Listen to new Indigenous Planetary Health podcast

What do we mean when we talk about planetary health? 

School of Indigenous Governance director Hōkūlani Aikau says the concepts behind planetary health are not new at all, at least not from the perspective of Indigenous worldviews.  

“They’re calling it a new science, but it’s actually an old science that has been around for millennia,” she says. 

Aikau and co-host Professor Heather Castleden, a UVic Impact Chair in Transformative Governance for Planetary Health, have launched a new podcast series called Indigenous Planetary Health. 

It explores how Indigenous Peoples around the world have understood the interconnectivity between human health, other-than-human species’ health and the health of the planet.  

Aikau and Castleden talk to Indigenous artists, activists and academics who are tackling the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. 

Episodes include conversations with UVic’s Carey Newman about carving totems for Indigenous planetary futures, Tiara Naputi, from University of California – Irvine, on the problems and perils of US militarism for the planet, and Diana Lewis, from the University of Guelph, on Indigenous women’s leadership for planetary health. 

The podcast informs a $2.3 million Canadian Institutes of Health Research project called “Archipelagos of Indigenous-led Resurgence for Planetary Health.”

Aikau and Castleden are principal applicants for the grant, and five Indigenous early career researchers are co-applicants, including Indigenous Governance Assistant Professor Dawn Smith.

Aikau says their approach to planetary health works on two scales: this grant will support the place-based needs of Indigenous communities who know best how to restore and maintain healthy lands, waters, and people. The grant will also support a relational network of Indigenous-led resurgence across five projects.

“Indigenous people didn’t work in isolation but were and are part of an archipelago—a network—of people and practices that when linked produce planetary health,” Aikau says.

The case studies include cedar cultivation and carving in the Pacific Northwest; the songs, dances, and lessons derived from the Buffalo on the Great Plains; traditional land-based leadership-development practices in Hawaiʻi; community-based health practices in the Mariana Islands; and Indigenous farming, forestry, and fishing practices for sustainable business in Aotearoa.

Listen to the podcast.