Unsettling marine conservation: Disrupting manifest destiny-based conservation practices through the operationalization of Indigenous value systems

Abstract

Indigenous Peoples have stewarded marine environments since time immemorial. Due to colonialism, Indigenous Peoples suffered impacts to their rights and abilities to holistically manage ocean systems. We situate the value systems embedded within manifest destiny and colonialism as the root systems that generated a plague of conservation issues that impact Indigenous Peoples today (e.g., fortress and green militarized conservation praxes). This paper is written by Indigenous scholars using Two-Eyed Seeing, reflexivity, and decolonizing methods (e.g., symbology, storytelling, and Indigenous beading) to unsettle the ways that marine conservation should be facilitated. Our framework operationalizes Indigenous value systems embedded within “the seven R’s”: respect, relevancy, reciprocity, responsibility, rights, reconciliation through redistribution, and relationships. This framework underlines the need for marine conservation efforts to center Indigenous voices and futures and Tribal management of marine systems. Marine system managers can use this paper as a guide for decolonizing marine conservation approaches, operationalizing Indigenous value systems in marine management, and building decolonial relationships with Indigenous Peoples and waters.

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