Langscape Magazine is an extension of the voice of Terralingua. It supports our mission by educating the minds and hearts about the importance and value of biocultural diversity. We aim to promote a paradigm shift by illustrating biocultural diversity through scientific and traditional knowledge, within an appealing sensory context of articles, stories, and art.

ABOUT THE COVER PHOTOS Front: “Grandmother, How Do I Learn?” by Rose Thater Braan-Imai (Tuscarora), 2016

Back: One Square Meter photographed in nature by sunset in Extremadura, Spain. Photo: Ana Trejo, 2017

Terralingua thanks the Reva and David Logan Langscape Magazine is a Foundation and Kalliopeia Foundation for their generous support. Terralingua Publication Editor: Luisa Maffi Editorial Assistant: Coreen Boucher Web Developer: Phil Rees Graphic Design: Imagine That Graphics Printing: Contour Grafix Learn about Terralingua: www.terralingua.org Receive Langscape Magazine by subscribing or by purchasing single copies. Details at www.terralinguaubuntu.org Learn about Langscape Magazine: www.terralinguaubuntu.org/langscape/home.htm ISSN 2371-3291 (print) ISSN 2371-3305 (digital) © Terralingua 2017 . . . . LANGSCAPE MAGAZINE nature language culture VOLUME 6, ISSUE 1, Summer 2017 Through a Different Lens: The Art and Science of Biocultural Diversity

Table of Contents

Editorial...... 4 Dispatches Of Cassowaries and Men: Mapping Indigenous Knowledge Ideas People and Plants: Networks to Empower Biocultural Sustaining Agrobiodiversity Conservation in New Guinea Knowing How You Are Through Art and Science in Zimbabwe William Thomas with Chris Leberknight....70 Related to All Creation: Saori Ogura...... 37 A Sculpture Garden of One Square Meter: Native Science and Learning Gloriously Entwined: Wool Art Honors the Biocultural Nature and Culture, Art and Agriculture Diversity of Mobile Pastoralists Rose Thater Braan-Imai...... 8 Eliza Smith...... 41 Liza Zogib, Divya Venkatesh, Repairing the When Art Beats Science: Sandra Spissinger, & Concha Salguero.....74 Broken Arrow: Saving Tree Kangaroos with Song Rebuilding Cultural Identity and Dance in Papua New Guinea Through Art and Language Jean Thomas...... 46 Barbara Derrick...... 12 Web Extras Listening to Country: In Praise of Negentropy: Language, Art, and Conservation Video: “Anna and Eliza,” Art and the Micropolitics in Coastal Queensland, Australia an extension of Eliza Smith’s article, at of Biocultural Diversity www.terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/ Colleen Corrigan...... 51 Volume_6/langscape-6-1-Smith Rosa Caterina Bosch Rubio...... 17 We Feed the World: Photo gallery: Reflections Photographing Traditional Knowledge in “People Mapping” photos, the Kalix Communities of Northern Sweden At the Edge of the Region: complementing Barbara Dovarch’s Francesca Price and Clare Benson...... 55 article, at www.terralinguaubuntu.org/ Where Science and Art Meet in Langscape/Volume_6/langscape- a Storied North Queensland Landscape Action 6-1-Dovarch Michael Davis...... 22 People Mapping: Educational Intelligence: Visualizing Sense of Place Learning About Place and Country for Decision Making Through Aboriginal Art and Barbara Dovarch...... 60 Activism in Sydney, Australia Pipelines and Stephen Houston...... 27 the Poetics of Place: Thinking Like Fire: Bringing a Fuller Set of Values into The Biocultural Art of Firelighting Environmental Assessments Hilary Vidalakis...... 33 Nigel Haggan...... 65

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 3 Editorial C Fulloming Circle Luisa Maffi ver twenty years ago, I was sitting in a and action that I felt was needed to tackle one of the Oconference room on the campus of the foremost challenges of our times. I saw the campus University of California at Berkeley, along with some of this “new university” in my mind’s eye. Not thirty other people—academics as well as Indigenous separate buildings like so many silos scattered on an knowledge holders and activists. It was October 1996, agricultural landscape, but a single one. Not a square, and we had gathered there for the international but a circle. No walls, but open windows. No ivory symposium “Endangered Languages, Endangered tower, but wide passageways leading to and from Knowledge, Endangered Environments,” which the “real world” outside. No sitting in classrooms, would launch Terralingua and help catapult the idea but walking as in ancient Aristotelian times. No of biocultural diversity onto the global scene. labyrinthine corridors, but only one ring running around the building for people to circulate round We had been sitting in that room for three long and round. And no departments, but doors wide and intense days, delving into the links between open across the sciences, technology, the humanities, language, knowledge, and the environment. We had and the arts, for everyone to go on a walking quest explored the causes and consequences of what Dave to learn about the interconnectedness of reality and Harmon, a Terralingua co-founder, had called the of ideas and about our place as humans: as a part of “converging extinction crisis”—the simultaneous and nature, not apart from and dominant over it. interrelated loss of biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity. And we had discussed the urgency of From the stunned silence and then the rousing action to stem the erosion of all three manifestations applause that followed that impromptu speech, I of the diversity of life on earth and sustain vitality figured I must have said something that resonated and resilience of the planet and its peoples. with all present—something that in some way reflected how other people, too, had come to feel It was perhaps the first time ever that such a through those three full-immersion days. Perhaps, heterogeneous group of individuals—linguists, for that moment, we all shared the same mind and anthropologists, ethnobiologists, ethnoecologists, saw the same vision: a vision of integrated knowledge cognitive psychologists, philosophers, natural transcending the boundaries of disciplines and scientists, conservationists, natural resource managers, knowledge systems, of engaged and ethical economists, Indigenous rights advocates, Indigenous knowledge not separate from action but responding language and culture champions—had been talking to a desire to work together for a better, more just, in the same room, discovering connections, building more sustainable world. I do know that we felt all the bridges. When it came to the “converging extinction more strongly motivated to do just that. crisis,” we realized, we were all in it together, and needed to work together to understand and to act. It was only sometime later that I was struck by how similar my out-of-the-blue vision was to Indigenous Suddenly, a vivid image formed in my mind, views of knowledge and learning, and above all, and without premeditation I opened my mouth to to the idea of the Circle of Life, where everything share it. It was an image of what I thought of as “the is related to everything else, and thus everything new university”: a place of learning that would be depends on everything else and must be treated with suitable for forging the kind of integrated knowledge reverence, respect, and reciprocity. In my vision, I

4 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 had intersected something that was there all along— The contributions to this Langscape issue if one’s inner eyes would open wide enough to see! demonstrate all these varied but converging approaches—and more. In the “Ideas” section, three With this Langscape issue’s theme, then, “The Art amazing women artists use art to convey concepts and Science of Biocultural Diversity,” we’re coming full of Indigenous science, traditional knowledge and circle in more ways than one: by going back to the idea wisdom, and the behavior of life and biocultural of integrating knowledge across disciplinary boundaries diversity. Rose Thater Braan-Imai (Tuscarora) takes and bridging science and the arts; and by joining hands us on a non linear journey through art, science, and in a big circle with all those who share a deep sense that, learning that “reflects a world in innate relationship and to again use Dave Harmon’s words, “there is a basic known through feeling”—a world and an experience interconnectedness which defines existence” (Langscape embodied by a Sculpture Garden of Native Science Magazine 5:1, Summer 2016). As Dave puts it, the and Learning. The Garden is an inter-tribal collective idea of biocultural diversity is “a framework in which art project, now underway, that is meant to use the [people] can come to their own understandings about expressive power of Indigenous art to communicate the significance of diversity in nature and culture.” Native Science: at its core, the powerful concept Over the past two decades, we have indeed seen described in the Cree language as wahkohtowin, those kinds of understandings emerge and spread “knowing how you are related to all creation.” in multiple forms—in science, policy, activism, and Likewise, Barbara Derrick (Tsilhqot’in) uses her on-the-ground work. But, at times, the concept of art as a way to “repair the broken arrow”—the arrow biocultural diversity can remain somewhat difficult of language, cultural identity, and connection to the to explain intuitively and visualize with immediacy. land. Her essay charts her own path toward rebuilding It can still feel abstract, almost aloof, failing to appeal personal and cultural wholeness by immersing to the emotional intelligence in us. That’s when herself in her ancestral traditions and by expressing looking at things “through a different lens” comes in! those traditions through her artwork. Key to her As Barbara Dovarch, a social scientist and artistic vision is the idea that “the pulse or connection contributor to this issue, told me, “Scientists should to ‘our relations’ is found in the four directions.” In the try to look at their ‘science’ through a different lens... four directions image, the arrows “become a teaching not romanticizing reality but experiencing it and, by handed down from the strength of the elders’ wisdom, adopting different languages to express ideas, being used to guide the younger generation in growing and able to ground their own knowledge.” Through that learning about their culture.” reflection, scientists may be drawn to express the An artist based in the Balearic Islands (Spain), idea of biocultural diversity in a more emotive way is fascinated by the by means of art or literature or poetry. Or they may Rosa Caterina Bosch Rubio choose to convey their thoughts and findings with idea of negentropy, the tendency of life systems the aid of visual or other media that offer a more toward greater organization. She explores the holistic, integrative understanding of the idea. Or tension between isolation and globalization and the they may come to realize that some of what they capacity of visual language to “relocalize our world’s thought of as “science” may rather be an “art”—a boundaries.” Circles and spheres are important to her well-honed skill, a form of know-how born of long- creative work, as shapes that “allude to human limits term, keen immersion and action in the world of as well as to our belonging to a larger world.” Rosa nature and culture around us. sees her work as an exercise in the “micropolitics of biocultural diversity” as a way to “create meaning in In turn, artists, writers, and poets may be inspired the midst of this ocean of homogenous information by the idea of biocultural diversity and seek to use that overwhelms us” and to celebrate “the local, the their expressive talents to convey its essence in a small scale, and the ordinary.” compelling sensory way. Activists, policy makers, and practitioners may realize the power of art to make the The first two essays in “Reflections” are testimony point persuasively, beyond what science can achieve. to the ferment stirred by the current re-affirmation of Aboriginal cultures in Australia and to the power And Indigenous persons—whether scientists or that the encounter of science, art, and activism artists or in any other capacity—may feel that, in has to change the way we see the world. Michael their worldview, science and art are not separate Davis unravels the many layers of Indigenous and at all, but rather are intrinsic parts of the same settler histories and cultural expressions that are biocultural Circle of Life. etched onto the northern Queensland landscape.

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 5 He explores how, over time, this rich tapestry traditional grains as insurance against drought has attracted scientific and economic interest as and climate uncertainty. As a scientist, she well as (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) artistic documents the plants and their uses; as an artist, imagination, often creating a tension between she uses her drawings and photographs to compile “dreams of modernity” and “ancient and enduring the information in an accessible atlas for the local knowledge systems” that are predicated on a “totality farmers, and conducts a drawing workshop for the of the expressive, the poetic, and the scientific.” In local organization’s team. She firmly believes that this clash of conflicting narratives, the voices of “drawing enables us to better observe and capture Aboriginal heritage, environmental protection, and the knowledge and wisdom of local people, the life esthetic vision are getting stronger. of plants, and interrelations with people and plants to advance science.” Further south along the eastern Australian coast, Stephen Houston witnesses the ways in In Uganda, Eliza Smith probes the “glorious which the Aboriginal revival is bringing much entwining” of art and agriculture in efforts to needed “emotional intelligence” to bear on a still strengthen farmers’ biocultural resilience through colonial-based education system as well as on the creative use of song, dance, and theater to public understanding of place and “Country” convey and transmit agricultural knowledge. In (the term Aboriginal peoples use to refer to their a moving twist, Eliza encounters a woman, Anna, sense of belonging to their traditional territories). from a community of Batwa people who have been Aboriginal art and activism—from storytelling displaced from their ancestral forest home and on Country to cultural festivals and collective forced to turn to subsistence agriculture. For Anna, art projects involving both Aboriginal and non- then, agricultural knowledge is “new” knowledge— Aboriginal participants—play an important role yet, through song, she manages to express both in this movement, giving Stephen hope that the her grief for the loss of her past way of life and her “intelligence of sovereign connection to Country” will eagerness to learn the new way so she can care for become increasingly relevant both in education and her family. in public discourse and action. Jean Thomas runs into a similar experience Listening to and learning from place is also the about the role of performance art in the Torricelli theme of the third “Reflections” essay. Hilary Mountains of northern Papua New Guinea, where Vidalakis muses on her years as a firelighter—a she and her husband Jim are on a mission to save the professional planner and igniter of “prescribed” Tenkile, an endemic species of tree kangaroo, from fires—in the southern U.S. state of Georgia. Fire, extinction. Local communities have traditionally she notes, has always been a regenerative force hunted the Tenkile for food, but cultural contact has in this landscape—something that the region’s transformed their ancestral way of life, leading to original inhabitants well understood and mimicked overharvesting. Whereas science-based education with their regular burns, whereas later European fails to elicit the desired conservation behavior, settlers came to see fire as the enemy. As the tide community drama through which people act out their turned, the wisdom of intentional fires began to be cultural connection with the Tenkile does succeed, understood again, and firelighters went to work. leading to a rebound of the Tenkile population and Learning the job, Hilary found, has less to do with to the protection of vast tracts of its habitat. As an applying textbook science than with acquiring the educator, Jean found she was the one to do a lot of land-based art of “thinking like fire.” Biocultural learning, having been given “the privilege to learn diversity, she argues, should be seen as our from thousands of years of experience and traditional relationship not only with the biological but also knowledge held by the local people.” with the “elemental.” While working to understand Indigenous The authors of our “Dispatches” all bring us perspectives on environmental protection in a similar message: art and science go hand in coastal Queensland, Colleen Corrigan fills her hand in the work of safeguarding and sustaining traveling watercolor journal with beautiful sketches biocultural diversity on the ground—with art of the landscape. Painting helps her deepen her sometimes complementing science, sometimes understanding of that landscape as she learns taking precedence over it as a way to convey a from Aboriginal community members how “caring vital message. Saori Ogura travels to Zimbabwe for nature is an obligation and synonymous with to assist a local initiative that is revitalizing protecting culture, language, and essentially identity”

6 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 and how language is vital for people to describe, care In the heart of New Guinea, William Thomas for, and link to the land. In a way, art is Colleen’s has been working for years with the Hewa people own language to describe the land and find her to document their traditional knowledge of forest connection with it. species and their ecological interactions and to bring The Kalix fishing communities of northern Sweden that knowledge to bear on decision making about we meet in Francesca Price’s and Clare Benson’s conservation of the area’s still largely intact forests. photo essay are also struggling with a language At a loss as to how to represent the complexity and issue: in this case, the difficulty of translating their intricacy of that traditional knowledge, William traditional knowledge about sustainable fishing stumbles into the perfect visualization technique: from their ancestral Swedish dialect into the the Social Network Analysis graphs that are normally standard national language and into the formal used to represent relationships among people. The language of science. Yet translation is crucial for traditional knowledge graphs created for him by Chris them to protect their fishing rights in the face Leberknight bring species and their interactions of new adverse regulations. Clare’s photographs together in a way that is both visually compelling— bolster community members’ struggle by making that knowledge visually jump out of the page, while like images of delicate neural networks or distant Francesca’s text gives voice to people’s passionate galaxies—and informative at a glance, bolstering the desire to hold on to their way of life. case for community-based conservation. There is plenty of passion, too, coursing through When it comes to creatively portraying local the “Action” essays—and plenty of creative uses biocultural diversity through visual art, it is hard to of art and other visual and verbal means to affirm beat the “One Square Meter” project conceived by the importance of traditional and local knowledge Liza Zogib, Divya Venkatesh, Sandra Spissinger, and of cultural and spiritual values for community- and Concha Salguero and realized by Almudena led decision making about conservation and Sánchez Sánchez, Ana Trejo Rodríguez, and Inés development issues. introduces Barbara Dovarch García Zapata. This glorious project celebrates the us to four different communities in Asia and the exceptionally high biodiversity of one square meter Pacific that have taken to “people mapping”—a community effort to represent the structure of grazed Mediterranean grassland by representing and dynamics of their social and environmental it in a 3D one-square-meter sculpture of grazed land surrounds on beautifully creative maps or 3D with its diverse complement of plant species—all models—as both an affirmation of identity and a tool made of felted wool! The sculpture was a smashing for self-determination and local decision making. In success at the 2016 World Conservation Congress, addition to sharing her experiences through her text vividly making the case for sustaining the ways of and photographs, Barbara also echoes the words of life of mobile Mediterranean pastoralists. community mappers from all over the world in a poem—her way to look at her work as a scientist I draw tremendous encouragement from the “through a different lens.” extraordinary creativity and deep humanism that the essays in this issue express. I do feel that, slowly, Similarly, Nigel Haggan seeks to bring other we’re coming full circle in our understanding of voices to the table when it comes to environmental assessments of large-scale projects such as oil how everything on this earth (including ourselves) pipelines and megadams in British Columbia, is interconnected. And when it comes to art and Canada: the voices of Indigenous peoples and local science, we’re taking a leaf from the Indigenous communities, of Indigenous spirituality and deep world. In Rose Thater Braan-Imai’s words, “Art and ecology, of art, storytelling, and other informal, non- science are not separate in the Indigenous world. technical means of expression. The goal is to affirm They are birthed by the same mother and take their the crucial relevance of the “poetics of place”— expression from the rich consciousness of the flux.” intangible cultural, spiritual, and emotional values— that have so far been excluded from environmental Bioculturally yours, decision making. Nigel’s essay itself is an exercise in the poetics of place, bridging science, storytelling, Luisa Maffi and art with traditional Irish tales, his own poetry, Langscape Editor and his daughter’s imaginative drawings. Co-founder and Director, Terralingua

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 7 Knowing How You Are Related to Rose Thater Braan-Imai All Creation A Sculpture Garden of Native Science and Learning The Native American Academy was founded by a group of Native scholars and Traditional Knowledge Holders dedicated to increasing understanding of the Indigenous worldview and to broadening the contemporary concepts of science and learning. Since its inception, it has grown into a network of Native and non-Native people using research, dialogue, writing, and action projects focused on making Indigenous knowledge visible to the Western-trained mind.

The Academy is planning Sculpture Gardens of Native Science and Learning at six sites across North America, the first one in Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada. Envisioned as emblematic libraries, these Gardens will use an inter-tribal collective art project to communicate Native Science: in Cree, wahkohtowin, “knowing how you are related to all creation.” Eye of Our Ancestors Artist: Robin Rorick (Haida), 2010 Our Ancestors are always with us. This image represents our Ancestor watching over us. We must honor our Ancestors by doing everything with respect and reciprocity— this was the way of our ancestors. —Robin Rorick

What I offer you is a collage of thoughts that though related follow a spiral rather than a linear progression. I do this because it more closely models my way of perceiving and provides an experience of art, science and learning that reflects a world in innate relationship and known through feeling. I invite you to walk the circle with me and explore from the perspective of a Native woman.

Understanding the knowledge contained in a Sculpture Garden of Native Science and Learning starts with an awareness of the quality of consciousness that guides a relationship with the whole “A spiral more closely models my in which time and space are inextricably bound, way of perceiving and provides an where time is nonlinear, and can be described as movement experience of art, science, and within a flux of layers upon layers of flashing webs learning that reflects a world in that appear and disappear in an infinity of patterns. innate relationship and Imagine a lived experience of a constantly transforming universe known through feeling.” guided by a field of harmony that births all life, and of humans born with the memory of that harmony embedded in their cells. That memory is the basis of knowing.

8 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Dreaming Artist: Rose Thater Braan-Imai (Tuscarora), 2015

The Earth’s consciousness is made visible through her beauty. It is the mystery of that beauty and the longing to reflect and know it which feeds the desire to learn. —Rose Thater Braan-Imai

From this perspective it becomes possible to look more deeply at the ways in which knowledge can be carried and revealed. For instance, whales as living libraries, wind as sculptor, and the earth’s voices as bringers of language. To know that the sound corn makes at the moment when it is pollinating has a particular sonance, its song. To know that the dances conducted by the Pueblo peoples are calculated to bring the moisture needed to ripen the corn and assure a healthy harvest. It is a memorable experience to witness the people dancing from morning to evening under an August sun. Then to awaken in the night to the sound of thunder and feel the moisture thicken the air as the rain comes. Such an experience belies the belief that Native people are primitives with no knowledge of physics, astronomy, chemistry, or biology. And realize that such a view reflects the distortion that occurs when we interpret through an unexamined cultural lens. Our Ten Relatives Artist: Tim Paul (Nuu-chah-nulth), 2017 (Models of two poles being made for the Sculpture Garden of Native Science and Learning.) The study of native science is the study of relationship. The Cree people use the word wahkohtowin, which means “knowing how you are related to all creation.” Relationship is also the search methodology. Re-search infers studying what is known for new information. Search is exploring the Unknown for new knowledge. —Rose Thater Braan-Imai

Art and Science are not separate in the Indigenous world. They are birthed by the same mother and take their expression from the rich consciousness of the flux. The Sculpture Garden of Native Science and Learning uses symbol, glyph, form, sound, and light to communicate the way Indigenous people perceive the world. But there is a deeper purpose: to illuminate the way we learn. The garden will advance a learning process that is unreflected in the Western education system. A void with severe consequences.

