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Think of this show when you are dismantling structures. The settler state reorganized the Elwha river physically and threatened the well-being of its original inhabitants for over a century. After the successful dam removals on the Elwha River, Whitney Mauer critically assesses the outcome of the restoration in light of ongoing challenges faced by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. While the full benefits of dam removal take a long time, Dr. Mauer contends ecological restoration is unlikely to promote cultural resurgence "unless the structural basis of ecological violence and Indigenous futurisms of resurgence, self‐determination, and sovereignty are addressed."

Whitney Mauer is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Her research crosscuts environmental studies, rural and development sociology, and Indigenous and American Indian studies. At the heart of Dr. Mauer's work are questions surrounding how environmental issues intersect with inequality and stratification, Indigeneity, community, and development. She is broadly interested in understanding how Indigenous conceptions, articulations, and practices of community 'development' and well-being are shaped by relations of power and the physical structuring and restructuring of place.

Her current research is focused on a collaborative project with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. In this project and recently published papers, she unpacks the settler colonial origins of dam building and examines resilience frameworks for understanding Indigenous experiences of ecological restoration.

While Dr. Mauer is not a S'Klallam citizen, she prioritizes reciprocity and respect when developing and conducting research in the community. Her research practices and principles are influenced by the principles and concerns described in Linda Tuhiwai Smith's (2012) Decolonizing Methodologies, which commits to the intellectual and political self-determination and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples. As such, Dr. Mauer recognizes the exploitive history of research in Indigenous communities and have worked to develop a research program that is engaged with Indigeneity, increases the visibility of Indigenous scholars, and co-constructs a research agenda with the community partners, in this case the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe.

Mauer, K. W. (2020). Unsettling Resilience: Colonial Ecological Violence, Indigenous Futurisms, and the Restoration of the Elwha River. Rural Sociology.

Mauer, K. W. (2020). Undamming the Elwha River. Contexts, 19(3), 34-39.

Mauer, K. W. (2020). Monopoly's winners and losers: Elwha River Dam construction as social closure. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 1-11.

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Music on this episode was created by Reed Mathis and MK2.

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Found on the western edge of Turtle Island, the Pacific madrone (qʷuqʷuƛəc) is the largest and most charismatic species in the family Ericaceae. It is a broadleaf-evergreen tree that is rarely dominant in our forests, but indicative of very interesting plant communities.

Join me and the Arbutus ARME (pronounced like "army") to hear about the interspecies love story we share with qʷuqʷuƛəc (Pacific madrone) from a January 28, 2021 growing skills webinar hosted by Tacoma Tree Foundation. We celebrate this sacred and iconic tree to build a shared understanding about its cultural importance. We explore the complex interactions and patterns that arise in madrone forests that harbor biodiversity belowground and in the canopy. Importantly, we also highlight the adaptive capacity and resiliency of the species amidst climate disruption.

Then, I bring in the core team of Arbutus ARME to address additional tough questions.

Marianne Elliot is known as one of the few experts on this species. She is a Plant Pathologist with Washington State University Plant Pathology Program. Marianne has a special history with madrone research and is co-founder of Arbutus ARME. She plays a key role in identifying madrone diseases and encouraging madrone research and collaboration.

Joey Hulbert joined the WSU Ornamental Plant Pathology Program at the WSU Research and Extension Center in Puyallup as a Postdoctoral Fellow funded by the USDA. He recently returned to the Pacific Northwest after spending four years in South Africa leading Cape Citizen Science.

More about Arbutus ARME by visiting www.arbutusarme.org

Thanks to Tacoma Tree Foundation for making space to highlight the relationship we have with madrone and building the skills required to help ensure we have a future for the species.

TTF YouTube of "Pacific madrone: sacred, adaptive, emergent" https://youtu.be/begqlp9BeYc

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Music on this episode was from the YouTube Audio Library: You heard from Chris Haugen and Dimanche

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We cope with climate variability whether we acknowledge it or not in a variety of ways. On this episode, Brenda Clifton and I discuss the intentional ways practitioners are adjusting for climate change in restoration practice.

This was a recording of a session I took part in at the January 19th virtual North Sound Riparian Conference. This event was hosted by the good people at the Skagit Watershed Council, Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group, and Skagit River System Cooperative.

When I say Sound that means Puget Sound or the southern estuary of the Salish Sea, connected to the wider Pacific Ocean via the Strait of Georgia and Strait Juan de Fuca. Most the folks attending the conference were in the North Sound.

Brenda Clifton is a plant ecologist with over 20 years of experience in plant biology and propagation. Ms. Clifton has a bachelor's degree in Botany and her master's thesis is in plant physiology. She is a certified Professional Wetland Scientist with the Society of Wetland Scientists. She has worked for the Skagit River System Cooperative for over 10 years. The Cooperative provides natural resource management services for the Sauk-Suiattle (soc suyattle) Indian Tribe and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. Brenda manages the vegetation aspects of salmonid habitat restoration projects, including developing planting, vegetation management, maintenance and monitoring plans and running a nursery with over 15,000 plants.

