Session One: January 14, 2025

What is Nature? An Introduction to Cultural and Environmental Anthropology

This talk provides a brief introduction to the field of environmental anthropology, a branch of anthropology that explores the complex social relationships between humans and their natural environments. This field examines how cultural beliefs, practices, and social structures influence and are influenced by the surrounding environment. Environmental anthropologists study a wide range of topics, including how different communities adapt to environmental changes, manage natural resources, and interact with ecosystems. Key questions addressed in this talk, and throughout this series, include: what is “nature,” and how do ideas of nature change through time and vary across cultures? How are efforts to save or conserve nature shaped by cultural, political, economic and technological contexts? And what can we do to collectively build a more healthy, just, and sustainable future for people and the planet?

Session Two: January 21, 2025

Selling Nature to Save it: Exploring Ecotourism in Belize

In the 1990s and 2000s, ecotourism emerged as a popular global strategy to reconcile the goals of nature conservation and economic development, particularly for poorer countries in the global south. In Belize, Central America, the government adopted ecotourism as the nation’s primary development strategy in the 1990s and used this as a rationale to vastly expand the network of nature conservation areas across the country. This talk explores the potential and pitfalls of “selling nature to save it,” particularly for Belize’s Indigenous Maya peoples, whose past and present culture serves as a major attraction in the new ecotourism economy.

Session Three: January 28, 2025

Combatting Nature Deficit Disorder in the Digital Age

In recent years, there has been growing public awareness about the physical and mental health impacts of our society’s growing disconnection from the natural world, particularly for children and young people. This phenomenon was popularized by Richard Louv in his bestselling book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. This talk explores efforts by conservation organizations – including Parks Canada – to use digital technologies and social media to engage young people and (re)connect them to the natural world. Through this talk we will critically explore what it means to “connect with nature” in our new digital age.

Session Four: February 4, 2025

Nature 3.0: SMART Earth Technologies and the Battle to Save Biodiversity

There is growing scientific consensus that the world is in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event in the history of the planet, and that one of the major drivers of this biodiversity crisis is the Illegal Wildlife Trade. Wildlife crime and trafficking is now recognized as a major threat to global biodiversity and security, leading many conservation organizations around the world to adopt more violent and militarized approaches in their efforts to save biodiversity. This talk examines the use of emerging “smart earth” technologies – including Internet-connected cameras and sensors, cloud-based data storage and analysis platforms, and artificial intelligence – in the battle to save biodiversity. It explores the implications of conservation decision-making and actions being increasingly automated by big data and artificial intelligence in an era of Nature 3.0.

Session Five: February 11, 2025

Decolonizing Conservation: Maya Peoples, Land, and the Future We Dream

The talk explores the relationship of Maya Indigenous Peoples in Belize to the land and environment they live on and care for. It describes how Maya Indigenous Peoples conceptualize, relate to and manage the “natural” environment. It further details Maya People’s decades-long struggle to secure communal land rights and collective wellbeing in the face of colonialism, resource extraction, conservation and development initiatives, and most recently, climate change, on their traditional territory in southern Belize.

Session Six: February 18, 2025

Platforming Indigenous Youth to Promote Planetary Health and Wellbeing

The final talk in this series describes how our team at the Young Lives Research Lab in the Faculty of Education at York University is working to conduct applied research with and for young people in a way that supports their wellbeing and promotes the health of people and the planet. Working with and alongside Indigenous youth from the Saugeen Ojibway Nation in Ontario and Maya communities of southern Belize as “young anthropologists,” our team and partners have provided youth participants with training in social science research and digital content creation, opportunities for land-based, experiential and intergenerational learning, and support in sharing their stories and experiences with local, national and international audiences. This work has facilitated innovative youth-led research on the impacts of climate change, the importance of food sovereignty, maintaining traditional ecological knowledge, and the struggle to secure Indigenous land rights, that has been mobilized for both global policymakers at the UN and local audiences in Belize and Canada.

James Stinson - Biography

Born and raised in the Town of the Blue Mountains where he lives with his wife and two daughters, Jim Stinson has a love for the outdoors, a passion for travel, and a deep fascination and respect for the diversity of peoples and cultures around the word. Jim is currently a Senior Research Associate and Evaluation Specialist with the Young Lives Research Lab in the Faculty of Education at York University, and an Adjunct Graduate Faculty Member in the Department of Anthropology at Trent University. With a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Toronto, his research explores the relationship between humans and the natural environment, with a focus on nature conservation and the promotion of planetary health. This work has taken him from Canada’s national parks to the Maya Forest of Belize, and most recently into the digital natures of social media, the Metaverse and Artificial Intelligence. In addition to publishing academic journal articles and book chapters, Jim has worked with Indigenous youth to produce documentary films for the United Nation’s Youth Climate Report and is a regular contributor to Mountain Life Magazine.