Below are a few awesome resources I discovered while in this course:

Global Fishing Watch – This is an awesome website where you can actually track fishing vessels in real time. Found out about this website from Commander Tony Long:

Home

Oceanwise Food Labels: Came across this website in our tutorial for food labelling. It gives a great run over of what the Oceanwise and MSC standards are, and what the labels that we see everyday on our seafood actually mean!

Our Standards

Slave Labour in the Shrimp Industry: One of the most shocking things I learned in this course, is that the working conditions inside Thailand’s shrimp industry is shockingly bad. And the human rights – even worse. Slave labour and human trafficking is a problem with this industry. The article below details it very well

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jan/23/thai-seafood-industry-report-trafficking-rights-abuses

Indigenous Ally Toolkit: Dr. Andrea Reid suggested this toolkit as a way to approach indigenous issues as a non-indigenous ally.

http://reseaumtlnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Ally_March.pdf

I got a Twitter account for the first time with this class.. and I must say, I’m SO glad I got it. What a great way to interact with the science community. Below are some of my favourite tweets of mine:

My haiku

An interesting fact

My most retweeted!

One from our Steveston fieldtrip

An aha! moment for me in Dr. Sumalia’s lecture

For this policy brief, I was inspired by Sheila from the Tampa Bay Estuary Program. She mentioned that lawn chemicals are a huge source of pollution for the Tampa Bay Estuary, even more so than agriculture. Having green lawns is important to Americans, but lawn chemicals can also be detrimental to the surrounding waters.

I tried to make my policy brief eye catching and have a clear, simple message.

Topics that stood out to me

In the two-eyed seeing paper that we read this week and then discussed with Dr. Andrea Reid, the phrase “Incorporation is a euphemism for assimilation” really stood out to me. I’ve used this term myself with regards to indigenous knowledge, so it made me sit back and think about the words that I was using – yes they may have the right idea but were my words a representation of the bias that I hold? Recently in a lab meeting I suggested that incorporating indigenous perspectives into our work could be beneficial – and now I understand exactly what this paper is saying. I was trying to sprinkle dashes of indigeneity into “western” science instead of treating it as its own entity that has equal value.

I attended a seminar recently with Dr. Deborah McGregor, an environmentalist who works specifically with indigenous issues. She spoke in length about the difference between knowledge and knowledge systems, which I think is very applicable to recent conversations we’ve had. Indigenous knowledge are facts such as where to find ‘nuts and berries’, and how and when to fish etc. However, this indigenous knowledge isn’t separate from the community – it is embedded within their systems and the community functioning. Indigenous knowledge systems are supported by governance, laws, education, and other frameworks, and are essentially the foundation of the community. She also talked about how Indigenous people, like herself, fear that people care more about their knowledge than they do about indigenous peoples. Thus, this creates a tension between sharing their knowledge and the drive to protect themselves from getting used for their knowledge. So even thought they often want to share, they also need to protect their knowledge from exploitation.

For me this brings up an important point, WHY do we want to gain insight from indigenous communities? If it is for personal benefit– this can create further trauma to an already bruised relationship. It’s important to consider not just the knowledge, but the communities behind the wisdom and make sure that we are supporting them for the gifts that they give.

Another highlight from the session with Dr. Reid was the story that she told about the crow/hunter. I really enjoyed the strong message of this story, and how it was conveyed in such an accessible way. I think this also touches on the topic of indigenous styles of learning that we discussed with Dr. Reid. I learned that indigenous ways of teaching are often more holistic and personalized than the (often rigorous and standardized) practices that are usually used. This is a really important sentiment because it made me realize that people (and myself included) value western education/ways of knowledge as the gold standard, when in reality there are most definitely shortcomings. Valuing and listening to indigenous perspectives is not only important to the indigenous students who are educated here, but also is beneficial to all students regardless of their background.

Personal Musings

Something that resonated with me strongly was the idea of blood quantum and identity. In the TedX Talk, Rebecca Thomas talked her own struggles with identity, because her mom is non-native, but her dad is indigenous. She made it clear that indigeneity is not a matter of blood quantum, but also lived experiences, family relations and history. I relate to this because I am half- Punjabi and half-Caucasian. Because of the way I look, I get to move through the world with white privilege, I look ‘white’, speak English fluently and have no accent. However, I feel Indian, as my grandma makes curry, we celebrate Diwali and I have a multitude of Punjabi suits stored under my bed for extravagant Indian weddings. I’ve had people argue with me over my background, claiming that there is ‘no way’ that I could be Punjabi since I don’t look it and don’t speak the language. In a way, the talk that Thomas gave was strangely reassuring, because she was able to claim her identity as a white-passing person who doesn’t speak the language of her ancestors.

Future directions

Sometimes I feel as if approaching these topics can be challenging, and I’m worried that I’m not using the right terms or if the way in which I ask a question may come off as insensitive. I find myself adding a land acknowledgement at the beginning of presentations but questioning whether this may come off as ritualistic or tokenizing. At the end of the session Dr. Reid mentioned an “ally tool kit” which I am interested in reviewing and using in the future interactions. Additionally, I want to explore how indigenous perspectives are being honoured and used in the science that is going on at UBC, especially in the zoology department (which I take most of my classes in). Dr. Reid talked about the new Center for Indigenous Fisheries at UBC which I think is a great step. I also would like to explore further into how I can be touching on these topics in the research that I am doing currently, even though it is focusing on biochemical mechanisms. One strand that I can already think of is the that I do my work on mussels, and mussels have been cultivated and used my indigenous peoples on the BC coast for thousands of years.

