relationship. Biodiversity conservation and resurgence of Indigenous autonomies are mutually compatible aims. To work towards these aims requires significant transformation in conservation and re-Indigenization. Key to both are systems that value people and nature in all their diversity and relationships. This paper introduces Indigenous principles for re-Indigenizing conservation: (i) embracing Indigenous worldviews of ecologies and M's-it No'kmaq, (ii) learning from Indigenous languages of the land, (iii) Natural laws and Netukulimk, (iv) correct relationships, (v) total reflection and truth, (vi) Etuaptmumk-“two-eyed seeing,” and “strong like two people”, and (vii) “story-telling/ story-listening”. Although the principles derive primarily from a Mi'kmaw worldview, many are common to diverse Indigenous ways of knowing. Achieving the massive effort required for biodiversity conservation in Canada will entail transformations in worldviews and ways of thinking and bold, proactive actions, not solely as means but as ongoing imperatives.
Idioma original | English |
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Páginas (desde-hasta) | 839-869 |
Número de páginas | 31 |
Publicación | Facets |
Volumen | 6 |
N.º | 1 |
DOI | |
Estado | Published - ene. 2021 |
Nota bibliográfica
Funding Information:1For published accounts see Battiste (1997) and T. Young (2016) citing personal correspondence from Stephen J. Augustine (Ekkian), curator of Ethnology at the Museum of Civilization, Ottawa and “a Keptin of the Santé Mawiomi, the traditional government of the L’nu people” (p. 84). 2Transformative Politics of the Wild: Biodiversity loss & protected areas in Canada is a series of connection events led by A. Olive (University of Toronto) and K. Beazley (Dalhousie University), funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). 3This is the ending in a classic Mi’kmaw or “L’nu” teaching story. It is reprinted in full and cited in Young (2016, p. 89, note 85): “This story is reprinted with permission from RH Whitehead [1988]. Elsie Clews Parsons, who traveled in Nova Scotia in 1923 collecting folklore from African Nova Scotia communities, collected the original version of this story during a side trip to Cape Breton. She collected this story from Isabelle Googoo Morris, who had heard it from her husband’s sister-in-law.” The story graphically conveys “the need to treat animals with respect and to honour the sacrifices they have made. If this is not done, when the animal returns and is flesh again it will remember the treatment it received and not be so willing to give itself again to nourish the ungrateful L’nu” (Young 2016, p. 89).
Funding Information:
“Transformative Politics of the Wild” held at Dalhousie University, Halifax.15 The event consisted of public talks by Elder Albert Marshall and Lisa Young on the Re-emergence of Netukulimk in Mi’kma’ki: Awakening the sleeping giant, and a day-long talking-circle workshop with 25 Indigenous and non-Indigenous speakers. Funding support for the event was provided by a SSHRC-Connection grant (611-2019-0162) held by A. Olive, University of Toronto, and K. Beazley, Dalhousie University). The Story-telling/Story-listening podcast series was produced by J. Hum, with recorded oral interviews with Dr. John B. Zoe (Episode 1.1: Decolonizing Research), Janet Rabesca (Episode 1.2: Adaptation), Elder Albert Marshall (Episode 1.3: Resilience), and Sherry Pictou and Melanie Zurba (Episode 1.4: Reflections), available from spreaker.com/show/ storytellingstorylistening. The authors thank John B. Zoe, another Indigenous speaker who shared his stories. Podcasts interviews were conducted with approval from Dalhousie University’s Social Sciences Research Ethics Board (file #2020-5062) and made publicly available online with the consent of the participants.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 M's-it No'kmaq et al. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- General