#39 Diving into marine ethnoecology with Natalie Ban and Jade Steel

In this episode, we connect with Dr. Natalie Ban and PhD student, Jade Steel. Natalie Ban is a professor in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria. Natalie’s research encompasses the broad field of marine ethnoecology. Specifically, her group focuses on coastal and marine conservation and fisheries and the social-ecological systems that connect them. Her group’s work integrates natural and social sciences, and bridges western and traditional ecological knowledge. Jade Steel is a doctoral candidate in Natalie’s research group. Her research focuses on Indigenous-led salmon monitoring along the Central Coast of BC.

We had a great conversation with Natalie and Jade, exploring the range of research projects happening in Natalie’s lab. We spoke about their work on fisheries reconciliation in British Columbia, including the centering of Indigenous perspectives in marine protected area network planning, and also supporting fisheries monitoring efforts by First Nations, which is the focus of Jade’s PhD. Jade and Natalie talked about the importance of the local scale expertise held by First Nations, which is highlighting some gaps in climate change modeling for marine environments. We also talked about the interactions between Indigenous rights, justice and fisheries management, where declining fish populations resulting from commercial overharvesting is now being rightly characterized as an infringement on the rights of Indigenous communities. We closed out our conversation with some thoughts on how to find positivity as individuals working within, and thinking deeply about, the environmental crisis.