One other thing that I would like to understand better are treaty rights. This was something that we discussed during the lecture on moderate livelihoods in the Canadian lobster fisheries with Dr. Megan Bailey. She talked about how a lot of the fishermen she talked with said “I respect the First Nations’ treaty rights but only if they exercise them during the commercial season”. She laughed and said, “The treaty right is that they CAN fish anytime they want to!”. This is something that I want to put more research into as it is evident that not understanding the rights of Indigenous people can lead to misinformed judgements. And additionally, we talked about how there are more treaties on the East Coast, compared to here on the West Coast. Because of this, I would also like to look into how indigenous people here interact with governments to assert their rights that may have not been formally laid out in a document.

I paused for a brief moment, taking in my surroundings. I moved my soggy backpack to the other shoulder and shifted my aching feet. With rosy cheeks I couldn’t help but grin in the presence of the rich British Columbian nature and my fellow classmates. I realized in this moment how grateful I was to be out in the field, amidst a pandemic that has kept me within the confines of my house for almost one year now. I was attending the Ocean Conservation UBC field trip, where we explored False Creek with oceanic experts and learned valuable information about a place I had no idea was so complex.

For me, the most memorable part of the field trip was talking to Fraser Macdonald, a sustainable fisherman based out of Vancouver. He was incredibly knowledgeable about fisheries and was able to break things down in a way that even I, someone who has virtually no prior knowledge in fishery management, could easily understand! I enjoyed hearing his experiences out on the water – how he’s out on his boat for months at a time and how his hooks often snag plastic bags in the ocean rather than fish. I’ve really only seen fishing practices from TV shows I’ve watched (one of my favourite’s was an Australian beach town show) and this was my first chance to see it in person. We’ve been learning lots about fisheries in class and hearing him talk helped concrete this information for me. Before this, I thought all you needed was a boat, a crew and gear and you were all set to start up a fishing company. I was blown away when Fraser told us the cost of a fishing license in BC (in the millions of dollars), and that you either need to have a fishing family, an investor or win the lottery to start one up! I loved learning from him about how 2.6 billion people worldwide rely on fish protein, and how he will be the first person in North America to offer fish vacuum sealed in compostable packaging (pretty awesome!). While he was talking to us on the dock, I saw two eagles, many Canadian geese, some squawking seagulls, and a friendly seal. Additionally, two volunteers from the stream keeper came and talked with us for a little while about herring spawn. This was really cool because then Mark talked a bit about how herring fisheries are a controversial topic in BC right now. Now, I am planning to go see if I can observe the herring spawn later this week!

Another interesting thing I learned today, was about how oil spills from small boats and industrial waste are a much bigger concern along the coast than large oil spills. This really stood out to me as I am used to seeing imagery of big oil spills with birds covered in grease, and although this is a huge problem, it can overshadow the more common and insidious threat of minor oil spills from smaller boats. And this makes sense to me, because seeing the sheer number of boats docked out in False Creek, if these boats aren’t properly maintained, this could add up quickly!

When we visited Habitat Island, I was thrilled to learn about the remediation efforts along False Creek. We talked with Mark Adams, the biologist who helped design the island. A lot of the things that Mark was saying, reminded me of my time on a city working group for coastline protection. My working group had a lot of perspectives: coastline engineers, ecologists, biologists, Parks staff, City staff, and citizens, all working on one project. It was great that everybody had their input, but it was also slow at times, and not a lot got done – but one thing that I learned from it was everyone had to compromise. Mark mentioned how he had to compromise a lot of the things that he wanted on Habitat Island, to align with what the parks board wanted. During the presentation he expressed dislike for specific features, like the large boulder path, that the city had installed. I found this interesting, because even a project as magnificent as this one, was not perfect. This is something that I will take with me in my career, because making big changes will inevitably take compromise.

Today’s field trip made me hopeful for my future career. I often find myself stressing about what I can do after my biology degree, and usually hear people only talking about academia or medicine. Hearing about Mark and Fraser’s careers made me realize that not every career path in science is totally linear, and that there are way more possibilities than I previously thought! I would love for someday to design something like Habitat Island or do any type of habitat remediation!

And the last thing that I enjoyed about this field trip was seeing my classmates and instructors in person! I was anxious about it at first, since I haven’t had a ton of in-person social interaction lately, but this was such a great opportunity to make connections with everybody!  When I told my friends, I was going on a field trip, they were super jealous, because this is such a rare opportunity in classes right now. For a lot of my classes I feel less attached to them, compared to when they were in person, but this class I feel super invested in and look forward to every lecture.

Some questions I would love to explore further:

• How is the MSC certification beneficial to small fisheries? (prestige? more profit? Etc)
• Fraser mentioned how stringent the certifications are to get MSC certified. Does this dissuade some fisheries from making small improvements towards sustainability, since either way their fishery would still not meet the stringent guidelines of MSC?
• How do policies need to change so that we can better upkeep places like Habitat Island, instead of forgetting about it after 5 years or so?