Stewarding Our Marine Relations: Dialogue 12

Speaker biographies

Saul ‘Hazil’hba Brown

Saul ‘Hazil’hba Brown is from the Nuu-chah-nulth and Heiltsuk Nations and is in his final year of completing a law degree the University of Victoria. His academic writing has focussed on Indigenous marine stewardship and governance. He is the recipient the Law Foundation of B.C. Public Interest Law Award, First Nations Public Service Scholarship, First Peoples Law Indigenous Law Student Scholarship and of the Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award from the university’s Department of Political Science.

As a food sovereigntist and a student of Heiltsuk Gvi’ilas (laws) and governance, he sees the intrinsic value and necessity of giving effect to Heiltsuk laws out on the water and land. He has worked with elders on numerous files with the intent of breathing life into Heiltsuk ancestral law in the contemporary. Saul is also the former negotiator for the Heiltsuk reconciliation process and has worked as a governance advisor for First Nations across the province. He is the founder of Y̓íḷbas Consultancy which serves Indigenous communities by assisting them to give effect to their title and rights over their territories, reconstituting Indigenous governments, and enhancing human well-being. He is dedicated to making the space for Indigenous legal systems to flourish within what is now known as Canada.

Nang Jingwas Russ Jones

Russ Jones, Nang Jingwas, has worked for the Council of the Haida Nation as both a consultant and employee in the field of fisheries and marine planning. Russ has a Master of Science in Fisheries from the University of Washington. He led the development of the Haida Gwaii Marine Plan that was approved by the Haida Nation and Province of BC in April 2015. In 2004 he served on a three-member First Nation Panel on Fisheries that wrote the report Our Place at the Table: First Nations in the BC Fishery. He is a Commissioner on the Pacific Salmon Commission and was a past commissioner of the North Pacific Anadramous Fish Commission. He has published papers on a variety of topics including Haida marine planning, Haida ethics and values, First Nations and marine protected area policy, co-management of the Haida Gwaii razor clam fishery, abalone stewardship and ethical analysis of the herring fishery.

Dr. Sm'hayetsk Teresa Ryan

Dr. Sm'hayetsk Teresa Ryan is Gitlan, Tsm’syen. She is a Research Associate/Sessional Lecturer at the UBC Faculty of Forestry. She is also appointed to the Pacific Salmon Commission Joint Chinook Technical Committee (Canada). As a fisheries/aquatic ecologist, she is currently investigating relationships between salmon and healthy forests (Salmon Forest Project). She also works with the Mother Tree Project facilitating Indigenous Natural Science at the forefront of future forest management, and exploring old growth forests supporting biodiversity. Her research focuses on the intersections of Ancestral Knowledge systems and science in complex adaptive systems.

Dr. Anne Salomon

Anne Salomon seeks to advance our understanding of how human disturbances alter the productivity, biodiversity and resilience of coastal marine ecosystems to inform ecosystem approaches to marine conservation. Broadly, Anne is interested in the cascading effects of predator depletion on marine food webs, marine reserve design and evaluation, climate change impacts on coastal ocean ecosystems, alternative state dynamics, and the resilience of social-ecological systems. Ultimately, Anne strives to engage coastal communities and government agencies in collaborative research and encourage constructive dialogue among stakeholders to navigate the tradeoffs between coastal conservation and resource use. Amongst other projects, her current collaborative research includes investigating the ecological and socio-economic drivers of Pacific herring dynamics and their role as a pulse nutrient subsidy to coastal ecosystems. Dr. Salomon and her students complement their field-based research with stable isotope analyses, ecosystem modelling, historical ecology, archaeology, traditional knowledge, satellite remote sensing, and the quantitative techniques required to draw these multiple lines of evidence together.

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DR. DAVID SUZUKI

Dr. David Suzuki is a father, grandfather, environmental activist, and an award-winning geneticist and broadcaster, known particularly for his roles in the CBC Radio show Quirks and Quarks and CBC Television’s The Nature of Things. He is widely recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology and has received numerous awards for his work, including a UNESCO prize for science and a United Nations Environment Program medal. Along with his partner, Tara Cullis, Miles Richardson, and others, he helped co-found the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990. For his support of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, Suzuki has been honoured with eight names and formal adoption by two First Nations.

Dr. Suzuki is Professor Emeritus in Zoology at the University of British Columbia, after serving on faculty for 32 years. He has authored and co-authored more than 50 books, nearly 20 of which have been written for children. He has received several Gemini Awards for his work in Canadian television, the Order of British Columbia and Order of Canada, as well as numerous honorary degrees. He received a lifetime achievement award from the University of British Columbia in 2000 and the Right Livelihood Award (known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”) in 2009.

DR. NANCY TURNER

Dr. Nancy Turner is an ethnobotanist whose research integrates the fields of botany and ecology with anthropology, geography and linguistics, amongst others. She is interested in the traditional knowledge systems and traditional land and resource management systems of Indigenous Peoples, particularly in western Canada. She has worked with Indigenous Elders and cultural specialists in northwestern North America for over 40 years, collaborating with Indigenous communities to help document, retain and promote their traditional knowledge of plants and habitats, including Indigenous foods, materials and medicines, as well as language and vocabulary relating to plants and environments. Her interests also include the roles of plants and animals in narratives, ceremonies, language and belief systems. 

Emeritus Professor in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria, Dr. Turner was awarded a Pierre Elliot Trudeau Fellowship in 2015, in support of discussion amongst multiple informed groups on the roles of ethnobotany and ethnoecology in policy, planning and decision-making in the legal and governance arenas around Indigenous Peoples’ land rights and title. She Turner  has authored, co-authored or co-edited over 20 books and over 150 book chapters and peer-reviewed papers, and numerous other publications, both popular and academic.

MILES RICHARDSON, O.C.

Miles G. Richardson, O.C., is a citizen of the Haida Nation and an Officer of the Order of Canada. Early in his career, while serving as Administrator for the Skidegate Band Council, he directed the establishment of the Haida Gwaii Watchmen program. Then, while serving as the youngest President of the Council of the Haida Nation (1984-1996), he led the drafting of the Constitution of the Haida Nation; development of the first comprehensive Haida Nation land and marine use plan, enacted under Haida law; and negotiation of the Gwaii Haanas Agreement, the first Nation-to-Nation agreement between the Haida Nation and Canada, which protected the Gwaii Haanas area of his people’s homeland, Haida Gwaii. He was a member of the BC Claims Task Force recommending negotiations to build a new relationship. He served as a delegate of the First Nations Summit Task Group (1991-1993) and was subsequently nominated by the Summit and appointed as a Commissioner to the BC Treaty Commission for two terms. He served as Chief Commissioner of the BC Treaty Commission (1998-2004).