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Home , Frontier, Frontier (banknotes), Nordicity, Northern Canada

Northern Homelands, Northern Frontier: Linking Culture and Economic Security in Contemporary Livelihoods in Boreal and Cold Temperate Forest Communities in Northern

Andrew J. Chapeskie1

Abstract.—This paper highlights the environmental pressures that have historically been brought to bear on the northern forests of Canada. It then presents the idea of the northern frontier forests of Canada as Indigenous landscapes whose ecological diversity and abundance have historically been nurtured in no small measure by their original inhabitants. It then proposes how contemporary com- munity-based resource management institutions might embody customary Indigenous resource stewardsip practice to provide a contemporary foundation for a northern sustainable forest economy supporting local Community Economic Development (CED) initiatives that benefit all .

INTRODUCTION This is now changing. Contemporary trends in environmental awareness coupled with im- Canada is often said to be an expression of mense changes in the resource-based economy “northern-ness.” Some say that the historical of , not least of these being a aproach of the country to reconciling diverse rapid expansion of the rate of industrial extrac- regional interests through decentralist and tion of timber resources, are now leading many pluralist institutions is how its ‘’ is Canadians to debate the future of their forest embodied. For many Canadians the “northern- landscapes. “Remote” and “wild” northern ness” of the country is a truism that is some- forests in Canada are no longer so remote and times said to be too obvious to be worth repeat- wild. Which of the forest landscapes of the ing. However, the extent to which the expansive country should be protected in their natural northern cold temperate and boreal forests that state? Which should be developed for forestry? blanket much of Canada remain integral to the These are the dominant questions driving the cultural identity of the country cannot be debate over the future of northern underestimated. These forests have simulta- forests. neously been considered by most Canadians as representing the “wilderness” of their country Such questions could be seen as important as as well as constituting much of its “natural far as they go. However, this paper proposes wealth.” In this context, few Canadians have that these questions do not go nearly far questioned that the natural wealth contained enough to address the historical and contem- in the forests could be “exploited” to support porary ecological and social reality (the two are the economic well-being of the country and inseparable) of northern Canada. This reality is that, at the same time, there would always be far more complex than these questions can vast forest that could be preserved as hope to address. Indeed, this reality challenges wilderness. old prejudices and assumptions about the historical and contemporary nature of the northern forest landscapes of Canada and the First Peoples who have lived in them since time immemorial. Further, it is a reality possessed of latent possibilities for conserving both cultural 1 President of The Institute for Land, and biological diversity, maintaining ecological Culture, and Economy, Suite A, 150 Main Street resilience, and promoting economic security for South, Kenora, , Canada, P9N 1S9; northern forest communities in Canada. It is a Phone: 807-468-9607; Fax: 807-468-3822; e- reality that will be ignored by Canada at its mail: [email protected]. own risk. 31 NTFP Conference Proceedings

