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- Convenors:
-
Mara Goldman
(University of Colorado at Boulder Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL))
Robin Roth (University of Guelph)
Clint Carroll (University of Colorado Boulder)
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- Format:
- Roundtable
- Sessions:
- Friday 29 October, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel seeks to connect theorizing about decolonizing conservation with on the ground struggles over resource governance in Indigenous communities globally. We will collectively interrogate what decolonized conservation can look like from settler colonial states to states in the global south.
Long Abstract:
There is a persistent and growing awareness from within the academy and conservation organizations of the need to overhaul conservation as usual. These calls are particularly salient in light of the root causes of the Covid-19 crisis and its uneven impacts on local communities, conservation management, and long promoted alternative livelihoods such as ecotourism. Pertinent here is recognition of the assertions made by Indigenous activists, scholars and community members for some time to redress conservation inequities, along with calls to decolonize mainstream conservation. In this panel we seek to connect theorizing about decolonizing conservation occurring within the academy with on the ground struggles over resource governance in Indigenous communities globally. The panel will consist of scholars, community activists, and Indigenous thought leaders from around the world sharing ideas on what it means to decolonize conservation. Collectively, we will shed light on the following questions: How is progress towards decolonized conservation being framed by Indigenous groups and scholars in different places, including settler states like Canada and the US, and places in the global south, like Tanzania, Kenya, Thailand, and India? How are processes unfolding around the world, in places with different and similar ecologies, and histories of colonialism and conservation? And how are decolonization efforts addressing internal differentiation within Indigenous communities (i.e. gender, class, age)? Panelists will discuss and debate the important, political, theoretical and practical meanings and implications of decolonization discourse and action needed to dismantle mainstream colonial conservation.
Accepted participant details:
Session 1 Friday 29 October, 2021, -Margaret Low (The University of British Columbia)
Short bio:
Maggie Low is the Co-Chair of the Indigenous Community Planning (ICP) program at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP). Her current research focuses on Indigenous planning, climate justice, Indigenous-state relations and decolonization efforts happening within Canadian cities.
Additional details:
Maggie is interested in what it means to "decolonize" the self and what it means to be an uninvited guest on stolen Indigenous territories in Canada. Maggie will discuss theoretical and practical meanings and implications of decolonization discourse as it relates Indigenous community planning in British Columbia.
Clint Carroll (University of Colorado Boulder)
Short bio:
Clint Carroll is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, he works at the intersections of Indigenous studies, anthropology, and political ecology, with an emphasis on Cherokee land-based resurgence and conservation.
Additional details:
Clint is interested in the politics and practicalities of Indigenous engagements with the conservation paradigm in settler states, both in regard to collaborations and agreements with settler conservation agencies like the US Park Service, as well as how Indigenous nations articulate and enact their own conservation programs and goals. His ongoing work with Cherokee people in Oklahoma to conserve sparse tribal lands for the perpetuation of land-based knowledge, practices, and relationships--in addition to his broader interest in Indigenous conservation strategies--will inform his contributions to this roundtable.
Edward Loure (UCRT)
Short bio:
UCRT (Ujamaa Community Resource Trust) Tanzania
Robin Roth (University of Guelph)
Short bio:
Robin Roth is the principle investigator of the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership in Canada and Professor of Geography at the University of Guelph. She will speak to her understanding of the profound personal and systemic transformation needed for conservation to truly be decolonized.
Additional details:
Dominant conservation practice is intimately connected to colonialism. To decolonize conservation, we must recognize how its logic not merely reflects, but promotes and drives a logic that is profoundly socially and environmentally harmful.
Saw John Bright (Karen Environmental and Social Action Network)
Short bio:
Saw John is an ethnic Karen, working as water governance program coordinator with KESAN fostering inclusive, informed, accountable and equitable community-based natural resource governance. John has been accepted for a PhD program in 2022 at Wageningen University to study the Salween Peace Park.
Additional details:
John will draw on his extensive experience working with Karen communities to establish the Salween Peace Park. Reflect on his knowledge as a Karen person, John will discuss what decolonizing conservation means in an area that is at once a biodiversity hotspot, a centre of Indigenous Karen culture, and the site of one of the longest-running armed conflicts in the world. Indigenous Karen villagers, local Karen administrators, and Karen civil society organizations are promoting a different kind of conservation -- a model that recognizes and supports local communities' environmental governance rooted in ancestral ways of knowing and being with their lands, waters, and forests. As an Indigenous-declared protected area, or ICCA, the Salween Peace Park stands in sharp contrast to the colonial 'fortress' conservation models that remain prevalent across Southeast Asia.
Steven Nitah (Indigenous Leadership Initiative)
Short bio:
Indigenous exercising their rights and responsibilities to their territories with traditional knowledge and the Canadian constitution.
Additional details:
Indigenous protected and conserved areas,(IPCAs), are created and led by indigenous peoples using their legal and knowledge system’s exercising their rights and responsibilities. Canada has committed to protecting 30% of Canada’s terrestrial and marine environments. 100% of that could be IPCAs!