Black Lives Matter

This post was co-written with fellow colleagues in the ACS Lab, and originally appeared on the ACS lab website on June 3, 2020.

Image credit: BlackLivesMatter

As Conservation Scientists in the Applied Conservation Science Lab, we acknowledge the pervasive racial and socioeconomic disparities and systems of oppression that have and continue to harm Black people (and Indigenous peoples and POC). We recognize that there is no successful conservation, no empowered science, no justice anywhere while injustice prevails. 

We also understand that, as a group of predominately white scholars, we will never fully understand. We understand that our white privilege shields us from violence, aggression, pain, and rage felt regularly by Black people and clears our career paths of barriers they face. We acknowledge that environmentalist and conservation-oriented movements have ugly histories of racism that require constant confrontation today and always. We understand that this is our work. We understand that our work is to listen, learn, confront, be uncomfortable, and support Black people today and every day. But we will never understand the experiences of Black people.

A core operating value of the Applied Conservation Science Lab is social justice. We offer resources in this article to support that value and to amplify Black voices, leaders, and people. We offer resources to those, like us, learning and listening; aware of our immense duty now and always. Black Lives Matter.

Tools to Educate Yourself and Others

Dear White People: Here are 10 Actions You Can Take to Promote Racial Justice in the Workplace – Dana Browniee

10 Steps to Non-Optical Allyship – Mireille C. Harper

Black and Brown People Have Been Protesting for Centuries. It’s White People Who Are Responsible for What Happens Next. – Savala Trepczynski

75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice – Corinne Shutack

First, Listen. Then, Learn: Anti-Racism Resources for White People – Julia Wuench 

How to be an Antiracist – Ibram X. Kendi

Me and White Supremacy – Layla F Saad

White Fragility – Robin Diangelo

White people have to step up to identify systemic racism, in Canada – Roshini Nair

Racism In Canada is Ever-Present, But We Have A Long History of Denial – Maija Kappler

‘Racism Exists in Canada’ – Star staff

Ways to Support Black Businesses

AfroBiz Canada

Black Business Initiative

Ways to Support Black Colleagues and Friends

Three Things you Should Not Say to Your Black Colleagues Right Now – Adunola Adeshola

We Must Step Up For Black People Right Now – Here’s How – Sheree Atcheson 

Support and Amplify Black Birders Week and #BlackAFinSTEM

Opportunities to Donate (an inexhaustive list)

Minnesota Freedom Fund

George Floyd Memorial Fund

Black Visions Collective

Campaign Zero

Black Lives Matter

NAACP Legal Defense Fund

American Civil Liberties Union

Petitions to Signs

#JusticeforFloyd Petition

How to Confront your Family and Friends

Ways to Hold your Local Authorities Accountable

Look up your MP, and contact them regarding the importance of ending police brutality and racism. 

Indigenous Knowledge and Environmental Assessment: New research reveals obstacles to equitable engagement in Canada

The following is a press release released by The University of Victoria and Raincoast Conservation Foundation February 13, 2020.

Against a backdrop of British Columbia’s recent consideration of UNDRIP into legislation, and visible conflict between Canada and Indigenous Nations/hereditary leaders over pipeline development (e.g. Coastal Gas Link and Trans Mountain projects), a new peer-reviewed analysis of Canada’s recently passed Bill 69 (now the Impact Assessment Act) in the journal FACETS details how federal decision-making processes are ‘inherently at odds’ with authentically engaging Indigenous Knowledge (IK).

“Indigenous knowledge systems are extensive, complex, and deeply rooted in the land. Canada’s environmental assessment processes must engage with Indigenous Knowledge,” said co-author Nick XEMŦOLTW̱ Claxton, Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria, and elected Chief of the Tsawout Nation. For Dr. Claxton, who represented Tsawout Knowledge Holders in federal environmental assessment processes related to proposed Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain pipelines, this work also included recounting of professional and personal experience as he faced federally-appointed panel-members.

Infographic: Obstacles and limitations to engaging Indigenous knowledge in federal environmental assessment processes equitably and authentically.

Lauren Eckert, Raincoast Conservation Foundation Fellow and Vanier Scholar, University of Victoria (UVic) PhD candidate, and lead author of the study, added: “Environmental Assessment processes have the potential to generate environmentally-sound, socially-equitable decisions across Canada. But without fundamental shifts in the way current policy relates to, engages, and recognizes the rights of Indigenous peoples and their knowledge, outcomes may continue to lead to conflict between federal and Indigenous governments.”

