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. 

Our Bodies Are Home

This weekend, I dove headlong into lilac bushes and thought about my relationship with my body. And I want to talk about it; bodies, culture, shame, lilacs, and love. I've seen a lot of concerned "quarantine weight gain" posts, and with summer sun and time outside has come folx beating themselves up for gaining weight and lamenting the "loss" of their summer bodies. Let's unpack some of it with a sprinkle of science.

Some of you know that I'm an eating disorder survivor. You know about the years I spent willfully starving, cold, and tiny. You know I found my way back to a mostly-kind relationship with my body, to loving friends and pizza and spontaneity. Our relationships with our bodies are fraught with harmful narratives that make the work of loving our bodies a battle. Did you know that, genetically speaking, your body has a comfortable/homeostatic body fat "set point"? Did you know that 30% of people considered "obese" are at no greater risk of developing heart disease/diabetes/etc. than those with "healthy" BMIs? In fact, the Body Mass Index (BMI) scale was developed for European men (I mean, who is surprised?) and doesn't account for gender-based weight differences/muscle mass. What's more, there is little evidence that "extra" fat on your body correlates with poor health if you are regularly exercising and eating a balanced diet.

This is not to say that fitness goals aren't worthy. It is to say that society is wrong about your body, and that multi-billion dollar industries train us early to hate ourselves into spending money, when nothing is wrong with our beautiful dazzling selves. Forget anyone who upholds fit bodies as a product of pure discipline and not as (partially) a role of the genetic dice, or who says skinny bodies need curves. F*ck the message that the "extra" on your waist - those vanity pounds that represent margaritas with friends and your burgeoning joy - are ugly or unworthy. No one can look at a body or your body and know about its health or habits. Forget what you've been told, be gentle with your fine selves, know that you were worthy then and worthy now and will be worthy, no matter what forever. Take up space.

Covid19 calls us to reimagine our relationship with nature. We must begin by making peace with our bodies.

Vulnerable Places; Transformations

Today I am going to reach for the hardest place - or rather, a vulnerable one.

I’m fortified by other students and scientists who talk about their mental health struggles openly. I’m inspired by their boldness - and see the important ways they help me overcome my own demons. I’m sharing bits of my story in hopes of adding to the ocean of help and changing cultural tides.

So this is my body, with all its imperfections and glowy bits and jigglies. Someday I’ll unpack the anxiety I have sharing a 👙 photo because of patriarchal bullsh*t and fear of not-being-taken-seriously - but today is for something else entirely.

Today is for acknowledging the dangers of perfectionism - and the pain it generates when it clashes with beauty culture and anxiety.

This is my body (mostly) happy. This is my body well-fed. Five years ago, my body was thin beyond recognition. I weighed myself (and my food) multiple times a day, counted every freaking calorie, and obsessed constantly about hunger, lack thereof, my body, my next meal. I weighed 70. pounds. less. than I weigh now. 7 - 0.

It’s hard to explain an eating disorder, and recovery, to those who have a healthy relationship with food and themselves. And I’m not aiming to do that today. I do, however, want to dispel the myth that eating disorders only effect those caught up in how they look.

My ED emerged when I lost the illusion of control; of my academic life, of my schedule, of my direction. It emerged as a powerful outlet for my otherwise inexhaustible anxiety. It emerged as a means to answer the self-hate-filled voice in my head. It resulted in exhaustion, loss of friendships and experiences and my body’s means to thermoregulate. It is and was heavy in so many other ways.

I rolled slowly out of it like a coming-back-to-life when I moved to a new place and new University and adopted a pup and fell back in love with the world and myself.

It is still hard some days. But my lesson to share (for me too) is this: this world needs you at your most whole - your most cared for. You cannot hate yourself into perfection or oblivion. Live your life. Nurture yourself. Use that good energy to help the rest.

All of Ourselves

It’s 2019 and let’s start with some big vulnerability…

 I am a Conservation Scientist.

 I am also a woman. And a settler-American-living-in-Canada. I’m a love-all-the-animals-dog-foster-mom and a marathoner and an eating-disorder survivor and a caver and a climber and a feminist and a worrier and a warrior. I’m acquainted with anxiety and depression, success and sexism, and wow impostor syndrome just wins sometimes.

 I like getting glammed-up as much as I like being 3 days into a backpacking trip without a hair brush. I get highlights once annually and don’t always get enough sleep. I watch Netflix and work sometimes too much and sometimes too little.

