Our February Community Conversation featured the topic of Wabanaki Climate Justice & Resilience facilitated by Dr. Darren Ranco, Chair of Native American Programs at UMaine Orono. Dr. Ranco joined us with support from Maine Humanities Council’s “Maine Speaks” series which sparked an energetic evening Downeast. Attendees engaged in a thoughtful discussion around Wabanaki future in the face of climate challenges. When considering that some groups of people are affected more than others by our changing climate; it focuses us in imagining a future that brings together different frames of knowledge, communicates across disciplines and pays attention to a multispecies experience.

Dr. Ranco put forth that the Wabanaki people are in the process of adapting their culture to the changing climate. The threats related to climate change are many, the ones of greatest concern are a rise in winter ticks, a decrease of the moose population, the rising water temps impacting fish and forestry, rising air temperatures increasing the load of invasive species and many more. There are actions that have been indicated as priorities during adaptation, highlights of 15+ include:

Fighting against the loss of native languages
Fighting for food sovereignty
Protecting cultural sites threatened by sea level rise
Writing a Wabanaki Confederacy adaptation plan rooted from each community’s plans
Listening to clan mothers

While the struggles and disproportionate nature of climate change for Indigeneous populations are large, there are also incredible possibilities that lay ahead. The Wabanaki future is one that centers resilience and adaptation. It is one that uses the land as a framework for relations, for the land is the decision making power and as we all become more attentive we listen more closely to the land, the water and are able to live in kinship with a multispecies world.