NORTHERN CANADA: FOREST HOMELANDS, industrial environmental impact that the FORESTRY FRONTIER environmental movement has sought to miti- gate through establishment of ever more and In southern Canada, where most of the popula- larger protected areas in the forest landscapes tion of the country lives, the debate over the of northern Canada. Throughout the debate, future of northern forest landscapes centers however, it is legitimate to ask: Where are the around which areas should be developed for Indigenous peoples of northern Canada? industrial forestry and which should be pre- served in their “natural state.” Nothing high- The importance of this question cannot be lights this debate, as well as pointing to the underestimated in the Canadian context. Aside biases and assumptions that lie beneath it, from the issue of whether the ecological effects better than a July 1999 report of the World of industrial forestry could or should be ad- Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF Canada) entitled dressed, even in part, through the creation of Forests for Life - Canada’s Commitment to more protected areas, there remains a more Forest Protected Areas: a WWF Status Report fundamental question: Where and how do (World Wildlife Fund Canada 1999). The first Indigenous peoples living within these land- map in the report (WWF Canada 1999, 3) and scapes fit in? These questions pertain to the shown here as figure 1 illustrates the vastness very nature of Indigenous societies and the of the Canadian forest landscape—especially of customary livelihood relationships these societ- the boreal forest regions of the country. This is ies maintained with the landscapes of their a map of the forest regions of Canada (Forest forest homelands. Regions of Canada map by J.S. Rowe, repro- duced by permission of the Canadian Forest For many within the environmental movement Service, ). The as well as within the forest industry, argu- second map in the report (WWF Canada 1999, ments both for forest protection and develop- 5) is a compilation of data indicating the alloca- ment in Canada are predicated on the assump- tion of commercial forestry tenure on the tion that the country’s northern forest land- provincial forest landscapes of Canada. Figure scapes are “natural”. WWF Canada states this 2 in this paper dramatically indicates this about Indigenous people in Canada who live in “final frontier” of industrial forestry across the forest regions: country. The development of the last pristine or “... almost 80 percent of the Aboriginal old growth or primary growth regions of the people of Canada are settled within boreal forest in Canada (when examined in forest regions, their livelihood still relation to the boreal forest shown on drawing on the natural bounty and the map in figure 1) is now looming large on diversity of these homelands” (WWF these landscapes. Canada 1999, 2). It is true that 80 percent of Indian Reserves are The second map illustrates the debate within located within the forest regions of Canada (in dominant “settler society” over development provinces such as Ontario and , the and protection with respect to the forests of majority of status Indians—people recognized Canada. This debate is rooted in the concept of as Indians by the under the resource cycle in forestry, which holds that, the Federal Indian Act—actually live in urban in a market economy, it is “...economically centers). But there are more fundamental rational to exhaust resources with a slow questions embedded within this reality: What annual growth rate, converting natural re- are the customary relationships of Indigenous sources to economic capital for reinvestment in peoples to these homelands in the forest re- other industries with a shorter time horizon” gions of Canada? Have “Indigenous forests” (Clapp 1998, 130). In forestry, the dynamics of always been “natural” and “wild?” If they have the resource cycle are said to lead to the liqui- not always been “wild” or “natural,” what is the dation of high value old-growth forest resources significance for the promotion of sustainable and a “falldown” in yields of wood per hectare livelihoods today? In the context of customary in the transition from old-growth to second- Indigenous relationships to land, what role growth timber on forest landscapes (Clapp should Aboriginal people play in the develop- 1998, 136). The case of the liquidation of the ment or protection of the forests in which they white pine forests is often cited as live? Do the members of these societies even being emblematic of the resource cycle in find such a dualism intelligible, let alone forestry (Clapp 1998, 130). This is the type of practical? 32 250 Kilometres 0 NOVA ATLANTIC ISLAND PRINCE EDWARD of Canada Forest Regions Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2000 BAY HUDSON ONTARIO MANITOBA Forest Regions of Canada (Forest Regions of Canada map by J.S. Rowe, Regions of Canada (Forest Forest Figure 1.— reproduced by permission of the canadian ForestCanada). Service, Natural Resources White spruce, black balsam fir, jack pine, white birch, trembling aspen White spruce, black tamarack Trembling aspen, willow Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir, lodgepole pine Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine, ponderosa trembling aspen redcedar, western hemlock, Sitka spruce, Douglas-fir Western redcedar, western hemlock, Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir American beech, , black walnut, hickory, oak Red pine, eastern white hemlock, yellow birch, maple, oak Red spruce, balsam fir, maple, yellow birch Trembling aspen, willow, bur oak Ressources naturelles Canada Service canadien des forêts BRITISH TERRITORY COLUMBIA Natural Resources Canada Canadian Forest Service

Boreal Predominantly forest Boreal Forest and barren Boreal Forest and grass Subalpine Montane Coast Columbia Deciduous Great Lakes St. Lawrence Acadian Grasslands Forest Regions Principal Tree Species PACIFIC

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Figure 2.—Forest allocations in Canada.

