Faculty of Environmental Studies

We, humans, coexist within the biosphere and live among other creatures, and thus, have the duty to protect and preserve the environment.  The purpose of this research is to deconstruct the human/animal relationship through the biocentric and biophilic perspectives, challenging the modern Western anthropocentric view of non-humans and nature as compared to the Indigenous way of life, deeply rooted in their Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Through a critical analysis of scholarly books and journals, I have compared and contrasted the Indigenous ways of living with the modern human/animal relationship, assessing the impact of our coexistence in the natural and urban environments. Well respected and renowned scientists have long warned that the current rate of resource consumption is unsustainable and will result in an intergenerational human threat as well as a threat to non-human life and plant peril. Without immediate attention and urgent change in human behavior, we are heading towards a loss of biodiversity. This research highlights the importance of our human ability to decelerate the species extinction by integrating the Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge with the Western science, in informing governments, private interest groups and the public.

This paper examines the rebuilding and revitalizing of self-governance capacities in Indigenous communities, and how this is impacting their efficacy in resource management.  The origins and experiences in Canada of integrating Indigenous peoples and knowledge into institutionalized resource management are discussed, and the paper will posit necessary conditions for full and effective participation in environmental management, arguing why effective self-governance is vital to moving forward on these conditions.  Two collaborative processes led by Indigenous peoples will be highlighted as they demonstrate the importance of self-governance initiatives for participation in environmental management processes: the Whitefeather Forest Initiative led by Pikangikum First Nation in northern Ontario; and the Turning Point Initiative led by the Haida in British Columbia.

This paper will explore the concept of Indigenous resurgence to develop a theoretical framework for examining Indigenous environmental governance and management initiatives in Canada.  A growing number of Indigenist scholars and activists advocate for the resurgence of Indigenous nations based on cultural traditions and their inherent right of self-determination.  Resurgence is premised on a strong awareness and critique of ongoing colonial relations, as well as the articulation of alternatives that are rooted in the traditions of Indigenous communities.  A significant argument emerging from the resurgence literature relates to the problem of state-centric approaches to reconciling Indigenous rights.  Reconciling Indigenous rights in Canada through recognition and inclusion in state institutions still maintains the colonial relationship in which Indigenous rights and practices are reconciled, or made congruent, with the institutions of the broader Canadian polity.  The resurgence model shifts the praxis of rights from reconciliation within the largely unchanged institutional structure of the state, to self-driven initiatives that find their logic and authority from within Indigenous nations themselves.  Thus, rather than transforming Indigenous communities, the resurgence model aims to transform colonial relations by reasserting continuity with cultural and political traditions.  It is the argument of this paper that the theoretical framework of Indigenous resurgence is necessary for both a critique of federal and provincial approaches to the question of Indigenous rights in lands and resource management, and an understanding of environmental management initiatives by Indigenous communities in Canada.

This paper will examine the conflict between provincial and Indigenous land use planning approaches in northern Ontario involving the traditional territories of the Mushkegowuk Cree.  Specifically, how Indigenous rights are understood and put into practice through the Mushkegowuk Regional Land Use Planning Initiative will be examined.  This initiative directly challenges, or attempts to expand, the conception of rights reconciliation imposed by the Ontario government. With the passing of the Far North Act (2010), enduring problems with Ontario’s approach to recognizing and reconciling Indigenous or Aboriginal rights in its northern land planning policies are repeated.  The paper makes the argument that the Mushkegowuk Land Use Planning Initiative is representative of a shift in Indigenous rights praxis. One of the features of this shift is Indigenous driven environmental governance and management initiatives.  These initiatives aim to provide more robust foundations for realizing community goals than can be achieved solely through participating in state institutional processes.  Thus, this shift is necessary to counter weaknesses in federal and provincial frameworks for addressing land-based Aboriginal and treaty rights in Canada.

