Jared Gonet
Jared Gonet is a Taku River Tlingit Citizen with a deep connection, love and respect for lands and waters of the Yukon.
He is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Alberta and a member of the Biocultural Indicators and Outcomes Stream at the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership.
Jared shares with us that he is interested in the intersection between Indigenous knowledge and western knowledge systems, and is excited to see a resurgence of cultural values and connections that Indigenous researchers are bringing to conservation.
He has found a lot of connections and learning opportunities within the CRP Student and Post-Doc Community, where he says he has found a place for exploring conversations and thinking around Indigenous voices, perspectives and leadership within academia and research. These conversations have helped shape and frame his own studies.
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Full Transcript
Kristy Tomkinson
Hello, kwe’, boozhoo, taanishi, oki, atelihai , chachim hihak kwaa, bonjour and welcome to Community Connections – a collection of stories from the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership that explores relationships that strengthen our work to support and elevate Indigenous-led conservation across what is now known as Canada.
My name is Kristy Tomkinson and I will be your conversation guide.
In this episode I am speaking with Jared Gonet.
Jared is a Taku River Tlingit Citizen with a deep connection, love and respect for lands and waters of the Yukon.
He is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Alberta and a member of the Biocultural Indicators and Outcomes Stream of the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership.
So, make yourself some tea, get comfortable, and join us.
Kristy Tomkinson
So, thank you Jared, for sitting down with me. It's a pleasure to get to know you.
I'm curious if you would like to briefly introduce yourself in terms of how did you come to this work? What has that journey looked like for you?
Jared Gonet
I'm a Taku River Tlingit citizen in Yukon. I was born and raised in Whitehorse. I have pretty strong familial ties to Carcross. The communities of Carcross, the communities of Atlin, Fort Liard as well.
My mother is from Fort Liard so she's Acho Dene*. Her mother was Métis I would say, her father was also Métis. Her mother, my father's mother was Tlingit. My father's father was Polish. He immigrated here when he was very young.
And as for how it came to Indigenous-led conservation, it just seemed almost natural, I guess. Just how things went. I got into a masters, I did a masters on caribou. I didn't know as much about science as I wanted to, so it's strictly purely science.
It had to do a disturbance ecology about caribou. In general, so the mountain caribou in the Yukon in northern BC. And then wanted to do a PhD and I was always interested in that intersection between Indigenous knowledge and western knowledge.
And at first, I thought, "oh what about western science and Indigenous Knowledge?" But then you know, the more you, or at least the more I start to dig into the question, the more it seems you have to take a step back and almost start thinking about how knowledge systems interact, kind of with Deborah McGregor. Right? So that thinks about how important that is.
That's where I am today, working on the PhD.
Kristy Tomkinson
Thank you, so how did you get to know about the CRP, or how were you involved with the CRP?
Jared Gonet
So early on in my PhD, I’ve been in it about 16 months now, I think a colleague of mine pointed out the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership. And you know, I’d read a little bit about the ice report. Then they put me in touch with Faisal, Faisal Moola, at the time, and we had a conversation, and I joined his research stream and I’ve just been sort of in touch here and there ever since and joining meetings with the student groups ever since. And I keep following the CRP’s, say, work as well.
Kristy Tomkinson
So, you mentioned a number of individuals you've been in connection with, like Deborah McGregor and Faisal Moola. Is there, would you be able to tell us about a relationship or a connection with someone or an organization that you have developed or strengthened within your collaboration with the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership?
Jared Gonet
Well, I haven't been in touch with Deb McGregor yet. But I admire her work and see her work is like really guiding a lot of mine. Definitely there's some of my thinking, or some of my thoughts that.
But as for what relationships mean strengthened for the CRP? Mostly just the student relationship. Getting in touch with different students involved in this kind of research. I'd say the most useful meeting so far was with other Indigenous researchers and student Indigenous researchers and this really got me thinking. The more and more I talk with people, younger people involved in this, younger Indigenous people involved in this stream of work.
