Mai Ahn Tran is a PhD candidate in Forest Science at Michigan Technological University. Her research focuses on livelihood resilience — specifically, bridging indigenous ways of knowing with western science. She received a Master’s degree from Kookmin University, South Korea, and also worked as a field researcher at Save Vietnam’s Wildlife before her graduate degree. Her research at Michigan Tech emcompasses both the US and Vietnam, and she has a particular interest in the livelihoods of forest-dependent households and tree-planting decisions. Her research is conducted in partnership with the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, and is funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture McIntire-Stennis, to understand the relationship between Ojibwe people and forests and their resiliency. Over the course of her studies, she has worked with over 700 stakeholders, including rural households, tree planters, forest rangers, and hunters.
For Mai’s outreach project, she decided to write an op-ed inspired by her work with the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community entitled “Can Hunting Be an Act of Care? What I Learned at Waawaashkeshi Camp.” This beautiful story, which will be published in The Xylom, describes her change of perspective about hunting after learning about indigenous approaches to this act. “At Waawaashkeshi Camp, I learned that hunting, when done with respect and reverence, is not a rejection of conservation. It is one of its most sustainable forms,” Tran writes in the op-ed. “This experience left me with a lasting question: is conservation a matter of control, or a matter of remembering how to be in a good relationship?”
A sneak peak of Mai’s piece is below. You can read the entire piecepublished on The Xylom.com!