Lots of smart people were presenting and listening in on this conference. This event was recorded, so if you want to watch it the recording will be posted on the Skagit Watershed Council's website: https://www.skagitwatershed.org.

Forest Adaptation Network: https://www.nnrg.org/climateadaptation/forest-adaptation-network/

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Music for this show was from Yung Logos

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Welcome to the Restoration Decade! Ann-Kathrin Neureuther recently joined UNEP as Communication Manager for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. She walks us through the Decade Strategy that will help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

The new U.N. Decade will officially launch on World Environment Day, on June 5, 2021.

Ann-Kathrin's job is to communicate this gigantic restoration initiative that joins forces with the The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and U.N. Sustainable Development Goals focused on resisting climate change, protecting and improving the well-being of local populations, and preserving biodiversity. The Decade Strategy frames the problem like this: the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will not be achieved without large-scale restoration of degraded terrestrial, freshwater & marine ecosystems globally. The vision is a world where — for the health and wellbeing of all life on Earth and that of future generations — we have restored the relationship between humans and nature, by increasing the area of healthy ecosystems, and by putting a stop to their loss, fragmentation and degradation.

Do you know whose land you are on? Open up https://native-land.ca right now to identify to whom the land belongs where you live, work and play.

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Jeremy Bearimy: How Time Works in the Afterlife - The Good Place (Episode Highlight) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFm9ClqlGuo

Music on this episode was from the YouTube Audio Library: You heard from Anno Domini Beats and Cheel.

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Dr. Nicole Redvers endeavors to integrate Indigenous and culturally-appropriate medicine into Western medical practice. If healing our relationship with land is key to revitalize traditional health and wellness, could ecological restoration become a public health strategy for the future?

Native Land https://native-land.ca/

Dr. Redvers is an author, mother, Indigenous health advocate and assistant professor at the University of North Dakota, Department of Family & Community Medicine & Indians into Medicine Programs. She was the first licensed practicing naturopathic doctor in North America who is Dene (a member of the Deninu K'ue First Nation Band).

The Science of the Sacred: Bridging Global Indigenous Medicine Systems and Modern Scientific Principles by Nicole Redvers | Published by North Atlantic Books on 2019-03-26

Redvers, N., Poelina, A., Schultz, C., Kobei, D. M., Githaiga, C., Perdrisat, M., ... & Blondin, B. S. (2020). Indigenous Natural and First Law in Planetary Health. Challenges, 11(2), 29.

Redvers, N., Yellow Bird, M., Quinn, D., Yunkaporta, T., & Arabena, K. (2020). Molecular decolonization: an Indigenous microcosm perspective of planetary health. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(12), 4586.

International Journal of Indigenous Health https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/ijih/about

First Nations Health Authority https://www.fnha.ca/what-we-do/traditional-healing

Organisation for Noetic Ecology https://noeticecology.org

Jennifer Redvers (Nicole's sister) thesis examines the cultural concept and role of the Land as healer in Indigenous communities in the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut, and the importance of facilitating modern Land-based programs and activities for integrated health, education, and environmental outcomes (see below):

Redvers, J. M. (2016). Land-based Practice for Indigenous Health and Wellness in Yukon, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB.

Or shorter version recently published

Redvers, J. (2020). "The land is a healer": Perspectives on land-based healing from Indigenous practitioners in northern Canada. International Journal of Indigenous Health, 15(1), 90-107.

EcoHealth Network https://ecohealthglobal.org/ecological-restoration/public-health/

Music on this episode was from the YouTube Audio Library: Bodélé Depression (Mega-Chad Mix) by Jesse Gallagher and Spruce Tree by Ashley Shadow

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Dr. Robert Michael Pyle is a biologist and writer who has worked in conservation biology around the world. While the Xerces Blue butterfly disappeared in the early 1940s, in its honor Bob founded the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Contrary to the popular conservation cliché, extinction may not always have to be forever. In the year 2000, Bob published an article he called "Resurrection Ecology" suggesting the Xerces rise again. This proposal is not entirely fictional if we endeavor to rewild ourselves and address some important implications for ethics and justice in the process.

The Native American Ethnobotany Database http://herb.umd.umich.edu

"Resurrection Ecology" in Butler, Tom, ed., Wild Earth 10, no. 3 (Fall 2000). Republished by the Environment & Society Portal, Multimedia Library. http://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/rcc_00097010_3_1.pdf

Culturally competent approaches in conservation biology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dzSglgAeq4

Pacific madrone: sacred, emergent, adaptive

*Hosted by Tacoma Tree Foundation January 28, 2021 @12 PM PST Join me to hear about the interspecies love story we share with qʷiqʷəł (Pacific madrone). We will celebrate this sacred and iconic tree to build a shared understanding about its cultural significance. I will explore the complex interactions and patterns that arise in madrone forests that harbor biodiversity belowground and in the canopy. Importantly, I also want to highlight the adaptive capacity and resiliency of the species amidst climate disruption. *Find links to the meetup on Facebook https://fb.me/e/1T0GmN420 and people can register at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xIzmsJCdSrGON9DRrzIWxw

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Music on this episode was Butterfly Launches from Spar Pole

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Shana Lee Hirsch investigates the Columbia River Basin of the past, the present and the sociotechnical imaginaries of the River in her new book. In this episode, we discuss emerging approaches to restoration and getting in right relationship with climate change.

