CNY Conference on Environmental Science & Studies

SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY

Welcome Address

7 April 2023

Thank you very much for the invitation to deliver the Welcome Address for this inaugural Central New York Conference on Environmental Science & Studies. I am grateful to be here. Thanks to the ESF Graduate Student Association for organizing this event. As Dean of the ESF Grad School, I am pleased to support it. I was invited to provide some comments in answer to the question: “How do we organize to ensure a better future for ALL” to set the stage for the conference theme that GSA President and ESF PhD Candidate Emme Christie so eloquently described: “Exploring the Margins: Environmental Research for a Better Future”.

Organizing to ensure a better future for all…. first, a vision:

• Building a more peaceful, equitable and loving world, to solve problems together through relationship with one another and nature
• Collaborating across all perceived boundaries to resolve our most pressing issues of the day

We have an opportunity to have much greater and sustained impact by recognizing the power and influence that science and research partnerships can have to demonstrate the respectful engagement of diverse knowledge systems both within ourselves and with others.

To do this, I briefly explore how we replicate the dominant paradigm of a science mentality in our current approaches to environmental research and collaboration, acknowledging the trauma that this can and does cause. I then offer a few ideas to consider for bringing our whole selves to all that we do as we move toward respectful engagement of multiple knowledge systems.

Relationship is key to achieving this vision – relationships among research partnerships of all types whether among diverse scholars or among scholars and community members, both of which are fundamental to the types of inter and transdisciplinary environmental research being conducted today.

Introductions are fundamental to developing relationships.

In a recent publication that I was asked to author, I was asked to introduce myself in a way that lets the reader know more of the voice they are reading, more of the author(s). In that way, I offer the following introduction, so you have a foundation, a context within which to hear what I offer here this afternoon.

• I am a mother, sister, partner, friend, and citizen of the Earth and I come from a long line of master soup makers, natural gardeners, and wise women.
• I am a woman scientist and policy practitioner working with a variety of social-ecological systems, ecological economics, and the science-policy interface locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.
• My background is in forest science, adult communication and education, and ecological economics and policy.
• I have worked with NGOs throughout my career, serving in organizational and leadership positions in many and at all levels – local, state, national, and international.
• I have served at nearly all levels of academic leadership from Department Chair to Interim Provost and Executive Vice President, currently as Interim Dean of the Graduate School.
• My research, academic, and organizational work is informed by systems thinking to enhance effectiveness and efficiency of institutions through inclusive, compassionate, and matrixed systems of shared effort, power, and respect for all.
• I founded Heart Forward Science to support the development of holistic knowledge through a balance of intellect, imagination, and intuition to advance equitable, sustainable scientific outcomes.

Recognition of the power and impact of environmental science research partnerships brings forward the possibility of healing much more than the environmental degradation concerns at its base. By expanding the scope of understanding of the “problem” to include systemic conditions of violence and inequity resulting from a colonizing-settler mentality, we can achieve much greater positive outcomes through environmental research partnerships that demonstrate respectful engagement of diverse knowledge systems.

How do we do this? It begins with acknowledgment of the traumas caused by dualistic, elitist, hierarchical power structures within Western science and policy including environmental management activities stemming from them. Once we open ourselves to seeing this, we can go beyond acknowledgement of it to intending to and creating pathways that no longer replicate the harms of these power-over mentalities.

Following the dominant paradigms of science, though, our tendency in practice is to take the stance that we know something that people need to know without giving much, if any, consideration of what they already know or know in ways that we may not have considered.

Much environmental research happens with communities of all sorts and many of these efforts are based on developing relationships only deep enough for people to accept what we already know we have to offer, instead of being truly collaborative, participatory, and flexible from the start. We come from a tradition in which we have learned to “be experts”: to tell, to profess, to compare, to direct, and to persuade, all amounting to a primarily unidirectional communication aimed at our “partners”. We listen enough to make our own points better instead of empathetic listening to deeply understand and co-creating the best ways forward. Engaging communities as subjects of study is not true partnership.

