How Ancestral Voyaging Mobilizes Knowledge of Biodiversity & Climate Change

A vaka built in Taumako ©Vaka Taumako Project

February 2, 2023
5:00 to 7:00 pm
Reception: 7:00 to 8:30 pm

xʷθəθiqətəm or The Place of Many Trees
Liu Institute for Global Issues
6476 NW Marine Dr, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2

The future of the ocean is essential to the planet’s future and human life. Climate change intersects profoundly with biodiversity, food security for billions of humans, culture, and economy and peace. The sea-voyaging people of the Pacific have developed intimate and profound knowledge of the Ocean over millennia. The extreme biodiversity of the western Pacific makes its health key to revival of planetary biodiversity.

This is an opportunity to learn ways of knowing from Pacific knowledge keepers, to deeply enrich the understanding of the complex inter-relationships of ocean phenomena and what must be done to protect and live with the ocean for our own future survival. The session would bring together different forms of knowledge, including ocean science, geoscience, plant science and zoology, along with cultural history and narratives, music, anthropology, archeology, navigation, and others.

Opening Remarks

Dr. Mimi Kaveia George, Vaka Taumako Project of Pacific Traditions Society, Anahola, United States
Dr. Rashid Sumaila, University Killam Professor, UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries & School of Public Policy and Global Affairs
Dr. Yves Tiberghien, UBC Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs/Institute of Asian Research, & Professor, Department of Political Science