Land-based or place-based education is probably a well-known pedagogical framework for folks working in Indigenous education. For our guest this week, Dr. Maya Saffery, a Kanaka ʻŌiwi cultural practitioner, educator, and scholar, place-based education was initially inspiring and exciting. Her enthusiasm for this pedagogical approach shifted as her educational experiences expanded, and she came to realize the limits of place-based education for supporting and sustaining Kanaka ʻŌiwi self–determination. In this week’s episode, Maya and Hoku speak about the ʻĀina Education Framework she developed for her PhD research at University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa. She shares how her framework is being implemented by Kauluakalana, a community-led, non-profit working to restore and foster the relationship between Kānaka (people) and ʻāina (the land that feeds), through the restoration of fishponds, taro fields, and caretaking sacred sites. Maya is currently writing a book to share her ʻĀina Education Framework with others so that it can inspire other communities to discover their own curricula and pedagogies embedded within their unique cultures and knowledges.  

This podcast is created by the Archipelagos of Indigenous-led Resurgence for Planetary Health research collective. You can find out more about our research on our website: https://indigenousplanetaryhealth.ca/. We receive funding for this podcast from the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria and from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. We receive production support from Cited Media.  

As academic institutions in the United States experience a dramatic defunding of research related to decolonization, in Canada and Australia, these efforts are ongoing and accelerating. Given the larger political climate, these efforts are important and should be celebrated. However, as our guest this week notes, far too often the labor of decolonizing research and academic institutions disproportionately falls on the shoulders of Indigenous people. This week, Hoku speaks with Zena Cumpston, a Barkandji storyteller, artist, and researcher from Australia about the cultural burden Indigenous people carry when engaging in decolonizing work and they discuss the limitations, extractive practices, and colonial expectations of academia. While Zena’s experiences identify systemic issues in higher education, she is not content to name the problem. Rather, she seeks out opportunities to elevate Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous stories of Country through art. When they met for this interview Zena was on Treaty 7 territory at an artist residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity where she is furthering her art practice alongside other artists from First Nations. Zena shares how breaking into the art world has allowed her to “democratize” her research in a way that is more empowering and reflexive of her community. As she explains, her experiences as a curator for the exhibition Emu Sky and her work as an artist and researcher for the exhibition Ngaratya are examples of how we can use art to mobilize Indigenous knowledge and make it widely accessible. Zena’s love for the land inspires her art and curatorial practices. We hope you enjoy this conversation about the audacity of Indigenous art and artists.  

This podcast is created by the Archipelagos of Indigenous-led Resurgence for Planetary Health research collective. You can find out more about our research on our website: https://indigenousplanetaryhealth.ca/. We receive funding for this podcast from the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria and from the  Canadian Institutes of Health Research. We receive production support from Cited Media.  

This powerful episode explores art as a practice of resistance, healing, and connection across lands and lineages. Guest hosts Kathryn Stone and Brenda Jimenez are joined by guests Smokii Sumac, a Ktunaxa Two-Spirit poet, artist, storyteller, and playwright, and Zaynab Mohammed, a storyteller, poet, playwright and artist of Lebanese, Iraqi, and Palestinian ancestry. This episode explores how colonial violence extends beyond people to target land, plants, and ancestral knowledge. In this episode, they discuss the political, cultural, and symbolic significance of olive trees in Palestine and their cultivation as a form of Indigenous resistance, survival, and storytelling. For both Smokii and Zaynab, art plays a key role in Indigenous-led resurgence and Indigenous planetary health movements. They share how they honor their ancestral teachings in a mural they created together called Our Grandmothers’ Garden. Smokii discusses their journey in finding meaningful ways to stand in solidarity with Palestine while living on Turtle Island. Zaynab offers reflections from her time in Lebanon to illustrate a beautiful portrait of her family’s relationship with the land there. Stay tuned until the end for a special surprise from Smokii and Zaynab!  

Smokii Sumac and Zaynab Mohammed will be on a BC book tour throughout the month of October. They will be reading and discussing their books Born Sacred: Poems for Palestine and Are you Listening? Weaving a Tapestry From Pain into Beauty.   

This podcast is created by the Archipelagos of Indigenous-led Resurgence for Planetary Health research collective. You can find out more about our research on our website: https://indigenousplanetaryhealth.ca/. We receive funding for this podcast from the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria and from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. We receive production support from Cited Media. 