WWF Canada notes in Forests for Life that “94 owners or stewards? How has the dominant per cent of Canada’s forest land is publicly assumption that “traditional” Aboriginal societ- owned, 71 per cent by the 10 provincial govern- ies drew on the “natural” bounty of their forest ments and 23 per cent by the federal govern- homelands allowed for questions of “ownership” ment” (WWF Canada 1999, 4). However, it is or “stewardship” of forests to be ignored (it is critically important to note another fact on the certainly not addressed in the WWF Canada ground: Indigenous people constitute a major- report)? Can we continue to hold such assump- ity of the population within many of the - tions? ern Canadian forest landscapes. Nothing illustrates this better than figure 3, which is a map indicating languages spoken “on the THE PEOPLE AND THEIR LANDSCAPES ground” in as of 1980 (Academic RECONSIDERED American Encyclopaedia 1980). Additionally, in many areas where Indigenous peoples are not In the changing context of the resource-based the majority of the people actually living within economy of northern Canada, one crucial forest landscapes of northern Canada, they aspect has not changed. In spite of a much constitute rapidly growing (see figure 4), and in greater awareness of “native issues” among many cases already large, minorities. What are non-Aboriginal Canadians in recent decades, Indigenous interests in these forests land- most Canadians still generally appreciate scapes? Why are Indigenous peoples not the northern Indigenous societies as “traditional.” 34 Figure 3.—Languages in North America-1980. (Photo courtesy of Academic America Encyclopedia, Grolier Inc., Danbury CN.

The idea of traditional peoples inhabiting these with us today. Consider the following state- forests is intimately related to the correspond- ment: ing view that forests are wild and fragile as For most of the time that human beings much as they are remote and vast. Such a have inhabited the , they have romantic (or sometimes instrumental?) view of been hunters. As palaeolithic hunters, Aboriginal societies is rooted in what are they developed an assortment of life- probably ancient prejudices about hunter- sustaining spiritual, material, and gatherer societies. Chief among these preju- strategic arts and accumulated a de- dices is that traditional people could not tame tailed knowledge of the environment or conquer wilderness because of their “primi- and of the animal species in it. They tiveness.” These societies lived in a “state of stalked mammoth, elk, bison and nature,” and remnants of these ideas are still other great quarry tens of thousands

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Figure 4.—Aboriginal population in selected years.