Despite all these internal diversities that enrich my life and my work and my experiences, I am constantly fighting the pressure to streamline my messaging. I feel this continuous anxiety that I shouldn’t bring my personality to my #scicomm – that I should leave my feminism and femininity, my advocacy and emotion, my outside-of-science joys out of my work in order to be qualified to *belong* in the institution of science.

 But in 2018, I was surrounded and immensely inspired by women bringing ALL of themselves to their work. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , Biologist Imogene , @caimarison , @livesinadream , Science.Sam , @andreajanereid , ALN , @alieward , and so(!) many more are doing something powerful and important — they are peeling back the layers of protection that women have had to utilize for so long to be taken seriously, and powerfully representing who they are and what they stand for.

 So in 2019, I’m committed to bringing my whole self to my work. I’m bringing my intelligence and emotion, my joys, mental-hurdles, and hard days. I will bring my selfies and my backcountry adventures, my optimism and my bikini beach days. I will do so in recognition that I, that we, belong in the halls of academia, science, and government just as we are – right now. And we have the chance (each of us) to empower others as I feel I’ve been empowered this year. 💕💪🌎

(For more on Octavio-Cortez see @alexakissinger ‘s incredible 2018 Vox article: https://www.vox.com/…/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-congress-fir… )

For All those who Care, today:

For all those who care, today —

Amidst news of mourning Orca mothers, raging wildfires, and growing mumblings of “hot house” Earth, the burdens of empathy and crisis of caring can become so heavy as a Conservation Scientist – and as a human…

But – the world is still buzzing with impossible beauty. The salt of the ocean still beckons. Murrelets and gulls still dance under gold-flaked sunsets as they chase forage fish. Salmon dive under unsuspecting zodiacs, highlighted by bioluminescence that makes the whole ocean seem like, certainly, some magical mysterious kingdom. Little golden grizzly cubs munch mussels between peaceful sleeps.

There is still time. You still have agency and energy and passion.

There is so much left to be saved and loved and seen. Wake up. Go.

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.

Knowing What We Don’t Know: Accepting a diversity of knowledge for a sustainable future

This blog post first appeared on the National Geographic Explorer’s Blog on December 19th, 2017. See the original here. 

If you ever wish to contemplate modern human inadequacy, I challenge you to spend time trundling through the remaining fragments of the Mata Atlântica Rainforest of Brazil. Don’t get me wrong; the dense canopy of green within a rainforest more ancient than the Amazon is stunning even in its heavily modified form. In the remaining parcels of the forest, gowns of green cascade from the dense overgrowth, while capuchin monkeys watch bipedal passersby with charismatic sneers. The montane terrain, dense and ever-wet, is steep, and the forest constantly fighting to reclaim human-made trails.

BIOLOGISTS AND LOCAL GUIDES MAKE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE UNDERSTORY OF THE MATA ATLÂNTICA FOREST IN SEARCH OF NORTHERN MURIQUI MONKEYS. PHOTO BY LAUREN ECKERT.

A budding ecologist stumbling through this rainforest in search of one species of Critically Endangered monkey may, faced with kilometers of steep hikes, pouring sweat, and fruitless searches, begin to question the utility of ecological inquiry. But this story is neither about this grand, montane rainforest of Brazil, which has suffered more deforestation than any other tropical rainforest on Earth  – nor does it truly begin there.

A MOUNTAIN-TOP VIEW OF THE FOREST, COVERED IN EARLY MORNING FOG. BY MID-DAY, THE LOW-LYING CLOUDS ARE REPLACED BY SCORCHING HEAT AT THIS ELEVATION. PHOTO BY LAUREN ECKERT.

This story is about knowledge. Particularly, it’s about my slow realization that, in a world of rapidly expanding human pressure, we must mobilize and recognize many types of knowledge, should we seek to understand, and thus conserve, what matters most.

We must mobilize and recognize many types of knowledge, should we seek to understand, and thus conserve, what matters most. Tweet this

I found myself in the Mata Atlântica rainforest during the summer of 2013. I was an overly keen research technician pursuing a career in conservation ecology. My interests and lifelong love of wild places and species had afforded me field experiences across North America – studying kit fox (Vulpes macrotis) demographics in the deserts of Colorado, deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) in northern forests of Michigan and Wisconsin, and whatever other wonders I could find in my backyard in the U.S. Midwest.

