Opening Keynote

Then Humans Arrived on The Scene… Causing A Disturbance

All societies work to instill in younger generations knowledge that includes key concepts, customs, practices and social values for the survival and continuation of the society. But is the dominant western academic thought of ecology still serving our needs? This keynote will explore this question by comparing western academic thought to an alternative one: a Blackfoot cultural metaphysic that has developed from unique relationships to land, the ecosystem, and the observable cosmos over a thousand generations in the northern plains.