of years ago, using meticulously not only towards Indigenous peoples, but also crafted arrow points. They trapped and towards the wild and fragile landscapes evoked fished, employing ingenious implements in the statement above. and techniques, in order to capture smaller wild game for food. Even today, Too often, these externally imposed attitudes in an often harsh and unforgiving world and practices have been blind to the complexity dominated by modern technology, tiny of historical and contemporary customary islands of neotraditional existence Indigenous relationships to land within forest remain. There are places, however regions. Nothing highlights this more than the imperiled, where hunters still ven- statements of Indigenous people themselves. I ture out, much as they have in the would like to refer to, and then reflect upon, past - into lush tropical Malaysian or two such statements—one from a cold temper- Amazonian jungles, across sun-baked ate forest landscape in Australian or African grasslands or (Temagami region) and another from a boreal plains, along ice-choked shores forest landscape in . - in order to supplement their diets with the high-quality protein of Consider the following words from the autobi- freshly killed animal flesh. (Knudtson ography of Madeline Theriault, an Ojibwe and Suzuki 1992, 81-82). woman who was raised in the Temagami region of northern Ontario. This is a region where It is disconcerting to many Indigenous peoples environmentalists and forest companies have living in forest communities today that such hotly contested how external control (through images can help foster a paternalistic attitude the provincial government) should be exercised of “protection” (or practices of domination and over its ancient forests, many of which contain neglect) on the part of “technologically ad- remnant stands of old-growth, wild, white pine vanced” industrial societies. This is directed forests. 36 WHITE MAN MAKES A FARM to grow clear that this statement reflects forest man- hay to feed his animals. He also grows agement practices focused on much more than vegetables for food. Indians also feed timber resources. I will say more about this their animals, only in a different way. later in relation to the idea of pursuing eco- Around the middle of April, the Indian nomic security through a broader range of trapper looks around to find a bare forest resources in contemporary forest com- spot, mostly up on the rocks where the munities in northern Canada. snow goes first, where there is still a lot of snow at the bottom of the hill. They Consider also the words of Indigenous elders set a match to this bare spot and only recorded by Henry T. Lewis in the boreal forest burn where it is dry and bare, so there’s region of northern Alberta. This is a region no danger of a big forest fire because where environmentalists have questioned the the fire stops when it reaches snow. ecological consequences of new forest harvest- ing activities by the pulp and paper industry. Two years later you would find a big It used to be all prairie here; now it’s patch of blueberries in amongst the mostly forest. My father told me that bushes. And you would see all the long time back there were plenty of hungry animals of all kinds feeding on buffalo here, all the way (north) to Cold those blueberries; , wolves, black Lake. We were Plains Cree, not like bear, partridge, squirrels, chipmunks, those bush people up north. Now it’s all and all kinds of other birds. No doubt bush here too (Cree, 72, Frog Lake they were happy to find those berries. It Area) (Lewis 1982, 24). was the trapper that got it for them by setting the fire. They used to burn places where they think it was very useful. Like, for in- This is what I mean when I say Indians stance, the places where the horses feed their animals too. The berries were used to winter in order to have plenty of for our own benefit too. As we would good feed for them on grass; and then preserve them for our winter use. After where there’s lakes, around lakes, a few years, young trees would grow on where there’s muskrats, so they could that burnt place. Then the rabbits always have real fresh roots. (Muskrats) would get to feed from those young live on grass roots mostly to keep them bushes. In later years, the little trees nice and fresh. If they don’t (burn) the would get bigger. Then the and roots will spoil and rot you know, and deer get to feed from it. So, you see the then they’ll die off every so many years. setting of these small fires can go a long Places where there’s moose and where way in feeding many animals (Theriault the moose usually like to roam around. 1992, 74-75). They burn the brushes there so that they’ll have good green leaves and This statement is deeply revelatory about things to live on in summer. And, places customary Ojibwe livelihood relationships to where the Indians live close to...they’ll forest landscapes. Not only does it say much be brushes like you see around, poplars about the “nature” of the Temagami forests in growing in one place, eh. That’s where which the Ojibwe people have lived, it also they used to burn (Beaver woman, 69, encodes many of the objectives of customary High Level area) (Lewis 1982, 29). Ojibwe “forest management.” It is clear from the statement that the customary landscape These statements are as revelatory as those of management practices referred to were derived Theriault from the Temagami region in Ontario. from an intimate understanding of resource They demonstrate how Aboriginal peoples energy cycles and ecological succession pat- employed customary landscape management terns. Indeed, it celebrates the diversity of practices—using Indigenous pyrotechnology— these cycles and patterns. More than this, it to transform large landscapes for livelihood celebrates how human interaction with forest purposes. They confirm intimate Indigenous landscapes—interaction that creates indig- knowledge of ecological succession patterns enous anthropogenic landscapes—can actually and their control for human purposes. In this nurture resource abundance and diversity. It is context as well, they celebrate the value of

