Lands, Seas and Skies: ​Conversations with Science, Tradition and the Sacred 🗓 🗺

September 6-7, 2016

The UH Biocultural Initiative of the Pacific is sponsoring this symposium bringing together traditional knowledge holders, guardians of sacred lands, natural scientists, academics and protected area managers. Discussions will focus on specific places and issues organized around three domains: lands, seas and skies. The goal of the symposium is to highlight possibilities for growing collaboration, mutual understanding and better protection of biodiversity, indigenous land rights and sacred natural sites and territories.

​Whether perceived through the lens of science or the sacred, nature’s spaces and cultural diversity alike face tremendous threats and now more then ever we need innovative approaches, new thinking, and concerted efforts to provide creative solutions. Enhancing and fostering dialogue between different epistemic communities, different ways of thinking about and approaching western science, tradition and the sacred is the goal. A concluding roundtable and open-room dialogue will raise the meaning of the day’s conversations for our work as scientists and scholars, will inform the policies at our university, and will help clarify the research goals and directions of our community of teachers and learners.

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