Policy-makers ideally pursue well-informed, socially just means to make environmental decisions. Indigenous peoples have used Indigenous knowledge (IK) to inform decisions about environmental management for millennia. In the last 50 years, many western societies have used environmental assessment (EA) processes to deliberate on industrial proposals, informed by scientific information. Recently EA processes have attempted to incorporate IK in some countries and regions, but practitioners and scholars have criticized the ability of EA to meaningfully engage IK. Here we consider these tensions in Canada, a country with economic focus on resource extraction and unresolved government-to-government relationships with Indigenous Nations. In 2019, the Canadian government passed the Impact Assessment Act, reinvigorating dialogue on the relationship between IK and EA. Addressing this opportunity, we examined obstacles between IK and EA via a systematic literature review, and qualitative analyses of publications and the Act itself. Our results and synthesis identify obstacles preventing the Act from meaningfully engaging IK, some of which are surmountable (e.g., failures to engage best practices, financial limitations), whereas others are substantial (e.g., knowledge incompatibilities, effects of colonization). Finally, we offer recommendations for practitioners and scholars towards ameliorating relationships between IK and EA towards improved decision-making and recognition of Indigenous rights.

Addressing our growing planetary crisis and attendant symptoms of human and human-ecological disconnect, requires a profound epistemological reorientation regarding how societal structures are conceived and articulated; named here as the collective work of decolonisation. While global dynamics are giving rise to vital transnational solidarities between Indigenous peoples, these same processes have also resulted in complex and often contradictory locations and histories of peoples at local levels which unsettle the Indigenous–non-Indigenous binary, providing new and necessary possibilities for the development of epistemological and relational solidarities aimed at increasing social–ecological resilience. The International Resilience Network is an emerging community of practice comprised of Indigenous and settler–migrant peoples aimed at increasing social–ecological resilience. This article narrates the story of the Network's inaugural summit, and provides an overview of contextual issues and analysis of particular pedagogical aspects of our approach; foregrounding ruptures between ontology and epistemology that inevitably occur when culturally and generationally diverse groups who are grounded in different daily realities and related agency imperatives come to share overlapping worldviews through learning ‘in place’ together. Developing pedagogical practices for naming and negotiating associated tensions within the collective work of decolonisation is, we argue, a critical step in enabling practices conducive towards the shared goal of increased human–ecological resilience.

This article presents reflections from an Indigenous land- and water-based institute held from 2019 to 2020 for Indigenous graduate students. The institute was coordinated by faculty in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria and facilitated by knowledge keepers in local W̱SÁNEĆ and T’Sou-ke nation territories. The year-long institute provided land-based learning, sharing circles, online communication, and editorial mentoring in response to a lack of Indigenous pedagogies and the underrepresentation of Indigenous graduate students in frontline postsecondary programs. While Indigenous faculty and students continue to face significant, institutionally entrenched barriers to postsecondary education, we also face growing demands for Indigenous-focused learning, research, and practice. In this article, Part 1 of a two-paper series on Indigenous land- and water-based learning and practice, we draw on a storytelling approach to share our individual and collective reflections on the benefits and limitations of Indigenous land- and water-based pedagogies. Our stories and analysis amplify our integration of Indigenous ways of being and learning, with a focus on local knowledges and more ethical land and community engagements as integral to Indigenous post­secondary education.

In this paper, Part 2 of a two-paper series, we extend our learning on land- and water-based pedagogies from Part 1 to outline broader debates about upholding resurgence in frontline practice with Indigenous children, youth, and families. This article shares key learning from an Indigenous land- and water-based institute held from 2019 to 2020 that was facilitated by knowledge keepers from local First Nations and coordinated by faculty mentors from the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria. The purpose of the one-year institute was to convene a circle of Indigenous graduate students and faculty to engage in land- and water-based learning and meaningful mentoring connections with Indigenous Old Ones, Elders, and knowledge keepers. Students participated in land- and water-based activities and ceremonies, learning circles, and writing workshops, and were invited to develop and share culturally grounded frameworks to inform their frontline practice with children, youth, families, and communities. Drawing on a storytelling approach to share our learning from this institute, we explore the praxis and challenges of resurgence in deeply damaging colonial contexts. Our individual and collective reflections on Indigenous land-based pedagogies focus on local knowledges, our own diverse perspectives and frontline work, and ethical land and community engagements as integral to resurgent Indigenous practice.

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