We are at an inflection point. Recent worldwide attention to the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements have stimulated many of us to begin or further our efforts on a path toward an equitable world. These movements created numerous opportunities and support for us to do our own individual work to see and to unlearn the longstanding oppressive structures and systems of our colonizing history. Unlearning is crucial to this process.

Recognizing that we are steeped in such structures and systems and acknowledging the traumas caused by the power structures within Western science and the public policy decisions stemming from them is a start. Once we open to seeing this, we can go beyond acknowledgement to intending and discovering pathways that no longer replicate the harms of these power-over mentalities.

The power dynamics that we see institutionally also tend to be replicated at the individual level: among the “haves” and “have nots”, and with gender, race, and orientation identities. This means that each of us can address this by finding ways to move in the world with love, blameless discernment, and acceptance while resisting violence and inequities. Following a path of individual awareness, empathetic listening, acknowledgement, healing, unlearning, learning, and co-creating a transformed future helps not only at the individual level but creates a ripple effect that carries much further.

Just as we experience the joy of someone who enters the room with exciting and happy news such that it uplifts us, too, our work of self-healing and self-care with community awareness transforms and encourages those around us. Recognizing this impact and adjusting one’s own self-care and behavior to reflect this requires introspection, self-compassion, and emotional healing. Supporting each other in these efforts is one way in which we help to extend positive impacts.

Reframing environmental research and management with respect for all that each participant brings, balancing this with what we in Western science know – engaging differing knowledge systems with respect – will bring more people into environmental research and management partnerships, expanding and impacting in new ways.

Most science and environmental research programs do not address the roles of imagination, consciousness, and intuition in science or ways of knowing beyond the analytical and intellectual. Nor do they teach the skills necessary to engage intuition as well as the intellect and imagination, and to effectively interweave them — a combination that not only results in solutions that reflect diversity in all ways, but it also welcomes all people to contribute, no matter their level of scientific education.

Imagine a partnership that is designed to allow for the emergence of new ideas from anyone within the group. We may believe we are offering this simply by calling an association a partnership, but it is not so without explicitly designing and operating in ways that support every participant to bring their full selves and ways of knowing to the endeavor, to be not only allowed but encouraged and supported by design to fully contribute.

Inviting others into our world on the condition that they accept and abide by our rules does not adequately address the issues. In recent years, Western science has done just that, making an arguably weak effort to recognize Indigenous knowledges doing just that. In my humble opinion, this is no way to learn about and engage other knowledge systems. We can do better.

Engaging diverse knowledge systems respectfully requires self-confidence with humility and humanity as we consider who is involved, who owns the outcomes, and how we can collaborate in truly equitable ways. It also requires self-knowledge. It is no longer enough to bring only our analytical intellectual selves to this work. We must bring our whole selves to all that we do. I call this engaging with heart: learning and embracing the many ways in which we know, extending beyond the analytical and intellectual. Learning to intertwine it all to inform our actions can be described in a deliciously paradoxical way: “thinking with the heart and feeling with the mind”. The results are impactful, compassionate, humble, and respectful.

We must practice all of this as part of the unlearning.

Recognizing that we are steeped in such structures and systems is an initial step. Practice seeing embedded oppression, supporting each other in doing so, and seeking out and listening to under-represented people helps to build within each of us the ability to better see and hear the traumas that need to be aired, acknowledged, healed, and not repeated. Being willing to let go of these structures and find new ways is vastly different than simply recognizing them.

We must practice openly engaging with heart.

Who is leading the way? You are!

As we engage together in this conference on “Exploring the Margins: Environmental Research for a Better Future”, I suggest that we have an opportunity to have much greater and sustained impact by recognizing the power and influence that environmental research can have to demonstrate the respectful engagement of diverse knowledge systems both within ourselves and with others.

The research you all are doing is not only societally important in terms of the outcomes, but as importantly, perhaps even MORE importantly, how you do this research has the potential to ensure a better future for all by modeling respectful, equitable relationships.

Spring is a time that reminds us of the natural and periodic need to refresh and renew. The conference this weekend is an opportunity to do that — to refresh, renew, and think together, to engage together to pave a path to a better future for all. I look forward to the emergence of that special kind of magic that happens when we engage with heart. Here’s to a fantastic conference.