Biocultural Families and Leaders: New Metaphors, Methods and Members for Environmental Connectivity in Unama'ki

In this community inquiry into the importance of connectivity to the newly established Kluskap Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) in Unama'ki (Cape Breton), our team partnered with local knowledge-holders to develop locally appropriate definitions and metaphors for connectivity along with methodologies for understanding and visualizing its concrete manifestations, including by selecting species for geospatial modelling. The resulting process utilized salience, or consistent mention, of life forms in Mi'kmak placenames, oral teachings, workshop transcripts and Indigenous-led biological surveys to cumulatively nominate species for intensive discussion regarding connectivity with local knowledge-holders. These knowledge-holders came to define biocultural connectivity as that bundle of forces – known and revered by local community – which sustain mutually enriching relationships between a people and their place. Partners subsequently brought nominated species into conversation with the following identified major priorities for connectivity in their territory: connection between generations, connection to Kepmej – or taking action toward a Mi’kmaw Way of Life, and connection to healing. Our work generated several important outcomes: first, a set of species ready for leading the visualization of connectivity in and around Kluskap IPCA. This set of life forms is fully brought into a spatial visualization stage in our companion paper in this issue; second, a relational model of connectivity in which select species operate as leaders for family members, with leadership implying responsibility rather than hierarchy; and third, a work package for defining and visualizing connectivity locally and appropriately which is ready for dissemination to First Nations and Indigenous Peoples.