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 9 Grandmother, How Do I Learn? Artist: Rose Thater Braan-Imai (Tuscarora), 2016 Depending on their history and function, places are believed to be very healing. And the objects embedded into these places, be they stones, rivers, hills, or thunders, have a language that can be understood by those connected to those places. —Leroy Littlebear (Blackfoot)

The Indigenous learning process is driven by learning spirit(s). These are energies that Elders say create thought, through a synthesis of intuition and spiritual resonance. It can be conceptualized as the gravity of human consciousness that allows a person to find his or her gifts. Learning is a mastery of the transformation of dreams and vision into rational thought and pragmatic actions and behaviors to improve life and well-being. The process utilizes the sensing capacities of the entire body. Derma, gut, bone, organ, blood and its rhythms all are intelligences. And it includes the deeper senses of duty, honor, justice. It is the mastery of human potential. Sacred Four Artist: Robin Rorick (Haida), 2011 Earth, Air, Fire, and Water represented in their emergent form, bringing balance. Everything in our lives is made of these elements. When we lose respect for any of the four, we disrupt the balance of life. —Robin Rorick

There is a commonly held assumption that Western science is supra-cultural. Yet actually science emerges from culture. There are bodies of knowledge held by the Indigenous Peoples of the Earth that share the same principles and employ the precision and rigor associated with Western science. A critical difference: the knowledge is embedded in a social and human context.

Art is made through the senses, for the senses. It is the magnificent struggle to capture an awareness “There is a commonly held and reveal it with an integrity that sustains its dignity and worth. assumption that Western To make art is to learn the pathways inspiration follows to create a conversation. science is supra-cultural. To communicate Indigenous scientific knowledge through art Yet actually science emerges in an earth garden is more than a form of expression. from culture.” It is a portal to a place of study where responsibility, respect, harmony, and balance come to life in what to some seems mystical. Yet within an animate universe in which all is related, what is mystical is merely a shift in the bandwidth of consciousness.

10 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Within a universe where all life is equal in value, and diversity is intrinsic, to dismiss knowledge communicated by multiple intelligences, and gathered through the fineness of human senses, “To communicate Indigenous is to live bereft of the insights and wisdom of a sentient world. scientific knowledge through To know the world in terms of the responsibilities and obligations art in an earth garden is more of kinship is not unfettered romanticism, than a form of expression. but a way of knowing that consistently yields explicit knowledge It is a portal to a place of honed by a pragmatism born of deep respect for the boundaries and limits study where responsibility, of the natural world and of the consequences of following hubris, ignorance or desire beyond those boundaries. respect, harmony, and balance To live considering the ethical, spiritual, physical, societal come to life.” impacts of each choice demands commitment and discipline. To study in this way strengthens character and creates a reliable moral compass.

A learning ecology that uses the complementarities of art and science to discover and reveal “In this living terrain where provides fertile ground for creative acts of magnitude and contains within it the Invisible cultivates and the capacity to generate a space in which transformation can occur. strengthens the unique skills The Sculpture Garden of Native Science and Learning and talents gifted to us by a holds the promise of a place generous universe, we know where we experience the renewal of our deep connection again, in its pure state, the to the field of harmony that births all life. sense of belonging.” A place that stirs the memory of that harmony embedded in our cells. In this living terrain where the Invisible cultivates and strengthens the unique skills and talents gifted to us by a generous universe, we know again, in its pure state, the sense of belonging.

Rose Thater Braan-Imai (Tuscarora) is Director of the Native American Academy, devoted to exploring Indigenous Knowledge and the nature of science and learning. Earlier, as Director of Education at UC Berkeley’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, she focused on cultivating diversity of perception, thought, and expression in the scientific community. As an artist, her quest is to create expressions of our kinship with the natural world.

Learn more about the Native American Academy at http://www.silverbuffalo.org/NativeAmericanAcademy.html Further Reading Cajete, G. (1994). Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education. Durango, CO: Kivaki Press.

Cajete, G. (2000). Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light.

Kimmerer, R. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions.

Senge, F. R., Hawkins, L. B., & Thater-Imai, Z. (2005). Is Native science, science? Retrieved from http://www.silverbuffalo.org/NSA-NativeScience.html

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 11 Text and artwork by Barbara Derrick Repairing the Broken Arrow cousin Linda Smith gives an excellent example of a whole-person identity in one paragraph: Rebuilding “I am Tsilhqot’in, or Tŝi- (Rock) -qu- (River) -t’in (people of). I am also a Nenqayni, or Nen- (Earth, Cultural land) -qay- (surface) -ni (deni or person).” As you hear the language, you can feel the pulse Identity or the heartbeat, a musical rhythm created by Through Art the words as they roll off the tongue. The pulse or connection to “our relations” and Language is found in the four directions: east, south, “At the heart of every culture is its language. One west, and north. East—Earth—represents new of the main structural pillars for communicating life, a direction where spirit is born, where values, beliefs and customs and its importance to we come into this world as a baby. It is also a the connection to all our relations.” place where the sun comes up, first light in the —CrossCulturalTrainingAustralia morning. The South depicts Air—a direction for the youth, a time when the summer season ountering the effect of language loss on brings new growth and when our emotions Cthe connection with nature may be likened develop. In the West, the element is Water—a to repairing a “broken arrow.” Tsilhqot’in place for adulthood and where our physical blood runs through my veins, and as an artist, body is personified. Finally, the North—Fire— speaker, and writer, I have struggled with is a place for the intellect, characterized by its my own personal and cultural identity. I was reference to the mental. It also corresponds raised off reserve in a small logging community to the place of the elders. The four directions called Quesnel, in British Columbia, Canada. move clockwise like the sun and are a living My mother, who had little patience for passing eco-teacher for our growth and wellness. our language on to me, still managed to teach me some words. I moved to my late mother’s Language has always embodied storytelling homeland of Xeni Gwet’in First Nation in 1994 by the elders. I recall one of our late elders, with a passion to learn everything there was Henry Solomon, who would begin telling his about “traditional medicines.” In my quest, stories with “Chungh… Chungh.” It meant “once my family would do the translations for me. I again.” When we asked him why he started would pick up a word here and there, and soon his stories off in this manner, he said, “I am I did discover why language is important to the carrier of others’ stories, I respect them one’s “whole-person identity.” when I start out my stories with ‘Chungh… Chungh.’” Answers to my questions always As a child growing up in an English- came when I had a translator travel with me, speaking environment, I intellectually knew to help me understand what was said. When I I was Tsilhqot’in but did not understand the was a child, my mother took me to the reserve language’s connection to the earth and what to visit twice a year. On one such visit, I recall my ancestors had passed down to me. My an uncle showing us how to make an arrow. I

12 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Above: New Life. A child is born with many gifts, as seen in this painting: she comes with ancestral knowledge from the wolf protector, bear courage, horse stamina, eagle’s love, and the generosity of Mother Earth. Acrylic painting, 1999 was perplexed: I had only seen Indians in a movie use Mountain in our homeland. Can you imagine what a bows and arrows! The experience remained with me. mastodon hunt might have looked like in the days of I heard the term “broken arrow” used by a Prairie the ancestors? Did they use spears? Or did they pack elder in talking about the health of our future youth. heavier bows and arrows? In my vision, I saw the broken arrow as an analogy representing the loss of language and culture—a way “Learning the language might of life in need of repair. Learning the language might give communities direction in repairing damage or give communities direction in breaks caused by assimilation, acculturation, and the repairing damage or breaks caused by genocide of First Nations people. assimilation, acculturation, and the After our late elder Henry Solomon brought us into genocide of First Nations people.” the spirit of his story, he continued: “Two men who went hunting in the mountains brought down this big Creating the obsidian arrowhead represents animal, they said. In order to keep warm, after they “language” within the culture. One must have cleaned it they both crawled inside it.” My uncle and I the knowledge to create a pointed tip through the asked: could it be a mastodon? Henry said that he had curved breakage that resembles gradual curves in seen a picture of one in a magazine once and that it the shape of a mussel shell. An arrowhead maker was indeed a mastodon. There were no rifles in that had to know where to harvest the material, its faraway time when those big animals roamed the preparation, and the techniques to perfect a very earth. According to family knowledge, obsidian used sharp missile for hunting. If you were hunting a for flint and arrowheads was harvested on Anaham mastodon, failure of the projectile to kill the animal

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 13 could mean the difference between the hunter’s life to go back to council with one another. In the North, and death. The obsidian arrowhead sits to the North the healing for men is called the “Sundance.” The because the material was forged by the Earth’s heat, Tshilqot’in men didn’t have a Sundance, but there “fire,” through volcanic activity. are stories on this topic to be recorded for the future.

In the North, men were given the ability to provide The part of the women’s arrowhead recognizes the for their families, and it is here that they formed “water” in the lava, whose rapid evaporation helped societies to strengthen the male role. Creator had solidify the molten rock erupting from the earth in given them “council” and the gift of “discipline” the creation of obsidian. Woman, as a warrior, is for themselves and their family. A fracture in the brought to the sacredness of earth’s waters within teachings resulted when men were taught to apply her own body. Through the teachings passed down “force” by the Churches. A man was taught the in the language, she learns her connection to the “Rule of Thumb,” whereby he was directed to beat water and its influence by the moon. When her his wife or children with a rod no bigger than his Moon Cycle is off, it is because she has not rested thumb as a form of “discipline.” Today, the rule of her eyes on the light of the Moon when it is full. In “force” is considered “abuse,” far from its original the women’s circle, she knows a gift that is foreign interpretation of discipline. To discipline someone to the men—one of menstrual or menopausal cycles, is to provide guidance. A once “matriarchal society” birthing, fertility, pregnancy, and the honoring of the is now “patriarchal,” and has created sickness in grandmother. The Full Moon Circle is a ceremony relationships between men and women. Men need for women: a place of serenity, a place to heal from

Above: Warrior. At dawn the Warrior awaits quietly for game to appear at first morning light. Acrylic painting, 1999

14 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 different plants described as “balsam.” Plants such as xilh dilh or Indian Hellebore, tsi guns or Hair on the Rock, or dedeben, which is a tea made from roots, bark, and leaves from different berry bushes. There was another balsam found in white spruce called ts’u. When I think back I laugh, because they were all right! The English language causes confusion and misunderstanding on many different subjects when one translates from Tshilqot’in into English.

The feathers that get attached to the shaft are iconic of “family,” where trust and faith are built. It takes the traditional eye of a teacher to guide us in the right selection of feathers, their attachment to the shaft, and techniques to keep them from detaching. Like parenting, a soft sturdy downy feather will determine in which direction the arrow will spin once released from the bow. The heaviness and anger from generational abuses have created burdens for our future generations. Lack of parenting and overprotection have taught children self-entitlement. When an eagle makes a nest for its young, it lines the nest with the soft down from its underwing. The type of parenting will foster the direction of the arrows (children) when they leave Above: Water Woman. Vision: the spirit of the water emerges from the bundle (home). its depths to the surface. Acrylic painting, 1999 sexual, physical, emotional, or mental abuse that “Culture is a way of thinking, behavior is led by women and, in most places where it is related to our upbringing. Without the celebrated around the world, is for women only. language, we may feel displaced.” The shaft of the arrow is likened to “culture,” where The most integral part of the arrow is the nock our beliefs, customs, and values are associated to or bottom node. This part of the arrow is often our personal identity. In the making of the shaft dismissed and gets forgotten because it is so small for the arrow, the wood requires someone with in relation to the whole. The nock is representative knowledge of the best type to use, curing time, and of “self-identity” because it is essential in the preparation. An arrow maker might say, “Douglas community-building process. It can be the difference Fir is too heavy because of its granular structure,” or between a win and a loss in hunting. A good “Ash is an indestructible material, yet Ash might also bowman knows that if an arrow requires excessive make the arrow sail in the air too slowly.” Culture is a force to release, then the arrow will not be carried way of thinking, behavior related to our upbringing. by the wind. In the past, said an elder, clan houses Without the language, we may feel displaced. gave everyone importance. Every family had a particular gift: the Bear clan policed the community Once I asked how I would find “balsam” to make and/or were medicine healers; Sturgeon became my salve. Normally, the Tshilqot’in make a jack pine mediators; hoofed clans were warriors; the small pitch salve called chendi dzax, but I had learned a four-legged clans held the position of councilors. non-traditional salve called the “Balm of Gilead,” made from the spring buds of young balsam tree Language shapes culture and the way we understand saplings. In our family, every good medicine is called our relationship to the community and the earth. “balsam.” Since I had very little Tshilqot’in to ask Since the four directions embody “spirit,” words from a language become distorted when translated into the right question, I spent five years learning all the

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 15 A family member said, “We don’t know about those ones. But we say gu?en for up there (North), gunes for down there (South), gu’nish for over there (West), and gudah for go that way (East).” While conversing with my cousin, I was shown the words for the four directions. I began to laugh.

Just before a rain, when the clouds are low, the white spruce trees emit an intense aroma into the atmosphere. There is one word to denote that process in our language. There is a word for a “moose wattle,” the fleshy lobe that hangs below a moose’s neck, which is used to foretell the success in hunting, weather, and such. Everything about our culture and the words of our language connects us to the earth. When we don’t know our language, it causes disconnection. The elders say, “I don’t understand what all the whining about losing our culture and language is about. Why don’t you learn your language then?”

Above: Four Directions. The warrior’s arrows become a teaching Without the language, it is difficult to learn and handed down from the strength of the elders’ wisdom, used to guide the younger generation in growing and learning about understand cultural practices and ways of doing their culture. Acrylic painting, 2016 things. When I worked with plants, the first value was to respect the plants and not over-pick them. English. Later in 1994, I wanted to complete my drum Information about identification I found in books, song about the four directions. In my sleep, I could hear but not the sacred knowledge held by Tshilqot’in practicitioners. the ancestors singing this song, and it held such beauty. I knew I had to bring it to life. I visited my family and And with this I thank spirit for the sake of my asked, “How do you say East, West, North, and South?” readers, “All my relations.”

About the Artwork: I depict Tsilhqot’in stories, myths, beliefs, and culture as they are, life as it is for my people. When I was four or five years old, I was fascinated by my mom’s hands, always running my fingers over them! She was the first person I loved, the first person who told me her favorite color was blue. What I didn’t count on was that it would become a landmark for my art. Blue is the peace we seek at night…

Barbara Derrick is a Tsilhqot’in First Nation artist and writer. She taught in a Native Cultural Arts college for over a decade and now runs Native Studio Art in Edmonton, Canada. Her book Walking in Your Power draws from her life experience and the teachings of empowerment. Her writing is also included in the collection First Lady Nation, Vol. IV. Further Reading Barrett, T. (2002). The Four Directions. Retrieved from http://www.interluderetreat.com/meditate/4direct.htm CrossCulturalTrainingAustralia. (2014). What is Culture? [Online course]. Retrieved February 12, 2017, from http://www.crossculturaltraining.net.au First Voices. (n.d.). Tsilhqot’in (Xeni Gwet’in) Community Portal. Retrieved from http://www.firstvoices.com/ en/Tsilhqotin-Xeni-Gwetin Marshall, J. M., III. (2012). The Lakota Way of Strength and Courage: Lessons in Resilience from the Bow and Arrow. Boulder, CO: Sounds True. Smith, L. R. (2016). Nenqayni Ch’ih Yaltɨg / We Speak Nenqayni Ch’ih: Phrase Book. Ms. in preparation. Williams Lake, BC.

16 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 In Praise of Negentropy the first place, I encounter these characteristics in Art and the our collective imaginary related to gestation shapes: stains, bombs, cavities, stars, archipelagos, cells, or seeds. All these elements behave like periods, Micropolitics controlling the syntax without saying anything while promising everything. of Biocultural This idea of the end understood as a beginning is often expanded in circles and spheres: revolution Diversity shapes that allude to human limits as well as to our Text and artwork by belonging to a larger world. I see in these visual resources the power to simplify life’s complexity Rosa Caterina Bosch Rubio while suggesting all of its diversity. On the one hand, they speak to the permanent biological quest am a visual artist based in Mallorca, the largest for movement, as we can recognize in the cycles of the Balearic Islands (Spain), where isolation I of seasons, menstrual periods, water, geological and globalization collide as in a Big Bang spectacle. formations, or lunar phases. On the other hand, they Here is where my work begins, emerging from also allude to the symbolism of preservation and what remains and searching for new orders in the union, such as magical circles, royal crowns, round value of ordinary things. I embrace visual language dances, city walls, rings, necklaces, belts, or shields. as another survival tool, to make meaning and relocalize our world’s boundaries. My work is the materialization of the idea that “I embrace visual language as another objects, as expressions of our manufactured survival tool, to make meaning and life, are future realities rather than decayed and melancholic remains. I create images to think of and relocalize our world’s boundaries.” communicate the capacity of life to self-reorganize. In other words, I am struck by the phenomenon of In addition, these shapes introduce the idea of negentropy because of the way in which it explains the force of gravity, which I aim to communicate by the behavior of life and biocultural diversity. To turning the human body into the center and the gauge me, negentropy conveys something spiritual, since of my artwork. For example, I use anthropocentric it is a phenomenon that seeks to avoid death, to diameters, such as those of a hug or a fist, to establish break free from it. That is why in the esthetics of the dimensions of my art pieces. The force of gravity is finiteness I encounter the capacity for visualizing also implicit in erosive elements like time, water, wind, the permanent creation of the Universe. or fire, which are evoked in and can often determine my artwork. In that sense, I have even brought cycles To make all this visible, I explore the communication into a bodily state of creative experience—by seeking possibilities of different materials and processes by re- both pleasure and fatigue in my physical limits examining their negentropy principles (the tendency through the repetition and the ritual of, for example, of life systems toward greater organization). gathering materials in the fields. I specifically look for modular and changeable behaviors to visually express the contradiction of Repetition is another means I use to communicate something that is initially fragmented and isolated the revolution of life. Sometimes I find it in but potentially communicative at the same time. In circular shapes, but in other cases it’s also possible

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 17 to represent it virtually by doing the opposite: by disrupting and inverting everyday things. In this sense, I tend to make visible the value of ordinary things, such as weeds or other apparently insignificant or plain elements, by putting them together and re-organizing them in a more suggestive way. I look for movement everywhere as an esthetic element: in changeable materials, such as reflective surfaces, or in organic materials, or even in the behaviors of color such as camouflage, rest, protection, or action.

In fact, color has recently become the central focus of all of my ideas. I have been exploring local resources to make colors from some Mediterranean plants. And at the same time I have begun to take more seriously the idea of bodily experience by converting our landscape into colorful everyday objects. I started making scarves, dresses, kimonos, and shoes to inhabit our biocultural diversity through the pragmatism of design. This paradigm change allows me to popularize our biocultural knowledge in a different way, through a process that goes from color making all the way to the illustrations and stories I put on the packaging. Furthermore, losing the ownership of my work lets me expand the battleground by encouraging others to actively join environmental education.

In short, I consider my artwork as micropolitical tools to clash with our limits and create meaning in the midst of this ocean of homogenous information that overwhelms us. In this struggle for being, my pieces turn into their own permanent becoming. And it’s in their loss of autonomy that I see their power to really push the envelope. So I celebrate our All photos by the artist, except as noted finitude and venerate our humanity, inviting people Top: Cosmics. Wax and ice, different sizes. Barcelona, 2012 to embrace life’s rituals with pleasure, treasuring Bottom: Worlds. Fruits printed on paper, different sizes. Munich, 2012 the local, the small scale, and the ordinary.

