ID: 2045
Presenting Author: Myrle Ballard
Session: 749 - Engaging Indigenous Nations for Inclusive Impact Assessments and Misinformation Response
Status: pending
Why use Indigenous language and Indigenous science in social and environmental impact assessments?
This talk explores a critical lens of the effects on Indigenous communities when Indigenous science is not used in impact assessments. It offers a critique of how remiss western science is when it fails to acknowledge Indigenous science when conducting assessments on Indigenous people and communities. This talk will draw upon two case studies: 1) Lake St. Martin First Nation, Canada; and 2) a Kichwa community, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, by comparing and contrasting how the two Indigenous communities in North and South America were affected/displaced when there was a lack of pre and post impact assessments. The presentation will reinforce the need to implement effective Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) procedures that go beyond minimal legal obligations and that adequately consider project areas of influence, based on Indigenous cosmologies and knowledge systems. Such an approach strengthens Indigenous self-determination in decision-making over lands, waters, and futures. This talk will also explore how we can learn the importance of Indigenous Science and Indigenous languages when conducting social and environmental impact assessments. Indigenous language of spaces and places play a significant role in determining the original state of the ecosystem prior to any development. However, Indigenous languages can also be misused for the benefit of the proponents to “naturalise” their presence in the territory.
Canada Research Chair / Associate Professor at the University of Calgary. Her research explores Three-eyed seeing and monitoring biodiversity using Anishinaabe mowin baseline indicators.
Coauthor 1: Alberto Diantini