Case Study

The Mariana Islands

Led by Tiara Na’puti (PA/Case Lead)

Old-growth red cedar, the tree of life for Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw and many other Indigenous Nations, is endangered on Vancouver Island from both industrial clearcutting practices and climate change. Cedar, a source of medicine, shelter, clothing, transportation, art, and more is culturally ubiquitous and a key species in determining the health of the land, water, other-than human persons, and humans. The permanent loss of Cedar would irreparably damage our ways of life. This Case will work with the Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw, Coast Salish, and Nuu-chah-nulth Nations to plant western red cedar seedlings, design totems in digital 3D, and make commitments to carve and raise poles when the trees are mature in about 600 years. While 600 years is longer than anyone today will live to see, how can we align our governance, operations, and legal structures today to ensure the fulfillment of this promise in the futures? This Case brings together art, land-use governance, and Indigenous Planetary Health to inspire creative, transformational solutions that address the causes rather than the symptoms of biodiversity loss and negative health indicators.

 
In Year 1, with guidance from the highest-ranking Hereditary Chief, David Mungo Knox (see Letter of Support [LoS]), of the walas ‘Namugwis (Newman’s Nation) and others, we will identify locations for planting trees, and design and establish generational agreements for relationships with and stewardship of land. In Year 2, we will work with youth in each community to begin to harvest seeds and plant them. Youth will also contribute to conceptualizing digital 3D totems. In Year 3, we will expand the scope of this Case to include other culturally significant relatives whose futures are also tied to the red cedar seedlings (e.g., salmon, salmonberries, herring), and host the third annual Gathering. We will use storytelling and film to document the transformation of consciousness of participants. This type of Indigenous-led resurgence acts to both expand human thought beyond our own lifetimes and establish a different set of metrics and perspectives (each related to Indigenous Ways of Knowing and being) that have the potential to reverse our current course. This Case also demands alternative governance frameworks such as a rethinking of legal designations for land, and a return to intergenerational transmission of responsibilities so that the promise and care of the red cedar is maintained for 600 years.

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Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark

Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark is a Turtle Mountain Anishinaabekwe and an associate professor in the School of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria. She is the director of the Centre for Indigenous Research and Community-Led Engagement (CIRCLE). She has a PhD in American studies from the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include Indigenous law and governance, Treaty rights and Indigenous politics in the United States and Canada. Focused on both Anishinaabe and US/CA law, her recent work explores the criminalization of Indigenous sovereignty, conditions of consent, and gendered violence.

Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles

Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles is a Black/Ojibwe/settler citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe; their research interests include Indigenous epistemologies, political ecology, and tribal cultural resource protection.

Co-Director

Heather Castleden

Heather Castleden is a white researcher, with English and Scottish ancestry. Trained as a geographer, she brings leadership expertise in community-led, participatory research and works in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples on their priority research issues. Her research group (HEC Lab) is committed to work that intersects with places, peoples, power, and justice using creative, participatory, and decolonizing approaches. She is a Professor at the University of Victoria where she holds the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health.

Co-Director

Heather Castleden

Heather Castleden is a white researcher, with English and Scottish ancestry. Trained as a geographer, she brings leadership expertise in community-led, participatory research and works in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples on their priority research issues. Her research group (HEC Lab) is committed to work that intersects with places, peoples, power, and justice using creative, participatory, and decolonizing approaches. She is a Professor at the University of Victoria where she holds the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health.

Co-Director

Hōkūlani Aikau

Hōkūlani Aikau is a Kanaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian) interdisciplinary scholar, a Professor, and Director of the School of Indigenous Governance. She brings leadership expertise and interdisciplinary training in Indigenous Politics, Native Hawaiian Politics, and Pacific Islands Studies. Her research focus is contemporary Native Hawaiian identity, Indigenous resurgence and climate change in the Pacific, Indigenous environmental justice, Native Feminist Theory, and food sovereignty.

Tiara Naputi

Tiara Na’puti is Chamorro from Guåhan/Guam. She is an Associate Professor in Global and International Studies (University of California-Irvine). Her scholarship and community work addresses militarism, colonialism, Indigenous culture, and movements in the Mariana Islands archipelago and throughout Oceania. Her current focus is on climate change as an urgent challenge brought about by colonial and military politics, and Indigenous-led struggles to protect water and land from militarization and extractive industries.

Carey Newman

Carey Newman (Hayalthkin’geme) is Kwakwaka’wakw from the Kukwekum, Giiksam, and WaWalaby’ie clans, and Coast Salish from Cheam of the Stó:lō Nation. He is a multidisciplinary Indigenous artist, master carver, filmmaker, and author. He focuses on the impacts of colonialism and capitalism, harnessing the power of material truth to unearth memory and trigger the necessary emotion to drive positive change. He holds the Impact Chair in Indigenous Art Practices at UVic.

Naatoi'Ihkpiakii Melissa Quesnelle

Naatoi’Ihkpiakii Melissa Quesnelle is a citizen of Kainai Nation, an Aohkimiiksi and a practitioner of Nitsitapiisinni.

