Listening to the Land and Its People: Indigenous-Centered Restoration Research

Mackenzie is one of the master's students involved in the DERT Project. In early October, she presented a poster on her preliminary research results at the inaugural Healing the Land Conference organized by Saulteau First Nations. 

The purpose of Mackenzie's research is to characterise effective collaborative eco-restoration and support Indigenous rights holders and industry stakeholders involved in eco-restoration in the Western boreal forest of Canada. Following the development of a database of collaborative eco-restoration projects, she worked with DERT's Indigenous Advisory Board to identify a subset of projects to interview.

Mackenzie then interviewed Indigenous rights holders and industry stakeholders to understand what restoration means to them, learn their views on the effectiveness of collaborative restoration, and co-produce recommendations. She intends to create a video or brief video series from interview clips to summarise and share the findings.