Prior to contact with Euro-Americans, the Salish Sea was anything but a natural place. Rather, its coastscapes were profoundly anthropogenic, having been constructed, engineered and managed by Indigenous peoples over the Holocene. I first cover the archaeological record that supports this assertion, focusing on my research in the southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. Second, I consider the social dimensions to how landscape construction and resource management systems operated in the past.

Land education is a framework developed by Indigenous thinkers/activists to center Indigenous futures in the context of settler colonialism. In the context of education, land education is in conversation and critiques environmental education models, proposing that when we center land, waters, climate change in educational work, we acknowledge that we must center Indigenous self-determination in its fullest iteration. This talk will describe this genealogy as well as discuss the implications of land education for academic work.

DUE TO CAMPUS SNOW CLOSURE THIS TALK HAS BEEN CANCELED

                                            Photo by John Harper

In light of recent events this talk has been CANCELED.

(We hope to reschedule in the future)

Bringing Life Back to our Beaches: The Resurgence of Coast Salish Sea Garden Stewardship & Cultivation Practices

Join us for a Town-Hall style conversation with Representative Debra Lekanoff prior to the 2020 legislative session which begins January 13^th. Rep. Lekanoff will discuss environmental, resource and climate progress as well as ongoing goals and challenges for the Salish Sea and Washington State.

For Winter Quarter 2020 Huxley College is collaborating with the Salish Sea Institute for the Huxley Speaker Series, with a focus on the Salish Sea.

Stories are critical to understanding and responding to climate change. On the one hand, our collective imaginations are shaped by dominant, inherited narrative conventions; as public climate stories rely almost entirely on large-scale, apocalyptic tropes, many people are uncertain how to respond to them in their everyday lives. On the other hand, stories can help us make shared emotional and relational sense of the complexity of large-scale ecological and social transformations.

Forage fish are a vital conduit of energy from lower trophic consumers and producers to higher level consumers like salmon, seabirds, and marine mammals. Recognition of the key role forage fish play in the Salish Sea ecosystem and their importance to salmon recovery and Southern Resident Killer Whale survival has helped to reignite interest in the health of this critical group of species in Washington.

Indigenous Peoples of North America have always had to accommodate and respond to environmental change. Oral histories, recollections of contemporary elders, and terms in their numerous languages have allowed understandings of responses to change, most recently since the colonial era. Traditional knowledge systems incorporate adaptive capacity. Now, however, many people have noted signs of greater environmental change and challenges to their resilience than in the past: species declines and new appearances; anomalies in weather patterns; and declining health of forests and grasslands.

Ocean acidification (OA) threatens marine resources and coastal communities around the Salish Sea. These threats have spurred action to address the causes and consequences of OA. Intensified research and monitoring have advanced our understanding of ocean acidification and its effects on local marine life, public processes have led to legislation, and education and outreach have promoted understanding across diverse audiences.

Nearshore foundation habitats including seagrass meadows and kelp forests are faced with many stressors from climate change to local development and harvest pressures. Changing distribution and productivity of these habitats can have large effects on ecosystem services, such as climate change mitigation and local food security. Growing evidence suggests that the effects of habitat change are intimately linked across nearshore habitats, such that transformation of interconnected seascapes affects ecosystem functions such as carbon sequestration and nursery function.