For thousands of years, estuaries were central to Indigenous agriculture on the West Coast. Then, when colonists arrived, they diked many of these ecosystems to create western farmland. Now, Cowichan Tribes is working with a group of scientists and conservationists to restore an estuary as an ecosystem and a food system — and the project has sparked an unexpected controversy. At the heart of the debate are two questions. What does agriculture really mean? And when the waters start to rise, do we work with them, or against them?

This is the second and final part of this series, What the River Wants to Be. Listen to Part One.

Guests in this podcast:

Tom Reid is the West Coast Conservation Manager for the Nature Trust of BC.

Jared Qwustenuxun Williams is a passionate traditional foods chef who works with elders and knowledge holders to keep traditional food practices alive. 

Dr. Jennifer Grenz is a Nlaka’pamux scholar and a member of the Siil'na'mut Ken Elliott is a Cowichan elder and plant knowledge keeper who has worked in habitat restoration for decades. With his wife, he runs Ken Elliott's Native Plant Nursery.

Nava Sachs is a graduate student at UBC conducting research with the Indigenous Ecology Lab.

Kim Lagimodiere is the acting Marine Projects Manager at the Lulumexun Lands and Natural Resources department of Cowichan Tribes. She is also the coordinator of the S-hwuhwa'us Thi'lut Kw'atl'kwa (Thunderbird Protecting the Ocean) program.

Dr. Bethany Coulthard is the acting director at the Lulumexun Lands and Natural Resources department of Cowichan Tribes.

Dr. Lenore Newman is the Director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley. 

Erica Gies is the author of Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge and an independent journalist who covers water, climate change, critters, and more from Victoria, British Columbia, and San Francisco, California.