Forests & Oceans for the Future Discussion and News

I spent two months during the summer of 2005 in Kitkatla, conducting interviews on diet change and diabetes, and also on climate change. I was very fortunate to be able to conduct fieldwork under the auspices of Forests and Oceans for the Future, an opportunity not often afforded Masters students. This is a beautiful time of year to be on the North Coast, and I was blessed with many sunny days. I was also blessed to be working with Sam Lewis of Kitkatla; he helped me set up and conduct interviews and did all the translation from Smalgyax into English for the interviews we conducted together. Sam Lewis and Ernie Bolton were also invaluable in helping me interpret our results, and letting me know when I had put my foot in my mouth! Thanks are also due to their families and all the people of Kitkatla for their unwavering generosity and good humour at my curiosity.

My final Fieldwork Report is available in PDF.

Seminar 3: Dr. Ian Davidson-Hunt. (U. Manitoba) “Mobilizing knowledge for community-based resource management”

Wednesday, March 22. 7:30 – 9:00 pm, Room 205 AnSo Building (6303 NW Marine Drive. Parking available in the Rose Garden Parkade
ABSTRACT: The knowledge held by local communities has often been seen as an input for others to generate solutions for poverty reduction and biodiversity conservation. However, communities are increasingly asserting that their knowledge is the substrate out of which solutions can emerge. This is consistent with an approach to community-based planning that begins from Friedman’s assertion that planning is the art of turning knowledge into action. Many community-based resource management initiatives begin with a process that brings people from within the community together to document what they know about their place. This information may be shared orally or as in many cases it is recorded through community mapping projects. Such community inventories allow people to recognize and affirm the things they would like to conserve as well as identify new opportunities that they might pursue. While local knowledge and community-based planning are the core of these initiatives many have also partnered with external technical and/or research organizations to provide them with access to new information that they can consider as they pursue their initiatives. This presentation will draw upon community-based resource management initiatives that have been undertaken through the Equator Initiative and with the Whitefeather Forest Initiative.

Past talks can be found on line in podcast and video formats.
Podcast subscription: http://www.ecoknow.ca/podcasts/rss.xml

Felice Wyndham spoke about the role of children’s learning in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico in the context of changes in the human ecology of the region. This talk is now avaiable in the Forests and Oceans for the Future Podcast series or as a direct mp3 format download. To down load the mp3 click on Felice’s picture. To subscribe to the complete speakers’ series add the link below into your podcast software. A streamed video version of the talk is also available. The video link can be found in the sidebar “Forests and Oceans Streamed Videos” or click here to start the video immediately.

http://www.ecoknow.ca/podcasts/rss.xml