In this episode, Heather sits down with Reneltta Arluk, a performing arts artist and Indigenous arts advocate and leader. We get to hear beautiful stories from Reneltta of growing up on the trapline in the Northwest Territories and how this allowed for her creativity and imagination to flourish. Realizing that the stories she’d grown up around can last generations, Reneltta created Akpik Theatre, a place to foster and grow Northern Indigenous stories. Her performing arts practice invites us, as listeners, into the importance of recognizing specific protocols embedded in Indigenous stories, lands, and relationships to community and place. In other words, stories must be held properly, and there can be no storytelling of a place without relationship to place.   

Reneltta Arluk, D.Litt., is Inuvialuk, Gwich’in and Denesuline, Cree from the Northwest Territories. Akpik Theatre is a northern focused Indigenous theatre company that adheres to its namesake, the cloudberry, striving to flourish in the northern climate it reflects. Reneltta recently received an honorary doctorate from University of Alberta for her continual contributions to the decolonization of cultural institutions that has led to a fundamental shift in indigenous settler relations. 

This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production support from Cited Media. We receive additional support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research You can find us at https://indigenousplanetaryhealth.ca/ 

Join Hōkū in this episode as she sits down with Léuli Eshrāghi, Curator of Indigenous Practices at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. For Léuli, this role goes beyond curating Indigenous art; the shift to practice is a form of enacting relationality with and respect for lands, peoples, and communities. Parts of Léuli’s work, such as correcting records, labels, racist tropes, and interpretations of acquired Indigenous art, might not make headlines but are deeply important to ensuring the museum is responsive to Indigenous nations and their vision for their futures. Hōkū and Lēul’s conversation digs into the politics of Indigenous curation, the importance of ceremony in this work, and the role of Indigenous language in Léuli’s art practice and work as a curator.   

Léuli Eshrāghi belongs to the Sāmoan clans Seumanutafa and Tautua, and the Persian diaspora, and lives and works in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Their practice prioritizes Indigenous, Black and Asian art and design, sensual and spoken languages, and ceremonial-political practices. On their website, you can find more information about their artistic contributions and writing, including the book Hōkū mentioned in this episode, Indigenous Aesthetics and Knowledges for the Great Ocean Renaissance. 

This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production support from Cited Media. We receive additional support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research You can find us at https://indigenousplanetaryhealth.ca/ 

We are back from our summer break! Before we get started, stop! Take a deep breath in … and … out. Pause. Where is the sun in the territory you’re on now? Where is the moon? Observe and connect. In this episode, Heather is joined by Wet’suwet’en PhD candidate Sandra Martin Harris, who urges us to slow down, check in with the land, and connect with our bodies regularly for health and wellbeing. We also hear about Sandra’s involvement with The Planetary Health Learning Garden, a place of connection. It is a collaboration between the Public Health Association of British Columbia, the University of Northern British Columbia, and the Rural and Remote Doctors of British Columbia, to foster land-based wellness and connection between health and environmental workforces. As Sandra tells us, we need to be in relation to one another to understand that our wellness is deeply connected to the wellbeing of the land, the waters, the mountains, the trees, and all beings. When there’s more connection, there’s more resilience, especially during difficult times of burn-out, climate change, and limited staff.  

Sandra Martin Harris is from the Wet’suwet’en Nation of the Laksilyu, Little Frog Clan and is a member of the Witset First Nation. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Northern British Columbia in the Natural Resources and Environmental Studies Graduate Program, and a member of the LEAPH team. Sandra is an Indigenous community developer and an Indigenous Focusing Complex Trauma (IFOT) practitioner. As a facilitator and planning mentor, she shares body centered and land-based ways to find a pathway and grow through complex trauma/toxic stress. 

This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production support from Cited Media. We receive additional support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research You can find us at https://indigenousplanetaryhealth.ca/ 

Summer break continues, and art meets planetary health in a replayed episode with Sarah Jim. Through her paintings, Sarah reminds us of small but mighty relations.  

One of the key values of our collective is prioritizing the importance of art to an Indigenous worldview. In this episode, Hoku and Heather sat down with Sarah Jim who is a visual artist from the village of Tseycum in W̱SÁNEĆ. As a muralist, her art practice reflects the lessons she’s learned from Coast Salish mentors and from her land-based work at PEPÁḴEṈ HÁUTW, where she worked at the time of the original recording. She also talks about how art allows her to educate others about the role of the small ones – the slugs, frogs, bees, bugs, flowering plants, and medicinal plants –in planetary health. 