Rosa Caterina Bosch Rubio’s work moves between color, landscape, and education, exploring new ways to inhabit everyday life by making the value of ordinary things visible. Her current focus is on developing environmentally conscious dyeing and printing techniques that make use of local and historical dyeing plants. Further Reading/ Viewing Rosa Caterina Bosch Rubio. (n.d.). Rosa Caterina [Artist’s website]. Retrieved from http://rosacaterina.com/

Rosa Caterina Bosch Rubio. (n.d.). Tinctorum [Color project website]. Retrieved from http://tinctorum.com/

18 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Above: Seeds. Red pigments wrapped in paper, different diameters. Munich, 2012 Top left: Canal. Unbaked clay tiles, 100 cm diameter. Barcelona, 2013 Middle left: Untitled. Frame from a filmed accident. A sphere made of paper filled with water breaks during the creation process, flooding the exhibition hall and taking everyone present by surprise. 25:00 min. Barcelona, 2013 Bottom left: Untitled. Frame from the same filmed accident. 25:00 min. Barcelona, 2013 Below: Resistance. Red pepper, 20 cm diameter. Tribute to the ancestral Mallorcan paprika, which in addition to being a very active sensory ingredient is also a great preservative. Barcelona, 2014

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 19 Inset top: Untitled. Weeds and wind, 150 cm diameter. The grasses were collected from an abandoned field and placed in a room with an open window. Seeds were dancing in the wind. Barcelona, 2014 Top: The abandoned field from which the grasses were collected. Barcelona, 2014 Inset center: Untitled. Metal objects, 5–20 cm diameter. Everyday objects become strange when camouflaged by their shiny surfaces. Barcelona, 2014 Inset bottom: Rosa making Entropic Landscape. Matches, 200 cm. Barcelona, 2014 Below: Entropic Landscape. Matches, 200 cm. Barcelona, 2014

20 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Inset top: Stains. Map of dye plants drawn during a field trip with botanist Joan Rita. Mallorca, 2015 Inset bottom: Roots. Screen printing with pigment from Rubia tinctorum L., fifty reproductions. Mallorca, 2016 Background: Peregrina. Textiles and jewelry inspired by the dye plant Rubia peregrina L., worn and interpreted by Aina Garcia-Paredes. Research and color by Rosa Caterina Bush Rubio; pattern design by Angie Vallori; jewelry by Auba Pont. Mallorca, 2016. Photo: Àngel Romaguera

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 21 At the Edge of

Where Science the Region and Art Meet in a Storied North Queensland Landscape Michael Davis

n the tropical north of Queens- Iland, Australia, at the mouth of the Trinity River that runs into the Pacific Ocean, lies the city of Cairns. Here, at this “edge of the region,” a long coastal stretch of mudflats and mangroves, rich in birdlife and other fauna, gives way to a major harbor and tourist precinct at the boundary of the city.

This fragile ecosystem is etched with multiple histories and langu- ages—Indigenous, European, settler, colonial, immigrant—and is also a deeply layered Aboriginal storied landscape. In another mapping, this region embraces two major protected areas: the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and the Wet Tropics of HMS Rattlesnake during a survey of Australia’s World Heritage Area. Over the decades, this northeast coast and islands. MacGillivray noted “a region of striking contrasts, with its entwined natural, environmental, and human histories, has wide creek running through low mangrove swamps, been an object of intense scientific interest and and with the eye [he] could trace its windings for the fascination. It has also captured the artistic and distance of two or three miles.” First entertaining the literary imagination. This is a region where dreams possibility that this was the mouth of a “considerable of modernity have played out against ancient and freshwater stream,” he then dismissed it, writing that enduring knowledge systems. “the shallowness of the head of the bay and the usual

The river and bay that today provide a focus for both Above: A rich and varied coastal landscape. Photo: Michael Davis, 2015 tourism and maritime development were observed Inset: Arone Meeks (Kokomidiji), “Irukandji,” 2003. Linocut in late June 1845 by naturalist John MacGillivray print, hand-colored. Cairns Regional Gallery Collection. Reproduced with permission.

22 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 bar off the mouth of the supposed river, determined Entangled with these scientific interests and Captain Stanley to return to the ship, as the time which activities, the region is also defined by creativity, would otherwise have been spent in exploring a useless aesthetics, and a profound artistic vision. The coasts, creek might be devoted to some better purpose.” Today, reefs, islands, forests, hinterlands, and townscapes this “useless creek” and its bay form a major hub have been etched in the creative imagination over a for north Queensland’s tourism, trade, fishing, and very long period of time. Naturalists, ethnographers maritime industries. and collectors, photographers, artists, botanists and botanical artists, conservationists, poets, writers, The narrative of this region is constructed through and sculptors—the list is vast of those through complex and sometimes contradictory or competing whose passion the region has been creatively juxtapositions of science, art and aesthetics, natural inscribed in the human imaginary. A unity of history, and Aboriginal cultures. From the earliest creativity and imagination with science—botanical, European explorations into this region, the rich geographical, topographical—was the vision of biocultural landscape has been eagerly sought in the interests of research, industry, and government for its abundant flora and fauna. Naturalist MacGillivray, collecting plants, birds, and other animals as specimens for the imperial scientific project, was one of a long chain of individuals who pursued their zealous interests in scientific curiosity, collection, and classification. This extractive activity continues today, having evolved into bioprospecting and the commodification of reef and rainforest biodiversity by both the private and the public sector. The region is, in this sense, defined and constructed as a vast and unique scientific laboratory.

Above: Mudflat landscape. Photo: Michael Davis, 2015 Inset: Anna Eglitis, “C for Cassowary,” 2004/05. Linocut print, hand-colored. Cairns Regional Gallery Collection. Reproduced with permission.

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 23 the German explorer and scientist Alexander von glossed as “storywaters.” In this tradition, the Humboldt. In 1844, in one of his major works, Bulurru ancestors “put things in their place” to form Cosmos, he wrote: the country, or homeland, also known as Bulmba. In the authors’ words, they created the “social “The principal impulse by which I was directed was institutions that regulated marriage, enabling society the earnest endeavor to comprehend the phenomena to reproduce itself, the Law which guided it, and the of physical objects in their general connection, and aesthetic by which that life was celebrated in art, to represent nature as one great whole, moved and song and dance.” animated by internal forces.” Art has always been a vitally important factor in Indigenous knowledges, histories, cultures, the formation and construction of this region for and languages all find a significant place in this local Aboriginal peoples, and so too for incoming Humboldtian vision of a totality of the expressive, European settlers, sojourners, and visitors, in the poetic, and the scientific. These knowledges are all-encompassing: an Indigenous science of different ways and from different perspectives. The knowing the landscape and its abundant resources, magnificent and extraordinarily diverse Indigenous with an enduring capacity to sustainably manage artistic traditions, from ancient times to the present, that landscape and those resources, is embedded are deeply significant ways of inscribing this area in creative and expressive cosmological systems of in all of its dimensions, connecting cosmology, knowledges and practices. dreaming, kinship, place, and identity. In parallel, and sometimes intersecting artistic traditions, the region is also etched powerfully by a long succession “From the earliest European of European artists, writers, and poets. This aesthetic explorations into this region, the rich vision can also be encapsulated in photography, a medium that creatively harnesses science and art. biocultural landscape has been eagerly sought in the interests of research, industry, and government for its abundant flora and fauna.” The Aboriginal peoples of the rainforest region, collectively known as Bama, comprise several language and dialect groups. The Cairns area is a place of cultural and linguistic boundaries where clan and language groups intersect. To the north are Djabugay- speaking peoples, and to the south are Yidinjy speakers. The coastal strip, which includes Trinity Bay and environs, is mainly home to Yirrganydji-speaking peoples. Aboriginal people in this region are actively promoting and maintaining their living traditions and re-asserting the interconnectedness of the cultural landscape—where natural features are interwoven with all the other dimensions of Aboriginal culture: kinship, political and economic systems, cosmology, and heritage.

In their 1990 book Bulurru Storywaters, Roy Banning and Michael Quinn convey a sense of the deep connections between place, peoples, and Above: Paul Bong (Bindur Bullin, Yidinji), “A White Man Song Lines – Mirriwinni Cane Town Map of Sugar and Sunshine,” cosmologies. In their account, Djabugay-speaking 2015. Hand-tinted, shaped color zinc-plate etching printed on groups articulate their ancestral dreamings as Arches Velin Cuve paper. Edition 1/30. Cairns Regional Gallery “story-places,” or more specifically as Bulurru, Collection. Reproduced with permission.

24 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 The Cairns waterfront is a site where the the always present aesthetic vision of this region’s juxtaposition of science and technology with art, extraordinary diversity—linguistic, cultural, envir- creativity, and the deeply embedded Aboriginal onmental—expressed powerfully, poetically, and cultures and cosmologies come sharply into focus. sometimes poignantly through artistic and literary One example of this is the conflicted arena in which texts, images, narratives, stories, traditions. proposals have been made to dredge and develop the river and harbor environs, in view of building The Aboriginal narrative for the Cairns region also a deeper harbor that will accommodate larger ships finds articulation through political, legislative, and for the growing trade and commercial activities. advocacy activities. These developments enhance These development proposals speak to an economic an understanding of the deep and profound interrelationships between people, place, art, and industrial discourse, articulated in a rational, language, and law. Following a successful native title techno-scientific language of measurement, determination in 2006 for the Mandingalbay Yidinji capacity, volume, and speed. This extractive people, traditional owners “began working towards discourse fashions a counter-narrative to the artistic ‘putting country back together,’” negotiating with and creative one that envelops Cairns and North the Commonwealth Government, and eventually Queensland in a distinctively aesthetic sensibility. established an Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) in 2011. Opposition to the dredging proposals has pointed Layered within the region, the IPA is described thus: to concerns about the potential environmental “Straddling the Wet Tropics and Great Barrier impacts on reef and shore, and also makes reference Reef World Heritage Areas in north Queensland, to the deep and ancient Indigenous history and Mandingalbay Yidinji country lies just east of Cairns archaeology of the Cairns region, including the across Trinity Inlet and includes a great diversity of extensive use that Aboriginal peoples make of the environments—marine areas, mangroves, freshwater region’s abundant natural resources. Archaeological wetlands, rainforest clad mountains, coastal plains, evidence and existing land-use activities attest to beaches, reefs and islands” (Mandingalbay Yidinji the presence of a significant Aboriginal cultural Indigenous Protected Area Fact Sheet, November landscape. In the East Trinity area, at the heart of 2011, www.environment.gov.au/indigenous/ipa/ the proposed dredging activity, are sand ridges, declared/mandingalbay.html). pandanus plants, shell fragments and stone flakes, shell scatters, and fishing and crabbing sites in use. The great diversity of natural and cultural The dredging proposal area also abuts a fish habitat resources is similarly described in a 2014 Sea Country to the south and the Great Barrier Reef to the north. Plan drawn by the Yirrganydji-speaking people, a dialect group that includes the Traditional Owners of Dredging development proposals nudge up the region from Trinity Inlet (Pana Wangai) to Port against narratives of environmental protection Douglas (Diju). The Sea Country Plan states: and Aboriginal heritage. In a “dialogue of the deaf,” there often is little conversation between “Our sea country has significant natural and and among these different voices. Intersecting and cultural values including the Great Barrier Reef and cross-cutting these often conflicted narratives is Wet Tropics World Heritage listed areas, fish habitat

Above banner: “Storyplaces” along the Cairns shoreline show deep connections between local Aboriginal languages, place, clan names, plants and animals, embedded in culture and cosmology. Left: Gimuy, the local Yidinji word for the place now known as Cairns, taken from the name for the slippery blue fig tree(Ficus albipila), which grew abundantly in the area. Center: The story of Wungarrl, the carpet snake, who was a trader and now rests in this place. Right: The story of Gindarja, the cassowary, a beautiful bird that flew from the Tablelands to the coast. Photos: Michael Davis, 2015

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 25 areas and important habitat for threatened and rare At the Cairns waterfront, where Trinity Creek runs species including marine turtles, dugongs, dolphins, into the bay, in a fragile silted environment of mudflats, whales, fish, crustaceans, molluscs, invertebrates, assemblages form, dissolve, and re-form. In new migratory shorebirds and seabirds” (Yirrganydji configurations of sedimented knowledge formations, Kulpul-Wu Mamingal, “Looking After Sea Country,” science and technology, art and creativity, local histories, prepared in collaboration between the Dawul Wuru stories, places, ancestral tracks, and cosmologies Aboriginal Corporation and Yirrganydji People). jostle with narratives of dredging and harbor-side development, global environmental protection and The Yirrganydji Sea Country Plan connects management, and the politics of urban growth. past and present and maps ancestral dreamings, customary laws and practices, art and knowledge Textures of the mudflats. Photo: Michael Davis, 2015 systems, histories and ecologies, together with the Above left: contemporary imperatives of land, water, and sea Inset: Roy McIvor (Bindi/Guugu Yimidthirr), “Buurraay Milbaal (Water-Tears) – Wet,” 2010. Screenprint. Cairns Regional Gallery environmental management. Collection. Reproduced with permission.

Michael Davis researches and writes about Aboriginal and European histories and encounters, relationships between Indigenous and other knowledge systems, ecology and place, and ethical guidelines and protocols for Indigenous research. His most recent book (co-edited with Joni Adamson) is Humanities for the Environment: Integrating Knowledge, Forging New Constellations of Practice (Routledge, 2016). Further Reading Banning, R., & Quinn, M. (1989). Djabugay Ngirrma Gulu: Djabugay Language Here. Cairns, QLD, Australia: Kuranda.

Banning, R., & Quinn, M. (1990). Bulurru Storywaters. Cairns, QLD, Australia: Kuranda.

Bottoms, T. (1999). Djabugay Country: An Aboriginal History of Tropical North Queensland. Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

Dixon, R. M. W. (1991). Words of Our Country: Stories, Place Names and Vocabulary in Yidiny, the Aboriginal Language of the Cairns-Yarrabah Region. St. Lucia, QLD, Australia: Queensland University Press. von Humboldt, A. (1997). Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe (Vol. I; E. C. Otté, Trans.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

26 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Stephen Houston E du ca Intelligencetional Learning About Place and Country Through Aboriginal Art and Activism in Sydney, Australia “We have survived the white man’s world.” eloquently tell the story. But a sense of Country is —From the song We Have Survived, written now leading the way with practical demonstrations and performed by Bart Willoughby with the of what non-Indigenous Australian authorities are Aboriginal band No Fixed Address, 1981 beginning to learn: environmental management principles are ignored at our own peril, and respectful diversity among ourselves as a means espite the intensifying market pressures on for living sustainably with our locally unique Dland and the lifeworld, the power of Country environments is vital. as a living and sustaining force is re-asserting itself in Australia—that is, even in places like the City The contemporary map of Australia displaying of Sydney, where this deep lawful connection to roughly 250 language groups comprising 600 or Country experienced its earliest, blunt violations so dialects reveals the matrices of that layered under British colonial rule. Australia’s sovereign diversity within diversity. Both intellectually and First Peoples’ past and present connection to pragmatically, this intricately woven strength Country is emerging from several generations of of connection to Country has had the tenacious racially orchestrated, and devastating, take-over resilience to withstand nearly 230 years of persistent and dispossession. The numbers in today’s jails colonial efforts to ignore and extinguish it as a hindrance to commerce, industry, and development.

Below: The opening through which Joseph Banks and I am not Indigenous. So mine are not like those James Cook entered Botany Bay to “take possession” in 1770. intellectual powers that have been passed down Photo: Stephen Houston, 2016 by generations through customary law, ceremony, song, and kinship, identifying with life in a

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 27 particular place or places. But I can see the genius five key themes that characterize PBE learning of that strength as a vital necessity for sustaining practices: using local conditions to provide sound the Dreaming, for getting and keeping respectful, foundations for curriculum; emphasizing learning rich relations for biocultural diversity with an experiences that offer students chances to enduring aesthetic, spiritual, and cultural lore. And generate knowledge, not just consume it; focusing I can see the discipline that this powerful, enduring on the students’ own questions and concerns; intellectual culture offers. positioning the teacher as an “experienced guide,” a co-learner, a facilitator, or broker of I live on Wangal Country in Croydon, in old community resources and learning opportunities; suburban Sydney. Ten kilometres eastward of and breaking down boundaries that prevent here, back in 1770, Joseph Banks and James Cook school students from developing skills through proclaimed possession of Country at Botany Bay. participation in the community. Their scientific expedition on the exploration vessel HMS Endeavour, commissioned by King George III PBE teachers argue that education must offer of England, brought them to the east coast of what practical learning to do with such daunting was to them New Holland after sailing first through existential challenges as chronic and systemic New Zealand, and they called it New South Wales. environmental problems—that is, practical Everything to them was schooling that addresses “new.” They sailed in through “Knowing this place is knowing this the lack of vital local the headlands to drop story. But how you identify yourself knowledge and awareness anchor and let Banks off to in many people’s lives. gather specimens. He was is critical in what meaning it holds That gap has arisen from a wealthy young botanist, for you and whether it makes you the identity shocks of soon to be running Britain’s smile with pride, cringe in disgust, economic effacement and imperial Royal Society and displacement, under the influencing an epoch of new or be confused about where you pressures of property colonial enterprise in both belong in the story.” markets and labor market science and business. Knowing this place is knowing forces that have led to tremendous turnover of this story. But how you identify yourself is critical land in urban spaces. The steady, dependable in what meaning it holds for you and whether it identities of local contexts and ecological features makes you smile with pride, cringe in disgust, or have become hard if not impossible to sustain. be confused about where you belong in the story. It Space simply equals commercial opportunity. can be very uncomfortable negotiating our different While PBE addresses this disorienting logic, deep identities in relation to these places. knowledge of and commitment to place in the sense of Country predates this environmentalist I am a secondary school teacher. Being an educational movement. educator in geography or history studies in this contested colonized place raises dilemmas about A prime example of enduring commitment to our various teacher and learner identities and Country is a protracted legal battle in Sydney’s inner purposes for teaching, learning, and assessment. southern precinct of Redfern over planned property Education is never culture-neutral. Whose cultural redevelopment on a particularly symbolic modern purposes are we serving? Who are we? Koori place of social and land rights struggle called “The Block.” (With its daily use in such places Teachers in some geography and outdoor as the Koori Mail, Koori Radio, Koori Knockout education circles are embracing Place-Based rugby league, and innumerable others, the term Education (PBE) because they are concerned that “Koori” is widespread as the self-identifying name curriculum has become too disconnected from the for people of Aboriginal descent living in Sydney foundations of life and is losing relevance for real- and most of New South Wales, usually preferred world predicaments faced by communities. The to the non-Indigenous term “Aboriginal.”) The blame is often placed on globalization and market- Block protest soon attracted media attention and based capitalism and its consumer culture. One of political interest. A Tent Embassy was formed as a the best-known PBE authors, Greg Smith, put forth negotiators’ space. Tents and other shelters were

28 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Above: Man walking. The city behind “The Block,” land fenced off by developers in Redfern, Sydney. Photo: Stephen Houston, 2016 quickly erected to show solidarity and protest For a long time, the colonial-based education numbers. A court case followed. Now developers system wavered as to whether to exclude or gain the have an empty space fenced off, but they know they confidence of First People groups to participate and are not dealing with just anybody. Connection to comply with the aims of curriculum. After a lengthy Country is undeniable. It works with the immutable experience of embarrassing failures, however, post- sense of belonging to land that long predates the Apartheid government education policies began City, the Commercial Business District (CBD), and to appear in the 1970s, when international human speculative property values. rights reports started highlighting and defining Australia’s racially-based administrative problems. Now Australians are beginning to see and hear An organization called the Aboriginal Education “Welcome to Country” and acknowledgment of Consultative Group (AECG) gathered momentum Country as routine expressions and expectations during the early 1980s. Linda Burney, later to become in public life. Is this a kind of gradual systemic the first Aboriginal woman MP in the Commonwealth learning, a form of PBE? Is the colonial state ready House of Representatives, was President of the AECG to let go of its doctrine of Terra Nullius (nobody’s in 1982 when the New South Wales Government land)—not just legally but also culturally? Is it ready introduced the landmark Aboriginal Education Policy (AEP), the first of its kind in Australia. to wholeheartedly accept that Country exists and to enter into what David Gruenevald, another key PBE The AEP now formally requires publicly funded writer, calls decolonization and reinhabitation—the schools to take responsibility for positive and high larger landscape of cultural and ecological politics? expectations in Aboriginal education relationships. Undoubtedly, nothing less than sovereignty itself All staff are required to learn about the history of has been at stake, and it continues to be so. Aboriginal peoples in Australia and, most importantly,

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 29 about the specific experiences, both past and present, that affect local family groups in Country. The AEP, therefore, has a strong focus on knowledge of Country and care and responsibility, and it directs local Aboriginal people to make use of this important formal policy opportunity. It urges them to assume previously unthinkable expectations of responsibility in these relationships with education institutions. Understandably, it has been a challenging policy directive to many, but it is a crucial one.

