Short bio:

Nancy J. Turner is an ethnobotanist and ethnoecologist who has worked with First Nations cultural specialists in northwestern North America for over 50 years, helping to document, retain and promote knowledge of plants and environments, including Indigenous foods, materials and traditional medicine.

Additional details:

ILK systems in the 21st Century have been subjected to a particularly difficult combination of threats: intense loss of biodiversity and climate change, on the one hand, and relentless societal forces towards globalization and industrial development on the other. These threats need to be addressed holistically as assaults on biocultural diversity, with nature and culture as part of the same overarching system. The cumulative impacts on social-ecological systems we humans are experiencing must be met with cumulative, interconnected responses. Long resident Indigenous and Local Peoples hold much wisdom and experience, along with relational values, that can help address, alleviate and reverse these impacts, which often affect these peoples the most. Loss of access to lands, loss of control over traditional resources and traditional management approaches, loss of language, loss of traditional foods... all of these need to be addressed, through supporting these peoples and working together with them to find the best path forward.