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.
Re-Introductions and Research Update
Photo by Michael Brinton on Savary Island (Tla’amin territory, I’Hos)
I want to re-introduce myself and my research. Mostly because, after 2-and-some-years, I’m finally starting to be able to articulate what my whole PhD thing is about. And I’m *super* excited.
So hi 👋
I’m Lauren. I’m a human aiming to bring my whole self (and the vulnerability that comes with that) to science outreach, life-in-general, and social media platforms. I’m a conservation scientist, adventure enthusiast, and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Victoria (in British Columbia, Canada) - and I believe in and want to work toward a world of multi-cultural, multi-species flourishing.
My early research experiences around the globe exposed me to the complexities of interrelated social and ecological systems (and all science still has to learn), and motivated me to delve into conservation science that upholds local and Indigenous knowledge and human rights. My M.Sc. work allowed me the opportunity to work as part of an Indigenous-led research project tracking change in marine species through multiple knowledge systems.
As a PhD student, I’ve had the massive challenge and super adventure of expanding what I learned and building it into what will be a five(!) year project. Basically - all of my PhD work focuses on conflicts surrounding conservation (or “conservation conflict”). I’m analyzing these conflicts (and seeking solutions) across scales and knowledge types in Canada.
My PhD research looks into conflict that occurs at the policy level (between Indigenous knowledge and Canadian Environmental Policy), between people in B.C. regarding how to manage endangered wildlife, and between humans and black bears in coastal B.C. This diversity of case studies means I get to rely on a ton of diverse scholarship and disciplines - social psychology, ecology, social-ecological systems theory (to name a few) - and hopefully walk away with new insights into conflict and how to transform it.
I’m SO STOKED for forthcoming data collections and this (Spring’s!) field season.
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
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.
On Self Care
Let’s talk about self care, the good, the bad, and the complexities.
We throw around words like “wellness” and “self care” a lot without fully qualifying them. As an academic and scientist and human-who-cares-too-much-about-too-many-things, I spend a lot of time navigating, learning, and re-learning how to care for my body and brain. Turns out, it’s not so simple.
It’s not simple because self-care doesn’t always look the same every day for me, and it certainly does not look the same for every human. Some days self care is a bath robe, a nap, a bubble bath with that killer bath bomb, a massage, and hell yes to a glass of wine. That’s the kind of self care we often promote (and share photos of) - and that kind of self care, that ability to spend time and money on our well-being - is really important.
But in reality, true self care also means that some days you sit down and get those nagging emails done, you re-organize that desk drawer, you don’t buy that new skin care line and save your money and your financial anxiety.
I have to remind myself often that I can’t buy self care. That taking care of myself is adaptive - and takes so much longer than a face mask (though there’s lots of room for those too).
Self care is showing up for yourself. Self care is recognizing your burnout, knowing that your worth is not dependent on or correlated to your productively. Self care allows us to bring the best of ourselves to this world. Make space for it. No matter what your hustle is.
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… )
A Conservation Scientist in the Anthropocene
Two weeks ago, I sat quietly in evening golden-hour sunshine on a cedar-wood bench, staring contemplatively out at a golden sand beach and working through a plate of vegetarian lasagna. Out of the corner of my vision, I caught sight of a blurry brown figure dashing across the shore; a yearling grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) was making haste across the beach to escape an angry interaction with an older male bear, his rapid gait sending white flurries of shorebirds into flight.
The moment was one of those remarkable, albeit clichéd, instants that suspend your breath. In the unusually warm October sun, surrounded by friends, eating warm homemade food, physically tired after a day of hard work, and watching the spectacle of a young grizzly dash across a beach, I was filled with the utmost gratitude to be a Conservation Scientist lucky enough to be hosted by the Hailzaqv (Heiltsuk) Nation at Koeye Camp, a place where youth come to learn about culture, the land, and science (among other things).
Sunny views from my vantage at Koeye Camp.
