Full recording from Day 1 of “Unfence the Future”, a virtual symposium dedicated to dismantling the colonial logics, practices, and protocols inscribed in institutions of federal law, conservation, and historic preservation. https://bit.ly/UnfenceTheFuture.
Day 2 video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdpN5Jss_Lw&t=29s
00:00 OPENING BLESSING, SONG, AND INTRODUCTION
* Kwaslmut Sadie Olsen (Lummi), Co-founder, Whiteswan Environmental
* Beka Economopoulos, Co-founder and Director, The Natural History Museum
23:06 DISCUSSION: CONSERVATION-BY-DISPOSSESSION
* Ashley Dawson – Professor of Postcolonial Studies, CUNY Graduate Center
* Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet/ Métis) – Ethnobotanist, author, and environmental historian
* Karl Jacoby – Professor of American History, Columbia University
1:41:35 FILM: THE SACRED REMAINS
• The Sacred Remains: Desecration & Res…
1:57:39 DISCUSSION: INDIGENIZING CONSERVATION
* Andrew Curley (Diné) – Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Arizona
* Melissa K. Nelson (Anishnaabe/Métis/Norwegian) – Ecologist and President of Cultural Conservancy
* Jim Enote (Zuni) – CEO, Colorado Plateau Foundation; Chair, Grand Canyon Trust
* Jon Eagle Sr. (Lakota) – Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
3:09:39 PREVIEW OF DAY 2
* Beka Economopoulos, Co-Founder and Director, The Natural History Museum
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UNFENCE THE FUTURE: TAKING DOWN FORTRESS CONSERVATION AND ITS ENDURING LEGACY
A two-day virtual symposium of panel discussions, poetry, films, and a call to action.
April 12 & 13, 2023
Fences create artificial borders between places and mediate the relations between them—what goes in, what comes out, and under what conditions. Without the lines that fences inscribe, there would be no place for border police. Nor could lands be parceled up, claimed as property to be possessed or plundered.
In the history of conservation, the logic of fencing was institutionalized in what critics call “fortress conservation,” a project of drawing boundaries between designated wilderness areas and their outsides, expelling perceived threats to ecological balance–from Indigenous Peoples, to predator species. In the process, habitats have been fragmented, and lifeworlds devastated.
While the science of fortress conservation has been widely discredited, we continue to live in its world. Where did this model come from? Where does it endure? How is it encoded in current laws, policies, and institutional practices—and more broadly, in our ways of seeing, understanding, and relating to the land? And what are activists, communities, and institutions doing to take it down?
Join community leaders, conservationists, legal scholars, geographers, historians, activists, and artists for a free online symposium dedicated to dismantling fortress conservation and its enduring legacy.
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A Red Natural History launch event, organized by The Natural History Museum and co-sponsored by Survival International and the Center for the Humanities at CUNY Graduate Center. With support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation.
* With music from “Theory of Ice” by Leanne Betasamasoke Simpson (Michi Saagig Nishnaabeg), http://leannesimpsonmusic.com
*Title inspired by the report “Unfencing the Future: Voices On How Indigenous and Non-Indigenous People and Organizations Can Work Together Toward Environmental and Conservation Goals”, by Hester Dillon (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma), https://4riversconsult.com (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
