ISU presented a Pendleton to presenter Dr. Jonathan Moore.
By ROSELYNN YAZZIE
Sho-Ban News
POCATELLO — Dr. Johnathan Moore presented on “Connections and Resilience in Salmon Watersheds” during the G.W. Minshall Lecture Series in Ecology at Idaho State University on Thursday, December 5.
The presentation represents Moore’s holistic approach to setting ecosystems that stand from headwater streams to estuaries and the importance of the organisms and people who live there.
Moore was gifted a Pendleton blanket for his presentation in respect to the traditions of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, which ISU resides on.
Dr. Johnathan Moore was introduced as a professor at Simon Fraser University in the Department of Biological Sciences and the School of Resource and Environmental Management. He is the Liber Ero Research Chair of Coastal Science and Management. He received his PhD from the University of Washington. At SFU he leads the Salmon Watersheds Lab, which focuses on fresh water biodiversity, watersheds and global change, with an emphasis on British Columbia’s rivers and their salmon. They work closely with a diverse array of collaborators and partner organizations to codevelop research and communicate their findings so that contribute to environmental stewardship.
Active research projects include research on estuary ecology on the north and central coast of BC, cumulative effects in watersheds, and systems-ecology of large rivers.
Moore said one of the driving factors of why he studies what he does is for future preservation. He said to understand the resilience and the limits of that resilience is a key challenge in this era. As well as how to manage the landscapes to foster that resilience is a key challenge. He also said it’s intimately intertwined with understanding how the challenges play out in terms of social justice.
Where he lives in British Columbia the different indigenous nations are vulnerable to how salmon populations are changing and how it might affect their salmon populations and their health. A salmon is an important staple in their life. He said there is an uncomfortable history with some science, which has played a role in some of the worst injustices of colonialism. He said that’s an important backdrop for himself as a scientist to think about.
He talked about the life cycle of a salmon and how it comes full circle making their way back to where they were born. Moore explained what it means to have distant connections in the watersheds. How salmon migrate can affect distant places.
In wrapping up, he said natural ecosystems and watersheds have the ability to cope with change. He thinks they have not discovered the resilience and limit to that resilience yet. He said there is an urgent need to align the scale of decision making with the scale of impacts. There’s an urgent need towards thinking about how to bring people together and how science should work in these landscapes towards solving the problems.