Indigenizing Restoration: Indigenous Lands before Urban Parks

Climate change and human activities continue to result in negative environmental impacts that alter land productivity, ecosystem health, and their potential land uses. However, these environmental impacts are being addressed through land restoration frameworks that do not include the robust narrative on the links between land and Indigenous peoples. This link between land and Indigenous peoples is not visible in restoration frameworks owing to the linearity of these frameworks and their deep roots in Western science. In this article, the authors contend that restoration projects must incorporate indicators that reevaluate restoration through an Indigenous lens. Through a literature review and their ongoing restoration project, they identify three major indicators that are important to incorporate in restoration: ecocolonialism, kincentric ecology, and environmental narratives. They apply these indicators to provide the historical context of their ongoing field site, Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center located at Discovery Park, the largest urban park in Seattle, Washington. They conclude that incorporating these three indicators into restoration frameworks not only indigenizes restoration but also can help create more effective solutions to environmental problems persisting for decades in unhealthy ecosystems.