As someone living on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) People, I feel obligated to – at the bare minimum – educate myself on not only their plights, but on environmental racism as a whole. Recently we had two enlightening, albeit saddening discussions on Indigenous Rights and Indigenous Knowledge with relation to fisheries from Dr. Andrea Reed and Dr. Megan Bailey.

During the discussion with Dr. Andrea Reed, I had noted that a challenge to the larger-scale implementation of the “two-eyed seeing” approach was public backlash towards its use due to thinking of some who might not want another culture they see as “interfering” with their own to influence the way they fish or the way policies are formed by the government. This led to my question: how much are you noticing this as an issue and do you have any plans on overcoming this obstacle? It was very interesting to hear her response to this when she said she has not noticed much pushback from the communities when implementing this way of seeing. Coming from the United States I am constantly hearing and reading about the rampant racism present along with extreme bigotry. Her answer actually surprised me because I would have thought this would be much more present. It was then interesting to hear from Dr. Megan Bailey the other day because she contrasted this sentiment with her finding that there was significant backlash to Moderate Livelihoods. Though this backlash is much in part of the economics of the situation, that the indigenous people can fish for lobster before the settlers, I imagine part of this is indeed derived from racism and cultural disparities. Given this, I plan on exploring this conversation more to learn about the current sentiments towards applying the two-eyed seeing method as well as the potential presence of the aforementioned paradigm shift. 

I was (unfortunately) not entirely shocked, yet still very upset, when Megan told us that the rights given to indigenous peoples oftentimes need to be recognized legally in court. You rarely ever see this happening to settlers, specifically white male settlers. I think that the fact that indigenous rights still need to be recognized in court and are not inherent like Canada seemingly pledged is truly astonishing and shows that a very backwards way of thinking persists. When hearing this, in my mind I drew parallels to the issue of environmental racism and the idea of “out of sight out of mind.” Recently I watched a documentary by Elliot Page called “There’s Something in the Water,” which touched on the issue of environmental racism in Nova Scotia. I shed a few tears during the documentary so if you have not seen it yet I highly recommend watching it. One particular community he visited was an indigenous community suffering from the detrimental effects of a pulp and paper mill, which was poisoning their ancestral fishing bay and killing off their fish. In their fight to relocate the pulp and paper mill, they had to fight legal battles in court and systems put in place by the government to protect industries, even at the expense of human health. Because this community was not an affluent community, they held very little power.

This conversation made me think more broadly about conservation and environmentalism as a movement and the politics and institutional frameworks behind it. It reminded me of something that I learned in one of my other classes which looked at conservation and environmentalism through a social justice lens and an intersectional environmentalism lens. In an article by Patterson et al., they mention that a social justice lens to environmentalism focuses on 1) protecting the vulnerable, 2) safeguarding people against disruptions during the transformation process, and 3) instating an equitable sustainable society (Patterson et al., 2018). Social justice and environmentalism are so intertwined that it is difficult to address one without the other. The way I see it is that for environmental and social justice to be operationalized within our current system, strong leadership that is willing to fight for change is a necessity, which is where I think that we currently are falling short. What I have noticed in many nations (especially Canada) is that great disparities exist between a country’s or government’s commitments and their actions, where they have made a public pledge to reform the current system, yet little is actually done. I think for the environmental justice approach to actually work beyond simply a pledge, the leadership must follow through with their words, whether this be through a systemic change enacted on them or through public pressures, with the latter being more likely in my opinion. Another issue facing the implementation of the environmental justice approach that I think may both aid and impede its ability to overcome political barriers is the mindset of the constituents. On the one hand, we are seeing increasing awareness and vocalization of the injustice and inequalities under the current conditions and a potential paradigm shift; however, on the other hand, we are also seeing the increasing polarization of beliefs and values, which may threaten to counteract the progress made. 

These talks reinforced that this issue is extremely important and pertinent. Admittedly, other than a few documentaries and docushorts, I am not overly familiar with the topic of Indigenous rights or really environmental racism in all, but I have been trying to make a conscious effort now to read up on what is happening in the world and even my own backyard. Though we might not be able to cover this topic in our class, I would love to further explore environmental racism as a whole as well as ways to combat it. This includes the “out of sight out of mind” issue where we are taking our trash and dumping it in a developing country which then must suffer the consequences of our actions. I would also like to look at these concepts (two-eyed seeing and bottom-up approach) from a political lens and analyze their potential for implementation into policies. 

References:

Patterson, JJ., Thaler, T., Hoffmann, M., Hughes, S., Oels, A., Chu, E., Mert, A., Huitema, D., Burch, S., & Jordan, A. Political feasibility of 1.5°C societal transformations: the role of social justice (2018). Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 31: 1 – 9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.11.002 

Follow