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As one of The Natural History Museum’s inaugural Red Natural History Fellows, Diné geographer Andrew Curley is examining the contestation of water rights within the Colorado River basin. In this short video, Curley discusses the colonial structures that shape mainstream trends in environmental science, asking how academic research cultures and institutional practices contribute to the replication of settler-colonial relations in the United States.

Edited transcript of the full interview: https://bit.ly/colonialscape


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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
_______________________________________

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.

_________________
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)

Full recording from Day 2 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 1 video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDnCAZhpHcA&t=20s

DAY 2 AGENDA
00:00 OPENING POEM
* Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne/Muscogee) – Poet, Writer, Curator, Advocate, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

24:15 DISCUSSION: EXTERMINATING EXTRACTION
* Kai Bosworth – geographer, professor, and author of “Pipeline Populism: Grassroots Environmentalism in the 21st Century”
* Enei Begaye (Diné/Tohono O’odham) – Executive Director, Native Movement
* Julia Fay Bernal (Sandia Pueblo/Yuchi-Creek) – Executive Director, Pueblo Action Alliance
* Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr. (San Carlos Apache) – Founder, Apache Stronghold

1:27:58 INTERLUDE: MEDITATION THROUGH THE EYES OF THE SALMON
* Ruth Lchav’aya K’isen Miller (Dena’ina Athabaskan)

1:54:35 DISCUSSION: DEFENDING THE SACRED IN LAW AND POLICY
* Judith LeBlanc (Caddo) – Executive Director, Native Organizers Alliance
* Whitney Gravelle (Anishinaabe) – Chair of the Bay Mills Indian Community, Michigan
* Wesley James Furlong – Attorney, Native American Rights Fund, Alaska Office

3:00:38 FILM: FROM THE ANCESTORS TO THE GRANDCHILDREN
• From The Ancestors To The Grandchildren

3:06:51 SYMPOSIUM RECAP: PULLING THE THREADS TOGETHER
* Steve Lyons, Research Director, The Natural History Museum

3:12:10 DISCUSSION: UNFENCING THE FUTURE FOR THE STORMS TO COME
* Billy Fleming – Director, McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology
* Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) – Author of “As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock”
* Elizabeth Yeampierre – Executive Director, UPROSE and Co-chair, Climate Justice Alliance
* Rueben George (Tsleil-Waututh) – Sundance Chief and Manager, Sacred Trust Initiative

4:28:36 CONCLUDING REMARKS
* Beka Economopoulos, Director, The Natural History Museum

4:32:27 VIDEO POEM: I AM FROM MEDICINE PEOPLE
* Kusemaat Shirley Williams (Lummi), Co-founder, Whiteswan Environmental
_______________________________________

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.

_________________
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)

This panel brought together frontline communities, including Indigenous elders from the Pacific Northwest and environmental justice advocates from rural Appalachia and the Gulf South. Drawing on intergenerational knowledge and the lived experience of struggle, speakers shined a spotlight on the costs, public health impacts, and environmental damage caused by extractive and fossil fuel-based energy initiatives. They also addressed the power of people around the world to come together around truly clean energy solutions — solutions that contribute to the regeneration of the air, land, and water, and to the flourishing of communities that have been sacrifice zones for decades and longer.

Moderator * Beka Economopoulos, The Natural History Museum, Pacific Northwest

Speakers

* Rueben George, Sacred Trust Initiative, Tsleil-Waututh Nation

* Yvette Arellano, Fenceline Watch, Texas/Gulf Coast

* Germaine Patterson, Women for a Healthy Environment, Pittsburgh/Mon Valley, PA

* Heaven Sensky, Center for Coalfield Justice, Washington County, PA

* Gillian Graber, Protect PT, Westmoreland/Allegheny County, PA

Roundtable co-organized by @BreatheProject and @The Natural History Museum at @Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens Pittsburgh, PA Thursday, September 22, 2022

“We have a warrior right here from Lummi, Jewell James, who has been fighting for decades and decades and decades. He fought with my mother on the same side, and with my oldest sister. Jewell and I work together, so it’s this generational effort of protecting our sacred sites.”

This video interview was recorded during the first Alliance of Earth, Sky and Water Protectors Summit at the Lummi Nation Stommish Grounds, May 27-29, 2022.

Squil-le-he-le Raynell Morris is a mother, grandmother, and an enrolled Lummi tribal member. As Associate Director of Intergovernmental Affairs under President Clinton, Raynell was the first Native American staffer appointed to the White House, and has served as Chief of Staff for the Chairman of Lummi Nation. At Lummi Nation’s Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office, she was a key strategist in the successful campaign to block a proposal to build North America’s largest coal port on Lhaq’temish (Lummi) sacred ground.