Decolonizing Bird Knowledge Symposium

At its heart, Indigenous Knowledge holders continue to confront the biases embedded in western science that dominates this space, with its colonial roots. As we share, we want to go further to address land dispossession and other decolonizing birding issues. Our symposium sessions will focus on supporting and amplifying projects around building inclusivity in the world of birding, land rights, educational programs around Indigenous birding, un-naming, cultural safety, and decolonizing research around the topics, and other BPOC and Indigenous knowledges about birding.

Hear and learn from our speakers about:

1. Emerging culture shift in birding communities and players in efforts to deconolize, diversify, the practice, the science, and the infraestructure of/around birding.
2. Lessons of tackling bird names and efforts at un-naming.

The Wild Bird Trust created a Decolonizing Ornithology Advisory Ctte which includes Melissa Hafting and Jeffrey Nichols. Our work has created a disruption in birding communities here in British Columbia. Following a hostile take-over of the Wild Bird Trust we have worked methodically for 7 years educating the community through our magazine ‘Wingspan’ and have arrived at this stage of landback for a 256-acre bird sanctuary in the harbour of Vancouver. We now recognize that by creating this celebrated birding conservation area 30+ years ago we had to displace First Nations from land and water they had stewarded for millenia.

Our guest speakers and moderators:

• Les George (cultural opening remarks)

Les George is a member of the səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nation, where he lives on the north shore of Burrard Inlet. He is the grandson of the late səlilwətaɬ Chief Dan George and is connected through family to the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations. He is a storyteller and Wild Bird Trust of BC Board Member.

• Jordan Rutter

Jordan Rutter is a life-long birder with a passion for connecting others to the natural world through birds. She is the co-founder of Bird Names for Birds, an initiative advocating that eponymous common bird names be changed using a new decision-making process developed that would include all community members. Jordan has an M.Sc. in conservation biology from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities and over fifteen years of experience in ornithology and science communication. Jordan's interest in improving birding accessibility is connected to her passionate belief that the joy of birds belongs to everyone.

• Steve Hampton

Stephen Carr Hampton (Cherokee Nation/Choctaw) is, at the moment, a writer and a birder. He worked for the California Dept of Fish & Wildlife for 25 years, involved in oil spill damage assessments, seabird restoration, and tribal coordination. He was a member of the American Ornithological Society's Ad Hoc Committee for English Bird Names, where he helped draft the recommendation to change all honorific names. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington (also known asqatáy, S'Klallam lands) and serves as the Conservation Chair of Rainshadow Bird Alliance (formerly known as Admiralty Audubon Society). You can find his writings at stephen-carr-hampton.com, and at his two blogs: Memories of the People and The Cottonwood Post.

• Angela Hansen

• Melissa Hafting

Melissa runs the BC Rare Bird Alert website, where she keeps track of all the rare birds reported in the province and helps out twitchers. In 2014, she founded the BC Young Birders Program which brings together youth of all races, sexual orientations and genders out on fun birding field trips in nature. She has a strong passion for wildlife conservation and is from Vancouver, BC, Canada. She is an eBird reviewer for 4 regions in BC and loves to travel around the ABA and abroad looking at birds.

• Irwin Oostindie, WBT Board member, Voor Urban Labs Director, SFU Institute for the Humanities.

All this in the spirit of migration: “We didn’t cross the borders, the borders crossed us.” shifts in and players in these efforts south of the border.

Host or Publisher Wild Bird Trust of BC