Conjunctions: Historical Ecology, Climate Change and Hatred

Gitwangak, 1899 PN 12106, RBC Museum

I've just returned from a lovely and visionary gathering of young scholars and others interested in understanding how past human ecological relationships and practices may inform the present and help evaluate future options.  The group is called "Niche" (a play on words obviously for adaptive or ecological niches) an acronym for "New International Community for Historical Ecology" and the meeting at Simon Fraser University was its second.  My talk centred on three themes in my on-going research on Gitxsan and Witsuwit'en ethnoecology: possible anthropogenic distributions of two food plants, Pacific crabapple and riceroot lily;

Pacific crabapple in Miinskinisht; tree about 150 years old

the historic role of fire in black huckleberry patch maintenance, and potential contemporary management through mechanical brushing or small scale controlled burning, and finally, the challenges and dilemmas of maintaining populations of pacific salmon species, given global and localized environmental changes.

pair of sockeye salmon on spawning ground, Hanna Creek, Nass drainage

While we were there learning about the diverse and interesting research on human/environmental pasts, presents and possible futures from established and younger scholars, we got news of the terrible events of November 13 in Paris, where sectarian inspired real terrorism burst on French society, killing more than a hundred and twenty innocent citizens engaged in listening to music, eating Cambodian food with friends or family, or attending a high level soccer match between France and Germany.  As I returned home a third piece of the chance assemblage of times, places and topics hit me: Paris, site of this horrific hate event, is also the site of the next global climate talks in a mere two weeks. The juxtaposition of these events provoked deep thought: how can humans attains some level of accommodation with the planet to avoid the most catastrophic effects of our choices and actions when inter-group conflict (aka war) keeps shifting priorities and causing societies to engage in terrible acts of social and environmental violence, devastating human and ecological communities alike?  Talking at the conference earlier with my colleague Eugene Anderson (Gene, or "krazykioti" to those who know him), he commented that we have to solve hatred, or we cannot meaningfully and effectively address problems of humans and the environment, perhaps better phrased as mending the relationships between people and the rest of the ecological family to which we belong.  This topic is taken up in Gene's 2014 book Caning for Place, Ecology, Ideology and Emotion in Traditional Landscape Management (Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek California).  In a sense, the interrelationships between social and environmental sustainability, and human actions posed by armed conflict and its effects is a special case of "if we do not hang together, we shall all hang separately".  If societies and social actors cannot moderate their actions to avoid catastrophic conflict, with all the short and long term consequences this entails, it bodes poorly for the planet-wide collective action needed to avert serious consequences of anthropogenic climate change on all life.  Anthropogenic climate change is a reality; what is at question is can we moderate its severity through our focussed attention across the globe, in the face of many forces pushing in the opposite direction.  As long as war and armed conflict are the elephant in the room, accords reached in peace time may have little power to direct the actual course of events.  I hope world leaders will have the courage to meet in Paris despite the risks posed by extremists, and I hope they will find the resolve to move forward in strong and meaningful ways to mitigate climate change through concerted international action.
Meanwhile, as private citizens, we must do what we can to mitigate our consumption of energy and material, to live more simply and equitably, and to be tolerant of difference, rather than provoke and nourish conflict and resentment through demonizing people of good will who have made different choices than those our society or own ethnic or religions groups have made. We need to recognize the commonalities of our human lives.  We must seek to understand and to come together in a good way to nurture our planet and humankind both.
The following website was shared on  Facebook today in the wake of the events in Paris.  I think it is extremely important to remember that the vast majority of people do not wish harm to others, and simply wish to live their lives as we strive to heal violence and work toward peace:
http://mashable.com/2014/09/22/notinmyname-muslims-anti-isis-social-media-campaign/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it#mLifH32fGiqX

Truth and Reconciliation- healing ethnocide and ecocide

teepee at the TRC, photo by  Riva Benditt

I spent today at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's event in Edmonton, where I live.  For those who are not Canadian, or who may not be in touch with the Residential School issue, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been holding gatherings all over Canada, enabling residential school Survivors to tell their stories, find healing in the sympathy of others who have experienced similar trauma, engage with traditional healers who can help them with their healing journeys and set the record straight.

