Guiding Principles

Making a commitment to working in alignment with the principles of cultural humility and safety is foundational to all change-based work. The following guidelines outline some of what we have learned (are learning) about how these principles need to be enacted within the specific context of eco-cultural work. We offer these guidelines out of humility and respect for the difficult yet deeply meaningful nature of this work:

Genuine Respect for Diversity:

Respecting diverse cultural perspectives, practices and protocols related to the environment means acknowledging:

• The cumulative wisdom of Indigenous communities who have had eco-cultural and land-based practices that have guided their ways of life and environmental stewardship protocols since time immemorial.

• The nuances and diversity within and between different cultures, Nations and communities and their unique understanding of and interactions with the natural and more than human world.

Effective Collaboration:

Eco-cultural work often involves partnerships and collaboration between individuals and communities from diverse cultural backgrounds. Working towards cultural safety and humility means fostering an environment where:

• All parties feel valued and respected, and can work together towards shared goals of reconciliation and environmental protection.

• Open dialogue is actively encouraged about the power imbalances and systemic inequalities that exist or that surface within and between partners and different knowledge systems.

Avoiding Harm: Working to mitigate against, and ideally ensure that eco-cultural initiatives do not inadvertently harm or disrespect the cultural beliefs, practices, or rights of different communities being engaged. This requires:

• Developing a deep understanding of the historical and cultural contexts in which environmental challenges have arisen, with a particular focus on the expropriation, extraction and degradation of traditional lands and territories.

• Seeking guidance from Indigenous leaders / knowledge-holders to ensure that:

  • Cultural safety is incorporated into all aspects of the project design (including processes, protocols, and ‘products’).

  • Indigenous data sovereignty is maintained.

  • Long-held exploitative and extractive research and data collection practices are acknowledged and disrupted.

• Deepening awareness of the ways settler organizations and individuals have tended to assert dominance and assume positions of higher knowledge and authority in this sector, and proactively working to ensure that these power dynamics aren’t replicated.

• Centreing Indigenous ways of being and knowing, and not merely ‘accommodating’ or engaging Indigenous communities in tokenizing ways (i.e., including stories and cultural artifacts as ‘decorations’, curios, or project ‘enhancements’).

Building Trust over the long term requires:

• Cultivating active listening skills with a view to truly understanding different viewpoints and experiences.

• Avoiding making assumptions.

• Embracing the opportunity to learn from others through meaningful dialogue and story sharing.

• Recognizing and openly admitting one’s own cultural biases and knowledge-gaps.

• Adapting or completely overhauling long-standing mindsets and research and design approaches as needed.

Given the gravitational pull of dominance, and the fact that many organizations that have been involved in environmental protection and habitat restoration are white dominated, it is important to formalize a commitment to actualizing the principles of cultural humility and safety at the outset. This can be done through processes such as community agreements and memorandums of understanding, as we have established with WE, through their SOS Coalition. Beyond these formalities, it remains equally important to plan for continual reflection, (re)assessment, and ‘course correction’ in pursuing this work.

There are no easy fixes, formulas or maps for undertaking transformative eco-cultural initiatives, or undoing environmental degradation and cultural harms that have taken place over multiple decades. This work is on-going and generational. That said, eco-cultural approaches that meaningfully integrate traditional knowledge systems, and embed the principles and practices of cultural safety and humility are more likely to:

• Be culturally relevant and resilient.

• Empower communities to take ownership of environmental issues and solutions.

• Support long-term partnerships, and sustainable change over the long term.