- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we take a look at two stories that show the effectiveness of combining traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge and Western science for conservation and restoration initiatives.
Today we’re taking a look at two stories that show the effectiveness of combining traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge and Western science for conservation and restoration initiatives.
Our first guest is Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan, an ethnobotanist at the University of Arizona. He tells us about eelgrass, an ancestral food of the Comcaac people in the state of Sonora in Mexico. Nabhan tells us why eelgrass is making a big comeback as a sustainable source of food for the Comcaac community and gaining international attention in the process.
We also speak today with Dr. Sara Iverson, a professor of biology at Canada’s Dalhousie University, about a research project called Apoqnmatulti’k that aims to better understand the movements of lobster, eel, and tomcod in two important ecosystems on Canada’s Atlantic coast. Iverson tells us why those study species were chosen by the Mi’kmaq people and why it’s so important that the project combines different ways of knowing, including Western science and traditional Indigenous knowledge, which a Mi’kmaq elder dubbed ‘two eyed seeing.’
