Inclusive Stewardship of Ecocultural Landscapes Under Cumulative Stressors

Ecocultural landscapes are dynamic ecosystems that have been shaped by active human stewardship over millennia. The Salish Sea region of coastal British Columbia is one such ecocultural landscape, stewarded by multiple Coast Salish First Nations since time immemorial, who cared for these food gardens through regular, low intensity cultural burns to enhance root and berry harvest, hunting of deer and propagation of culturally important plants. The stealing of lands from Coast Salish Peoples by European colonizers resulted in the exclusion of Indigenous people from their traditional lands and practices, as well as the accumulation of multiple cumulative and interactive stressors (land conversion, fire suppression, hyperabundant deer, etc.), impacting the relationship between the lands and the Peoples who maintained them. The restoration of Indigenous and community-based stewardship is needed to recover and steward these highly biodiverse, ecocultural landscapes in the face of numerous stressors. More than decolonizing our conservation approach, management must incorporate and centre the values and ways of knowing of the Indigenous communities who have been the stewards of these landscapes since time immemorial. In this talk, Sofie will discuss the work the Conservation Decisions Lab at UBC is doing to evaluate the impact of interactive and cumulative human stressors in the Salish Sea in order to inform and prioritize effective and inclusive stewardship of these ecocultural landscapes that recognizes the relationships with which these places evolved.

Sofie McComb (she/her/hers) is a PhD Student (Vanier CGS) in Dr. Tara Martin’s Conservation Decisions Lab in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences at UBC. She is working on evaluating the impact of interactive and cumulative human stressors on ecoculturally significant landscapes in the Salish Sea of BC to inform inclusive, socially-just, and effective stewardship.

Each week, the Green College Resident Members’ Series features a different presenter (or presenters) from among the Resident Members of Green College. Graduate students, Postdoctoral and Visiting Scholars offer talks and events on their areas of research or study and, as appropriate, bring in their research colleagues from outside the College. 

Series Conveners: Michael Carelse, Library and Information Studies; Michelle Kamigaki-Baron, Linguistics; and Ricky, Physics and Astronomy