How traditional ecological knowledge is shaping Adirondack research
By Chloe Bennett
For decades, the Adirondack Park has housed piles of scientific research on its natural systems. Academic scientists and independent researchers use the park to survey water, forests, animals and more for insights into the constitutionally protected land. But a reckoning with the United States’ past is reshaping the way some think about science.
Two convenings of scientists and educators spotlighted Indigenous voices this month in the High Peaks. Their messages called for respect of traditional knowledge and history, and its inclusion in the broader scientific conversation.
Looking out to a gathering of dozens of North Country researchers, Keeley Jock, the climate justice fellow for the Adirondack North Country Association (ANCA), described a wetland project she led that flips federal protection criteria to traditional Indigenous values of the natural systems. Her talk took place at the annual Adirondack Research Consortium in mid-May.
A few days earlier, Neil Patterson Jr., executive director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, called traditional ecological knowledge the twin of Western science during a conference at the Wild Center in Tupper Lake.
“We are not managers of natural resources, nor are we stewards of natural resources. Turtle Island is a steward of us. She takes care of us. It’s a very different way of thinking.”
Neil Patterson Jr., executive director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at SUNY ESF, referring to the name used by some American Indigenous peoples in their creation stories.
Traditional ecological knowledge has existed in the Northeast for thousands of years, though mainstream scientists may have been slow in recognizing it. Yet studies show shifting from the colonial view of science and conservation to traditional practices can lead to improved outcomes.
Lifting traditional ecological knowledge in the Adirondacks
For her final project at Paul Smith’s College last year, Jock created a system opposing the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Wetland Condition Assessment, which prioritizes wetland sites by biodiversity and other indicators. In Jock’s study, rankings of wetlands included medicinal and ceremonial uses to show that the systems hold value outside of Western thinking. As an example, a wetland site in the St. Lawrence River community of Akwesasne ranked higher in priority for its cultural uses than in an EPA assessment.
The site was likely impacted by agriculture in the past, said Jock, a member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe. Her ranking system could lead to expanded protections with policy informed by Indigenous knowledge.
“Partnering with Native communities can change the outcome of wetland practices and regulations by amplifying marginalized voices, supporting and maintaining land-back initiatives, including land stewardship rights, and supporting and revitalizing cultural practices that have been systematically degraded or destroyed,” she said.
In his presentation to educators and workers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the Wild Center, Patterson said Indigenous stories are sometimes dismissed as myths but often hold scientific truth. Soil as a living system, for example, is both a cultural story and a science-based fact, said Patterson, who grew up on the Tuscarora reservation in Western New York. The Tuscarora and Mohawk tribes are among the six nations of the Iroquois, or Haudenosaunee, Confederacy, who lived in what is now New York.
Indigenous communities are “the only place left in the world where this traditional knowledge lives and breathes and continues to be developed,” Patterson said.
Historically inaccurate details about the Adirondacks contribute to a lack of cultural understanding, Curt Stager, climate scientist and professor at Paul Smith’s College, said. Widely-read books like Alfred Donaldson’s “A History of the Adirondacks” that described the park as unoccupied before Western colonization mischaracterize the ancestral homeland of Native people, according to historical evidence.
“People have been living there and loving the same things we love for more than 10,000 years,” Stager said. “We still got folks of that heritage still here, they never left.”
Jock said she hopes introducing traditional ecological knowledge to Western science will be met with respect for traditional practices. In her presentation, Jock cited decades-long federal policies restricting Indigenous culture in the U.S.
“Indigenous knowledge is also proof of the resilience and resistance to colonialism, genocide, and ethnocide that has been instilled, that has and is still happening to the Indian peoples,” she said.
Zach Matson contributed to this story.
Photo at top: A wetland in the Adirondacks. By Mike Lynch
This is so fascinating as the book titled Critical Theory: An Introduction written in 2013 by Richard Delgado and Jean Stephanie states that critical theory or social justice “questions the very foundations of the Western liberal order.” This includes Enlightenment rationalism, equality theory, Western science which stemmed from the Enlightenment period, legal reasoning and the neutral principals of constitutional law. There has been some very interesting papers written in support of social and environmental justice. One paper about glaciology called for the incorporation of indiginous knowledge. The example given was that people shouldn’t cook near a glacier as this action could harm the glacier. I am curious to see what indigenous knowledge will be brought forward to assist the Adirondacks in meeting its environmental goals.