At Community Forests International, we understand that the colonial land governance systems must change to recognize and uphold Indigenous rights if we are to successfully protect and restore the forests and other natural ecosystems. We are working towards amplifying Indigenous rights and strengthening understanding and allyship between Indigenous and settler forestry practitioners around issues of forest care and climate action.
Below the Canopy: A Community Forest Podcast
This podcast explores the relationships between people and the forests they care for, with a particular on the Wabanaki Forest. Intensive forest management since colonization has degraded what was once a diverse and resilient forest while creating challenges for the communities that are most reliant on forests for their livelihoods. In this podcast, host and forest ecologist Megan de Graaf speaks to experts from the region to understand how we got here and how we might start to restore the forest to its former abundance. The series paints a hopeful vision for forests in the region, offering lessons for forest stewardship across Turtle Island.
Join Cecelia Brooks from St. Mary’s First Nation, New Brunswick, and her son Anthony Bardwell, as they share their story of finding medicine from and on the land. Watch their traditional medicine harvest, listen to the challenge of accessing lands, and find hope from one settler landowner who passes on the knowledge from his own ancestors.
The ash trees of the Wabanaki Forest bear spiritual, ceremonial, and economic importance to Indigenous people in the area, but the emerald as borer – an invasive beetle species – is currently decimating these trees and threatening a way of life. This film weaves personal stories with the latest research, following the basket makers and experts who are trying to preserve the forest before it’s too late.
How do you measure the value of a forest? Enter Robinson Conservation Forest, a naturally diverse Wabanaki forest in the Wolastoq watershed in central New Brunswick, on the east coast of Canada / Turtle Island. This special forest and the people connected to it push us to see beyond the timber value of a forest – to see the forest beyond the trees.
The changing climate affects both the forests and traditions that have relied on the forests for millennia. In this short film, Mi’kmaw Elder Todd G. Labrador and his daughter Melissa Labrador explain the increasing importance of sharing traditional ecological skills and knowledge – and take us on a journey to see the traditional harvest and making of muskwi products.
Land Back is one the most tangible actions settlers can take within the process of reconciliation. Through the story of Windhorse Farm, this short film shows the importance of Land Back and the profound beauty this form of healing provides.