37 NTFP Conference Proceedings diversity and abundance, as well as the possi- acknowledge the sophistication and complexity bility of nurturing both simultaneously. What of “traditional” Indigenous customary relation- is clear from the foregoing statements is that ships to land, we must neither conveniently nor there is more to the “nature” of the forest “...inadvertently overlook the artifice behind landscapes of northern Canada than seemingly technology in favour of the artifacts that it meets the eye of the outsider—in this case the produces....[T]echnology should be seen as a “settler society.” system of knowledge rather than an inventory of objects” (Riddington 1982, 471). That societ- How could customary Indigenous relationships ies have been able to achieve economic security to land, the need for economic security, and the as well social and cultural well-being by other need to promote ecological sustainability means—affluence without materialism—should converge into a new paradigm of forest liveli- not blind us to the contributions that these hoods in northern Aboriginal communities in knowledge traditions and social institutions Canada? To begin with, statements such as can make to sustainable resource management those referred to should lead non-Aboriginal today. society to acknowledge that Indigenous land- scapes characterized the “,” even In western boreal forest landscapes, for ex- Before the Wilderness (Blackburn and Ander- ample, the research of Henry Lewis has demon- son 1993) of it arose in the consciousness of strated that “...the hunter-trapper-gatherers of settler society. After the coming of the - northern Alberta both increased and diversified ans, this “New World” available natural resources with the use of ...was less virgin than it was widowed. controlled burning” (Lewis 1982, 7). Are such Indians had lived on the for practices anachronistic today? Certainly, they thousands of years, and had to a signifi- continue to have value as strategies that could cant extent modified its environment to be employed to increase biological diversity and their purposes. The destruction of abundance in forest ecosystems. More than Indian communities in fact brought this, they may well have value towards main- some of the most important ecological taining or restoring the very integrity of some of changes which followed the Europeans’ our most cherished ecosystems. This aspect of arrival in America. The choice is not customary Indigenous resource stewardship between two landscapes, one with and must be grasped by the “popular mind:” The one without a human influence; it is powerful image of the primeval forest causes between two human ways of living, two some otherwise well-informed people to pro- ways of belonging to an ecosystem pose systems of inviolate preserves where (Cronon 1983, 12). human intervention is prohibited. Yet in most fire-prone ecosystems, continued human The historical reality of “wilderness” landscapes interaction will be essential to maintain them across North America is that “...[i]n fact, enor- in a pre-European condition. A prime example mous areas of the continent’s forests and of such an inviolate preserve is the Boundary grasslands were very much cultural land- Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern scapes, shaped profoundly by human action” Minnesota [bordering on Quetico Provincial (MacCleery 1996, 44). This history must be- Park in Ontario]. As the late Miron “Bud” come part of the popular consciousness of Heinselman, USDA Forest Service ecologist, settler society in Canada. demonstrated, the exclusion of fire from the Boundary Waters has doomed large stands of It is necessary, however, to go even further nearly pure red pine and white pine. In the than this. The contemporary value of custom- decades ahead, they will be taken over by ary Indigenous knowledge systems and institu- spruce and fir (MacCleery 1996, 48). The value tions for promoting sustainable resource of customary Indigenous pyrotechnology in stewardship and economic well-being for these types of settings makes it understandable northern Aboriginal forest communities in that Lewis and Ferguson would use the form of Canada should also be realized. This can a prescription to entitle a paper on this topic in happen, however, only when dominant settler relation to the boreal forest: Yards, Corridors, society acknowledges that customary Indig- and Mosaics: How to Burn a Boreal Forest enous Knowledge systems constitute valuable (Lewis and Ferguson 1988, 57). forms of “technology” or “technological knowl- edge” (Lewis 1989, 940). If we ever are to fully 38 Indigenous resource management practices natural resources of their ancestral forest such as those outlined above have typically homelands are managed. There is not a single been embedded in local institutions of resource instance of Indigenous tenure for any forest management. Such institutions are the means resource (timber or non-timber forest prod- by which diverse, resilient, and abundant ucts), for example, in or landscapes have been maintained by local Ontario. In most provinces in Canada, there is groups in various parts of the world (Berkes not even a legal framework for recognizing 1989, 74-76). It should now be clear that these NTFP tenure in general, let alone Indigenous Indigenous landscapes are, in fact, the result of tenure in particular. In spite of the fact that customary Indigenous resource management Indigenous peoples constitute the majority of knowledge and practice that profoundly impact people living within the northern landscape, the environment. the vast bulk of forest tenure in existence is held by “outsiders.” Given current demographic Why should Indigenous customary resource patterns in northern forest communities, this institutions be so often found to nurture Aboriginal majority is rapidly increasing. resource abundance and diversity? In no small part, it is because these local institutions have For Aboriginal communities in northern typically been embedded in practices of coop- Canada, this issue has now become one of eration and equity (Chapeskie 1999). Through cultural survival. In adapting to the influence cooperative practice at the local level, commu- of the outside world, Aboriginal communities nities can create adaptive strategies that have been working their own particular praxis maintain “...relatively high levels of diversity in of contemporary community-based economic the managed landscape” (Berkes et al. 1993, 4). development. The Community Economic Devel- Local institutions of cooperative resource opment (CED) paradigm emerging out of this management are able to prevent tragic losses of praxis is not based on isolation or cultural diversity in several ways. Among the most separation, but on mutuality. It is broadly significant of them is that such institutions are participatory and even invitational in character. based on traditions of equity and cooperation It promotes the idea of partnership between that discourage resource “overexploitation” in Indigenous communities, public, and private local unenclosed landscapes. These institutions sectors. It expresses the urgent need to estab- are also sensitive and able to incorporate lish appropriate contemporary livelihood ecosystem feedback information. What, then, is opportunities for Aboriginal people living in their meaning for forest landscapes in northern forest communities, but it also seeks to do this Canada today? on terms allowing for local adaptation and cultural survival. The model that it employs is one of consensus-based economic decision- A NEW PARADIGM FOR SUSTAINABLE making for forest-based livelihoods where FOREST LIVELIHOODS IN NORTHERN outside partners—often large corporations— FOREST COMMUNITIES IN CANADA work together with Indigenous people.