This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production support from Cited Media. We receive additional support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. You can find us at https://indigenousplanetaryhealth.ca/ 

Continuing with our summer break, let’s revisit an old episode with Dr. Shannon Waters. As a physician frustrated with a health system focused on sickness, Shannon talks about what keeps us well.  

In this episode, Heather and Carey Newman sit down with Dr. Shannon Waters to talk about how stewarding Indigenous lands and waters in a good way is essential for human health, specifically the health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples. Speaking from her cultural context, Shannon asserts that human health requires Hul’q’umi’num Peoples to have authority over health, education, the environment, water, salmon, and cedar. This means Hul’q’umi’num Peoples need to be at the table so that they can make decisions about 100% of their territories, not just the 15% that is on the table in treaty discussions. As a Western trained physician, the tools Dr. Waters was provided with were ineffective band-aids for addressing Indigenous wellness. Dr. Waters is the newly appointed “Deputy Provincial Health Officer, Planetary and Water health” for British Columbia. She approaches her work as looking after relatives grounded in an intimacy of connection that is critical to promoting and creating the foundation for health of the environment and ourselves. 

Dr. Shannon Waters’ maternal roots are Hul’qumi’num (part of a larger First Nations group referred to as Coast Salish). She is a member of Stz’uminus First Nation with many family ties to Cowichan Tribes/Quw’utsun. Her paternal roots are Hungarian, Swedish and Scottish.  Shannon completed her specialty training in Public Health and Preventive Medicine. She has worked in this field federally, provincially and at First Nations organizations. Shannon was honored to have come full circle and work in her home territory as the local Medical Health Officer with Island Health. Her priorities in her work were connection to the environment, mental wellness, and maternal/child/family health. In 2024 Dr. Waters has become the first ever Deputy Provincial Health Officer, Planetary and Water Health in the province of BC. 

This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production support from Cited Media. We receive additional support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research You can find us at https://indigenousplanetaryhealth.ca/ 

Co-hosts Heather and Hōkū are taking a break this summer, so journey back with us to listen to the first ever guest on the Indigenous Planetary Health Podcast, Dr. Nicole Redvers. As a global leader in planetary health science, education, and advocacy, Nicole talks about centering the earth in Indigenous planetary health.  

Planetary health has emerged as a new ‘science’ in academic circles. It is touted as a framework that reimagines a path forward through the current climate crisis. But contrary to what you might have read or heard, the concepts behind planetary health are not new at all, at least not from the perspective of Indigenous worldviews. In this episode, Heather sits down with Dr. Nicole Redvers, a member of the Deninu K’ue First Nation to talk about Indigenous planetary health and how she came to be doing this work. They are joined by, guest host, Melissa Quenelle, who shares some of her thoughts on Indigenous planetary health from a Kainai perspective. 

This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production support from Cited Media. We receive additional support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research You can find us at https://indigenousplanetaryhealth.ca/ 

In this episode, Heather and Hoku speak with Katsi’tsakwas (Ellen Gabriel) about her recently published memoir, When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance (co-authored with Sean Carleton). Ellen is an activist and artist, and known worldwide for her role as the official spokesperson for the Longhouse during the 78-day Siege of Kanehsatà:ke in 1990 brought on by Oka, Quebec when the municipality initiated the disturbance of a sacred burial to make way for… a golf course parking lot. The book is a powerful blend of personal narrative and political analysis about the “Crisis that was caused by Oka.” Over the past 35 years, Ellen has remained a vital voice in the ongoing fight for Indigenous sovereignty, gender justice, language and land revitalization, and climate resilience. Her unique blend of art, activism, and diplomacy continues to inspire and mobilize both Indigenous and non‑Indigenous communities alike. 

Ellen Gabriel is a Kanien’kéha:ka activist and artist from Kanehsatà:ke. In 1990 she graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, and she is a recent graduate from the New York Film Academy in documentary film making. In recognition of her 35 years of activism and artistic work, she was recently awarded the 38th Grand Prix from The Conseil des arts de Montréal. Ellen is the first Indigenous recipient. This year, she and co-author, Sean Carleton also won the Errol Sharpe Annual Book Award from the Society for Socialist Studies, the Canadian Historical Association’s Indigenous History Book Prize, and the Wilson Book Prize from the Wilson Institute for Canadian History. 

This podcast is created by the Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health at the University of Victoria, with production support from Cited Media. We receive additional support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research You can find us at https://indigenousplanetaryhealth.ca/