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Day 5 — Building a northern conservation strategy
Location: Eric Cove
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At Cape Wolstenholme
Sun
Shadow
Busy wings highlighted
in shadow
beyond bus stops.
Light
dark
together in blue water sky
and black rock singing
while new life grips and teeters.
Are you my mother?
Answers
questions
like feathers and wind.
Without one and the other
and the truths that make them soar
will we ever stop long enough
to experience the place
where lives the wisdom of birds
on this sovereign morning
in the middle of somewhere?
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We start the day under the overarching cliffs at Cape Wolstenholme, the northernmost tip of
Quebec. I've never seen as many birds, anywhere, in my life. Such a profusion of life
aswirl in the northern air sums to impressions that words can probably never touch. By the
look of the people watching Linda Mackey, resident ship's artist, as she paint the scenes,
it's apparent her artwork mirrors what some people are feeling about being here.
As part of the ongoing lecture/discussion series aboard ship, we hold a session on building
a conservation strategy for the Arctic, led by Stephen Price, a senior conservation policy
specialist with the World Wildlife Fund, under the open sky at Eric Cove in what has to be
the most alluring outdoor classroom one can imagine.
Price outlines the task, which is to identify elements to include in a northern conservation
strategy, first talking about values and moving on to the challenge of identifying three
elements in the northern ecosystem that deserve recognition in the building of a conservation
plan: species, process and habitats.
We break into three subgroups: international students; northern Canadians; and southern
Canadians. Each group is assigned a facilitator who reiterates the task: identify species,
habitats and processes worthy of protection in a northern conservation strategy. To my surprise
and delight, after the facilitator with the northern Canadians opens the "tundra" for
suggestions, the first thing mentioned is "language." What follows, when groups
report back to the whole, is that the northern Canadians have a very different view about
people and nature.
One view allows easy separation of matters cultural and matters natural. From another perspective,
the northern or "traditional" view, culture and nature are totally connected.
We had talked on the ship about conventional scientific knowledge and so-called "traditional
ecological knowledge." Here, we're living that difference and learning how to
blend the two perspectives.
Posted by James Raffan on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
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