The review concludes by acknowledging the growing list of environmental assessments in Canada that were led by Indigenous Nations themselves, citing these and collaborative environmental assessment efforts as potential ways forward.

“Indigenous Nations that are leading their own environmental assessments are able to do so according to their own laws, beliefs and worldviews and are able to make decisions about their lands,” added Claxton.

Background

Researchers at the University of Victoria, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, West Coast Environmental Law, and the University of Guelph analysed the newly-passed Bill C-69, now the Impact Assessment Act, as well as 19 peer-reviewed papers that had examined previous environmental assessment acts in Canada. The team identified some “surmountable” obstacles, recommending for example technical and cross-cultural training programs and timeline accommodations. Other obstacles, such as the enduring effects of colonization and perceived knowledge incompatibilities, they concluded to be fundamentally limiting to the meaningful inclusion of IK in environmental assessment processes.

Citation

Eckert LE, Claxton NX, Owens C, Johnston A, Ban NC, Moola F, and Darimont CT. 2020. Indigenous knowledge and federal environmental assessments in Canada: applying past lessons to the 2019 impact assessment act. FACETS 5: 1–23. doi:10.1139/facets-2019-0039

Acknowledgements

Earlier this year, National Geographic Magazine posted an article that granted me an opportunity for profound reflection.

I’ve been planning on writing about this article for some time, but its taken me months to figure out how to explain the emergent hope that this article awoke in this moment of deep political turmoil and social divisions in North America. I feel I still may fail to do this moment in history justice.

The article was aptly and appropriately titled, “For Decades, Our Coverage was Racist. To Rise Above our Past, we Must Acknowledge It.”

In her February Race Issue article, Editor-In-Chief Susan Goldberg approaches National Geographic Magazine’s histories of cultural appropriation, abject racism, and colonization. She also grapples with questions of race and identity, reporting on recent work supported by National Geographic which definitively evidences that there is no biological basis for the race construct (though the cultural construct of race has and continues to have profound biological impacts). In her article, Goldberg seeks to confront the “shameful use of racism as a political strategy and prove we [society at large and the National Geographic Society] are better than this.”

When I was first awarded a National Geographic Young Explorer’s Grant in 2015 for my work in partnership with Central Coast First Nations (the Kitasoo/Xai’xais, Wuikinuxv, Nuxalk, and Heiltsuk Nations) I felt an inherent tension living somewhere beneath my excitement. As a white Settler of European descent, I increasingly recognize the ways in which colonization and imagined racial constructs have, directly and indirectly, benefitted me at the cost of Indigenous peoples and diverse cultures worldwide. In articles from its far and recent history, the Society perched on colonial haunches, other-ing Indigenous peoples or portraying them as exotic caricatures. This history of colonialism is by no means unique to the National Geographic Society; it is a systemic and foundational underpinning of many of the systems so many of us live, interact, and work within (the discipline of Geography, the infrastructure of the academy, etc.). But through my interactions with the Society, and articles like this one, I have felt this tension ease and be replaced by a growing urgency to speak for decolonizing methodologies and lifestyles in support of Indigenous rights and Indigenous-led research, and hope for a future of multi-cultural and multi-species flourishing.

In order to begin to shed the old, ugly colonial and imperial skins which shroud our institutions and our lives still, we must begin with the uncomfortable process of acknowledging our racist and colonial histories, by being radically honest about where both systems of inequality exist in our lives and institutions, and by standing resolute in an unwavering commitment to learn more, strive for better, and fight for justice for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples of all races.

“Sometimes these stories, like parts of our own history, are not easy to read. But as Michele Norris writes in this issue, ‘It’s hard for an individual—or a country—to evolve past discomfort if the source of the anxiety is only discussed in hushed tones.'”

As National Geographic works to expand the field, push the boundaries of our knowledge, and conserve the places and things that matter most, I am deeply glad that they are also reflecting on their own history. It is a brave, bold, and fundamentally necessary exercise towards reconciliation, equality, and a better world. We have so, so much more work to do. But I feel strengthened to engage in that work through the support of the Society, mentors, and my incredible and tireless Indigenous partners.