Just it's a different frame of mind as say the non-Indigenous people involved in Indigenous research. And I found that connection pretty useful. And I say in general, just in the products and work that the CRP are doing, really getting to know different thoughts from Indigenous leaders and having that in one place it's been really useful. So, it's not a direct relationship per se, but having that one place for their thoughts. And knowing that there's, you know, Indigenous leaders out there thinking about these things.
Kristy Tomkinson
Could you expand on that a little bit in terms of your connections with the student community and some of the insights and research coming out of the partnership? How has that really supported or advanced your own work?
Jared Gonet
I think it's really helping me frame some of my thoughts in the Ph.D., if anything. How important it is? Not to have like a… how important the different lenses are of say, an Indigenous person doing research, and then a non-Indigenous person doing this kind of research. And that just goes into some of the writings about, you know, lived experience now important it is and the perspective it adds.
Kristy Tomkinson
And so, I don't know if you know but the Elders lodge of the partnership has shared with us the seven grandmother/grandfather teachings to frame and guide our governance. So, you may be aware of these, they're love, respect, bravery, truth, humility, honesty and wisdom. And I’m curious to know which of these sacred gifts have been present for you within your connection to the CRP in your work or within your relationships and in what ways have they been present for you?
Jared Gonet
So definitely within in my work. I mean for me; I would say all of these guide my work. And you know, I always come back to the Yukon for myself. You know it's really kind of what guides my work. In that, like, I have a deep connection with the land and water here in the Yukon.
You know, sitting in some of these meetings with Elders, and I think one Elder Dr. James. He put it really well and I’ve been thinking about this that you know "I’m part of the land and land is part of me."Just like guides say his way of thinking and I’d say mine as well. So, there's just a love for the land here or that I feel deep love and respect for the land and that really is sort of what guides me as an Indigenous conservation researcher.
At the same time, facing some of the truths in that work, and there's just a lot of harm in the communities and probably a lot of harm in myself just from the past. You know what's happened in the past with residential schools and cultural assimilation and the effects that has on communities today and myself.
I'm trying to, trying to do work in a good way that pushes against that. And being honest about that and my own abilities and the abilities of communities and Nations themselves to engage in this kind of research.
Having a humility in that you can only do so much. Seems almost hubris to even touch on wisdom. But maybe having the wisdom by listening to the wisdom of Elders or people who have, isn't in this realm and trying to be guided by that.
So that's how I framed it in my own work. And within the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership, I’d say that it's a pretty, it’s a pretty powerful way to have that communicated to you. And it's a little bit different in this in, let's say in the north, where they kind of center around respect, care, share. So, but they're all different tools. They give a little bit a different perspective.
Kristy Tomkinson
Do you mind telling me a little bit more about respect, care, share? I'm just curious.
Jared Gonet
So, in this part of the world, I’d say generally the wider almost like grandmother/grandfather teachings center around respect, care, share and then as you're interacting with the world and ourselves just always, always having those three principles in mind.
And, but, they're pretty general, and some nations add to them but those are the ones that are kind of consistent throughout the Yukon Nations at least in the South there.
So, it's basically kind of self-explanatory, and I think that's the power of these teachings really or the power of these words. Just having respect guide your interactions between yourself and your relatives on the landscape.
So non-human relatives and how you interact with them, how we interact between ourselves internally and externally and doing this with a sense of care; and also sharing of knowledge. Sharing landscape with others, you know other people, and non-human beings.
Kristy Tomkinson
Thank you.
I wonder if you have had any opportunities to connect others into this work, or support their connection to this work and in what ways? What does that look like?
Jared Gonet
Oh goodness, yeah, I kind of have in Indigenous-led research as President of the Yukon Conservation Society for a year. And within that I was really pushing reconciliation within a conservation framework in the Yukon.