Also profoundly inspiring has been the work of First Peoples activists, cultural workers, artists, academics, and elders, who have been providing the kinds of educational intelligence that the public has so badly needed in Australia. They remind Australians, many of us realizing we are losing our sense of local identity, of the invaluable importance of identification with Country—and of such specific in the geographical center of what is now the urban identification within daily environmental, creative, metropolis of Greater Sydney, was the “first colonial and intellectual practice. Koori artists have risen seat of government,” long overshadowed by the to the top of Sydney’s and, indeed, of Australia’s modern City of Sydney and the industrial docks and cultural industries, finding ways to assert a sense of CBD closer to the ocean to the east. Country and of being Indigenous while faced with The event, known as the Eel Festival, is staged today’s circumstances. Musicians, visual artists, on a key site among the historic house properties craftspersons, writers, actors, and dancers feature that form part of Sydney Living Museums (SLM): in this diverse spectrum of artistry. the Macarthur Homestead, Australia’s very first homestead, which sits on Burramattagal land in “Is the colonial state ready Parramatta. Few people in Sydney realize that the name “Parramatta” means “place of the eel,” so the to wholeheartedly accept that festival provides much needed awareness about Country exists and to enter into... language and sense of place. Until very recently, this the larger landscape of cultural SLM site focused only on the colonial history of non- Indigenous people. The homestead is a fascinating and ecological politics?” old building replete with authentically restored or Uncle Wes Marne is one such creative force, an refashioned period items, but now for the first time, elderly Bigambul man from Southern Queensland it holds its place alongside a clear presence of Koori who has lived in Sydney for over 40 years. He is a people and the Burramattagal in particular. Thanks storyteller, poet, and mentor working in schools, to artist, weaver, and storyteller Clive Freeman, SLM prisons, and community organizations. When, Coordinator of Aboriginal Interpretation Programs, during the 1960s, he began attempting to enter this and all other historic houses run by SLM follow schools in New South Wales to tell stories, he was the new Aboriginal Action Plan. Within that plan, blocked and then severely limited and monitored Clive’s role is to “enhance the historic values” of these properties and to ensure that Koori visitors— for a long time. He now works with Western especially the very local nearby Sydney area peoples, Sydney University and in other settings where his the Eora, Darug, and Dharawal—“can actively assistance as an elder and mentor is appreciated connect to these properties” with the support of staff. respectfully. I had my first opportunity to hear the stories and poems of Uncle Wes when I met him Above: Bigambul (Southern Queensland) storyteller and poet Uncle in March this year at a newly inaugurated annual Wes Marne, who has lived helping community on Darug land in Sydney public event in Old Parramatta Town. Parramatta, for over forty years, seen at the 2017 Parramatta Eel Festival in Sydney. located at the upper reaches of the Parramatta River Photo: Stephen Houston, 2017. Reproduced with subject’s permission.

30 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 The festival offers a highly significant opportunity life of today’s Sydney. The markets are growing and to families from Koori and non-Koori backgrounds increasing in popularity among buyers and sellers to spend time on the property and learn from the keen to appreciate and promote Koori perspectives place and its story—and to do so in a much more and their contribution to life in Sydney. meaningful way than through the exclusively British This event parallels what is happening in education colonial lens that dominated the museums’ sites circles. The colonial narratives of victorious until recently. The event also provides a venue for commercial enterprise and economic development more people to listen to people talking on and about will no longer exclude the vital intelligence of Country—Country as land with deep connection, the voices of the local people on and from whose an eloquently articulated concept imbued with Country colonial sites were or are erected. At the authoritative local cultural life and all the diversity festival, I also met Marnie Omeragic and Joanne this implies. The culinary and food gathering Somerville, both of whom work professionally in traditions, including giant eel traps fashioned with early childhood education in a suburb near my home. woven fibres from local plants, bring home a sense They participate regularly in an initiative called the of the age-old seasonal gatherings known to have “Yarning Circle,” initiated by a Sydney-based early- celebrated this particular place in Country and childhood curriculum consultant who is a Koori this unique creature, a fish that migrates here in a woman specializing in Indigenous perspectives on breeding cycle that starts in far-flung New Caledonia education. We met up two days later for a photo in the Pacific Ocean and returns there over the eel’s op at a local green space known as Wongal Park, a lifespan. The festival also represents a new and wetland rejuvenation project not far from where I potentially increasingly busy market and meeting live. This place in the middle of Sydney’s suburbia opportunity for many Kooris finding economic allows for enduring Wongal Country to be realized livelihoods through market-based manufacturing culturally with the help of local Wongal caretakers, and service businesses in the commercially focused elders, and cultural advisors. Such networks for

Above: The Macarthur Homestead verandah at Elizabeth Farm in Parramatta, which sits on Burramattagal land (Darug Country): it looks ordinary but is unique, being the first on the Australian continent. Photo: Stephen Houston, 2017

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 31 educators are emerging and becoming practical opportunities to learn about Country that is still alive under the colonial streetscapes of built-up blocks and properties.

The Australian book Sharing Spaces: Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Responses to Country and Rights, edited by Gus Worby and Lester-Irabinna Rigney, provides a wonderful array of thoughts on the critical issue of struggle between conflicting interests in various kinds of shared places—an issue that has characterized the Australian social landscape to this day. The book shows that these fiercely contested places call for education that brings people into conversation with one another to discover what they all have in common. The role of diverse languages is vital as a cultural strategy Increasingly, the kind of stance being adopted for respectfully differentiating ourselves, making throughout Australia by non-Indigenous educators sense of lived histories and relations, and keeping and everyday thinking citizens connects to sovereign people together and strong in the midst of such peoples’ voices and knowledge on Country to bear cultural conflicts. firmly on specific local concerns: the places we live In Australian public life, it is beginning to become in and know. Gradually, it would appear that, even apparent that, rhetorically, there is no sturdier- in Sydney where market transformations are most sounding voice than one speaking on Country. intense, a learning process is happening about our After a lengthy televised oratory address delivered daily relations to places and the living worlds therein. passionately and graciously by local elder Tina Brown Sustainability is a critical challenge we face. Is the in the nation’s Commonwealth Parliament House in intelligence of sovereign connection to Country likely Canberra on August 30, 2016, our Prime Minister (PM) to assume ever-greater prominence in education? We delivered a short message in Ngunawal language, on shall see. But what is beginning to happen, with the Country, at the Welcome to Country Ceremony for the help of art and activism, is heartening. opening of the 45th Commonwealth Parliament. The historical significance of this broadcast Welcome to Above: Early childhood educators Marnie Omeragic and Joanne Country, including the replies by the PM and others, Somerville at Wongal Park, in Croydon, an inner-west suburb of Sydney. cannot be understated. Photo: Stephen Houston, 2017. Reproduced with subjects’ permission.

Stephen Houston teaches and researches language matters in Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, with a special interest in language planning. He has worked in the prison education system and in secondary schools with the NSW Department of Educations. He also is an Associate Member of the Australian Institute for Interpreters and Translators. Further Reading Gruenewald, D. A., & Smith, G. A. (Eds.). (2008). Place-Based Education in the Global Age: Local Diversity. New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a Local Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Sumner, M. (n.d.). Interview. Retrieved from http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/ play/1517/Major--Muggi--Sumner

Trevorrow, T., & Hemming, S. (2006). Conversation: Kungun Ngarrindjeri Yunnan — Listen to Ngarrindjeri people talking. In G. Worby & L. I. Rigney (Eds.), Sharing Spaces: Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Responses to Story, Country and Rights (pp. 295–304). Perth, Western Australia: API Network.

32 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Hilary Vidalakis T hinking Like Fire The Biocultural Art of Firelighting here’s a tiny subculture of place-loving men and women burning weather: winds in our favor, Twho specialize in burning the land. “Prescribed fire,” humidity within range, and the proper they call it, though the term strikes me as arrogant; after three number of days since a good, soaking winters spent elbow-deep in the craft, lighting fires across the rain. Under perfect conditions, a human- swamps and mountains and sandhill forests of Georgia, and lit fire can mimic natural wildfire’s despite the physical intimacy with which I came to know and role in regenerating soil and managing love the landscape, I can’t say I understood it well enough to vegetation for ecosystem health. “prescribe” anything. “Intentional,” maybe, or “interpretive” burning seems more appropriate. Until fairly recently, fire was a shaping force on the southern landscape. They called us “firelighters.” The job of my crew was to plan, Fire-adapted forests—many of them prepare for, and execute fires of varying size, responding dominated by Pinus palustris, the longleaf to the particular needs of selected tracts of land. We burned pine—once covered some 92 million acres all over the state and traveled frequently in pursuit of good from southern Virginia into Texas. Within longleaf ecosystems dwelt a variety of equally fire-adapted organisms, including wiregrass, gopher tortoises, red-cockaded woodpeckers, and eastern indigo snakes.

Prior to human arrival on the continent— starting perhaps as early as 16,500 years ago—lightning-sparked fires carried as far and wide as topography and weather would allow. There is archeological evidence that some of Georgia’s earliest residents saw the benefits of regular burning and eventually were able to harness fire. Fire cleared land for agriculture, attracted game, controlled insect pests, and made it easier to navigate thick brush for the gathering of nuts and roots. It is believed that, later on, European settlers learned the practice of intentional burning from these Indigenous groups and continued to light fires themselves. Frequent burning also served to prevent deadlier conflagrations, which threatened property and human safety.

Left: Hilary Vidalakis taking a pause on the fireline. Photo: Pat McChesney, 2012

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 33 Fire’s universal appeal would not endure, however. The rise of the logging industry in the late nineteenth century deterred burning, as scorch marks would devalue timber. The golden age of logging coincided with an era of nationwide fire suppression. This led to a buildup of dangerous fuels; in 1910, drought sparked raging wildfires which spanned from the northern Rockies to New England, burning millions of acres and killing eighty-seven people. What was once a common practice—burning the woods—had become anathema. In the late 1920s, “Dixie Crusaders,” a group sponsored by the nonprofit American Forestry Association (now American Forests), traveled across the South distributing pamphlets and film propaganda highlighting the dangers of intentional burning. The US Forest Service hired a psychologist to study why

“After three winters of fire I did, to some degree, learn intentional fire’s most important lesson. To light a healing fire, I needed to think and act like fire.” Southerners set fires; in his results, Dr. John F. Shea discredited the cultural, historical, and ecological importance of burning, reporting that locals would set large-scale fires merely for entertainment “in an environment otherwise barren of emotional outlets.” During World War II, the US Forest Service worked with the War Advertising Council (known today as the Ad Council) to conjure fire suppression’s most beloved name and face: Smokey Bear. Forestry and conservation science gradually came to embrace the role of fire, but by then much damage had been done. Fire suppression had changed the makeup of southern forests, allowing the incursion of hardwoods less likely to host similar levels of biodiversity. Today, only about five million acres of old- growth longleaf pine forest remain in the United States, most of it in non-contiguous patches. In attempts to restore fire’s regenerative effects on the landscape, Georgia began a prescribed fire program in the 1950s.

Top: A longleaf pine sapling in its “grass stage,” Reed Bingham State Park. Photo: Hilary Vidalakis, 2011 Bottom: Burning ‘til the sun goes down, southern Georgia. Photo: Hilary Vidalakis, 2013

34 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 I first came to Georgia just after Thanksgiving 2010, new to the state and to the South and an absolute novice when it came to fire. I was eager from the start to get things right, to master this hot new tool and shine at the top of my class. None of that would come to pass. That first season unfolded as a series of mishaps and worse: broken equipment, bits and pieces lost in the woods, navigation mistakes, moments of sheer terror. My second winter didn’t go much better: I upended a four-wheeler, melted a radio, sidelined a couple of chainsaws, and became known for my tall, reckless flames. The third time around I was still making mistakes: I snapped a cable on another four-wheeler, chewed up the wedges we use for felling trees, over-fired sensitive vegetation in the burn unit at Kolomoki Mounds State Park. But mistakes be damned, after three winters of fire I did, to some degree, learn intentional fire’s most important lesson.

To light a healing fire, I needed to think and act like fire. I am a systematic, organized person, eager to strategize, to know and follow guidelines, but fire calls for sensory instinct and muscle memory rather than book learning. Toward the end of my career, I heeded the advice my teachers had offered up from the beginning: let go of your books. Open your eyes. Learn a different syntax. With fire there are no “yes or no” answers, no hard and fast algorithms—just scenarios and possibilities, and instinct that grows through mistakes: by over-firing, under-burning, testing out ignition patterns in varying winds. By witnessing the interaction of two equally wild elements: landscape and fire. First, I learned to read landscape, to interpret southern ground, to look ahead at what lay before me and reference past learning so as to understand what sort of fire each plant community or fuel type might require. Infant longleaf pines might not yet be ready for heat and flame; the same goes for pines that are “candling,” putting forth their springtime growth. Mature trees with rings of “duff,” or leaf litter, at their Top: A firelighter’s uniform: fire retardant Nomex shirt and pants, tall black bases call for a light touch with fast-moving fire, as leather boots. Oconee National Forest. Photo: Hilary Vidalakis, 2013 such piles can catch and harbor flames long enough Bottom: Malcolm Hodges, foreground, and fellow firelighters take to fatally bake even sturdy pines by the roots. a well-deserved rest after a burn on the Oconee National Forest. Photo: Hilary Vidalakis, 2013

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 35 Next, I learned to read fire. I witnessed its behavior replication, demonstrates the very fallacy implicit in repeated trials and dabbled more intentionally in dividing the two disciplines. Isn’t there always with its application. Fire behaves in certain ways some repeated trial, some rigorous observation when it interacts with environmental factors, such involved in good craftsmanship? And is good as slope, wind speed and direction, relative humidity, science ever entirely devoid of the attention or and fuel type. Fire also interacts with fire, as when curiosity of the artist? two flames bend toward each other, or when fire skips an already-burned patch now devoid of fuels. ***** A practiced firelighter can play these effects off one What would Georgia be without fire, I wonder. another: for example, lighting at the base of a hill Absent fire, absent its transformative capacity, absent knowing that wetter fuels or countering winds will the awe and clarity it inspires, what would happen to temper the inevitable uphill run. us—to firelighters, to southerners, to humanity? When I light fire, I commit a landscape to an When we think about biocultural diversity—the uncertain future dependent on my skill in reading connection and interplay between variety in human terrain and applying my chosen medium. A language, culture, and experience and variety firelighter’s first intimacy is with the land; only then in geosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere—we can she reckon with the paintbrush. Firelighting is must consider not only the biological, but also the an art that, when practiced with scientific rigor and elemental. How holy, how messy, how humble the experience of firelighting, of attempting to recreate Below: Young longleaf pines appear toasted, but they are well adapted both cultural and natural forces, subject always to to survive fires like this prescribed burn at Reed Bingham State Park. Photo: Hilary Vidalakis, 2011 the undulations of wind and terrain.

Hilary Vidalakis is a writer and environmental educator living in New York City. Past, beloved homes include northern Yellowstone, southeastern Utah, western North Dakota, and the state of Georgia. Moving to the city from more recognizably “wild” environments was a challenge, yet she is coming to discover and appreciate “nature” in hidden urban corners. Further Reading Georgia Humanities Council and University of Georgia Press. (2015). New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org. The Longleaf Alliance. (2017). About Longleaf. Retrieved from http://www.longleafalliance.org. True, A. (Ed.). (2001). Wildfire: A Reader. Washington, DC: Island Press. United States Forest Service. (2012). Introduction to Prescribed Fire in Southern Ecosystems. Asheville, NC: Southern Research Station.

36 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 PeoplePeople Text, photos, and drawings by Saori Ogura and PlantsPlants

Sustaining Agrobiodiversity Through Art and Science in Zimbabwe awn in the village. As the Milky Way— a hedge against drought and increasingly uncertain Dgwararakurumvi—recedes from a sky of weather patterns. A local friend and member of the deep navy blue, birds start to fly over the fields, Muonde Trust, Mr. Nemiah, kindly accompanies me espying millet and sorghum. The sun orb pierces to study the traditional crops. He points out seven the horizon and moves midheavenward. It’s March wetlands under rice and bigger areas of dry fields 2016, and I am a guest in the traditional chiefdom of where finger millet, bulrush millet, sorghum, cowpeas, Mazvihwa, in south-central Zimbabwe, for a month ground nuts, round nuts, and maize are growing. of collaborative research with Indigenous farmers. I crawl up a big rock to draw the landscape in my sketchbook. Seeing my nervousness standing atop the Mazvihwa is a three-hour drive from the country’s rock, he starts dancing nimbly on another one nearby. second-largest city, Bulawayo. During the colonial period (1890–1980), ecosystems and agricultural ***** practices changed. Intensive wetland cultivation by I spent much of my time in the villages of Indigenous people was forbidden by law within thirty Mazvihwa drawing illustrations of the traditional metres of any stream or waterway. Some villages were crops and asking the villagers about the plants—how forced to relocate from the riverside to drier land. In they plant, when they harvest, and how they cook the rocky hills, lions no longer rest in caves. The huge them. Drawing the plants helped me to discern the trees are gone. Listening to the stories of the local nonlinear, nonpositivist relationships between the community members, I imagine the landscape two people and the plants. Discovering scientific names and nutritional values is important, but so is learning hundred years ago. the local names and how people perceive the life of As I climb to the top of a hill near Madzoke, a remote the plants. I created an atlas of the traditional plants village two hours’ walking distance from the nearest with my drawings and photographs, local names, jeep road, I can see the whole settlement: an elliptical scientific names, use of the plants, and cultivation shape surrounded by small mountains. Whereas the practices. To give back the information I learned Zimbabwe economy has become dependent on maize from the local people, I conducted a drawing monoculture, Madzoke still cultivates varieties of workshop for the Muonde team, and we drew the landscapes and plants of Mazvihwa. I believe traditional seeds. Although the variety of traditional combining Indigenous and scientific perspectives on grains has declined compared to thirty years ago, traditional plants will foster our understanding of grains fared better than the maize crop in the recent human–nature relationships. severe drought. A locally led NGO, the Muonde Trust, has started revitalizing the traditional small grains as Above: Dawn in the village of Mazvihwa. 2016

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 37 I also believe that drawing enables us to better observe and capture the knowledge and wisdom of local people, the life of plants, and interrelations with people and plants to advance science. And, together with the Indigenous communities, I hope to co-create a model that integrates traditional land use strategies and plant use in order to improve their resource self-sufficiency.