THOUGH HEAVILY IMPACTED BY DEFORESTATION AND HUMAN-SETTLEMENT, THIS REGION OF THE MATA ATLÂNTICA STILL REMAINS DISTANT FROM MOST SOURCES OF LIGHT POLLUTION. THE MILKY WAY DAZZLES THROUGH AN OPENING IN THE CANOPY. PHOTO BY LAUREN ECKERT.

In the rainforest, I was newly interned with a team of Brazilian scientists studying northern Muriqui monkeys (Brachyteles hypoxanthus). The primates are Americas’ largest New World monkeys. They are captivating as well as Critically Endangered; their social structure is egalitarian and, notably, they frequently utilize (admittedly adorable) hugs as communication and stress-relief tactics. Our team was tasked with continuing a Muriqui demography study – we were to track and photograph individuals, and contribute to understanding the behavioral patterns of the monkeys to benefit local conservation goals.

But many days into my time in the rainforest, we hadn’t caught sight of the monkeys. It’s hard to keep your spirits up during long hikes after many days of futility, and even harder to study a population of Endangered monkeys you can’t find. This sort of challenge isn’t inconsistent with the realities of ecology field work – but at the time it was certainly new to me.

It’s hard to keep your spirits up during long hikes after many days of futility, and even harder to study a population of Endangered monkeys you can’t find. Tweet this

UNLIKE ITS HUMAN COUNTERPARTS, THIS BLACK CAPUCHIN (SAPAJUS NIGRITUS) MONKEY NAVIGATES THE DENSE RAINFOREST WITH EASE. PHOTO BY LAUREN ECKERT.

One typical we-probably-won’t-find-the-monkeys-today morning, gearing up for our hike to a lookout above the trees, I was greeted by a cheerful new friend and local station employee, São Pedro (name changed for the purposes of this article.) He arrived with a fresh bag of home-grown coffee beans, and a burly confidence that he could assist us in finding the Muriquis. Although both the coffee and finding the monkeys were sorely needed, I was skeptical that we would be successful with the latter.

TWO AVOCADOS SIT PRECARIOUSLY BY A PAIR OF WORN WORK BOOTS; A SNAP SHOT OF HUMAN HABITAT IN THE MATA ATLÂNTICA. PHOTO BY LAUREN ECKERT.

Pedro’s ecological training was radically different from my own – he had grown up in the rapidly changing fragments of the Mata Atlântica, and his wealth of knowledge stemmed not from rigorous scientific proficiencies nor university degrees, but prolonged and continuous experiences in one geographic location. My training in academia – a time when I was largely dismissive of non-academic knowledge forms – left me ignorantly wary of such knowledge, as I bounded to keep up with Pedro’s quick steps through the forest. Within mere hours of trekking through dense underbrush, over countless streams, and up tortuous hill after tortuous hill, we sighted the elusive Muriquis. Pedro had a hardy, knowing chuckle at my simultaneous elation and disbelief.

Our first vista of the Muriquis was of them atop a particularly steep hill. In that first of many exposures to the monkeys, I watched them bound through the treetops and shouted my astonishment at every particularly daring leap between branches. I learned a central lesson during that first sighting. It had been slowly emerging, interweaving and condensing consistently as I explored new ecosystems, continents, and species as a research technician and budding ecologist.

A NORTHERN MURIQUI MONKEY TAKES A BREAK FROM SUN-BATHING TO WATCH A GROUP OF HUMAN PASSERS-BY. PHOTO BY LAUREN ECKERT.

My realization was this: scientific data are often limited in scope; some of the most diverse systems (tropical rainforests, for example) lack historical scientific data and are a challenge to study for even the most experienced scientists. Local and Indigenous peoples, however, are ancient keepers of complex knowledge systems, in which consistent, long-term observations and oral history create, maintain, and transmit a profound understanding of scientifically “data-poor” ecosystems.

Local and Indigenous peoples are ancient keepers of complex knowledge systems, in which consistent, long-term observations and oral history create, maintain, and transmit a profound understanding of scientifically “data-poor” ecosystems. Tweet this.

This realization is a simplified revelation of complex theory in the world of “socio-ecological systems” — in which Indigenous knowledge and the exercise of traditional rights are key. My continued recognition and increased understanding of local and Indigenous knowledge marked a fundamental shift in my career path and, eventually, in the way I think and talk about ecosystems and conservation.