I've started the conversation in a few different organizations, I say, or at least helped, push the conversation forward. And what that means and what it means to do it in a respectful way and with, you know, some of the current thinking around that.
And pulling in some of the different researchers in the Yukon, who are at least involved in it a little bit more closely to me and engaging in research and conversations about how to do it in a way that really respects reconciliation, very deeply.
Then in my own work with research work I’m pretty connected within the communities and so having, just doing research with a really sense of, you say humility, but caring as well, and realizing that communities are really going through a lot, especially with COVID.
So, it's a little bit difficult to expect they could engage in any new research and just being there to support them. And when I’m developing my research, I really keep that in mind. It's like "how can I support communities as I’m you know, doing my own research?".
And I’ve had interesting conversations too, with Indigenous people in this conservation field, in the conservation field. And where I’d say for Indigenous researchers it's more about the resurgence of cultural values, cultural connections, rather than reconciliation which is something I’m pretty excited about getting more into. I know it's really, we always talk about reconciliation, reconciliation. But referring to it in that way of resurgence I think is very powerful.
Kristy Tomkinson
Yeah, I like that.
Could you tell me a little bit more about your research?
Because that's very interesting, that framing.
Jared Gonet
Yeah, yeah. So, broadly speaking, my research is looking at how western and Indigenous knowledge can come together to inform conservation work.
And specifically, more specifically within that, it’s about working in biocultural, the biocultural idea with a couple of different nations here in the north: the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin out of Dawson City, the Nacho Nyak Dun out of Mayo in the Yukon.
And these are, these are Nations, First Nations, that have final agreements or modern final agreements through modern treaties that were signed about 30 years ago then. So they have their own form of government and then slowly expanding that.
Then I’m also involved in the different few other processes, like trying to advance caribou relationship planning from an Indigenous perspective. I'm serving on board with nine different nations and I’m hoping to draw that into my research as well.
Then of course there's some more intellectual theorizing about how conservation science, or conservation knowledge, scientific knowledge and then thinking about all ways that that has been informed by its own say Eurocentric values.
John Borrows gets into this a little bit when he thinks about law, about the doctrine of discovery and terra nullius and I say that pervades western scientific traditions today. So trying to unpack that while thinking about Indigenous knowledge, is the system itself rather than just something that can help inform conservation problems.
We should be thinking about it as something that the current, you know, machinery of society should be supporting as it supports conservation sites in so many ways you know through monitoring techniques and through management frameworks is almost shifting the paradigm a bit. So those monitoring techniques and management frameworks where the money flows could start flowing to Indigenous knowledge systems as well.
Kristy Tomkinson
Thank you. That is very interesting.
So, I have one final question for you back to relationships. What are some connections that you'd like to make but haven't had the chance to and why?
Jared Gonet
I think I’d like to have more conversations with like or be involved in with people like Danika Littlechild and Deborah McGregor. These conservation leaders or say Indigenous conservation leaders.
Just, I’m involved in so many things, I just don't have the time to reach out and connect in a meaningful way, right? And I, I’m hoping that the CRP could help facilitate that, and I think it will. I just have to put a little bit more time into it.
Kristy Tomkinson
Yeah, most definitely. That's the, one of the bigger aims of the partnership is to facilitate those relationships and connections and ensure that people are able to connect on their interests and share knowledge and have these kinds of discussions as well.
Thank you Jared, for joining us today.
That concludes this week’s story on Community Connections. New episodes will be released biweekly and you can find all episodes on our website at www.conservation-reconciliation.ca.
We would like to extend our gratitude to all of our community members who have made this series possible, including Heather Patterson and our guest contributors. The music for this series is called Moonrise and is produced by Reed Mathis.
If you are enjoying this series and are interested in sharing your stories of connection, please email us at crpinfo@uoguelph.ca
Thank you and tune in next time to Community Connections.
*Note: Jared’s mother is Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation, yet she grew up in Fort Liard in Acho Coh Dene territory.