**2. Research Context**

To advance this exploration, I looked at a broad range of literature about the history of sustainability, Indigenous communities, and what was happening in community-based conservation. I looked at some knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples, including traditional livelihoods; land use, languages, and environmental decision-making. Then finally, I looked at Indigenous education, contemporary careers, sustainability in education, and practice–policy gaps in PSE. These areas of inquiry helped articulate the landscape of thought in particular areas of interest. While I mused about the question of what the Earth and human societies might look like if we had gotten things *right*, I also wanted to be clear about what we were doing *wrong.* I knew, from my academic and cultural experiences, that the scientific and traditional Indigenous communities had more in common than many people might have thought. Why does this matter?

I began by looking at what is at stake in our decision-making about living on a sustainable planet. In an article supported by over 15,000 scientists and other scholarly signatories, Ripple et al. offer a dire warning, "[W]e have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century" [2] (p. 1026). The seriousness of these and other environmental issues point to the need for humanity to transform the way it views and interacts with the environment. Mass extinction is not projected; it is already underway. Despite widespread knowledge of environmental problems, human behaviour has been slow to change. Earth systems now support over 7 billion people and projections estimate a likely increase to between 9 and 12 billion by 2100, making sustainability the urgent issue of our time [9,13]. The United Nations and its subsidiary bodies have produced report after report based on scientific evidence, Indigenous perspectives, and national governments' reports about the declining state of our world. Global Environment Outlook 6 called for urgent action by world governments [14]. Despite begin a minority in their own traditional territories, Indigenous peoples' worldviews in Canada have remained a source of strength for many who understand the value of this enduring wisdom.

Creation stories of First Nation cultures in Canada convey that humans are the least important life form, being created last and being most dependent [15]. Human dependence is reflected in the importance Indigenous peoples have traditionally placed on the environment. This wisdom exists because Indigenous cultures and languages emerged

over millennia from their knowledge, understanding, and relationships with the natural world [16–18]. Embedded within Indigenous cultures and languages are the traditional laws intended to guide thought and behaviour. Traditional protocols, principles of culture, languages, spiritual belief systems, kinship, and relationships with non-human life forms demonstrate Indigenous peoples' understanding of their reliance on the natural world [19–21].

Indigenous peoples' traditions are often based on ancestral teachings about relationships with non-human ancestors or relations within the natural world. As such, Indigenous peoples believe maintaining life support systems is essential not only for humans but also for all living things and subsequently, continue to honour these teachings in contemporary life. Interpreting environmental issues through Indigenous worldviews, whether First Nations, Métis, Inuit, or otherwise, requires thinking beyond mechanistic scientific methods and theories, social theories, and colonial legal processes to consider relationships among human and non-human elements of nature.

#### **3. Methodology**

In this qualitative research project, I used a decolonizing approach informed by Indigenous methodology and Indigenous, critical, and emancipatory theories. By honouring Indigenous ways of thinking and acting, I could accommodate participants' subjective experiences and the process of recognizing socially constructed knowledge. Moving beyond strictly academic research meant including a social justice and action agenda for advocacy and participatory knowledge, and being a good relative, in the traditional Indigenous sense, by being accountable to all my relations as a researcher. Most Indigenous cultures across Canada recognize their relations as being more than biologically linked family members, extending to other entities such as plants, animals, minerals, and water. This recognition brings an added responsibility for Indigenous researchers. The methodology was adopted to identify foundational principles of Indigenous knowledges in relation to sustainability, critically examine what participants saw as benefits and constraints of advancing Indigenous knowledges in PSE, and gain advice from participants about future action planning.

Ten Canadian PSE institutions were included in the research (seven universities and three colleges). Two institutional sites were in Eastern Canada, two were in Northern Canada, four were in Western Canada, and two were in Central Canada. Each of the 10 participants provided a one to two-hour interview, by telephone or in person, and completed an online survey. In order to capture a broad spectrum of perspectives of individuals working in vastly different locations across Canada, serving the Indigenous peoples of various nations, I asked participants a series of questions that covered a range of topics related to their conceptions of sustainability.

Analysis of Research Findings 1 and 2 was based on participants' responses to the first research question: In the territory you work, what Indigenous philosophical principles concern the environment and interconnectedness in relation to sustainability in post-secondary education? An analysis of *sustainability* and *Indigenous knowledge* as themes in participant interviews provided the data used. Finding 3 was based on participants' responses to the second research question: In your PSE place of learning, how are *curriculum*, *research*, *facility operations, institutional governance processes*, and *community outreach* linked to sustainability through practice and policy? These areas of inquiry were taken up as a whole in interviews but analyzed thematically in interviews and surveys. Findings 4 and 5 were based on participants' responses to the third research question: In your PSE place of learning, how is the concept of sustainability practiced and what policies drive these practices? Responses in interviews were drawn from themes of *Indigenous knowledges*, *sustainability*, *conservation*, and *networking* as they pertained to the practices and driving policies in participant settings.

This research received approval from the University of Saskatchewan Research Ethics Office for: the ethics application, letter of invitation, research guide, consent form, transcript release form, and telephone script. The University of Saskatchewan Research Ethics Office approved this research on certificate BEH 15-268.

#### **4. Research Findings**

*4.1. Finding 1 Indigenous Worldviews Are Based on Spiritual Beliefs, Which Orient Indigenous Knowledges and Responsibilities for Sustaining Life on Earth*

This finding indicated the importance of Indigenous spiritual beliefs within Indigenous knowledges that extend beyond communities and institutions. The belief systems learned and practiced by individuals connect them to all aspects of Creation, including accountability to non-corporeal and future generations of living beings. The finding also includes consideration of connection and renewal, intergenerational foundations, and transmission of worldviews. One participant affirmed:

Sometimes, I get to bear witness to some of these students who, for the first time, go into a sweat lodge ceremony and they come out with this whole totally different renewed perspective on life and how they see themselves as part of it. [6] (p. 75)

A conclusion emerging from this finding is that although there are common principles, Indigenous knowledges are specific to particular cultures and belong to the members of that cultural community. The inclusion of Indigenous knowledges within PSE institutions, therefore, is primarily for the reinforcement of cultural identity [6] (p. 134).