The Far North of Ontario is regularly characterized as a vast, remote, and pristine wilderness with enormous resource potential.  Conversely, it is home to Ojibway, Oji-Cree and Cree peoples, in which their spiritual, material, and ancestral relations are embedded.  Thus, in the Far North of Ontario the homeland versus frontier debate highlighted by the Berger Commission Report in 1977 is revisited.  But unlike in the Mackenzie Valley, where Berger urged the settling of land disputes through comprehensive land claims, northern Ontario is governed by historic treaties.  These treaties, such as Treaty 9 which covers much of the Far North, have been narrowly interpreted by provincial governments who continue to assert full authority over Crown lands.  Community based land use planning legislated by the Far North Act arguably sets out to change unilateral provincial decision making, to implementing a shared vision for lands and resources with northern First Nations.  But can Ontario’s economic development and conservation goals be compatible with Indigenous visions for their homelands?  This paper examines how the future course of development is being planned for in the Far North by focusing on the Ring of Fire, and highlighting challenges to realizing a shared vision for future development between Ontario and First Nations in the Far North.

This research examines the conflict between provincial and Indigenous land use planning approaches in northern Ontario that involve the traditional territories of the Mushkegowuk Cree.  Specifically, I examine how the politics of resurgence were evident in the Mushkegowuk Regional Land Use Planning initiative (2008-2015) in ways that challenged or broadened the conception of rights reconciliation envisioned in the Ontario government’s Far North Act (2010).  Significant tensions often exist between the goals of state directed environmental governance and management initiatives, and the needs and aspirations of Indigenous communities.  Therefore, Indigenous communities in some instances have unilaterally developed their own initiatives, shifting the praxis of rights from participation in the institutions of the state, towards autonomous nation-building exercises.  The Mushkegowuk Land Use Planning initiative is representative of this shift in rights praxis where Indigenous driven environmental governance and management processes potentially provide for more robust foundations to realize community goals, and for negotiating with state governments and other interests.

The dissertation explores how a politics of resurgence might transcend the sphere of culture to support self-determination in the governance and management of Indigenous homelands.  It does so by first developing a theory of resurgent rights praxis by examining Indigenist thinking on the subjects of self-determination and cultural resurgence.  Second, the institutional development of land use planning in northern Ontario is tracked, with specific attention to the Far North Initiative and development of the Far North Act.  Third, the Mushkegowuk Regional Land Use Planning initiative is examined, focusing on the process captured by documentation and meeting minutes.  Lastly, interviews with several people involved with planning at the Mushkegowuk Council and First Nations’ community levels are analyzed to interrogate the goals, the role of cultural and political traditions in planning, and how Omushkego relationships with their lands are defined and made relevant to land use planning in the Mushkegowuk initiative.   

The study reveals how the politics of resurgence characterized the approach and goals for Mushkegowuk planning.  However, Ontario was instead determined to reconcile Indigenous rights under its Far North Community Based Planning.  The Ontario government’s breaking from a partnership approach with First Nations in crafting the Far North Act, and intrusive control of the funding and the process for regional planning, served to undermine Mushkegowuk Council’s nation building aspirations. The involvement of the province at early stages of regional planning also made it difficult to conceptually root LUP in Omushkegowuk traditions, and to be clear about their vision for land governance, planning process, and expectations.  Given the challenges, Mushkegowuk Council was not able to meet its goal of a complete regional land use plan during the time of the case study, and fell short of the goal of reconfiguring relations with the province.

ABSTRACT:
Creating international policy for implementing laws and practices related to the impacts of present and future climate changes has been a challenge. Scientific data, some of it inconsistent with varying data sets of time and location, have been difficult for the policy-makers, locally as well as internationally, to assimilate and use in creating definitive policy. 
In my own climate research in the polar regions, documenting this data in film proved to provide a medium that improved understanding and accessibility to this complex information.  Invited by the United Nations to present my two documentary films, The Antarctica Challenge and The Polar Explorer, to delegates, negotiators and world leaders attending the UN Framework Conventions on Climate Change in Copenhagen (2009) and Cancun (2010), policy-makers eagerly responded to the data contained in the films and accelerated the policy-writing process.  In particular, international policy-makers have proven to prefer receiving their information through film rather than through text as it provides a visual context that aids in the comprehension of material usually difficult to understand by the untrained audience. 
Additional film presentations were made to great extent through the conferences' social media. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube resulted in close to 60,000 views of the film during the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen.  After two rounds of drafts, a new resolution addressing the imminent threat of rising sea levels was adopted: Enhanced Action on Adaptation: Section 2, Subsection 25, based primarily on footage I shot of the Petermann Ice Island during a research expedition across the Northwest Passage in October, 2010. 
Since 2008, I have been working closely with the world’s climate change scientific communities and the United Nations using filmed reports of research in the field to aid and assist policy-makers in understanding.  This achievement has been recognized with the presentation of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Stefansson Medal (the Explorers Cub) and the Gemini Humanitarian Award (Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television). 
As a result of this success, the UN has established a partnership with me to provide a new film each year for presentation at its COP conferences. Focused on climate change research around the world, the film series brings the latest findings on climate research, not just in the polar regions but around the world.  The series is in its fifth year and feedback from both the scientific community and UN policy-makers is
Mark Terry,
Master's Candidate (Humanities),
York University,
Email: terrma@yorku.ca.
Tel: 416-899-5855
http://gradstudies.yorku.ca/2014/09/lifelong-york-member-comes-full-circle/