Yesterday, I thought back to those experiences at Koeye. After hastily-consumed-espresso-number-two and between reading academic articles in the ACS Lab, I poured over the media summaries of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) most recent report. For those who may have missed it, the report outlines the varied and severe consequences that face global ecosystems, and consequently humanity, should we continue on our rapid collective path forward towards 1.5- or 2-degree Celcius temperature increases. My head spun as I considered the implications for the ecosystems and social systems – or otherwise the species, friends, colleagues, and everyone who calls The Great Bear Rainforest (and the rest of this world) home.
Such, perhaps, is the life of a Conservation Scientist in the Anthropocene. We are granted the joy and responsibility of having one foot in the field, and one foot in the office, eyes partially trained on the narrow questions and systems that define our research, and yet aware of the global realities that increasingly impact both. Experiences in the territories of the Heiltsuk, Kitasoo/Xai’xais, Wuikinuxv, and Nuxalk Nations of BC’s Central Coast, and those during various field projects worldwide, have allowed me to glimpse the complexity, diversity, and beauty within functioning socioecological systems. They provide the fuel that compels me to continue pursuing research that informs ecosystem management, social justice, and Indigenous rights on local scales, despite the immense challenges we all globally face.
Traces of neighbours on the beaches of the Koeye River estuary. Human and non-human animals alike rely on functioning ecosystems and liveable climates to thrive.
To engage in research that seeks to answer complex questions about environmental policy, human values, and ecosystem management in complex systems is daunting; to do so in the face of the forthcoming consequences of climate change is even more so. To be fortified by moments surrounded by friends and colleagues, with vistas of the incredible biodiversity and life-sustaining resources we risk losing, however, is to believe in our collective power to adapt and overcome.
This post first appeared on the ACS Lab Blog
Broadening and Enriching the Conservation Conversation
This post originally appeared on the ACS lab web page
As a graduate student, and perhaps particularly as a Ph.D. student, I am frequently reminded of the value of narrowing my focus. The advice is fitting; in the field of Applied Conservation Science, our scholarship is necessarily concentrated. Our diverse ecosystems, and the myriad ways humans understand and interact with them, are so complex as to require specific focus for deeper understanding. And for our scholarly work to contribute to change in the real world requires a long-term concentration on these geographic, ecological, and social complexities.
But in the last several months, I’ve received unique opportunities to broaden my horizon of knowledge and conversations – and I’ve been fundamentally changed by the process. I’ve learned that my research questions, which seek to interweave Indigenous knowledge and ecological science towards improved conservation and upholding of Indigenous rights, are echoed across the globe and throughout many disciplines. The nuances, guidance, and new ideas that bubble to the surface through conversations with conservation scientists and social innovators working in Tibet, Bhutan, Arizona, or Tanzania have enriched my work in ways I couldn’t have imagined. For example, I have learned about community-driven work which aims to heal the relationship between Lions and herders in Kenya; about new virtual reality technologies which are allowing immersive experiences towards respecting and protecting disappearing languages; and about how long-standing local knowledge of the land is fueling a reversal of desertification of grasslands in Tibet.
It’s a mutually beneficial process; to travel is to recognize and draw upon the sources of your knowledge and experience, and the unique way you look at the world. To bring the practice of territorial acknowledgment to stages on the East Coast of the U.S., where they are rarely witnessed in the last decades, for example, was an important opportunity to share this process with a broader international audience.
Through interacting with scholars working all over the world, and particularly through formal mentorship programs afforded to me through the National Geographic Society, I now recognize impossibly important and oft-overlooked perspectives. The kaleidoscope of color these cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural conversations have painted over my understanding of our world and my research, the passion of the individuals I’ve met, and the collaboration opportunities that abound, give me hope that we together might achieve our conservation goals. I’m honoured and humbled to bring this wellspring of hope and new conversations back to our work on the Central Coast.
I pose with my cohort of National Geographic Early Career Leaders: 15 of us, hailing from 11 different countries, speaking 25 languages and with unique disciplinary focuses.
