Research Guides: Indigenous Ecostudies: Indigenous ecology

traditional ecological knowledge (TEK)

Traditional Ecological Knowledge Maija Glasier-Lawson (2013) 27:37

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) promotes an indigenous approach to environmental stewardship. Our world faces unprecedented ecological challenges. Collaborating with local peoples is a crucial step toward a more sustainable future.

Indigenous ecology: people, organizations, trends

Indigenous ecology lab Ecology, ecological restoration, invasive species, invasion biology, microbial ecology, plant-soil interactions, seed ecophysiology, Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous food security and food sovereignty, natural resource management policy and decision-making.
Introducing ECCC’s new Director of Indigenous Science Standing up this permanent division at ECCC is part of Canada’s commitment to reconciliation and follows the call to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada that Indigenous ways of knowing be included in both government and academia. “Having Dr. Ballard with us goes beyond simply meeting the Government of Canada’s reconciliation mandate: Indigenous Peoples are our natural partners on the environment. They have a lot of knowledge to bring to our science and research activities as we work together on environmental and wildlife protection, conservation and climate change,” says Marc D’Iorio, Assistant Deputy Minister of the Science and Technology Branch. Ballard, an assistant professor in the faculty of science at the University of Manitoba, is Anishinaabe from Lake St. Martin First Nation. Some of her own research looks at what Indigenous languages reveal about local ecosystems. She said her own first language, Anishinaabemowin, has a scientific management tool embedded within it.
Indigenous science Indigenous science is a distinct, time-tested, and methodological knowledge system that can enhance and complement western science. Indigenous science is about the knowledge of the environment and knowledge of the ecosystem that Indigenous Peoples have. It is the knowledge of survival since time immemorial and includes multiple systems of knowledge(s) such as the knowledge of plants, the weather, animal behavior and patterns, birds, and water among others.
Robin Wall Kimmerer Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.
Center for Native Peoples and the Environment The Center for Native Peoples and the Environment is committed to partnering with Native American communities to develop environmental and educational programs of shared interest, guided by community priorities.

Gregory Cajete: An Indigenous Ecology

2009 51min Closed captions available

Interview with Gregory Cajete, a Native American educator whose work is dedicated to honoring the foundations of indigenous knowledge in education. Cajete is a Tewa Indian from the pueblos of New Mexico who has spent his life striving to harmonize indigenous ways of learning and knowing with western science and scholarship so that each tradition can be enriched by the other.

Where western scholarship tends to isolate things in order to understand them rationally, native thinking perceives objects and events holistically and spiritually in terms of their relationships with their surroundings. For Cajete, the two ways of knowing are complementary. Together they offer a depth of understanding that neither can provide on its own. A depth of understanding that we desperately need as we confront a crisis brought on perhaps by an explosion of knowledge and a shortage of wisdom. Cajete is one of the foremost scholars in the field of sociocultural studies as it relates to Indian education and curriculum and native science. He has long been a well-known figure in Indian education circles and has become a popular speaker in the mainstream science and education academy conference circuit. As disciplines such as ecological and environmental studies have broadened to indigenous knowledge and pedagogy, Cajete and his work have gained mainstream attention.

Indigenous knowledge and data sovereignty

Support for Indigenous knowledge and data sovereignty

Local Contexts from Local Contexts on Vimeo.

ENRICH: Equity for Indigenous Research and Innovation Coordinating Hub ENRICH supports the development of Indigenous based protocols, Indigenous centered standard setting mechanisms, and machine-focused technology that inform policy, transform institutional and research practices, and reform relationships between Indigenous communities and wider society. ENRICH integrates four disciplines – Indigenous Rights, Law, Policy, and Data Science.
Local Contexts Local Contexts supports Indigenous communities to manage their intellectual and cultural property, cultural heritage, environmental data and genetic resources within digital environments. Local Contexts recognizes the inherent sovereignty that Indigenous communities have over knowledge and data that comes from their lands, territories, and waters.