Last summer, UW Press published Hirsch's book: Anticipating Future Environments: Climate Change, Adaptive Restoration, and the Columbia River Basin. Shana is a Research Scientist in the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering at UW. She has an interdisciplinary background in sustainability social science and water management and policy. Her work draws on participatory design methods and theories from science and technology studies. She is also Associate Director of the Pacific Marine Energy Center, where she brings collaborative methods for understanding innovation to power remote communities.

The Basin ecosystem provides for us, and Shana gets into the details about a subset of people who really care about the Basin in return. She provides insights into the everyday of restoration, the tools people use, and the emergent tactics of coping and getting in right relationship with climate change – which in turn changes us and the science itself.

Within the current system people are trying to help. People. Love. Salmon. The strength of the River restoration is really the strength of that relationship with the fish and their connection with everything else. The restoration effort combines that love, the human wherewithal and resilience through adaptation.

Hirsch, S. L., & Long, J. (2020). Adaptive Epistemologies: Conceptualizing Adaptation to Climate Change in Environmental Science. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 0162243919898517.

Hirsch, S. L. (2019). Anticipatory practices: Shifting baselines and environmental imaginaries of ecological restoration in the Columbia River Basin. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 3(1), 40-57.

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Music on this episode was Freedom Trail Studio and DJ Williams on YouTube

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A lot has happened in the past year since we first discussed microbiome rewilding with Jacob Mills. At this reunion, we chat about building our immune system, rewilding greenspaces equitably, cultural restoration, decolonizing science and restoration, and updates on Jacob's research to restore native soil microbiota to urban greenspaces and schools.

Eco Restoration Network https://www.ecorestorationnetwork.com

NDN Science Show https://ndnscienceshow.wordpress.com/about/

Mills, J. G., Weinstein, P., Gellie, N. J., Weyrich, L. S., Lowe, A. J., & Breed, M. F. (2017). Urban habitat restoration provides a human health benefit through microbiome rewilding: the Microbiome Rewilding Hypothesis. Restoration ecology, 25(6), 866-872.

Selway, C. A., Mills, J. G., Weinstein, P., Skelly, C., Yadav, S., Lowe, A., ... & Weyrich, L. S. (2020). Transfer of environmental microbes to the skin and respiratory tract of humans after urban green space exposure. Environment International, 145, 106084.

Mills, Jacob G. Nature needs people, but people need connection: Can microbes be the 'joining dots'? Australasian Plant Conservation: Journal of the Australian Network for Plant Conservation, Vol. 29, No. 1, Jun-Aug 2020: 31-33.

Music on this episode was DJ Williams on YouTube

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Think you have a right to a healthy environment? You don't. Green Amendments For the Generations, led by Maya van Rossum, has been working to establish rights of all people to clean water and air along with a stable climate in our state constitutions. Elevating the environment on par with free speech, bearing arms and voting has the potential to empower constitutional change, protect our welfare and prevent environmental racism.

Maya is also the Delaware Riverkeeper, leading the watershed-based advocacy organization, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, for 25 years in its efforts to protect the health of the Delaware River and its tributaries. Maya was a lead petitioner in the 2013 landmark Robinson Township, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, et. al. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania case that breathed new life into Pennsylvania's long ignored environmental rights amendment. A skilled activist, attorney, strategist and community organizer, since launching Green Amendments For The Generations, Maya has assisted constitutional amendments to be proposed in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Vermont and West Virginia.

Green Amendments for the Generations https://forthegenerations.org

Get involved with Tacoma LNG Resistance: Hear about campaign updates and calls to action―to subscribe, just send an email to: [email protected]

Ecuador is the first country to recognize Rights of Nature in its Constitution. The country rewrote its Constitution in 2008 and it was ratified by referendum by the people. Rather than treating nature as property under the law, Rights for Nature Articles acknowledge that nature in all its life forms has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles.

Dr. David R. Boyd https://twitter.com/SREnvironment, the Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment

Music on this episode was DJ Williams on YouTube

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As liberal democracies fail to address environmental problems, what solution does the Chinese model offer? China Goes Green is a new book that peers under the hood of the authoritarian state's ambitions to pursue "ecological civilization." Chinese scholars Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro join me to discuss their cautious optimism and deconstruct this unique type of developmental environmentalism.

China's Massive Belt and Road Initiative

Polity: https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509543113

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1509543120

The Economist Interview: https://www.economist.com/china/2020/09/12/chinas-authoritarian-approach-wont-save-the-environment

China Dialogue: https://chinadialogue.net/en/cities/as-china-goes-green-should-the-world-celebrate-its-model/

Author emails [email protected] and [email protected]

Thanks for the Seattle band Dumb Thumbs for providing the theme song. You can find all of their tunes at dumbthumbs.bandcamp.com.

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