14:32:58 Okay, great.
14:33:05 Okay, so what is land?
14:33:05 You know, he asked different people and they will saying different things.
14:33:05 Is it dirt?
14:33:08 The earth, property, or resource.
14:33:10 But really we ask who is land?
14:33:17 Will we change the question it changes the way we think about land and transforms the way we make decisions about how we might protect it.
14:33:29 The world is facing both a biodiversity and climate crisis, and what we need now is a collaborative, local action and more investments to address these crises.
14:33:45 Hi everyone, I am Valeria from the Ivy business school here at Western, and I was part of a team helping to pilot the dish can CV (sp?) conservation and backbone in response to the issues that I share.
14:33:58 The money being used from the bond would be used to fund habitat restoration work in the Canadian Carolinian zone and area spanning from Windsor to Toronto.
14:34:07 For some context, the bond was this innovative financial instrument that engaged partners who may not have otherwise been attracted to conservation efforts.
14:34:10 So on the screen right now you can see the flow of capital as well as the different partners we worked with.
14:34:16 So we were working with partners from the public and private sector, nonprofits, academic researchers, and first Nations.
14:34:33 This is great, but there was still this inherits conflict where even though this bond was being used towards land conservation, it was still inherently colonial because it was putting a monetary value on nature.
14:34:45 Additionally, we were writing this big report about the bond, but again indigenous culture is rooted in written traditions.
14:34:45 It is very much an oral story telling culture.
14:34:53 So I thought how could I help support the day colonizing and indigenous icing process of this bond?
14:34:59 And my answer came in the form of using GIS and creating a story map.
14:34:59 If you are wondering well what is a story map?
14:35:05 It is exactly what it sounds like.
14:35:17 It is a story told through maps and images, which is a much more visual and intimate way of sharing the relationships facilitated by the bond and something that we felt could bring the restoration and relationship building work to life better than any textbased report could.
14:35:35 And it might seem strange to use words like relationships for intimacy when talking about a bond, but there has been a fundamental disconnect between the way ecosystems are valued and their actual intrinsic life-sustaining value that they have for us.
14:36:00 Would you realize that Western reviews view the relationship between different forms of nature as hierarchical as you see on the left side of the screen with humans on top, we can start to understand how we have been able to justify the exploitation of other forms of nature for our game.
14:36:00 And indigenous worldviews of nature, humans are share a kinship with nature, and they see themselves as part of this extended ecological family.
14:36:11 And so that takes us back to the importance of showcasing the relationships that were being facilitated by the bond.
14:36:25 And so with that in mind, the story map starts by telling you about the stories of the Carolinian zone to situate you and where the work was being done and acknowledging the land we reside and work on.
14:36:35 You can see on the screen that we explore the population density in Canada where other species can be found in this zone, as well as the different territories, treaties and first Nations that exist in this area.
14:36:41 We also dive into who we are trying to save.
14:36:42 At the beginning of my presentation I posed the question who is land?
14:36:49 In the story map helps visualize and put names and faces together to give us that answer.
14:37:02 So on the screen and you see an image gallery that is in my story map of some of our relations that reside in the Carolinian zone within five times in the top left corners with some of their details.
14:37:02 And you might think, what is the big deal, it seems pretty standard.
14:37:10 But to have a name, and identity is such a powerful thing.
14:37:20 And as I made this, I thought I am finally learning their names, I know their faces, and I imagine myself stumbling across them in real life, in the woods or out in nature.
14:37:31 Instead of walking past them like I might have once, now I feel like it would be as if I spotted a friend and I could call their name.
14:37:37 My whole life they were nameless to me, strange as you could say.
14:37:46 Just under this monolith of nature and just absolutely reducing their livelihood, their individuality and their complexities all in one word.
14:38:09 This is really what I meant when I said a story map was able to bring more intimacy in the relationships being facilitated by the bond, and this was really important for this project because one of the goals of this bond is to recognize the agency of the land and tell the story of the Carolinian zone while bringing voice and creating space to beyond human actors who are often suppressed through Western value systems.
14:38:32 And next we keep this in zoomed in view to show the work that our habitat partners are doing on the ground, and so on the screen now is a description of work done at one of our sites.
14:38:41 Often times it can seem like the sublime box where all we say is we did X number of projects, there were a number of volunteers who planted the cement of trees, removed this many invasive species.
14:38:48 These were the total acres, the number of sites, the final outcome spirit of the information is there, but with the story map something like this can become this.
14:38:52 And so we still have the text but we also have pictures and maps to bring the work to life and give more context.
14:39:09 And we ended by taking a glimpse into the ongoing journey of reconciliation, the bond orders underwent to come together to achieve this one goal.
14:39:28 And one of the most unique and transformational aspects of this bond, as stated by many of our participants and partners is a social platform that it builds for partners to engage with and learn from one another through ongoing collaboration and workshops and monthly meetings.
14:39:37 Relationships were being built on people who appear diverse but still shared that same kinship with the land and life supporting mechanisms upon which all lives rely.
14:39:37 So thank you for listening.
14:39:43 I hope you learned how you can use our GIS of StoryMaps to enhance the storytelling of your projects.
14:39:53 And specifically how we were able to do that with the (name?) conservation impact bond.
14:40:02 To throw in a plug if you're interested in learning more, we are doing the official report and story map launch event next Wednesday on November 24 from 12:30 to 1:30.
14:40:02 I can send the link to the story map as well as those events in the chat.
14:40:02 Thank you.