Suggested citation: Cannon, Sara E. (2019). Decolonizing Conservation: A Reading List. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4429220

<aside> 📩 If you have a reading you’d like to recommend I add to the list, please send me a link at [email protected]. I am especially interested in adding readings written by people who are Indigenous.

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The purpose of this reading list is to provide non-Indigenous and settler folks like myself who work in conservation with a place to start learning about the colonial and white supremacist roots of conservation.

By educating ourselves, I hope that we can think critically about the need to support Indigenous leadership in conservation and decolonization movements more broadly. You can read more here about the origins, purpose, and intended audience of this reading list.

I have divided the readings into the following topics. I recommend starting with the readings under Understanding Decolonization, followed by readings about Indigenous Peoples and Conservation. I’ve include readings in these two categories that I hope will allow readers ****to gain a baseline understanding of why we must support Indigenous leadership to decolonize conservation, before moving onto the more specific topics. Many of the readings will appear in more than one topic.

• Understanding Decolonization: These readings provide an introduction to the concept of decolonization.
• Indigenous Peoples are Conservation and Environmental Justice Leaders: Readings demonstrating that Indigenous Peoples are global leaders in environmental justice and conservation. These readings are meant to demonstrate that conservation will not be successful without Indigenous Peoples.
• Conservation Imaginaries, Narratives, and Discourses: How we think and talk about conservation, and the roots of these ideas.
• Green Militarization and Carceral Conservation: Exploring the drivers and impacts of the militarization of conservation, and punitive conservation strategies.
• Indigenous Worldviews and Conservation: Resources that explore Indigenous epistemologies and what they may tell us about effective and just approaches to conservation.
• Land Theft and Displacement: How conservation has historically and can continue to displace Indigenous Peoples from their lands and waters.
• Origins of Conservation: How the conservation movement began and evolved into what it is today.
• White Supremacy and Conservation: The relationship between racism and white supremacy and biodiversity conservation.
• Case Studies: Ethnographies and additional research investigating conservation dynamics, with a focus on colonial and decolonial approaches to conservation.
• Further Reading and Resources: Readings for learning more about related topics, and additional resources (such as other reading lists, websites, organizations).

<aside> ⭐ I believe it is important to pay people for their labour, although it is not appropriate for me, as a white cis settler woman living and working on stolen Indigenous lands, to accept payment for this work.

**I hope that you will instead consider making a contribution to the following Indigenous people and causes:

∙** The Wet’suwet’en People at the Unist’ot’en Camp in British Columbia are actively being displaced from their land (in violation of the UN Declaration of the Rights for Indigenous Peoples) so that LNG can construct a pipeline that will transport oil from Alberta’s tar sands to the coast. Please consider making a contribution to support them here.

∙ I am constantly learning from Dr. Katherine Crocker, who is always generous with her time and never hesitates to call people out using patience and compassion, despite the toll it takes on her personally. You can make a contribution to her PayPal, or support her by buying some of her lovely jewelry. Dr. Crocker uses the funds she receives to support Indigenous folks in need.

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