Hishuk Tsawak (Everything is connected): a Huu-ay-aht worldview for seeing forestry in British Columbia, Canada

While landscape may be read, understood, and imagined in pluralistic and contested terms, the power to define the landscape is typically held by a particular group of people. Government, industry, environmentalists, and First Nations, each representing distinct worldviews about the landscape, are among the key stakeholders in an ongoing struggle over the power to define the meaning and future use of BC\u27s forests. The work reported here draws on interview data from a community-based participatory program of research undertaken in partnership with Huu-ay-aht First Nation on the west coast of Vancouver Island that explores the \u27place\u27 of their worldview in the context of current forestry practices. Specifically, this paper examines how the Huu-ay-aht worldview, Hishuk Tsawak, shapes their reading, understanding, and imagining of the forest landscape in their traditional territory. Hishuk Tsawak does not exist in a vacuum and dominant, competing worldviews from, for example, government and industry continue to test its resilience. The study found that Huu-ay-aht First Nation\u27s physical and social locations are influential in determining its worldview\u27s strength and continuity and concludes that Indigenous worldviews, such as Hishuk Tsawak, have the potential to contribute, contest, and conceive of a new way of seeing forestry in the province