Saori Ogura is a naturalist, artist, and researcher. Her PhD study at the University of British Columbia focuses on sustainable solutions to assist communities in the Eastern Himalayas and Zimbabwe in revitalizing their traditional crops and adapting to climate change. In her drawings and photos, she highlight the relationships between people and nature. Further Reading Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions. Wilson, K. (2013). Mai Hove talks about the importance of growing drought resistant small grains in Zimbabwe [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.muonde. org/2013/07/09/mai-hove-talks-about-the-importance- of-growing-drought-resistant-small-grains-in-zimbabwe/

Top: Early morning, house of Ms. Mai Biggie in Mudhomori village. 2016 Middle right: Fruits were plentiful in the village of Madyakuseni. Small Inset: A finger millet, chebwe in the Shona language, cultivated in girls quickly climbed up the fruit trees to pick some nyii (Berchemia Madzoke village. 2016 discolor, commonly known as bird plum) and sumha (Diospyros mespiliformis, commonly known as African ebony). They shared them with Left: Drawing of a bulrush millet, rushambo. 2016 me so that I could draw them. 2016 Middle left: A sorghum, tsveta in Shona, cultivated in Madzoke village. Right: A cat sneaking into a storage house, where small According to Ms. Mai Hove, a member of the Muonde Trust who is from grains are saved. 2016 Madyakuseni village, it is very sweet and often used to make beer. 2016

38 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Top left: In the early morning, Mr. Nemiah, a member of the Muonde Trust who hosted us in Madzoke village, guided Mai Hove and me as we climbed up the rocky hill to look over the village. 2016 Top right: Mr. Nemiah and a relative of his holding a fresh watermelon in a field of finger millet. 2016 Bottom left: Mai Hove, who kindly came with me to study traditional crops in Madzoke village, holding a groundnut or nzungu. 2016 Bottom right: Shanti picking fruits from a tree in Madyakuseni village. 2016

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 39 Top left: The Muonde Trust team who attended the drawing workshop produced beautiful images of the landscapes and plants. One of them told me that it was his first time drawing. 2016 Top right: The Muonde team drawing the landscape during the workshop. 2016 Middle left: Wonderful drawing created by Tatenda, an experienced driver for the Muonde Trust. 2016 Bottom: The Muonde team driving back to the headquarters after finishing their work in the late afternoon. 2016 Gloriously Eliza Smith Entwined Nature and Culture, Art and Agriculture

and biocultural resilience. What about flipped classrooms where song, dance, and theatrical spoken word are used to understand and memorize landscape and biological systems, while actually walking in them, like many oral traditions have always done? What about a new breed of agricultural show—harvest festivals where learning exchange takes place through practical workshops teaching old and new knowledge that is also t was a specific moment in 2013, while attending celebrated through visual and performing arts? Ia farmer club meeting in rural Kenya, that What about a new film genre that shares the stories sparked my curiosity. Patrick Kiirya, the meeting and lessons of smallholder farmers? All this in order facilitator, as well as minister for agriculture in to shape the minds of the next generation of global the Busoga Kingdom in Uganda and an agroecology changemakers working in their own communities enthusiast, asked participants to perform a song for cultural, ecological, and economic sustainability. about the value of trees as a meeting “energizer.” I The story of my interest in this issue begins in thought this to be a rather challenging impromptu 2013 with my work in agricultural research for exercise and doubted there would be too many development in East Africa. I am a veterinary scientist bold volunteers. To my surprise, almost all the by trade and work in livestock projects that seek fifteen people attending the meeting, men and to improve small-scale production for livelihoods women, stood in front of the group and delivered and nutrition, as well as to minimize agriculture- creative and heartfelt performances about trees. related infectious diseases, which are common in Some were traditional songs, others were made resource-poor settings. During my time in Kenya, I up on the spot. It was definitely a “TIA” or “This Is had the opportunity to learn about the applications Africa” moment. Art and agriculture sit gloriously entwined in souls here. Top: People on traditional canoes on Lake Bunyonyi in western Uganda, paddling toward the boat landing at the local marketplace. I want to know more. I want to know whether Photo: Eliza Smith, 2017 harnessing this energy might help multiply the Inset: People unloading their goods at the boat landing benefits for learning exchange in agroecology at the Bunyonyi markerplace. Photo: Eliza Smith, 2017

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 41 Above: Arthur Conrad Kisitu waiting to capture the moment when the Habasa family arrives at the boat landing. Photo: Eliza Smith, 2017 of agroecology. I completed an introductory design daughter about the biocultural diversity in her course with both local East African and international two homelands—Australia and Uganda—and also participants. The pioneers here, Kenyans Gai inform the development of “Arts for Agricultural Cullen and Joseph Letenyoi, inspired me through Development” as a collaborative toolset for my work stories of various ecological enterprises in their in sustainable agriculture, health, and livelihoods. country. Beyond the course, I continue to have lively discussions with Patrick Kiirya about the potential for It’s now 2017. I am here with my daughter on agritourism and “agrifestivals” in the region as part the shores of the beautiful Lake Bunyonyi in the of what he describes as theater for development. Kabale District of western Uganda, near the Rwanda border, to meet with some people who may just Fast forward to 2015, with the birth of my be interested in such an approach—the Batwa daughter. Since then, the concept and importance Pygmies. Traditionally hunters who had intimate of retaining memory and learnings has become knowledge of the plants and animals in their forest incredibly important to me, especially for the purpose of sharing knowledge so as to raise a “Arthur Conrad Kisitu’s NdabaDance resilient child. I have come to the sober realization project seeks to show solidarity that my own intelligence is defined by my ability with and rehumanize those who are to memorize and recall facts and figures that relate marginalized and face barriers to to my broad life sciences education. And now, as a thirty-three-year-old first-time mother, having empowerment and connection spent the last couple of years struggling with sleep with culture or environment.” deprivation, postnatal depression, and yes, “baby brain,” I fear the apparent loss of swathes of once homelands, in the early 1990s they experienced easily recalled information. So I was naturally drawn forced translocation through government programs to the book “The Memory Code” about traditional in the name of wildlife conservation. Earlier in the Aboriginal memory techniques and ancient memory century, regional infighting in Rwanda resulted in spaces the world over. This book has catalyzed mass migration to the Bunyonyi area. For decades my own investigation into how I might be able to now, they have been living here in unforested and use these concepts and experiences to teach my overly cultivated islands that dot the lake. Sadly,

42 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Above: The boat with the Habasa family finally arrives. Photo: Eliza Smith, 2017

Above: Henry Rutaro, left, a young Bakiga man who knows the Batwa language and acts as a translator for the interview. Photo: Eliza Smith, 2017 they often conceal their cultural roots to avoid stories of other cultures and traditions, and to give discrimination from the locally predominant Bakiga children an opportunity for intercultural exchange (Bantu) population, with whom they have a history and for sharing their experiences—both good of conflict. They make a living from small-scale and bad. It is this approach that has led Arthur to agriculture and fishing and from singing, dancing, document the plight of the Batwa more closely. and making crafts for tourists. “In the last three years,” says Arthur, “I have Here’s how I made the connection with the been actively reaching out to the children in the Batwa. In 2014, I met the artist Arthur Conrad Batwa community in Kabale. The Ekizino dance is Kisitu in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. From Arthur, one of the few things that are shared by the Bakiga I learned about a different way of approaching and the minority Batwa. The only time the two life’s hurts and challenges: through dancing. His communities mix harmoniously is when they do NdabaDance project seeks to show solidarity with the traditional dance together. I have sought to use and rehumanize those who are marginalized and this for enhancing mutual understanding of the face barriers to empowerment and connection with Batwa with their neighbors. While these relations culture or environment. The project aims to tell are just one aspect of the challenges that remain,

Above left: The boat with the Habasa family finally arrives. Photo: Eliza Smith, 2017 Above right: Arthur Conrad Kisitu (right) conducting the interview briefing. Photo: Eliza Smith, 2017

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 43 I have been documenting the day-to-day positive no longer live in their traditional way. The Batwa aspects of their life. Using music and dance for appeared to respond emotionally and seemed repairing relationships, promoting Batwa pride thankful for the acknowledgment of their loss. No and involvement.” other tourist had done this before.

Among other challenges that face the Batwa is I ask Arthur for his thoughts on using visual the potential for a cycle of alcohol addiction and art and performance not only as a form of inter- dependence on the tourist dollar. Arthur explains cultural dialogue but also as a medium through that in the last three years he has seen a change in the which agricultural teachings could be applied. community. Where initially there were a number of members, including children and adult performers, “Traditional folk music in Uganda,” he answers, who were more engaged and interested, he now finds “reflects a rich diversity of forms and styles steeped people, including children as young as ten to twelve in Indigenous cultures that capture the soul of the years, who will spend money on alcohol over food, country. Like in many parts of Uganda, drumming become angered more easily, and demand payment and dancing form a critical dialectic in Batwa before allowing him to document them. social rituals, culture, and entertainment. Dance goes hand in hand with day-to-day activities. As the I am also disturbed by the story I heard from Batwa embrace their new role in farming, adapting my cousin and her husband of their experience to this new reality, it is only a matter of time before meeting the Batwa in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest they begin combining their music and dance to the in southwestern Uganda—the forest home from agricultural experience. This should be encouraged which they were evicted in 1992, when the area was because that is how they learn and share generally.” declared a park for the protection of endangered mountain gorillas. While watching the Batwa sing I am not sure whether this concept will resonate and dance, they couldn’t help but perceive how with the Batwa, but to find out I guess I have to start disconnected these people seemed to be from the the conversation. So, with some trepidation, I begin dance. At the end, they communicated gratitude with Habasa Anna, a Mutwa (Batwa) mother my to the dance group and also remorse that they can same age. I am acutely aware of my own cultural

Eliza Smith and Habasa Anna with their babies after the interview. Photo: Arthur Conrad Kisitu, 2017

44 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 projections and the potential for loss of meaning in Anna describes the main challenges in her life translation. Arthur briefs me that the Habasa family as the family’s constant health concerns that she is trying its best to make a living away from the tourist cannot access proper medical care to address. When market. Anna looks after their three children, collects asked if she ever thinks about wanting to go back water daily, and tends to their garden growing mostly to the old Batwa way of life in the forest, she says potatoes, beans, and some medicinal plants for when no, as she herself was born here and knows nothing family members get fever. Habasa Ivan, her husband, different. She explains that her dream in life would spends long hours fishing for small fish and traveling be to become a tailor so that she could sell clothes at the market. She also says that she would like to “When asked if she ever thinks learn to produce more crops, improve the rocky soil about wanting to go back to the old in her garden, and raise cows for milk consumption. Batwa way of life in the forest, Anna When I ask her about Batwa songs, she insists says no, as she herself was born she can’t sing. Then, surprisingly, she breaks into a here and knows nothing different.” beautiful song about the journey of the Batwa and about being thankful despite the hardships. I notice her tearing up as she sings and get the sense that this the long distance to the market when there is big woman endures a lot. She says she very much likes enough a catch. He also hunts the occasional small the idea of watching films to learn how to better mammal that lives around the lake to take home for her farming practice, even though she has never meat. For a man who lives with a painful disfiguring seen a film, but cannot afford to sing to learn about disease, he works hard for little reward, certainly not agriculture. A puzzling answer—for surely song was enough to pay for proper treatment for his condition. once integral to wider knowledge systems in Batwa But he says he works to forget the pain and does not culture. Perhaps song could once again play a very feel sorry for himself. practical part in these people’s livelihood? Might Arthur, Henry the interpreter, myself, and my art, gloriously entwined with agriculture, help the Batwa pursue new learnings about cultivation of daughter wait for three hours for the boat carrying plants and animals for a new way of life, enriched the Habasa family to arrive. The last long boat rolls with memories of bioculture in their old way of life? in, and I anxiously peer into the boat full of people staring back at me, wondering who Anna and Ivan The interview ends with Anna graciously might be. Only later when I examine the photos welcoming me to stay with her in her home for a Arthur has taken of the boat’s arrival, do I see the while. I imagine the challenges of such a venture with similarly tense look of Ivan, the man hunched in a a 21-month-old toddler but am excited at the prospect blue hooded jacket in the blearing heat of the day of a learning exchange in pursuit of finding out what to hide the lumps that cover his body. Once we are role art has for agriculture in her community. So I settled down together, with Anna’s husband watching make a promise to keep the communication line open on without speaking, the conversation that ensues with Anna and work towards starting this journey in allows me to start assembling the pieces of the puzzle. person with her in 2018.

Eliza Smith is a veterinary scientist whose interests lie in knowledge systems for agriculture, health, and livelihoods in the global development sector. She works as communications manager for the Kyeema Foundation, an organization that promotes local partnerships to improve living standards of vulnerable communities. Eliza calls East Africa home. View a short film by Arthur Conrad Kisitu on the meeting between Anna and Eliza at Lake Bunyonyi in Kabale District, Uganda, at http://www.terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/Volume_6/langscape-6-1-Smith Further Reading Kelly, L. (2016). The Memory Code: The Traditional Aboriginal Memory Technique that Unlocks the Secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and Ancient Monuments the World Over. Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin. Kyeema Foundation. (n.d.). Kyeema Foundation. Retrieved from www.kyeemafoundation.org NdabaDance. (n.d.). NdabaDance—The Project. Retrieved from www.ndabadance.com

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 45 WhenWhen ArtArt BeatsBeats

ScienceScienceJean Thomas Saving Tree Kangaroos remaining, it was obvious that if only one animal was hunted every year from each village, the species would with Song and Dance in become extinct within five to ten years. It has been classified as critically endangered on the International Papua New Guinea Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List. or tens of thousands of years, the people of Neither Jim nor I had any idea about the ways of FPapua New Guinea (PNG) have hunted animals life of PNG. All the stories about the place that we for food. They used bows and arrows, made traps, had heard in Australia were negative, and we were and used poison vines. In the 1950s this all changed advised not to go there. But the thought of working for the Wape people of the Torricelli Mountain to protect one of the most critically endangered Range, a remote area in northwestern PNG. mammals in the world appealed to us. Our years of Enter Western missionaries with their Christian scientific training and zoo keeping were all we had beliefs, who blessed the landscape to eradicate the as tools to try to convince the local people to stop “evil spirits” that once protected the lands from killing Tenkile for food. overharvesting. Enter new technologies—torches, guns, knives, and axes—making it easier to hunt “My role was to ‘educate’ the local and cut down the forest where the animals live. Enter access to new medicine, trebling the human people and influence them to stop population and adding pressure on local resources. hunting, even though the Tenkile One resource in particular was the Tenkile, a tree had provided protein for them for kangaroo whose numbers plummeted to one thousands of years.” hundred individuals. And then enter myself and my husband Jim Thomas, who decided to try and help By the time we arrived in the Torricelli Mountains, save the species from extinction. people had already signed an agreement not to hunt the Tenkile, but hunting still continued. Six animals In 2003 Jim and I left the comforts of home in were killed in the first year we were there. It was my Australia to live in the Torricelli Mountains. Our role in the organization, the Tenkile Conservation mission was to prevent the Tenkile tree kangaroo from Alliance, to “educate” the local people and influence being hunted out of existence. With so few Tenkile them to stop hunting, even though the Tenkile had Above: The Tenkile, a tree kangaroo unique to Papua New Guinea. provided protein for them for thousands of years. Photo: Mark Hanlin, n.d. My initial approach was to start with children.

46 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 I developed a school program that focused In PNG villages, the literacy level is less than five on science: the biology of tree kangaroos, their percent, so written material would not be of much evolution and classification, as well as other basic use. Instead, I developed an education program using drama and song. Papua New Guineans are fantastic scientific concepts such as food webs and food performers. It didn’t take long for a small group of chains—topics that I thought were fundamental people from each village to start acting out their for people to know about. Although the students cultural connection to the Tenkile. They also explored were highly engaged and eager to learn, I didn’t the issues of hunting and the effects of logging feel as though those lessons inspired change or had and completed their performances with the most any influence on local hunting pressures. Clearly, beautifully composed songs, which moved me to tears. school-aged children were not my target audience. The drama program was always a crowd-pleaser, I needed to speak to the hunters themselves. full of raucous laughter. But I couldn’t understand why, when the time came to kill the Tenkile in the play, people would still be laughing. Here I Top: A map of Papua New Guinea showing the location was, trying to instill empathy for the animal, but of the Torricelli Mountains. Photo: Mark Hanlin, 2016 everyone was splitting their sides. Then I realized Bottom left & right: Scenes from Jean’s education work that people were just amused by their uncles’ and with children. Mark Hanlin, 2004 fathers’ acting skills (or lack thereof).

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 47 The mood would change when the songs were These songs made us feel incredibly proud and performed. People became somber and quiet and helped us keep going in one of the most challenging really listened to the words. situations we had ever been in. The work we “Yumi mas lukautim bus”—We must look after the bush. did together provided the local communities with immense pride and an identity with the We really knew we were having an impact when organization, to which they are now favorable one of the songs was composed about us. and committed. “Jim and Jean Thomas, two project officers of Tenkile. And, through those performances, I realized that Tenkile is the golden medal of the Torricellis. the people’s cultural connection to nature was The Torricellis that belong to Wigote, Wilbeite, what had motivated them to change and support Maiwetem, Mupun and Sikel [all village names]. the hunting moratorium. People would say, “No gut em stori tasol,” which means “It will not be When the missions came, they got rid of our custom good if the Tenkile becomes just a story.” People and culture. They promised us change, but we are wanted their children to see this animal with their still the same. own eyes. They had an emotional connection to Now Jim and Jean are here to strengthen our the Tenkile. It was not just valued as a food source; customs and culture. Now we are seeing change.” it also had cultural value. This reminded me of our cultural icons in Australia, such as the koala—a species that gives us identity. But not only that. Thinking about this made me realize just how rich we Australians are in natural assets: the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru (Ayers Rock), the Snowy Mountains, the Simpson Desert, Kakadu National Park. We have a lot to be proud of and a lot to protect, but we haven’t done so well. Australia has experienced a great loss of habitat and the worst record of mammal extinctions of any country in the world.

I wanted to influence the people of PNG to value their natural assets and not to follow Australia’s example. I am aware that my personal motivation was riddled with “white guilt” and a desire to correct some of our own mistakes in Australia. I would hate to see PNG lose what we have lost. The island of New Guinea has many species in common with Australia and a huge number of endemic species, too, including all twelve species of tree kangaroo. Approximately seven percent of the world’s biodiversity is found there. It seemed to me that there was Top: The Wigote Village drama program. Photo: Jean Thomas, 2012 a lot at stake, and Jim and I felt compelled Bottom: The Anipo Village drama program. Photo: Jean Thomas, 2011 to do whatever it took to protect it.

48 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Once people understood that the Tenkile was unique to their area, they became so concerned about it that they decided not to hunt in the forested areas where the Tenkile resides (approximately eight hundred meters above sea level). This entire forest area was designated as a no-go zone, for fear that if they went there to hunt other species like cuscus (a type of possum), a dog might accidentally kill a Tenkile: they decided not to take that risk.

From there, it was a natural and intrinsic progression to consider the fate of other species they believed were in decline. Species such as the Guria Pigeon, or Victoria’s Crowned Pigeon, which is the largest Above: Jean conducting community conservation awareness. Photo: Mark Hanlin, 2012 pigeon species in the world, was locally extinct due to overharvesting. learn from Indigenous communities who are still so A giant frog species known as “Il Mambo,” the size connected to their landscapes. How can they teach of a newborn baby, was also hard to find, and there us to reconnect to our own landscapes in Australia? was a growing concern for its future. This was a resolve that naturally progressed to more species Humans need to connect with life and living once it was clear to people that the Tenkile was things. We begin to feel and empathize with each in grave danger. It showed that the people of the other and build relationships that can lead to Torricelli Mountains understand the intrinsic value enormous change, influence, and insight into not of conservation; their biocultural connection to it just environmental issues but social issues as well. I motivated them to take it a step further. am certain that just using scientific facts and figures we will not fully reconnect, but using stories, “Just using scientific facts and artwork, humble conversations, and the simple figures we will not fully reconnect, sharing of life experiences, both past and present, but using stories, artwork, humble will give us a chance. conversations, and the simple Under PNG legislation that is currently under sharing of life experiences, both past reform, there are several options for establishing a and present, will give us a chance.” formally protected area. We facilitated the process of agreement, which included sketch mapping and This is not something we see in Australia. Here we later the collection of GPS points of the proposed continue to use an intellectual approach to debate no-go conservation areas, and have submitted an and deny climate change and, in the process, lose our application to the PNG Government to establish a emotional connection to life and all that it provides 185,000-hectare area of pristine tropical rainforest us. The shame and guilt I felt was enormous and for legal protection. such a great motivator to keep me going in PNG. After nearly fifteen years of working on species The Tenkile Conservation Alliance has been recovery programs in Australia, we had never seen working with independent filmmaker Mark Hanlin this amount of success and support to protect not to share our story with the rest of the world. During only one species of tree kangaroo but an entire 2017 the feature-length documentary Into the Jungle ecosystem. I realized that this is what we need to will be released worldwide, and we hope that it

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 49 will inspire people and open their eyes to how As the “education officer,” I actually was the one conservation of biodiversity and culture can really who did a lot of learning. I was given the privilege work together. to learn from thousands of years of experience and traditional knowledge held by the local people. This life journey has taken a lot of commitment, sacrifice, dogged common sense, and relationship- It was obvious to me that my culture of learning the building with the local people. We have turned the “facts” had become somewhat irrelevant in PNG. organization into an award-winning conservation I discovered it was the songs, dance, drama, and and development program. This would not have cultural connection to the Tenkile that made all the happened if we had not learned and changed difference. Now people no longer hunt the three ourselves and had instead held on to our scientific species of tree kangaroo that live in the Torricelli training. Our ability to be flexible, to listen, and to Mountain Range. This has resulted in an increase honor the local communities and their traditional culture has been the key to our success. in the Tenkile populations from one hundred to over three hundred animals, as well as in the local Above: Walking to the villages. Photo: Mark Hanlin, 2016 protection of their rainforest habitat.

