Resource Development and Indigenous Rights: CiTR Lunchtime Open House

Girbav: Decolonizing Water is a water project that aims to support water security for Indigenous communities. This project brings together leading Indigenous thinkers, natural scientists, artists, lawyers, and community members. Rooted in Indigenous law, it will use the most innovative, western, scientific advancements in monitoring technology to create a hybridized water governance and monitoring program. Decolonizing Water is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and will run from 2016 until 2023.

Hello, and welcome to the second Decolonizing Water Lunch Lecture. Our open house episode of Unceded Airwaves at CiTR 101 FM. In this podcast, we will hear from Willow Thickson, a medical student at UBC and Gordon Christie, a UBC Law professor. This talk is in collaboration with Decolonizing Water and the Indigenous Collective at CiTR. Decolonzing Water is a SSHRC funded project. That is the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Decolonzing Water is partnering with the University of British Columbia to create a prototype of an Indigenous-led community-based water monitoring program that is rooted in Indigenous law. The project aims to create tools that support Indigenous communities to implement Indigenous water laws. Decolonizing Water also aims to create suggestions for reforms to colonial water law that would enable it to make room for Indigenous water laws. This podcast was recorded and produced in the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking Musqueam people.

Decolonizing Water and the Indigenous Collective at CiTR are two organization that strive to keep the relationship between land and Indigenous peoples at the forefront of the work that we do to decolonize water governance and broadcast media.

My name is Lisa Girbav and I am a Research Assistant for Decolonizing Water based out of the UBC Vancouver campus. The technical recording was managed by Nikita Daywith assistance from John Q. Josh Kioke edited this talk into the podcast.

Today we will be discussing Indigenous peoples and our relationships to water in the treaty 8 territory with Willow Thickson and Gordon Christie. Here is the Decolonizing Water Lunch Lecture in partnership with the Indigenous Collective at CiTR in the Open House episode on Unceded Airwaves.

New Zealand Parliament. (2017). Innovative bill protects Whanganui River with legal personhood. Retrieved from https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/innovative-bill-protects-whanganui-river-with-legal-personhood/

Learn more about CiTR’s Indigenous Collective and Unceded Airwaves here.