Renowned B.C. scientist, Dr. David Suzuki, brings his Celebrating Coastal Connections tour to Maht Mahs Gym on June 2.
Suzuki, perhaps best known as the host of the long-running CBC science series The Nature of Things, will be joined by filmmaker Ian Mauro and David Suzuki Foundation Western Canada director Jay Ritchlin. The 12-stop tour has a special focus on Coastal First Nations, according to communications specialist Panos Grames.
“David and his wife (Dr. Tara Cullis) have had a long relationship with First Nations up and down the Coast for decades,” Grames told Ha-Shilth-Sa.
“These communities are close to my heart, and I’m looking forward to honoring our shared past and building a future together that is both ecologically sustainable and economically vibrant,” Suzuki said in a May 13 news release.
Grames emphasized that Celebrating Coastal Communities is for the entire Alberni Valley community.
“This is an event for everyone,” he said. “We are very happy to have it hosted by Tseshaht First Nation.”
The main focus of the tour is marine planning, Grames said. The goal is to bring the latest information and to gather community feedback and forge stronger relationships between scientists, First Nations, elected officials and coastal residents.
“We want to hear about the challenges facing our coastal communities, successes in overcoming those challenges and visions for a healthy future,” Ritchlin said in the release.
Grames said the tour is partly in response to federal inaction in the area of climate change. Here in B.C., we have seen the devastation of pine forests as the result of the pine beetle infestation, shellfish dies-offs as the result of ocean acidification and major shifts in our growing seasons, all due to a changing climate.
“The federal government had made a commitment to completing marine planning in the North Pacific integrated management area. It was between the federal government, Coastal First Nations and the province,” Grames said.
There was a recognition that there was a wide range of environmental issues that needed to be addressed, especially in light of the plans to increase energy exports along the Coast.
“Then a couple of years ago, the federal government pulled away from that,” Grames said. “It was getting, politically, pretty hot, and they decided it was not a priority for them.”
But the province and First Nations have maintained the planning process in the absence of the federal government, and the Suzuki Foundation hopes to strengthen that process.
The event starts at 7 p.m. with an address by Ritchlin, followed by a 30-minute preview of Mauro’s current work in progress focusing on climate change in B.C.
It is the third of a series of documentaries about climate change in Canada, and follows Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change and Climate Change in Atlantic Canada.
“The full version will be released this fall,” Grames said.
Following the film will be a community feedback session.
“We’re going to have a video camera where people can go and make a statement. We’re documenting what people are thinking about, along the tour.”
There will also be postcards that attendees can use to voice “their concerns, their hopes and visions for the future,” he added. “We’re also hoping to have some whiteboards in the lobby, to facilitate some conversations around what it is that people in the community want to see move forward.
“We want to put all of this discussion together, and we’re planning on bringing that forward to the federal government to say: ‘These are the things we heard in the coastal communities.’”
Grames noted that the United Nations conducts periodic reviews of Canada’s adherence to its codes of cultural, social and economic rights, and the Suzuki Foundation hopes to spur action in that direction.
Of course, the highlight of the evening will be an address by Dr. Suzuki. He will also be signing books after the presentations, Grames added.
For Nuu-chah-nulth living outside the Alberni Valley, the tour opens in Nanaimo on June 1 at the Beban Park Auditorium. On June 3, it touches down at noon at the Comox Community Centre, then at 7 p.m. in Campbell River at the Thunderbird Hall.
The tour continues on June 4 at the Lawrence Ambers Memorial Rec Centre in Alert Bay, then June 5 at U’Gwamalis Hall in Port Hardy, before moving off-Island.
