2024 Keynote Presentations
Sunday, August 11, 2024 • 8:45 – 10:00 am
Where the Whales Are—Lessons learned from giants about positive change in a changing world
Jackie Hildering (Image by Kendra Parnham-Hall)
“Where the Whales Are” will be a presentation dedicated to the importance of speaking for the ocean and how to help inspire positive change in a changing world.
The presenter is Jackie Hildering, Humpback Whale researcher, cofounder and communications lead with the Marine Education and Research Society based in the Territory of the Kwak̕wala-speaking People, northern Vancouver Island. Jackie goes by “The Marine Detective” and is also a cold-water scuba diver and underwater photographer.
She will share lessons learned – from a previously undocumented Humpback Whale feeding strategy; to the plight of Sunflower Stars; to the human psychology that leads to disconnect from life in dark seas and to the paralysis and overwhelm that limit socio-environmental change.
Jackie’s on-camera experience includes work with Animal Planet, PBS, and the BBC.
For more information see www.TheMarineDetective.com/about and www.mersociety.org
Monday, August 12, 2024 • 3:00 – 4:15 pm
Walking in Balance: Towards and understanding of Indigenous Land-Based Pedagogy and Interconnectedness
John Harris
Land-based education is rooted in Indigenous pedagogy and ways of knowing and is the way Indigenous peoples have been teaching and learning for countless generations. More importantly it forms the way we understand, relate to, and interact with the world around us including our more than human relations such as air, water, moon, stars, trees, plants, and all of the winged, finned, four-legged and insect relatives on tumuxw earth and the earth itself. Understanding our place within the complexity of these relationships is characterized by a word and concept from my ancestral language, hul’qumi’num, asnuts’a’maat – we are all one. Deeply embedded within this concept are the inherent responsibilities expected of us to be ‘good relatives’ – that is, in good and right relation with all things.
John Harris is an Indigenous Educator and member of the Snuneymuxw Nanaimo First Nation, working in the Greater Victoria School District’s Indigenous Education Department as the Elders and Indigenous Knowledge Facilitator. He is grateful for the privilege and opportunity of living, learning and working within the traditional territories of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations, and passionate about weaving local Indigenous perspectives and knowledge into educational opportunities. In his experience as an educator, he has found that incredibly profound learning occurs at the intersection between traditional Indigenous knowledges, land-based experiential teaching, and an openness to embrace uy’skwuluwun – a good mind and heart when doing this work.