Cultivating sovereignty in parks and protected areas: Sowing the seeds of restorative and transformative justice through the #LANDBACK movement

Abstract

Indigenous communities possess long histories of using land acknowledgments to reinforce their cultural ties with specific areas. Today, many public and private institutions use land acknowledgments to recognize the Indigenous Peoples who inhabited and still live in local areas. However, an opportunity exists to move beyond institutional acknowledgments and into action-oriented frameworks that support decolonization efforts, especially within parks and protected areas (PPAs). PPAs present an opportunity for the actualization of the #LANDBACK movement, which could strengthen Indigenous land governance, conservation, and sovereignty. This thought piece uses decolonization and storytelling methodologies to demonstrate how current PPA management paradigms perpetuate harm against Indigenous communities. It also explores how these paradigms can evolve to improve the social-environmental efficacy of PPAs by highlighting three areas of change where PPAs could perpetuate the cultivation of Indigenous sovereignty: (1) addressing cultural tensions and transforming current management systems; (2) creating Indigenous Knowledge spaces in PPArelated educational settings; and (3) building decolonial futures by returning lands to Indigenous communities. This paper presents reflective frameworks with guiding questions for PPA managers to embrace the #LANDBACK movement in partnership with Indigenous communities. These frameworks provide opportunities for park managers, educators, and PSF PARKS STEWARDSHIP FORUM Cultivating sovereignty in parks and protected areas: Sowing the seeds of restorative and transformative justice through the #LANDBACK movement PAPERS FROM THE 2021 GEORGE WRIGHT SOCIETY STUDENT SUMMIT SOCIOENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE researchers to center Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, and community well-being. Additionally, this manuscript provides the scaffolding for PPA managers and Indigenous communities to implement restorative and transformative justice practices within current PPA systems. Implementing the proposed frameworks within PPAs could generate monumental social transformation.

Unsettling marine conservation: Disrupting manifest destiny-based conservation practices through the operationalization of Indigenous value systems

“…We recognize that due to the ongoing harms of colonization, not all Indigenous communities and Nations will be able to manage their lands through quick legislative changes and may need federal support to build the capacity required for this to happen (Fisk et al 2021). We suggest that in these situations, federal land and marine management entities reflect on all of the Indigenous value systems within this paper to create equity-based co-management frameworks with Indigenous Peoples.…”

“…Settler colonial relations and the colonization of Indigenous lands and waters initiated an onslaught of detrimental impacts to Indigenous Peoples and the environment. Impacts to Indigenous Peoples include their forced removal from their homelands (land and water displacements), slavery, the establishment of genocidal boarding schools (wherein countless children died and survivors were expected to unlearn their cultures, languages, etc., and adopt Western epistemological and ontological norms), and US policies leading to the largest genocide in global history (Dunbar Ortiz 2014;Stevens 2014;Koch et al 2019;Fisk et al 2021;Jacobs et al 2021). An estimated 60 million Indigenous Peoples existed before 1492 in North America.…”

“…For example, the memorandum hinges on Tribal community collaboration, but does not offer a pathway for Indigenous Peoples to be lifted into managerial roles to oversee the relevance behind how their knowledges are implemented. Instead, federal frameworks still work under stakeholder processes that prove problematic for Indigenous communities for a multitude of reasons (Fisk et al 2021;Jacobs et al 2021). Current the ways that manifest destiny has formed Western understandings of marine management, human relations with lands, and possibilities of reciprocal relations between humans and other living systems.…”

“…We suggest that the strongest way forward to actualize reconciliation through redistribution is through the development of equity-based co-management practices that lead to the realization of the #LANDBACK movement. The #LANDBACK movement "embodies centuries of land reclamation activism ... [and] demands colonial entities and settler occupants establish actionable, reparation-based steps toward returning Indigenous lands" (Fisk et al 2021). It also operationalizes the basic tenets of decolonization, as outlined by Tuck and Yang (2012).…”

Ethnography at its edges

“…Scholars across academic fields have embraced the analytical, pedagogical, and action-oriented framework within Kaba's text in a way that suggests a greater potential for applied abolitionism in anthropology (Asmerom et al 2022;Coles et al 2021;Davis-McElligatt 2021;Fisk et al 2021;Khan et al 2022;Logan 2021;Oudshoorn 2021;Paris 2021;Rowe et al 2022;Shelby 2021;Soden and Owen 2021;Stabler 2021;Warren 2021). Still, there is an in-crowd vibe to these references that assumes that readers are already familiar with Kaba's work.…”