Jean Thomas is an award-winning conservationist who works with her husband Jim in remote villages of Papua New Guinea. Through the Tenkile Conservation Alliance, Jean and Jim have helped people from fifty village communities form a vision to value and safeguard their natural resources and cultures, and have facilitated the protection of over 180,000 hectares of the country’s rainforest. See www.tenkile.com for more information and to view a short ten-minute video about their work. Further Reading Hanlin, M. (Director). (2017). Into the Jungle (Feature-length Documentary). Australia: Titan Films. Retrieved from http://intothejungle.net Tenkile Conservation Alliance. (n.d.). Objective 3: Protect biodiversity and culture. Retrieved from http://www.tenkile. com/protect-biodiversity-culture.html

50 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Text and artwork by Colleen Corrigan ListeningListening toto CountryCountry Language, Art, and Conservation in Coastal Queensland, Australia

“Without language you can’t describe your Country.” group of Traditional Owners who have —Melinda Holden (Gurang elder) connections to the coastal land and rights to the sea at the southern end of the World was sitting across from Maureen at her kitchen table, Heritage Great Barrier Reef. I with the lens of my video camera focused on a bowl of fruit because she didn’t want to be filmed in her housecoat. To my left sat Melinda, a Gurang Her mannerisms and humour immediately reminded me of elder from this same coastal area and my own grandmother, a sharp-witted matriarch and keeper a co-researcher for our project on the of family knowledge, though the two of them come from integration of measures of effectiveness different continents and quite varied cultural backgrounds. of Indigenous land and sea management. They also speak vastly different languages. Maureen is Melinda and I had already conducted a number of interviews with Traditional an elder from the Bailai people, an Aboriginal Australian Owners who lived along this coastal range in eastern Queensland, in the northeast of Australia. Our purpose was to understand the Indigenous perspective on how well the natural environment was being protected, the role of Traditional Owners, and their measures of success, for both people and nature. Those we spoke to included men and women, elders and youth from multiple generations ranging in age from the 20s to the 80s. Maureen’s was the last interview we were to conduct, and it was memorable. She was funny, sincere, and full of insights.

Along with elder representatives from three other tribes, Maureen had signed the community’s strategic plan, and has long been involved in advocating for respect and acknowledgement of Aboriginal heritage. Her historical perspective and Above: View of the Burnett River, one of three important watercourses for knowledge of changes in the environment Traditional Owners in the region. 2016 provided valuable context to what brought

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 51 the three of us together around her kitchen table on that hot December summer day. What we learned together was intended to contribute to my PhD dissertation and to a broader effort, both nationally and internationally, to better understand local measures of how well natural resources are being protected by Indigenous people. Importantly, this includes both ecological and social measures. For Aboriginal communities in Australia, caring for nature is an obligation and synonymous with protecting culture, language, and essentially identity. The group with which we were working has While I listened to Melinda and Maureen chatting a government-sponsored “Caring for Country” over some of the guiding questions for the interview, program, which includes employment of Indigenous I thought back to a conversation we’d had earlier rangers to take care of the land and sea, collectively in the day with Richard Johnson, another elder referred to as “Country.” In the Aboriginal context, from the region just up the coast. He discussed the that is the term used to describe all aspects of nature challenges of knowledge loss between generations that are traditionally managed by and intricately and of maintaining culture while living as an linked to the culture of Aboriginal Australians. The Aboriginal in a relatively urban society. Richard cultural obligations of caring for Country are hard reflected Maureen’s concern about the challenges to realize, as Maureen so aptly put it, when “there of transferring traditional knowledge and language is no Country to care for”—an increasing threat to the youth, especially when access to being on that limits traditional connections to nature, such Country is increasingly limited. He explained how as when mangroves are removed to make room for he teaches his grandchildren language as a means the construction of ports and other infrastructure to connect to their environment and secure their along the shoreline, or when dams impede the flow identity: “They’ve all got language names, so they of water that has historically provided habitat for feel a part of this environment. That fella’s name is culturally important species. Kalu. He’s the brown hawk. So when we’re driving along, yeah, he’ll point. Or see a pretty faced wallaby “Language underlies identity and over there, that’s Kiriwina. Yeah, that’s his sister. So relationships with both our social realms it’s in them. It’s about where ‘I’ belong.” Even words and our environmental surrounds.” and names provide a strong connection to the environment, which in turn fosters an awareness of Though the focus of our interviews was about self, culture, and place in nature. indicators of change in the environment and This part of Australia, where Maureen, Melinda, connections to it, a concern about language arose and Richard have their cultural ties, is diverse among many of the Traditional Owners, especially the both ecologically and socially. Three key rivers, the elders. In addition to being a co-researcher, Melinda Burnett, Kolan, and Boyne, all originate in the Many is an Aboriginal language specialist, and she feels Peaks region and empty into the southern end of strongly that knowing Country, and thus being able to the Great Barrier Reef, an icon among the world’s effectively care for it, requires being able to describe it. And the best way to do that is by using the local Above: The beach at Mon Repos, where multiple species of marine Indigenous language that reaches back thousands of turtles nest and lay eggs each year from November to February. years, evolving with the surrounding diversity of life. The Indigenous rangers help monitor eggs and hatchlings. 2016

52 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 most important heritage sites. The highest diversity unusually chilly September weekend as we busily of Australian birds sits in this southeastern corner set about having conversations with a number of of the state of Queensland. Endangered species and those who attended. World Heritage designations abound. The greatest concentration of nesting loggerhead sea turtles in Although now in their 70s, childhood friends the South Pacific is at Mon Repos Regional Park, in Bridget and Hazel huddled together in front of the the heart of the region. camera to give us their input. While karaoke blasted in the background, the two swapped stories about Culturally, a number of Aboriginal groups are what their lives were like as children six and seven expanding their efforts to engage in collaborative decades earlier and shared observations about management of the areas that traditionally belonged to them. Indigenous ranger groups work “If you don’t have your native closely with national and state government agencies language, you can’t describe as well as other protected area managers to keep Country. If you can’t describe threats at bay, especially from invasive species Country, you have no connection and unsustainable development. For them, being a ranger is more than a job; it’s an opportunity to with it, and that connection is the stay physically connected to Country, learn from essence of identity.” the elders, and gain confidence about their skills. In essence, a stronger identity emerges. what had changed. What did they see as the biggest changes to the health of Country? How do they Melinda and I had worked together for several maintain connection to their environment now? months to speak with Traditional Owners about What significance does it hold? Younger adults in their connections to Country. The first round of their 20s and 30s also participated, often sharing interviews took place during what was called insights that demonstrated they were listening to “Immersion Weekend,” an annual event for the local their elders—even though during the project many Aboriginal community, taking place at a campsite elders noted concerns about the younger generation along the Burnett River just south of Bundaberg on and their access to Country: “Without your language the east coast of Australia, a five-hour drive north you can’t connect to your culture, and without your from Brisbane. We set up the video camera behind culture you don’t know who you are” (female, 30s). the main camp building where it was a bit quieter and used the native forest as a backdrop. It was an During my in-depth analysis of interviews from both the elders and the younger generations, the whole issue of language emerged prominently. From their experience and point of view, if you don’t have your native language, you can’t describe Country. If you can’t describe Country, you have no connection with it, and that connection is the essence of identity for Aboriginal Australians (and I actually think for most of humanity). My first visit with the community two and a half years agowas filled with an immediate sense that this community was struggling at its core with issues of identity, especially given the challenges of development in the urban context. Two years later, it remains an important part of the findings.

At first, the reference to language seemed to be Above: Seedpod from a tree near the Burnett River, Bundaberg. Connection with language and Country is the essence of identity about a spoken Indigenous tongue that was lost for for Aboriginal Australians. 2016 some time during displacement processes in the

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 53 past century and because of rapid urbanization. key aspect emerging from this research is the But another strong language exists: the language of importance of co-learning. Several elders have nature. For the older generation, that is a language described “relearning” things they were taught in of physical presence, careful use, and exquisite their youth by spending time with the Indigenous observation of the species and habitats around rangers. In turn, the rangers are learning more them, taught through the guidance of their elders about their culture from the elders. Everyone we and family. That language still exists in the form spoke with has recollected the times when, being of observations about what has change in the somewhere on Country, they were recipients environment and what has happened to Country in of knowledge passed down from the previous recent years. In all the interviews that Melinda and generation. The critical element of this transfer is “If we are so intricately connected having a shared language of nature. to nature, but lose the language When one spends countless hours reading, to express the diversity of life rereading, and rereading yet again each word from that flourishes within it, dozens of pages of transcribed interviews that were what else do we lose?” conducted in the context of biocultural research, I conducted, a similarity can be found regardless the meaning of words and use of language become of generation: the congruence of rivers and the sea quite significant. The nuances of phrases begin to and the importance of flow are at the forefront for stand out, and it becomes clearer how language those who describe their environment. These are is constructed to explain both consciously and the custodians of areas where the freshwater and unconsciously the deeply embedded aspects of saltwater meet. The evidence of their connection culture. As I coded those words from the interviews, to this space and their awareness of changes are I realized how important language is and how it tangible and understood in various linguistic forms. underlies identity and relationships with both our Despite the loss of language and knowledge social realms and our environmental surrounds. in recent generations, the potential to relearn Whether it’s Gurang, another Aboriginal or native language is being supported through efforts language, or even English, it’s important. Language such as the Queensland Indigenous Languages represents us. And if we are so intricately connected Advisory Committee and language programs to nature, but lose the language to express the based at the Gidarjil Aboriginal Corporation diversity of life that flourishes within it, what else in Bundaberg. Apart from language, another do we lose?

About the Artwork: Complementing my piece are three sketches from my traveling watercolor journal. I always take the journal with me when I travel, and use it whenever I’m in community. I usually sketch only scenes or nature and not people, but it always captures a different sense of the experience. These three sketches are from my trip in late August 2016, when validating the research findings from our project with elders and staff from the Aboriginal corporation. Colleen Corrigan is a Senior Program Officer at UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre and also a doctoral candidate at Australia’s University of Queensland. Her work focuses on conservation effectiveness, protected areas, marine biodiversity, and the role and contribution of locally led conservation efforts by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Further Reading Gidarjil Development Corporation. (n.d.). Welcome to Gidarjil. Retrieved from http://www.gidarjil.com.au/ Gorenflo, L. J., Romaine, S., Mittermeier, R. A., & Walker-Painemilla, K. (2012). Co-occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity in biodiversity hotspots and high biodiversity wilderness areas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(21), 8032–8037. State of Queensland, Department of National Parks, Sport, and Racing. (2016). Mon Repos Turtle Centre. Retrieved from www.nprsr.qld.gov.au/parks/mon-repos/turtle-centre.html

54 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 WeWe FeedFeed

thethePhotographing WorldWorld Traditional Knowledge in the Kalix Communities of Northern Sweden empties into Bothnian Bay, the northernmost part of Text by Francesca Price the Baltic Sea near the Arctic Circle. People here, who speak Kalix—a traditional Swedish dialect with roots Photographs by Clare Benson in Old Norse that is barely understood by anyone e Feed the World is an international else—have fished with nets in shallow waters and Wphotographic initiative hosted by the Gaia traded their catch with one another for centuries. All Foundation. For the last thirty years, Gaia has this is changing, however. The Swedish authorities, worked with Indigenous communities to preserve acting on new European Union (EU) legislation, have local knowledge and enhance community ecological banned net fishing in depths of less than three meters governance in order to revive biocultural diversity, or any form of commerce outside that regulated by law. For northern communities, this is a major blow. regenerate healthy ecosystems and food systems, Not only does it take away a traditional source of both and build resilience to climate change. The We food and income, but also it alienates people from Feed the World project is a unique collaboration of customs and traditions that have been a part of their renowned photographers, NGOs, and civil society way of life for many generations. groups (including La Via Campesina, GRAIN, Groundswell International, Global Greengrants, The communties are now coming together to the African Biodiversity Network, and others) to demand that the Swedish authorities recognize their celebrate the role of small family farmers in feeding role in stewarding the landscape and successfully seventy percent of the world’s population. maintaining fish supplies in the area for hundreds of years. This achievement is based on Indigenous Through a series of international exhibitions, a knowledge that goes back as least as far as the book, and a poster campaign, the initiative seeks fourteenth century. That knowledge, however, has to reach out to a global mainstream audience and been transmitted largely through lived experience replace the narrative of the “poor family farmer” and is not easily expressed in language—particularly with a clearer understanding of their resilience, when it comes to conveying it to outsiders in their diversity, and their overwhelming success, standard Swedish. Finding the right words is despite the many challenges they face. We Feed proving to be difficult. One of the village elders, the World also aims to highlight the many benefits Peder Nilsson, has spent the last three winters trying that agroecology offers our troubled planet—from to “translate” the local know-how, but says, “It’s not cooling the climate to restoring biodiversity. easy to put in words the difference between our local knowledge and scientific knowledge.” In May 2016, We Feed the World visited Kustringen in the far north of Sweden. This is a cluster of three Above: Peder Nilsson with two of his dogs and a lamb on his farm fishing villages at the mouth of the Kalix River, which on the island of Brudholmen.

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 55 To facilitate communication of that Indigenous knowledge through visual rather than verbal means, our photographer Clare Benson spent a day with Peder and other local fishermen on the ice in the Bay of Skärsfjärden, documenting their traditional way of fishing.

Map: Marine chart showing a small portion of the Kalix archipelago in northern Sweden, around the Bay of Skärsfjärden. Bottom: Lutskärsgrund is a fishing camp in the outer archipelago at the southern edge of the Bay of Skärsfjärden. All place names in Kalix are connected to nature and give a description of what is growing in that place or how that place can be used for certain activities. While standard Swedish has one word for ice, people here have many, depending on the quality of the ice and what is happening to it. One Inset: Fishermen like Joakim Boström and his father Hasse Boström community member could list at least seven different words, and have set nets in small holes to fish for pike, perch, and burbot for many another could think of as many as twenty-two! generations. Most families in the area have multiple sources of income including fishing, and they trade fish for other foodstuffs such as beef or reindeer meat and skins.

56 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 “New EU legislation forbids fishing with nets in shallow waters to protect endangered species. This legislation does not take into account the many plentiful species that inhabit the shallow waters and that have been fished by local people for centuries.”

Top left, middle, & right: The new EU legislation forbids Bottom: Local fishermen Joakim “Jocke” Boström, Roland Nyman, and Sten fishing with nets in shallow waters to protect endangered Hellman remove fish from a net. Joakim learned from his grandfather the best species such as Havsöring, or Sea Trout. This legislation, locations to fish, the best methods for fishing, and the signs and symbols that however, does not take into account the many plentiful can be seen in nature. He is upset that the “three-meter rule” has criminalized species that inhabit the shallow waters and that have been his ancestral traditions. He says,“Today it is impossible for me to hand over this fished by local people for centuries. Kustringen is now knowledge and teach future generatons the important knowledge connected to working on a more locally influenced management plan, fishing. How do I explain to my child that it is illegal to fish? How shall I act when future based on ecological principles rather than geographic ones. generations want to put their nets down where my grandfather taught me to fish?”

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 57 Top left: Joakim cleans and opens the whitefish, preparing to grill them over an open fire in one of the fishing huts in the bay’s outer archipelago, where the fishermen are allowed to go. Top right: When together, the fishermen speak in their Kalix dialect. This is an idiom rich in words for natural phenomena like snyreingen, which describes the ring around the moon predicting snow, or illverskrokan, which names the special clouds that spell the onset of bad weather. On the other hand, there are no words in Kalix for “helicopter” or “computer,” and for these contemporary objects the villagers must switch to standard Swedish. Right: Fisherman Roland Nyman sits on his snowmobile. The snowmobile is now used for transport on snow and ice and makes fishing, even in the outer archipelago, much more accessible. In the past, Roland’s family used reindeer to get out on the ice.

Francesca Price works for the Gaia Foundation in the UK. Raised in New Zealand, she was a journalist and broadcaster for 25 years, working around the world for the BBC and other media on environmental and food issues. Back in the UK, she now lives in Somerset with her partner and three daughters. Clare Benson is a photographer and interdisciplinary artist from the USA, whose work has been exhibited and screened throughout the USA and internationally. She earned her MFA at the University of Arizona and her BFA at Central Michigan University, and worked in northern Sweden on a Fulbright Fellowship. Further Reading/Viewing/Listening Gaia Foundation. (n.d.). The Gaia Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.gaiafoundation.org/ Kalix Language. (n.d.). Greetings Internet traveler. Retrieved from http://thekalixlanguage.org/en_dr/ Kalix Language [ipigorlteven]. (2014, November 12). Three fishermen in a cottage [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ4-vhiuGO8&spfreload=5 We Feed the World. (n.d.). In Facebook [Community page]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/wefeedtheworld campaign/?ref=page_internal

58 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Top left & right: Some people in the villages in the Kalix and Torne river valleys still keep small herds of twenty to thirty reindeer. Peder’s grandfather and his family have kept reindeer for as long as they can remember. Bottom: Peder’s horses are brought in for the night at his homestead on the island of Brudholmen, which means “Island of Brides.” His relatives have lived here since at least 1573, when the first names are recorded in the church books. He and the other villagers have been striving to find language to express the ancestral knowledge they share. Their last hope for preserving their culture lies in convincing the Swedish authorities of the ecological value of this ancient Indigenous wisdom.

“The villagers’ last hope for preserving their culture lies in convincing the Swedish authorities of the ecological value of this ancient Indigenous wisdom.”

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 59 People Mapping Visualizing Sense of Place Barbara Dovarch for Decision Making

lanning and resource management in for intervention and improvement. Through Purban and rural development often fail to map-making, they reveal the invisible structure meaningfully engage local inhabitants. That misses of their living spaces; they coproduce cultural– two important aspects: firstly, a narrative of places spatial knowledge in relation to their territories. already exists and is embedded in local knowledge; That knowledge is essential for creating a base on secondly, people are experts on their own living which to build and a point of reference for all spaces. In addition, spaces and related processes are stakeholders involved in rural or urban planning socially and continuously produced and reproduced and resource management. by dwellers—shaped by their uses, values, attributions of meaning, and the relationships they Maps make it possible to capture, record, and interweave in daily life. This is why locals should optimize data and information; they are flexible always inform and contribute to decision-making living tools that allow for continuous updating and that has to do with changes in space and resource support. They stimulate exploration and provide a use. To encourage their direct involvement, it “Through map-making, people then becomes crucial to provide interactive tools that facilitate fruitful dialogue and yield reliable, reveal the invisible structure of communicative, reusable “participatory products.” their living spaces; they coproduce cultural–spatial knowledge in People map-making includes these characteristics, relation to their territories.” while also visualizing the dynamics between the physical and the social in relation to space holistic and systemic perspective that is essential for and environment. It is a dialogical method for better strategies. Maps are tools for understanding representing reality, adaptable to different places, building awareness, and representing and contexts, conditions, and purposes; it facilitates voicing issues of any kind. They reveal the diversity collaboration among stakeholders; and it offers of contexts, uncover internal dynamics and social proactive modalities of inclusion, giving equal status relations including power relations, contribute to to participants. triggering spatial imaginaries, benefit dialogue for negotiation, and support design for action. They are In this creative map-making process people, often never a final outcome but rather in constant flux, supported by facilitators, collectively represent the and the process of their creation is as important as space they inhabit on maps or 3D relief models, the result they embody. according to their life experience, local know-how, and sense of belonging. Analyzing different contexts As a tool for information gathering, representation, and problematic issues, they uncover existing and dissemination, however, mapping always resources and potentials and find opportunities raises issues of data access and ownership. That is

60 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 We Want to Map Barbara Dovarch People mapping is a creative and serious game Telling the narrative that characterizes our Local knowledge and everyday experience physical and social contexts are needed to play The related sense of belonging and There are no losers or winners, but roles spontaneous place-making practices and positions We want to map to move around freely There are no leaders or teachers; everyone We want to identify spaces where to invent is both expert and learner our intrepid games There are no hierarchies, the main rule We want to give our hand to our classmates is respect while going to school by ourselves in Every voice can be widely expressed and busy mornings carefully heard We want to design our routes, our road We want to map to be on the map signs, and even our ban signs To make visible our invisible slums We want to be free and safe in our To get recognition of our rights and own cities dignify our lives We want to map to reach communities To lobby for land titles and consolidate and governments our settlements... To provide a catalyst for interaction and To have a visual reference when we facilitate platforms of dialogue communicate, claim, contest, negotiate To give space to conflict while finding We want to map to protect our territories possible solutions together Through identifying vulnerabilities and To discuss and make decisions jointly potentials To easily represent our shared designs We want to preserve our environmental and plans resources While making maps, people deconstruct Cultural diversity and natural ecosystems their reality to build a new inspiring Indigenous structures and traditional knowledge customs Diversity is revealed, aspirations are We want to map to save our planet unleashed, and possible futures become To provide holistic perspective for visible better strategies Looking from a bird’s-eye view, the bonds To understand the effects of our own between natural features and cultural actions values emerge To mitigate the impacts of disastrous A jam mapping session evolves, where the events… instruments are people’s voices… Before Nature revolts one more time And the musics are pieces of Earth. against irresponsible humans We want to increase our awareness Mappers’ voices are those of slum dwellers and resilience in India, Kenya, Brazil, and the Philippines; We want to map to keep our identity inhabitants of peri-urban areas in Vietnam; Prior to coping with any change or Indigenous groups in Easter Island; local transformation in our neighborhood communities and government officials in We want to make visible its apparently Samoa and Nauru; neighbors in Spain; disordered logics children in India and Italy.