York University has just announced I am the winner of its President's Sustainability Leadership Award. The purpose of the award is "to raise awareness on the important work that sustainability champions are doing at York". Specifically, it recognizes the current research I am doing in multilinear documentary mapping of international climate research. My ongoing PhD project was used by UN delegates at the Paris climate summit last December. The award presentation will take place - appropriately - on April 22, Earth Day, at York University. Thank you Professors Gail Vanstone and Markus Reisenleitner for nominating me to this prestigious award.

In response to an expressed need for a centralized system of data delivery in a visual and digital environment for the delegates of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, I have taken new and emerging documentary presentation formats and incorporated experimental GIS mapping software as its platform to create a living documentary film project.
The Youth Climate Report is a multilinear, interactive, database documentary film project. Video contributions to the project in the form of “mini-docs” (running about five minutes each) are situated on the map by longitude and latitude coordinates. Users can then access the films via a pinpoint allowing the user to select content by geographical location. Each pin also contains additional information and media related to its respective video report.
This project incorporates climate change data and research as its central theme and the filmmakers will be students from around the world. They will be presenting their own research or that of a climate scientist they are currently working with or have selected to interview. Links to the researchers’ websites, their profiles and their universities or science organizations are also provided.
The project was presented at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22) in Marrakech, Morocco, Nov. 7 to 18. It was officially adopted by the UNFCCC as a partner program under its Article 6 mandate for education and outreach.
Multilinear documentary projects like those built in Kursakow use an online platform similar to a website. The selections of videos are usually available in thumbnail frames surrounding a main viewing frame. Critics of this format point to the disjointed storytelling feature resulting from the viewer being their own editor and selecting content sometimes out of context. Successful projects are generally focussed on a theme that all fragments of the project cover so that one video is not dependant on another to tell the story.
It is this approach I am taking with the common theme of “new climate data from around the world”. The unusual screen for this documentary project is the GIS map. I am hopeful that this unique platform may provide some “hidden data” the policymakers may discover through spatial and temporal analyses of the videos. Patterns may emerge about climate events in a particular region that the videos individually may not examine, but may collectively reveal due to their proximity to each other on the map. In future years, comparative temporal analyses will be possible for video reports on the same theme in the same area, showcasing, for example, the collapse of a glacier over time.
To engage with the project and for further information on it, including press release and press conference videos, please visit: www.futurecinemaproject.com. Your comments are most welcome.

One of the most difficult, yet most valuable, measurements of the success of a social-issue documentary is the direct impact it has had on a group it intends to change. Lawmakers and policymakers are usually the targeted groups of activist filmmakers, but it is rare to see a significant social change attributed directly to the influence of a film. As a result, funding organizations and measurement strategies and tools have begun to emerge as recently as 2005 to assist filmmakers, their funders and the change-makers to create documentary films that have impact and to create ways of measuring that impact.

Kate Nash, Craig Hight and Catherine Summerhayes have edited a collection of essays examining some of the new ways the documentary film is taking shape in the digital domain. New Documentary Ecologies: Emerging Platforms, Practices and Discourses sheds new light on the multilinear documentary, the database documentary, the interactive documentary and how new theories in these fields are yielding new methods of production and professional practices.

A multilinear, interactive, database documentary film project curating reports on climate research from all seven continents presented on a platform of a Geographic Information System map. The project is currently being used by the United Nations Frameworks Convention on Climate Change as a partner program under its Article 6 mandate for education and outreach.