 

Much of her work is grounded in land-based community engagement, social and collaborative enterprise, and concepts of health and wellbeing within the Blackfoot knowledge system. Working with other community artists, she will curate an installation to accompany the Inni Rematriation exhibit and chair the local committee to host the first Gathering at the 10th Anniversary of the Buffalo Treaty.

Lisa Te Heuheu

Lisa te Heuheu is Māori with expertise in environment and sustainable development, Iwi planning, policy, research and governance, as well as Māori natural resource management. She is currently the Chief Executive of Te Ohu Kaimoana (advancing Māori interests in the marine environment, including customary fisheries) and formerly the Chair of Te Wai Māori Trust (protecting habitat to ensure healthy Māori relationships to freshwater fisheries).

Tatiana Degai

Tatiana Degai is an Itelmen scholar from Kamchatka peninsula; her research focuses on Indigenous knowledge systems, revitalization and stabilization of Indigenous languages, and Indigenous visions on sustainability and wellbeing in the Arctic.

Ḥapinyuuk, Tommy Happynook

Ḥapinyuuk, Tommy Happynook is a Nuu-chah-nulth scholar whose research focuses on reconnecting, revitalizing, and restoring reciprocal relationships in his Nation’s traditional territory.

Dawn Smith

Dawn Smith is a Nuuchah-nulth scholar in Indigenous Governance and former Elected Chief for Ehatteshat First Nation. Her expertise in public sector management, educational leadership, and policy has shaped her research focus on Nuu-chah-nulth self-determination, decolonization, strict laws of nature and medicines, and futurities.

Nicole Redvers

Nicole Redvers is a member of the Deninu K’ue First Nation, holds a Research Chair at Western University, and is the Director of Indigenous Planetary Health. A global leader in this field, she has published extensively, and convened the first global group on the determinants of Indigenous Planetary Health.

Mary Tuti Baker

Mary Tuti Baker is a Kanaka Maoli scholar whose research focuses on anarchist, land-based governance structures in Hawaiʻi.

IAC Chair

Simon Brascoupé

Simon Brascoupé (IAC Chair) is Bear Clan and a Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg artist and academic. Among his many leadership roles, he has served as Chair of the IIPH Advisory Board and former director of the National Aboriginal Health Organization; he also brings expertise in Indigenous KT.

Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel

Dr. Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel is a writer, teacher and father from the Cherokee Nation and a member of the Echota ceremonial grounds in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Jeff is an Indigenous Studies Professor and his research and teaching interests focus on sustainable self-determination, “Everyday Acts of Resurgence” and the intersections between Indigenous-led resurgence, climate change, gender, and community well-being. He is currently completing work for his forthcoming book on Sustainable Self-Determination, which examines Indigenous climate justice, food security, and gender-based resurgence.

Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua

Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua is a Kanaka ‘Ōiwi academic and Trustee of the Kamehameha Schools committed to aloha ʻāina. Her research, teaching, and activism focus on Hawaiian social movements and Indigenous resurgence.

Dan Hikuroa

Dan Hikuroa is a Māori Associate Professor, Te Wānanga o Waipapa, Māori Studies (U.Auckland), with expertise in the areas of Mātauranga Māori, climate change, natural hazards, and rivers. Dan uses Kaupapa Māori methods in his work with Māori communities.

Heather Igloliorte

Heather Igloliorte is an Inuk from Nunatsiavut who holds the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Transformational and Decolonial Indigenous Art Practices at UVic; her research centres on Indigenous resurgence, community collaboration, and decolonizing institutional practices across the arts.

Melina Laboucan-Massimo

Melina Laboucan-Massimo is Lubicon Cree and the Co-Founder of Indigenous Climate Action. She hosts a docu-series, “Power to the People,” which profiles renewable energy in Indigenous communities.

Kelsey Leonard

Dr. Kelsey Leonard holds a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Waters, Climate and Sustainability and is an Assistant Professor in the School of Environment, Resources, and Sustainability in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo, where her research focuses on Indigenous water justice and its climatic, territorial, and governance underpinnings. As a water scientist and legal scholar, Dr. Leonard seeks to establish Indigenous traditions of water conservation as the foundation for international water policymaking. She represents the Shinnecock Indian Nation on the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Planning Committee, which is charged with protecting America’s ocean ecosystems and coastlines. She also serves as a member of the Great Lakes Water Quality Board of the International Joint Commission. She is an enrolled citizen of Shinnecock Indian Nation.

Helen Moewaka- Barnes

Helen Moewaka-Barnes is Māori of Te Kapotai and Ngapuhi-nui-tonu descent and the Director of Whāriki and Codirector of the SHORE and Whariki Research Centre (NZ). She has worked on research concerning relationships between healthy lands and healthy peoples.

Melissa Nelson

Melissa K. Nelson is a Turtle Mountain Anishinaabe ecologist and professor of Indigenous Sustainability at Arizona State University. She is an award-winning scholar activist dedicated to Indigenous rights and sustainability, environmental justice, intercultural solidarity, and the renewal of community health and cultural arts.