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Ontario Tech acknowledges the lands and people of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation.

We are thankful to be welcome on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered by the Williams Treaties and are the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to many Indigenous nations and peoples.

We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we acknowledge that the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home.

This history is something we are all affected by because we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.

Learn more about Indigenous Education and Cultural Services

Judith Rakowski

Speaker: Judith Rakowski, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland

Presentation: "Conservation Criminology and First Insights from Wildlife Crime Prevention in Vietnam"

Bio: Judith is a Ph.D. student and research assistant at the lab of Conservation Criminology, Department of Geographical Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park. She holds an M.Sc. in "Global Change Geography" from Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany, focusing on land-use change, protected area effectiveness and socio-ecological systems. Her research interests are preventing wildlife crime and other harmful behaviours towards nature by understanding underlying narratives and strains, historical legacies and spatial distributions of such.