Previous page: Barangay Bagbaguin neighborhood, Valenzuela City, Great Manila. Community members and local university students measure the settlement’s roads. Photo: Barbara Dovarch, 2013

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 61 why the practice of people mapping always needs their social realm and revealed their technical to be consciously tied to specific circumstances know-how. Through mapping, people started to and purposes and to be carried out in a deliberate imagine the future: the possibility of improving manner by both facilitators and mappers. their lives and livelihoods. That stimulated their engagement and increased their self-confidence. Vietnam: When community members proudly presented Expertise Is with the Locals the local government with their maps, officials were very interested in and pleasantly surprised “Now we have our maps… and therefore our plans by the work done. From this point on, people map- for the future.” making was replicated several times in Vinh city’s —Vietnamese farmer Communes, paving the way for more concerted rural development planning efforts. Vietnamese people have a strong temperament. Usually very realistic and pragmatic, they value their livelihoods and adapt to life’s circumstances Western Samoa: with great determination—even when that may Custom Between Land and Society mean living for two months at a time on their “We thought we knew our land like the back of our fishing boats anchored close to their flooded homes. hands, but thanks to the model we were able to learn Hung Hoa is a Commune at the edge of Vinh city much more.” along the Lam River. Made up of nine hamlets —Samoan farmer inhabited by farmers and fishers and mostly covered by rice paddies, the Commune is a place A Samoan saying goes: O Samoa ua uma ona in transition between deep-rooted rural culture tofi (“Samoa is a land where all positions have and advancing urban expansion. Once a year, been allocated”). An extraordinary sense of order because of inadequate drainage infrastructure, the and congruence in both landscape and society area is affected by floods that threaten the crops. confirms this traditional lore. Over eighty percent In 2013 Commune members turned to mapping of the country’s territory is under customary law. in order to plan a better drainage system. There Mirroring this form of land tenure is a unique social were no engineers among the mapping facilitators, structure based on the Indigenous matai leadership but people were confident in their purpose and system, which is rooted in ancient Polynesian determined in their effort. They analyzed the flood tradition. Participatory 3D Modeling (P3DM, a local and its impacts throughout the area. They identified community’s collective construction of a relief land elevations and represented water directions model of their territory) arose from a government on maps. They plotted water pumps, main channels, initiative meant to sensitize communities to and small ducts. They also mapped their diverse climate change issues and related mitigation resources, such as natural features, places of measures. According to custom, the initiative had worship, and traditional activities. Maps visualized to be submitted to the matai leaders’ approval. This

62 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 was crucial, as land is in local people’s hands and requested that people first comply with the city’s resource management is strongly related to local official standards of safety and density. In particular, culture. Strong social cohesion and the Samoan the only access road to the neighborhood had to habit of working and making decisions collectively be significantly widened. The purpose of people led to positive uptake. People realized that they mapping here was to show the government what play a central role in environmental protection and the community’s real conditions and needs were, that changes in their behavior could increase their as well as to demonstrate that planning is not just quality of life while reducing the risk of disasters, a matter of subdivision schemes based on technical even when such changes might affect their cultural standards, but rather a complex process that must traditions. During mapping sessions in 2016, adapt to different contexts and circumstances. people discussed environmental issues and ways Earlier on, the community had hired an engineer to manage them; youth learned Samoan proverbs to map the settlement, but people quickly realized from the matai; and elders identified toponyms, his map was inaccurate, as it did not respect the ancient place names related to Indigenous neighborhood’s architectural diversity in terms of narratives and local history. Along with government its maze-like alleys and irregular housing typologies. officials, people organized to set up plant nurseries, That prompted 352 households to get together with implement agroforestry programs, and deal with great enthusiasm to create a proper map of their waste disposal. P3DM provided an opportunity for settlement. Once the map was finished, people went communities and local authorities to come together, on to analyze the possibility of widening the road, improve communication, and collaborate on respecting safety requirements while minimizing sustainability issues, and has become an accepted interventions on existing housing, and evaluated practice in the country. options for creating additional access points. The map was of great value when it came to devising alternative solutions and discussing proposals with The Philippines: Valenzuela City’s Mayor and municipal officers, as Planning is a Complex Process it allowed for constructive dialogue and supported “This is not a slum anymore, it is our neighborhood, fruitful negotiations between the two sides. and we want it to be properly represented on the map.” Nauru: —Barangay Bagbaguin dweller Recovering Territorial Identity People have lived in the Barangay Bagbaguin “It is incredible: our island is just 21 sq km, and I (Bagbaguin neighborhood) of Valenzuela City, in did not know most of the things discussed and plotted Greater Manila, for many years, building their own on the model during these days…” homes with bricks. In 2013, the community was in —Nauruan girl the process of collectively acquiring the land on which the settlement was built, but the government The tiny Pacific island of Nauru is going through hard times, both socially and environmentally: land devastation from a century of uncontrolled phosphate mining, economic recession, failed investments, and increased vulnerability due to climate change. The island is so degraded that it risks becoming inhospitable for its inhabitants. Action is urgently

Previous page, left: Hung Hoa Commune, Vinh, Vietnam. Men, women, children, and elders mapping together. Photo: Barbara Dovarch, 2013

Previous page, right: Laulii-Falevao Site, Upolu, Samoa. Locals populating a 3D model of their territory with cultural and natural features. Photo: Paulo Amerika, 2012

Left: Valenzuela City, Greater Manila. Community members evaluating an engineer’s map of their settlement. Photo: Barbara Dovarch, 2013

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 63 it came to representing the large portion of land left barren by mining, surprisingly they chose to cover the entire area with green rather than light brown paint. That reveals how the representation of one’s territory is linked to local people’s roots, their sense of belonging, knowledge, uses of space, social dynamics, and power relations, and is influenced by the way people’s hopes, aspirations, and expectations shape their vision of the future. It seems that before Nauruans are able to address environmental issues they need to recover their cultural identity and be confident it is needed, through local awareness and capacity safeguarded. Perhaps, too, they still need to build building, to rehabilitate the ravaged terrestrial and awareness of the current reality, while at the same marine ecosystems. A P3DM process started in 2016 time, the model may embody their dream of going with the aim to encourage collaboration between back to the original Nauru—a pleasant Pacific island government and communities in building local covered with a thriving tropical forest. resilience. The first phase of the process revealed interesting dynamics, particularly regarding the way View additional photos at http://www. Nauruans are dealing with the current situation. terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/Volume_6/ Even if invited to focus on environmental features langscape-6-1-Dovarch when populating the 3D model, islanders preferred to represent places related to local culture, myths Above: Nauru. People populating a 3D model of their island. and legends, historical events, and social life. When Photo: Barbara Dovarch, 2016

Barbara Dovarch hails from Sardinia, Italy. With a MSc in Building and Urban Design in Development from University College, London, she specializes in community-driven development processes in urban planning and natural resource management. As a PhD candidate at the University of Sassari, she focuses on community mapping and Participatory GIS. Further Reading Alcorn, J. (2000). Borders, rules and governance: Mapping to catalyze change in policy and management. Gatekeeper Series No. 91, iied. Retrieved from http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/X180IIED.pdf

Corbett, J., Rambaldi, G., Kyem, P., Weiner, D., Olson, R., Muchemi, J., & Chambers, R. (2006). Overview: Mapping for change–the emergence of a new practice. Participatory Learning and Action, 54, 13–19. Retrieved from http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G02154.pdf

International Fund For Agricultural Development. (2009). Good Practices in Participatory Mapping. Retrieved from https://www.ifad.org/documents/10180/d1383979-4976-4c8e-ba5d-53419e37cbcc

Rambaldi, G., Kwaku Kyem, P. A., McCall, M., & Weiner, D. (2006). Participatory spatial information management and communication in developing countries. Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries, 25, 1–9.

Suryanata, K., & Hershock, P. (2005). Mapping Communities: Ethics, Values, Practice. Honolulu, HI: East-West Center.

64 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Pipelines and the Poetics of Place Bringing a Fuller Set Nigel Haggan of Values into Environmental Assessment As “tar sands,” the desire and those values Alberta bitumen deposits that cannot or should not are a vector for protest. be measured. As “oil sands,” they are hailed as vital to Canada’s The project Pipelines economy. The Enbridge and the Poetics of Place Northern Gateway and is designed to bring art, Kinder Morgan pipeline Indigenous spirituality, and tanker proposals to ecology, eco-theology, eco- ship expanded production logical economics, and through British Columbia’s Indigenous and Canadian waters attract an incredible law into conversation on outpouring of passion how project review might and creativity. entertain a fuller range of values. The objectives This outpouring is a are to (a) Expand the classic example of the perceptual scope of poetics of place or, in environmental review other words, every way in to include Indigenous which our relationships spirituality, religion, and with place and planet art, as well as the voices can be understood and of those impacted and expressed. Some of this is marginalized; (b) Explore recorded inside Canada’s Above: The ancestral guardian spirit ’Yágis hunts down oil tankers. how Aboriginal and National Energy Board Mask by Heiltsuk artist Nusi (Ian Reid). University of British Columbia religious ceremony and hearings. More takes place Museum of Anthropology (UBC MOA) exhibit by Heiltsuk curator theater can create spaces Pam Brown. Photo: UBC MOA Archives, Vancouver, Canada – outside: as Aboriginal William McLennan fonds, 2014. Reproduced with permission that are physically, ceremony, treaties, law- emotionally, spiritually, suits, injunctions, art, and intellectually safe film, music, the prayers of Indigenous Elders for and welcoming to all comers; (c) Invite modes threatened waters, and the words of religious leaders of expression that will make environmental from Desmond Tutu in Fort McMurray to Pope assessment reviews accessible to people of all ages Francis in his 2015 encyclical on climate change. and all educational and cultural backgrounds; ’Yágis, the ancestral guardian spirit portrayed in a and (d) Launch a multi-year program to promote mask by Heiltsuk artist Nusi (Ian Reid), signifies the transformative change in environmental practice, collision between the measurable values of need and policy, and law.

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 65 Pipelines and the Poetics of Place draws a parallel and is valued by Canadians for aesthetic, cultural, between how homes, lifeways, and habitats are spiritual, recreational, educational, historical, torn up to distill sand and bitumen into synthetic economic, medical, ecological and scientific reasons.” oil that can flow through a pipeline, and how Canada’s National Energy Board review distills and “Lists of atomistic or disembodied pipelines the poetics of place to decision-makers values, such as those in the in dispassionate scientific language, tables, and ecosystem services literature, only graphs. What is lost in translation? What values are come to life through stories.” excluded or under-represented? How might these values, and the stories that bring them to life, be This list typifies the ecosystem valuation literature. conveyed to people of all ages and all cultural and Major studies, such as the Millennium Ecosystem educational backgrounds? Assessment, concur with Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen that commitment to intangible values The National Energy Board is mandated to often outweighs material interests. Translation to “represent the ever-changing interests and concerns dollar equivalents, however, is then justified on the of Canadians” in a “sustainable energy future.” need to influence decision-makers, the difficulty of What then are these “interests and concerns”? In measuring spiritual values, and outright dismissal its preamble, Canada’s Species at Risk Act states: of religious or spiritual values as inappropriate in a “…wildlife, in all its forms, has value in and of itself pluralistic society—a dismissal that fails to recognize Salmon and the Poetics of Place Pacific Northwest. Spring is a hungry time, so people watch eagerly for the first salmon to return, but in fact the ceremony doesn’t take place until knowledge-holders declare that sufficient numbers of these fish have reached the spawning beds. A welcome feast is then held where salmon are eaten and the remains respectfully returned to the river. If all is done properly, the spirit of the salmon will travel downriver to tell the rest of the salmon people that they were well treated, thus ensuring their return the following year. The The Salmon of Science First Salmon Ceremony is reminiscent of the Irish story about the Salmon of Knowledge. Rivers and streams carry nutrients and young salmon to the Pacific Ocean. Returning salmon spawn and die, contributing thousands of The Salmon of Knowledge tonnes of nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon to freshwater and forest This is a story of the boyhood of the Irish ecosystems. The size of past salmon runs is reflected in the growth rings hero Finn McCumhaill (pronounced “McCool”) of riverside trees. At least two hundred creatures, from people to bears and the Salmon of Knowledge, An Bradán to insects, transport nutrients into the forest. Marine and terrestrial Feasa. The Hazel tree is the first thing to come nitrogen are different isotopes (15N vs 14N), so it is possible to trace the into creation. Nine hazels surround a pool in influence of salmon runs as far as one kilometer from the water’s edge. the otherworld. The Salmon became wise by The First Salmon Ceremony eating the nuts that fell into the pool. The scientific detective story that showed the relationship between A scholar fished in vain for seven years salmon, cedars, and wildlife has a much earlier and more eloquent before he finally caught the Salmon. He set telling in the First Salmon Ceremony celebrated throughout the it to roast over a fire, but was overtaken by an urgent call of nature. Just then, young Finn Above: Salmon gain their wisdom by eating the nuts that fall from nine hazel trees happened along the riverbank, so the scholar around a pool in the otherworld. Artwork: Emily Haggan, 2015 called out: “Here! Young fella! Mind that fish

66 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 that compassion or the “golden rule” are central to all The core value of the project is welcoming different religions and Indigenous spiritualities. Meanwhile, ways of understanding and being in the world. We entire dimensions of moral concern go unaddressed. are open to ideas and modes of expression that are incommensurable with our formal training and The issue then is the capacity of environmental strive for openness to things that our upbringing review panels to entertain intangible values and has not equipped us to recognize. We anticipate represent them in their reports and recommendations. that the epistemic virtue of compassionate listening Also, lists of atomistic or disembodied values, such as will reveal, as opposed to some rational notion of those in the ecosystem services literature, only come discovery or invention. We see our work as a work to life through stories that take many forms: myths, of Creative Justice, that is, reuniting or reconciling those separated by forces outside their control. In maps, parables, equations, ecological and climate one respect, the project is a humble successor to models, art, tables, music, graphs, journal articles, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. and more. While the focus here is on the Alberta tar In another, it is a way to unsettle victorious linear sands, the approach is equally applicable to massive narratives of science, religion, and law that justified hydropower projects, such as the Site C Dam in residential schools, and whose cultural shadow still northern British Columbia, and to local and regional determines who can participate in environmental ecosystem-based management and response to governance. The desired outcome is a step towards global climate change. epistemic or cognitive justice. for me that it not burn!” and ran for the trees. is the conversation. The branches are the products of our work. The tree Finn watched the fish. Thinking it was done symbol can be read at many levels. The tree and its creatures as beings on one side, he turned it over, but in so doing in their own right. The connections beloved of the ecological, climate, he burned his thumb. He put his sore thumb and economic modelers in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The in his mouth and along with it a piece of the spaces between the connections where unseen fauna and flora flourish. Salmon’s skin. Returning from the woods, the The flows of air and water that nourish and support but defy notions of scholar saw the light in Finn’s eyes and, with individual agency. The resonant voices of wind and water, animals and philosophical resignation, allowed him to eat people. The dance of waves and branches that inspires music, song, and the rest of the fish. Ever after, when Finn was ceremony. The visible sunlight that feeds the tree. The invisible Internet losing at chess or in battle or when enmeshed that carries the voices of loggers, conservation organizations, and our in sorcery, he only had to chew on his thumb project: the fungal “internet” that connects forest trees. Some of these to prevail or escape. elements are quantifiable; more are not. The Riverside Tree The riverside tree in this image can be many things: timber for industry; inspiration for the Buddha or Isaac Newton; Lao Tzu’s riff on the usefulness of the useless; or a relative to Indigenous people. The tiny roots that draw water and nutrients from bedrock might signify individual connection to the ground of being, the ecological or collective unconscious. The roots converge in families, societies, Aboriginal spiritualities, religions, art, natural and social science, and the humanities. The salmon sheltering under the roots is an avatar for the flow of knowledge between ocean, rivers, plants, and animals in Aboriginal ceremony, Irish tradition, and the scientific story of marine nitrogen.

As a symbol, the tree welcomes different ways of understanding and being in the world Above: The roots of the riverside tree shelter the Salmon of Knowledge and suggest without privileging one over another. The trunk converging ways of understanding the world. Artwork: Emily Haggan, 2016

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 67 Play is at the heart of our work. Play combines and technical into the hilarious and comprehensible. concentration with cooperation and openness. It Our messengers of joy include an inspirational adds delight to the absolute attention of research, choir leader with the challenge of harmonizing prayer, or worship. It extends interdisciplinarity by voices that have not sung together, or at least not in interweaving graphic, musical, and performative public, for hundreds of years, improvisation artists, elements. Weaving play into collaborative work is participants, stand-up comics, and slam poets. a gift. It requires messengers of joy and absurdity To say that the voices of science and economics are too loud is unfair to scientist and economist friends “Weaving play into collaborative and colleagues who are passionately committed to work is a gift. It requires messengers the flourishing of species, places, and people. The of joy and absurdity to bring to problem is that the narrow focus of environmental life activities that are supposed to review forces science into a confrontational role, break down barriers but can actually where project economics vie with jobs and revenue at risk from catastrophic oil spills. Their voices are deepen discomfort.” not too loud, just too lonely. The voices of Indigenous spirituality, of religion as compassion for the poor and for impoverished nature, of musicians, poets, to bring to life activities that are supposed to break and painters are as lonely outside the wall as the down barriers but can actually deepen discomfort. scientists and economists are inside. Play here includes creative disruptions that recognize and nudge or jolt tension / boredom / “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” (Robert disbelief / dissent / anger into another space of dance, Frost). A wall that has been centuries in the building dialogue, or skit, and that transform the theoretical cannot be demolished in one go. But we can knock

Above: Participants in the Values, Stories, and Modes of Expression workshop consider what matters where land, air, water, food, and people come together— and they enjoy the food! Herring spawn on kelp is a traditional delicacy for coastal First Nations in British Columbia. People harvest fronds of the giant Pacific kelp, Macrocystis integrifolia, then suspend them from wooden frames. The herring spawn on both sides, in layers up to 1 cm thick. Photos: Ngaio Hotte, 2017

68 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 enough stones off the top to allow people to climb The Salmon of Knowledge over in both directions. The workshop Values, Stories, and Modes of Expression, held in Vancouver, British I am a term in an equation Columbia, in April 2017 took the first step in reuniting Connection in a model voices separated by forces beyond their control. I am a noun in a government report One of the highlights was a lunch hosted by the Tu’wusht Aboriginal program and staff and students And a verb in the river at the University of British Columbia Farm. We had a I am a scintilla of stardust spirited conversation about values and commitments A sparkle of sunlight where land, air, water, food, and people come together. But, really, the food spoke for itself. I am the depth of the sea I am the life of the river “A wall that has been centuries in the I am the death and resurrection building cannot be demolished in one A chorus of carbon go. But we can knock enough stones A net of nitrogen off the top to allow people to climb A parable of potassium over in both directions.” A psalm of phosphorus The ecological imperative to reach a new covenant I am the dress of the cedar with the planet suggests that, in time, the Pipelines The brawn of the bear and the Poetics of Place project might provide process design and advice to government and The dance of many peoples industry. Forward-thinking universities might also consider expanding their “resource management” Acknowledgements. I am deeply grateful to schools to include aesthetic, spiritual, and religious departed friends, Hereditary Chief, artist and perspectives alongside natural and social sciences spiritual activist Wallas Gwy Um (Beau Dick), pianist and engineering. Naomi Takagi, and poet Francisco X. Alarcón, for generosity, inspiration, and unwavering support. When we reach for the infinite, we must rely on Many more people and institutions generously stories. So, I’ll leave the last words to that ancient and contributed to the project than I can name here. wily navigator of myth, map, model, and metaphor... Thank you! You know who you are.

Nigel Haggan, PhD, grew up in Northern Ireland. Exposure to diverse cultures, notably work with Aboriginal people, opened his eyes to different worldviews. He is assembling a crew to unsettle environmental assessment with the values and commitments of art, Indigenous spirituality, religion, and grassroots conservation that reflect love as well as need.