Residential schools were explicitly racist in agenda, seeking to assimilate and Christianize Indigenous children by forcibly removing them from their families and institutionalizing them.  Some got to go home for a couple of months in the year.  Others not.  Children were deliberately placed apart from their siblings, and forbidden to speak their languages.  Many died of disease.  Some died attempting to escape, freezing to death trying to go home. Sexual and physical abuse of various kinds permeated these institutions where the power of those in charge was rarely overseen or checked. (This occurs in non-indigenous settings as well, as with the Mt. Cashel orphanage in the Maritimes).

The US had its Trail of Tears (the forced march of the southern tribes to Oklahoma, and other such genocidal removals), and in Canada we had instead schools of tears.

The mere telling of trauma suffered by individual children, or the parents or relatives of those who were in residential schools, is neither the object nor the stopping place.  First, the truth must be told, and the wider public must hear.  The government of Canada and the major churches have already made official apologies.  But the degree of disruption of language, culture, community, emotional and physical health, and traditional knowledges has created a huge rupture in all Indigenous communities in Canada.  As one speaker addressing the issue commented today, it's not about simple oh, they were wrong, and were blinded by their religion.....the policies of assimilation were part and parcel of the colonial enterprise, here in Canada as well as other places around the world.  The assault on language and culture, and the attempt to transform Indigenous peoples into "civilized Christians" was about the extension of empire, access to land and resources, clearing the way for development of hinterlands and ecological conversion to agricultural landscapes or to promote forestry and mining where the land was not suited to agriculture.  In short, for nation building.  Today I heard my friend Alestine, who experienced 12 years of residential schooling in the NWT and has since gone on to a University degree and a Masters in Environmental Studies, lament not only the personal difficulties of being in residential school, but the loss of opportunity to learn her culture "hands-on" .  Her passion for language preservation and the documentation and transmission of traditional knowledge is I think what she has done to make up for the loss of her birthright.  She was fortunate to have elder relatives who could still teach her when she came home.  She is making significant contributions to building a better future for her people.

The fallout of the residential school social experiment have been huge, not only in loss of language, threat to aboriginal spiritual beliefs and hand skills, but also in community health, as whole communities of traumatized children stumbled toward personal healing and empowerment and tried  to figure out how to parent, when they themselves had not been allowed the love and nurture of parents, how to own and set goals when finally they could, how to deal with the legacy of pain, internalized worthlessness and repressed anger at their mistreatment.  The collective trauma ricochets, and affects the generations who come after.  Their cost is measured in violence against women and in general, people on the streets, numbing pain with alcohol and other substances, dysfunctional communities, and many in the prisons, far out of proportion to the population.  The statistics are widely known.  The ultimate responsibility, in the colonial nation-building process itself, is rarely acknowledged.  Ways forward are challenging.

In other work that I do, I work with communities to preserve traditional knowledge of plants, of the land, traditional skills. Trying to build a bridge over the generation(s) of disruption.  Trying to restore health through facilitating reconnection to the land.  My friend Linda, Kaska language and culture teacher, and Elders we worked constantly emphasize the need to get people out on the land, to rebuild the skill set that nurtures self-sufficiency, spiritual balance and pride.  No easy task.  The world is changing quickly. iPads and smartphones and facebook are alluring.  

2012 project to document hide processing

Making moosehide is hard work.  Spending time on the land to learn skills is hard to square with school periods and parental consent forms.  Teaching appropriate reverence and respect for the land, the medicines, and the animals and plants that provide food is also a challenge. Fetal alcohol exposure lowers the capacity of many children to learn.

So the reconciliation and healing phase of truth and reconciliation is very wide ranging.  Not only must social relations be mended, understanding sought from the rest of the people who now occupy the country we call Canada, but knowledge of language, of stories which bring traditional wisdom, and connection to the land and its foods  and medicines must be re-established.  Only through all of these can we retreat from the brink of ethnocide and ecocide and walk toward health.

I wanted to share some images of positive approaches to repairing the loss of connection to land; these examples are from the Plants for Life Camp held by the community of Deline, NWT on the Great Bear River at Stick Creek, summer 2006.
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Elders and youth together picking blueberries on the land

Close up of blueberries, healthy food from the land

Pot of Medicine the Elders were cooking to show the youth how to make healing teas.

Hai Hai.  Meegwetch. Masi cho. Misiy co. Sugosinlá.
Thanks for listening.