[Full Length] Designs for Life — with Dr. Tara Martin

“If we had a salmon sitting at the decision table, we would all speak differently. We would all think differently. We would all make different decisions. An elder in a meeting once brought a seat to the table and he said, this is the seat for the salmon.”

- Dr. Tara Martin

SYNOPSIS:

I had the delightful honor of meeting Dr. Tara Martin when I lived on Vancouver Island. We canoed out to a tiny Salish Sea sand island and shared a delicious sunset picnic among old growth forests. I love Tara because she is a rare breed of scientist that can seamlessly blend rigorous data science and ecological analysis with deep intuition and cultural insight.

In this interview, we cover the basics of conservation decision science and “priority threat management” — a field she is pioneering — and how it can help policymakers prioritise complex conservation decisions. We discuss her lab’s work in the Frasier River Estuary and with First Nations across Canada. Listen to her vivid descriptions of lost eco-cultural landscapes, how she worked to save a preserved island and returned it back to indigenous stewards, how to have a seat at the table for the salmon, the role of art and beauty in conservation and the old-growth herbaceous elders that are hiding just out of sight.

LISTEN:

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

GUEST BIO:

Tara is a Professor in Conservation Decision Science with the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia. Tara is also the Liber Ero Chair in Conservation at UBC. She is a pioneer in the field of Conservation Decision Science – combining predictive ecological models with decision science to inform what actions to take, where to take them and when to achieve our conservation and natural resource management goals.

Tara leads a team of graduate students and research fellows seeking to understand, predict and ultimately inform decisions about the impact of global change on biodiversity and natural resources. Tara was recently awarded The Nature Conservancy Professor in Practice Award, Thomson Reuters Citation & Innovation Award for her work in Climate change decision making and a Wilburforce Conservation Fellowship. Tara is a member of the IUCN Climate Change Specialist Group and co-leads the Climate Adaptation Theme.

QUOTES:

• We may need to change the way we're doing our science to make it more usable, and to be asking the right questions in the first place.

• The biggest threat to these ecosystems was the loss of First Nation stewardship. Almost all of our ecosystems actually need active management. They need people to help them to recover, which will involve some tree clearing and bringing back fire.

• If we had a salmon sitting at the decision table, we would all speak differently. We would all think differently. We would all make different decisions. An elder in a meeting once brought a seat to the table and he said, this is the seat for the salmon.

• These were the old growths. And we rarely think that these little herbaceous plants can also be ancient. Imagine the stories that this plant could tell, the different climates that's already lived through, all the different languages that it's heard…

• We use art, to help us to work with our knowledge holders in a way that is non extractive and full of beauty and reciprocity.

SHOW NOTES:

• Tara Martin Decisions Lab

• Research: Frasier River Estuary 

• RELAW: West Coast Environmental Law

• Briony Penn Ecological Art

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE