Equitable seafood futures
Weaving Climate Science, Indigenous Innovations, and Visual Storytelling to Mobilize Equitable Seafood Futures
This project aims to enrich youth stewardship action that can support resilient human-clam relationships and equitable seafood futures.
This project has received funding from 911吃瓜's Climate Innovation Seed Fund Catalyst Grant and Pollinator Award.
Co-designing ancestral and contemporary food systems
Bringing together the efforts of the Huuu蕯ay虛a岣 and 涩a蕯am嫂n Nations, 911吃瓜鈥檚 , , and University of Victoria鈥檚 , this collaborative is engaging in reciprocal community exchanges and visual story telling that will support Huuu蕯ay虛a岣 and 涩a蕯am嫂n Nations in exercising their inherent right to self-determination and food sovereignty, supporting intergenerational knowledge transfer, community health and each Nations鈥� socio-cultural priorities.
Guided by both western scientific data and ancestral Indigenous mariculture practices, the land-based learnings will inform actions to improve community access to safe, reliable shellfish harvesting, and ensuring that community harvests balance the needs of human- and non-human beings who rely on clams and clam beaches supports all aspects of thriving ocean communities, including economic, ecological, and socio-cultural objectives. This reflects the nuuc虒aanu色 law of tsawalk, which means all is one.
Project team and community partners
- Anne Salomon, 911吃瓜 Resource and Environmental Management
- Wendy Palen, 911吃瓜 Biological Sciences
- , PhD Student
- 岣pinyuuk - Tommy Happynook, Anthropology at University of Victoria / Visual Stories Lab
- 涩a蕯am嫂n (Tla鈥檃min) Nationn嫂ne g嫂前蓻 (Lands & Resources Department)
Potential outcomes
This project aims to inform coastal stewardship action that can support resilient human-clam relationships and equitable seafood futures.
Socio-Cultural Benefits: Restoring clam beaches and revitalizing ancestral caretaking practices that confer climate resilience is an empowering way for communities to reconnect to their lands, seas, and skies, relationships that have been severed due to a long history of settler colonialism on Canada鈥檚 Pacific coast. Indigenous clam harvesting in southern British Columbia has experienced declines due to historic legacies of settler-driven overharvesting, industrial pollution, legal exclusion, predator recovery, nonnative species, and climate warming such as marine heatwaves. By leading stewardship and revitalization efforts informed by ancestral mariculture innovations and western science this collaboration will support Huuu蕯ay虛a岣 and 涩a蕯am嫂n Nations in exercising their inherent right to self-determination and food sovereignty, supporting intergenerational knowledge transfer, community health and each Nations鈥� socio-cultural priorities.
Ecological Benefits: Supporting clam growth and survival by implementing thermally-buffering stewardship actions for vulnerable species at vulnerable beaches will improve the resilience of these systems to climate warming and marine heatwaves.
Economic Empowerment: Improving growing conditions for clams can support expanded harvests that align with community goals, including food, social, and ceremonial harvest and trade among communities, or commercial digging which many community members take part in.
One Ocean Benefit: Improving community access to safe, reliable shellfish harvesting, and ensuring that community harvests balance the needs of human- and non-human beings who rely on clams and clam beaches supports all aspects of thriving ocean communities, including economic, ecological, and socio-cultural objectives. This reflects the nuuc虒aanu色 law of tsawalk, which means all is one. This law reminds us to consider the nature of existence as an integrated whole, and it should be researched and cared for as such.