Science isn’t a panacea. It is a critical tool used by humans to understand our world and our ever-changing role in it. Western science is a culturally embedded, systematic undertaking that rests on the haunches of objectivity, rigor, and repeatability. A scientific pillar is a crucial structural component when answering questions in the conservation sciences. But my experiences in ecological field work in Brazil (and beyond) showed me that scientific knowledge should not function as a stand-alone pillar in the framework of conservation sciences and conservation action.

Indigenous and local ecological knowledge are increasingly accepted and invoked not only as valid and complementary to scientific data, but as additional and equally important components of ecosystem understanding. While scientific knowledge can provide us with accurate snapshots of data in a limited window of time, local knowledge is accumulated over decades, and Indigenous knowledge often over millennia. Local and Indigenous knowledge is often held by individuals, communities or nations, who rely on local ecosystems for physical and cultural sustenance; thus, continual observations of ecosystem changes result in complex stewardship and management strategies with valuable lessons for scientists and ecosystem managers.

AN OOLICHAN POLE STANDS PICTURESQUELY AT THE BANKS OF THE BELLA COOLA RIVER IN BELLA COOLA, BRITISH COLUMBIA — HOME OF THE NUXALK FIRST NATION. PHOTO BY LAUREN ECKERT.

My experiences in Brazil, and the revelations that followed, catapulted me to work in a much more temperate rainforest with many new lessons in store. Now, I spend my field days in The Great Bear Rainforest of Western Canada. With its stunning ocean vistas, red-cedar forests crashing into rugged coastlines, and ghostly white “Spirit Bears,” this partially protected temperate rainforest has been heralded by National Geographic as “The Wildest Place in North America.”

But to Coastal First Nations (as many Indigenous peoples of Canada are called), who have inhabited their traditional territories and actively stewarded local ecosystems in this rugged rainforest for millennia, the place is anything but wild – it is home. While these Nations’ ancient and continuing stories are not mine to relate, they deserve wider scientific and global recognition.

A YOUNG KERMODE BEAR (URSUS AMERICANUS KERMODEI) WADES THROUGH A SALMON-BEARING STREAM NEAR KLEMTU, BRITISH COLUMBIA. ALSO KNOWN AS THE SPIRIT BEAR, THE SPECIES IS WIDELY APPRECIATED AND AT THE HEART OF THE KITASOO/XAI’XAIS FIRST NATION’S ECOTOURISM VENTURES, AS WELL AS EMBEDDED IN FIRST NATION CULTURES. PHOTO BY LAUREN ECKERT.

I LEARN ABOUT CHANGES TO LOCAL ROCKFISH POPULATIONS WITH WUIKINUXV NATION FISHER, HEREDITARY CHIEF, AND ELDER TED WALKUS. PHOTO BY NATALIE BAN.

Through partnering with the Kitasoo/Xai’xais, Heiltsuk, Wuikinuxv, and Nuxalk Nations in the region, I continue to learn critical lessons. I’ve learned just how powerful Indigenous fishers’ knowledge can be to shed light on historical changes to a long-lived and at-risk fish species. I’ve learned about the power of story and human observation to encode complex stewardship responsibilities that allow humans, and ecosystems they rely on, to flourish for millennia. I’ve also learned that Indigenous knowledge isn’t simply “complementary” or “useful” to scientific knowledge. Rather, Indigenous knowledge represents a continuously adapting body of knowledge that culturally encoded successful environmental management practices long before western science conceived of the need for conservation or ecosystem management. Perhaps most importantly, I’ve been humbled by all that I don’t know: about Indigenous knowledge and the reassertion of Indigenous rights, about complex ecosystems, and about true environmental stewardship.

This story is not about the Mata Atlântica rainforest, nor, I guess, is it really about my journey to accepting new and diverse knowledge types. This story is, perhaps more accurately, an attempt to scrape the surface of human understanding about our complex natural world; a modern natural world so multifaceted, that it invokes many forms of human knowledge to properly understand and steward.

THE HEILTSUK NATION GUARDIAN WATCHMEN BOAT RESTS IN SCENIC WATERS DURING A ROUTINE SURVEY NEAR BELLA BELLA, BRITISH COLUMBIA. PHOTO BY LAUREN ECKERT.