Learn more about the Pipelines and the Poetics of Place project at http://www.seannachie.ca/poetics.html. A film of the Values, Stories, and Modes of Expression workshop will debut at the October 2017 Heart of the City Festival in Vancouver. Further Reading Brady, I. (2008). Poetics for a planet: Discourse on some problems of being-in-place. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds). Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials (pp. 501–564). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chandler, M., & Neimanis, A. (2013). Water and gestationality: What flows beneath ethics. In C. Chen, J. MacLeod, & A. Neimanis (Eds.), Thinking with Water (pp. 61–83). Montréal, QC: McGill-Queens University Press. de Sousa Santos, B. (Ed.). (2007). Cognitive Justice in a Global World: Prudent Knowledges for a Decent Life. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books. Meyer, K. (1904). The boyish exploits of Finn. Ériu, 1(1901), 180–190. Reimchen, T. E. (2001). Salmon nutrients, nitrogen isotopes and coastal forests. Ecoforestry, 16, 13–17.

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 69 Of Cassowaries Text by William H. Thomas Social Network Analysis and Graphs and Men by Chris Leberknight Mapping Indigenous Knowledge Networks to Empower Biocultural Conservation in New Guinea began working in New Guinea in 1988. My first I teacher was a man named Tama. Tama was born and had spent most of his life in the heart of this island, roaming the forests at the headwaters of the Strickland River—a region of New Guinea that is still considered unexplored. He was a Hewa—a member of a group so remote that, when I met him, they were still being accused of cannibalism. Tama was about my age, but he couldn’t read or write. He did, however, have an encyclopedic memory, and that made him a marvelous naturalist. He knew these forests better than anyone else, and he had finally met the one guy in the world who seemed seen SNA diagrams that visualize the connections to care about it. From 1988 to 2005, I trailed Tama among users of social media, such as Twitter around these mountains writing down everything or Facebook. It has also been used to visualize he could tell me. complex subjects such as terrorist networks or I am interested in connections. I wanted to know environmental feedbacks. SNA visualizations make how the people, birds, plants—you name it—that the key players or bottlenecks in a system explicit. can be found here fit together into the ecological SNA makes it easier for stakeholders to understand web that makes up this forest. Since in 1988 I didn’t the system and where they will need to concentrate own a computer, I was forced to use accounting their efforts to affect it. ledgers to organize Tama’s teachings. I had 184 The minute I saw a social network diagram, I species of birds and nearly 300 trees, shrubs, and knew that this was my best hope for releasing vines in accounting ledgers cross-referenced with Tama’s wisdom from my notebooks. Instead of notebooks and charts from our conversations. people, I wanted to substitute birds and trees in the Eventually all of this migrated to a computer, but SNA network maps. Luckily, I found out that Chris I remained frustrated with my inability to extract Leberknight, one of my colleagues at Montclair from the spreadsheets the dynamic world of State University in New Jersey, USA, was an expert pollinators and seed dispersal agents that resided in on SNA, so we began to explore the use of SNA to Tama’s head. visualize Indigenous environmental knowledge. Then I discovered Social Network Analysis Indigenous knowledge has a communications (SNA). SNA is typically used to map and visualize problem. Indigenous classification systems do relationships among people. You have probably not always easily map onto genus and species

70 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 classifications. Indigenous knowledge is often an impact, however, we have to make our data presented as a simple inventory of local names useful and available to all of the stakeholders for plants and animals. That does not do justice in the conservation process. Only the most to the complexity of Indigenous understandings determined naturalists will wade through the of ecosystem dynamics, and makes it difficult to data sets in my ledgers. Anyone interested in translate Indigenous knowledge into effective accessing Tama’s knowledge will be confronted conservation action. For instance, in 1989 the with 286 trees cross-referenced with 184 birds Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations and their roles as pollinators and seed dispersers. of the Amazon Basin (known as COICA from This dizzying array of possibilities is impossible its Spanish acronym) appealed to conservation to communicate because they get lost when organizations to build on the Indigenous knowledge buried in data tables that are guaranteed to bore base to conserve the Amazon. While the initial both the professional conservationists and the reaction was enthusiastic, almost thirty years later Indigenous landowners whose cooperation you the conservation of the Amazon basin is far from will need to develop a conservation plan. This is having been secured, and successful partnerships where SNA can help, as the network portrayed in with Amazonian Indigenous communities remain Figure 1 shows. few and far between. Conservation is essentially a political process. One New Guinea’s forests present a unique opportunity of the challenges is getting the interested parties for such partnerships. While the island is one of together and agreeing on the facts, so that we can the world’s most significant centers of biodiversity, jointly craft and support a conservation plan. This so much of New Guinea is only accessible by foot can be especially difficult when people of varying that most of its forests have not been surveyed. cultures and educational levels are trying to work Fortunately, these forests remain in the hands together. In my experience, the key lies in finding common ground and expanding the circle of trust of their Indigenous landowners, and Indigenous among the participants. In terms of conservation environmental knowledge is vibrant in remote areas. planning, this often means identifying keystone Tama and I created an Indigenous knowledge species and building your plan around their database that describes the role birds play in needs. A keystone species is a species that plays a seed dispersal in one of New Guinea’s most critical role in shaping its environment. Its actions important tracts of forest—the headwaters of the help to determine the species composition of the Strickland River. Understanding the relationship community. Like the keystone in an arch, this between birds and trees will be a vital link in the species may seem rather insignificant. Yet it holds conservation of these forests. If we want to have the ecosystem together, and without it the ecosystem

Previous page: Tama cutting a path to show me the trees to be found in secondary forest. Photo: William Thomas, 1990 Above left: Map of the island of New Guinea with headwaters of the Strickland River marked. Source: Wikimedia Commons, 2017 Above right: Figure 1. SNA network portraying all of the terrestrial seed dispersal agents that have been recorded at the headwaters of the Strickland River. Graphic: Chris Leberknight, 2017

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 71 are birds that are specialists. They do not visit many types of trees and do not share similar feeding habits with other birds. After organizing our data, we chose to focus on the role of the Dwarf Cassowary (Cassowary bennetti) in this ecosystem. We thought this would be a good starting place to establish the common ground needed for a conservation planning dialogue. The Dwarf Cassowary is an iconic species in New Guinea, whose role in seed dispersal is recognized by both Western and Indigenous naturalists. Cassowaries are secretive, however, and their habits are best known to Indigenous hunters. In other words, a literature search Above: Cassowaries are one of the world’s largest flightless birds. was not going to produce much on Dwarf Cassowary They are an iconic species in New Guinea and vital to forest feeding habits. Indigenous knowledge of the bird’s regeneration. Photo: Bruce Beehler, 2011 feeding habits, especially in an area that is considered unexplored, was our best bet for uncovering the role may collapse. Creatures ranging from elephants to the cassowary plays in Tama’s forests. jaguars to hummingbirds have been identified as As you can see from our SNA graphics of the keystone species in different ecosystems. the cassowary’s role in seed dispersal, an SNA SNA is the perfect tool for identifying and visually visualization is a dramatic improvement over a portraying keystone species. Just as a social network spreadsheet. Anyone looking at Figures 2 and 3 is map consists of clusters of friends, our ecological immediately struck by how many plants rely on the network map consists of clusters of birds and trees. Dwarf Cassowary for seed dispersal. Of the 335 vines Birds are the primary agents of seed dispersal in and trees I have recorded, the cassowary acts as a New Guinea, spreading seeds as they feed on the dispersal agent for 260. SNA allowed us to extract fruits from different trees. For this example, we this information from our database and produce limited our analysis to ground-dwelling birds that attention-grabbing graphics. What’s more, not only subsist on fruits that have dropped from the tree. can we portray the cassowary’s role as a keystone To investigate the importance of the different bird species (Figures 2 and 3), but we can also visualize species in dispersing seeds, we created a simplified the ecological collapse that would follow the bird’s network that connected all the birds that were removal from this ecosystem (Figure 4). observed eating fruit on the ground into a single network map. Because botanists have not systematically surveyed the headwaters of the Strickland River, tree Once we created a map of the ground-feeding birds, we wanted to identify those birds that were names are given in Hewa. Although I believe that the most important in the network. In terms of most of these trees are known to science, matching SNA, this is known as “centrality.” The degree of Hewa and scientific names is, in my opinion, centrality is measured by computing the number unimportant in this context. This exercise is about of links connecting an individual to the network. A creating common ground for conservation and high degree of centrality implies greater and more developing the partnerships between Indigenous direct influence. In the context of our ecological landowners and conservation organizations so network, an individual bird’s degree of centrality that together they can take action. The Hewa have indicates its influence on the ecosystem. This is yet to experience the scenario depicted in Figure based on how many trees it feeds on and which 5, but we have plenty of experience with localized trees are entirely dependent on this bird for seed extinction and the resulting frayed ecosystems. By dispersal. A bird that eats the fruit of many trees combining SNA with Indigenous knowledge, we exhibits a high degree of centrality and has a can portray the impact of the removal of a species significant impact on the ecosystem because it or the removal of primary forest. This information, is responsible for dispersing the seeds of many known by Indigenous naturalists and important to different trees. It is by definition a keystone species. understanding tropical forests, is more than likely Conversely, birds with a low degree of centrality to be lost if it remains confined to a spreadsheet.

72 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Does Indigenous knowledge hold all the secrets to conserving these lands? I doubt it. Yet it seems ill- conceived and arrogant to cast aside thousands of years of observations by skilled naturalists. Time is of the essence, and we now know that scientists are barely scratching the surface in their understanding of regions like New Guinea. While Indigenous knowledge remains vibrant and these areas remain biological treasures, we need to leverage this knowledge for conservation. SNA is a tool that can help Indigenous stakeholders communicate their knowledge—not just of one tree or one bird, but of an entire ecosystem. SNA allows us to paint a picture that describes the dynamics of what we are trying to conserve. It may not be a perfect picture, but it is one that can galvanize support for conservation. Top right: Figure 3. Another illustration of the central role of the Dwarf Cassowary in seed dispersal. Graphic: Chris Leberknight, 2017 Top left: Figure 2. Network map illustrating the centrality of the Bottom right: Figure 4. SNA map depicting seed dispersal in Hewa Dwarf Cassowary as a seed dispersal agent in this ecosystem. forests once the Cassowary has been removed. Graphic: Chris Graphic: Chris Leberknight, 2017 Leberknight, 2017

William H. Thomas, PhD, is Director of the New Jersey School of Conservation. He has conducted research in Papua New Guinea since the late 1980s, developing a “Forest Stewards” program to conserve the island’s wild lands. UNESCO has recognized his work as a “Best Practice.”

Chris Leberknight is Associate Professor of Computer Science at Montclair State University. His work blends social network analysis with computational methods to identify patterns, features, and dynamics in ecological networks that help shed light on biodiversity conservation issues. Further Reading Hansen, D., Shneiderman, B., & Smith, M. A. (2010). Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a Connected World. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.

Thinkmap. (n.d.). Thinkmap provides dynamic, data-driven, visualization technology. Need to visualize complex data? Retrieved from http://www.thinkmap.com

Marin, A., & Wellman, B. (2011). Social Network Analysis: An introduction. In J. Scott & P. J. Carrington (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Social Network Analysis, 11. London, England: Sage.

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 73 One Square Meter Wool Art Honors the Biocultural Diversity of Mobile Pastoralists

Text by Liza Zogib, Divya Venkatesh, up with ideas as to how we might creatively portray Sandra Spissinger, and Concha Salguero that key message. Wouldn’t it be good if we could Artwork by Almudena Sánchez Sánchez, make a One Square Meter out of wool and show the different flower species growing on it? Ideas were Ana Trejo Rodríguez, flowing, but after that evening we didn’t give them and Inés García Zapata another thought—that is, not until later when one Illustrations by Divya Venkatesh of us, Concha of Trashumancia y Naturaleza, told Photography by Ana Trejo Rodríguez the others she had met some women who believed and Alexander Belokurov they could in fact create One Square Meter! So, without any set plan or budget, One Square Meter hat follows is the story of One Square was underway… Meter—a story of how a creative art piece W Those women were Almudena, Ana, and Inés can make a compelling case for conservation in an entirely different way… from the Laneras project in Extremadura, western Spain—a group of Spanish farmers, artists, and DiversEarth is one of the founding members of the professionals who came together to bring wool back Mediterranean Consortium for Nature and Culture, into people’s homes, in order to revitalize social a partnership that supports cultural practices in the relationships and foster environmentally friendly Mediterranean Basin by reinforcing traditional ways farming practices. The three women worked of living harmoniously with nature. Early in 2016, together for almost three months solid with great during a team meeting in Dar Zaghouane, Tunisia, vision and creative skills, crafting an astonishingly we were surprised to learn from our friends of beautiful needle-felt sculpture of One Square Meter Trashumancia y Naturaleza, a Consortium member, to show and celebrate the richness of plant species that plant species richness in Spanish grasslands is found in their region. Their work was based on higher than that of tropical rainforests, as a result a plant list developed by university experts who, of mobile grazing practices. In Spain, one square interestingly, are also women passionate about meter of land where mobile pastoralism occurs can sustainable grazing and wool. host up to forty different species of plants. Above, facing page top left, top right: The Jersey Buttercup, English That surprising fact stuck in our minds. At the Plantain, and Common Vetch are but a few of the many diverse plant end of the day, when we returned to our shared species that can be found in One Square Meter of land where mobile accommodation, we spontaneously started coming pastoralism occurs. Photos: Alexander Belokurov/Imagenature, 2016

74 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 One Square Meter was first shown during the On The plant species richness of grazed grasslands the Move exhibition in Hawai’i. It will be shown topping even that of tropical rainforests is a locally in Extremadura in 2017, along with some relatively new and surprising revelation to of the On the Move photographs and a range of the biologists. In 2012 the Journal of Vegetation Laneras’s blankets and other high-quality wool Science published an article by J. B. Wilson et products of which they are so proud. al. entitled “Plant Species Richness: The World Records.” The authors found that, when sampled People who have seen the sculpture are so inspired in small areas, grasslands come out ahead in that we have been motivated to think of ways of the plant species richness parade. Robert Peet, expanding this wonderful project, linking it to the one of the study’s co-authors, commented in development of rural economies and the marketing a National Geographic article (http://news. of high-quality pastoralist products. As a first step, we nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120320- hope to produce One Square Meters from some of the grasslands-rain-forests-species-diversity- other countries that are members of our Consortium environment/) that this fact is even more (Turkey, Greece, Lebanon, Tunisia). In addition, surprising in that “these are relatively infertile, DiversEarth and partners are beginning to craft a new long-grazed, or mowed grasslands.” project on mobile pastoralism, biodiversity, and climate change called Roads Less Traveled, expanding our work from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas and Central In both a tangible and an aesthetically appealing Asia—so we look forward to seeing a Bhutanese version way, One Square Meter highlights the positive links of One Square Meter in the near future! We’ll soon start between mobile pastoralism and biodiversity. It is looking for talented felt artists in these countries, and crafted out of Merino sheep wool—from the very the Laneras from Extremadura may be able to help out flocks featured in our photography exhibition with training—and certainly with inspiration. On the Move, which was launched at the World Conservation Congress in Hawai’i in September “The detail in this art piece is 2016 (see Langscape Magazine 5:1, Summer 2016, phenomenal, intriguing everyone pp. 74–78). This type of wool originated in Spain. who has seen it, and even tricking The black Merino wool that was used to fashion the some passing insects!” base of the sculpture comes from a currently very rare and threatened breed. The detail in this art The One Square Meter project was dreamt, created, piece is phenomenal, intriguing everyone who has and brought to life by a group of passionate women seen it, and even tricking some passing insects! with great energy, vivid imagination, and positive intentions. We have no doubt that the project has To accompany the sculpture and strengthen the a bright future ahead. We hope its unique message message, we then developed text, photography, and powerful call to maintain and revitalize the and illustrations that show the development of the threatened practice of mobile pastoralism in all its artwork, pictures of some of the featured plant forms, all over the world, will find resonance with species, and beautiful drawings of others. an ever wider and more diverse audience.

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 75 Left illustrations: To help tell the story of One Square Meter, and to visualize the very real link between mobile pastoralism and plant diversity, we devised “illustration tiles” to accompany and support the needle-felt sculpture. Artwork: Divya Venkatesh/DiversEarth, 2016

76 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 Previous page, top: Studies of each plant are carefully carried out to facilitate the needle-felting process. It’s all in the planning! Photo: Ana Trejo, 2016 Previous page, top middle: Carefully wrapping wool around a wire to create delicate plant roots. Photo: Ana Trejo, 2016 Previous page, bottom middle: A lot of patience and precision is required to transform wool fibers into stunning three-dimensional sculptures using only a needle. Here, nimble fingers work on a Field Eryngo, one of the many plants species that can be found in One Square Meter of land where mobile pastoralism occurs. Photo: Ana Trejo, 2016 Previous page, bottom: Vegetable dyes are used to create wool of magnificentcolors. The felt is then sculpted into delicate shapes. Bottom right, top right & bottom left: One Square Meter launched Photo: Ana Trejo, 2016 in 2016 at the 6th World Conservation Congress in Hawai’i as part of Top left: The three Laneras (“wool workers”) who are the hearts and souls “On The Move,” a traveling photography exhibition created by the behind this beautiful and unique sculpture. From left to right: Ana Trejo, Mediterranean Consortium for Nature and Culture to celebrate the Almudena Sánchez Sánchez, and Inés García Zapata. Photo: Ana Trejo, 2016 lives of Mobile Pastoralists. Photos: DiversEarth, 2016

Volume 6 Issue 1 | 77 Above: A one-of-a-kind sculpture, One Square Meter was admired by all at the World Conservation Congress, becoming quite a popular photo-op. These delegates were attending the Congress all the way from Peru. Photo: Concha Salguero, 2016 Right top, middle, & bottom: One Square Meter photographed in nature by sunset in Extremadura, Spain. Photos: Ana Trejo, 2017

Liza Zogib, Sandra Spissinger, and Divya Venkatesh work with DiversEarth, the coordinating member of the Mediterranean Consortium for Nature and Culture, which also includes WWF-North Africa, Med-INA (Greece), SPNL (Lebanon), Yolda Initiative (Turkey), and Trashumancia y Naturaleza (Spain).

Concha Salguero works with Trashumancia y Naturaleza, an organization dedicated to reviving long-distance transhumance, conserving transhumance routes, and providing support to transhumant herders in Spain.

Find out more about DiversEarth at www.diversearth. org, about the Mediterranean Consortium for Nature and Culture at www.med-consortium.org, and about Trashumancia y Naturaleza at www.pastos.es. Further Reading Hatfield, R., & Davies J. (Eds.). (2006). Global Review of the Economics of Pastoralism. Retrieved from https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/global_review_ ofthe_economicsof_pastoralism_en.pdf

Davies J., Herrera, P. M., & Manzano Baena, P. (Eds.). (2014). The Governance of Rangelands: Collective Action for Sustainable Pastoralism. New York, NY: Routledge.

McGahey, D., Davies, J., Hagelberg, N., & Ouedraogo, R. (2014). Pastoralism and the Green Economy— A natural Nexus? Retrieved from http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/wisp_green_economy_book.pdf

Zogib, L. (Ed.). (2013). A Rapid Assessment of Cultural Practices in the Mediterranean. Retrieved from http:// en.mava-foundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/RapidAssessmentReport_web.pdf

Zogib, L. (Ed.), (2014). On the Move for 10,000 Years: Biodiversity Conservation Through Transhumance and Nomadic Pastoralism in the Mediterranean. Geneva, Switzerland: DiversEarth & Mediterranean Consortium for Nature and Culture.

78 | Langscape Magazine Summer 2017 . nature . language . culture .

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Terralingua UNITY IN BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY

Terralingua n 1: the languages of the Earth, the many voices of the world’s diverse peoples. 2: the language of the Earth, the voice of Mother Nature. 3: an international non-governmental organization (NGO) that works to sustain the biocultural diversity of life – a precious heritage to be cherished, protected, and nurtured for generations to come. ¶ From Italian terra ‘earth’ and lingua ‘language’

www.terralingua.org “Humans need to connect with life and living things. We begin to feel and empathize with each other and build relationships that can lead to enormous change, influence, and insight into not just environmental issues but social issues as well. I am certain that just using scientific facts and figures we will not fully reconnect, but using stories, artwork, humble conversations, and the simple sharing of life experiences, both past and present, will give us a chance.” —Jean Thomas