Working Together to Enhance Ecosystem Sustainability: A Syilx-Settler Science Collaboration

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and renewed pressures on nation-to-nation treaties have created opportunities to transform Indigenous-Settler relationships across Canada. UBC has a memorandum of understanding with the Okanagan Nation Alliance and a memorandum of agreement with the En’owkin Centre, both supporting the co-production of ecological knowledge through a respectful partnership between Syilx knowledge holders and western scientists. Drs. Armstrong and Parrott will discuss their shared experiences in leading the development of a Silyx/UBC research cluster in ecosystem sustainability and resilience. Through this work, a process is emerging that may serve as an innovative, international model of respectful research-based collaboration between Indigenous and academic communities.

Jeannette Armstrong is Syilx Okanagan, a fluent speaker and teacher of the Nsyilxcn Okanagan language and a traditional knowledge keeper of the Okanagan Nation. She is a founder of En’owkin, the Okanagan Nsyilxcn language and knowledge institution of higher learning of the Syilx Okanagan Nation. She currently is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Okanagan Philosophy at UBC’s Okanagan campus. She has a PhD in Environmental Ethics and Syilx Indigenous Literatures. She is the recipient of the Eco Trust Buffett Award for Indigenous Leadership and in 2016 the BC George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award. She is an author whose published works include poetry, prose and children’s literary titles and academic writing on a wide variety of Indigenous issues. She currently serves on Canada’s Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

Lael Parrott is a professor in Sustainability at the I.K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences and Director of the Okanagan Institute for Biodiversity, Resilience and Ecosystem Services (BRAES) at UBC’s Okanagan campus. Dr. Parrott leads an internationally recognized research program in modelling and characterising contemporary regional landscapes and ecosystems as complex human-environment systems. She promotes a holistic, complex systems vision of managing land and water resources at the landscape scale. She has extensive experience in leading multipartite groups to share this vision to find sustainable management solutions that reconcile ecological, societal and economic objectives. Dr. Parrott grew up in Vancouver, BC and maintains a close connection to BC’s landscapes. She is currently Vice-President for Access and Environment on the National Board of Directors of the Alpine Club of Canada. She divides her time between work, family and the mountains.