Achieving economic security for Indigenous This new CED paradigm is being increasingly peoples within the forest landscapes of north- expressed by various Indigenous leaders and ern Canada constitutes a distinct challenge for groups. It is expressed well in the words of the whole country. Could this challenge also be Romeo Saganash, an official with the Grand an opportunity to develop a new paradigm of Council of the Cree in Quebec, cited in a major “best practices” for sustainable forest resource Quebec newspaper: use? The value of customary Indigenous “com- “First of all, most projects, if not all mon property” relationships to land for promot- projects, in the territory were under- ing biodiversity conservation and sustaining taken without the consent of the Crees ecological resilience is now well recognized and beforehand. That consent element in supported by expansive scholarly literature, of the new approach is something that is which only a fraction has been referred to in worthwhile for us. It is definitely new. this paper. And it forces us to take some time to reflect on what we can do with this new However, this is only part of the story. The fact situation. Part of the new Cree situation remains that, in northern Canada, Indigenous involves an influx of 500 young people peoples have precious little voice in how the entering the job market every year for 39 NTFP Conference Proceedings

the next decade,” Saganash said. The implication of the resource cycle theory in “Whether the new jobs will come from forestry points to the immense difficulty of tourism, forestry or Hydro-Quebec restraining overexploitation in our contempo- projects involving Cree partnership are rary economy: “...the removal of impediments all options that desperately need to be to the free operation of markets is not worked out in a society where about 30 enough—the market cannot accelerate natural per cent of people still make a living regeneration, but it can accelerate depletion. from hunting, fishing and trapping. ...” Similarly, the establishment of secure property Saganash cited economic development rights will not prevent overexploitation if the in Waswanipi, where construction of a underlying market incentives favour rapid sawmill two years ago created 75 jobs in drawdown. Privatization is doubly perilous for a community of 1,000 people. [This is a sustainability, in that it is often used to justify joint venture partnership with Domtar resource giveaways (Dauvergne 1997). For Ltd. with the Crees owning a majority biological resources with a slow reproduction stake in the business.] “I think more rate...only state management, international and more we will be seeing that type of agreements, and intense public scrutiny have development initiative taking place in had any success at slowing rates of exhaus- Cree communities. We have no tion” (Clapp 1998, 139). The literature of choice”...Saganash said (Siblin 1999, community-based resource management A7). suggests that even state management may not be sufficient to prevent resource exhaustion In the context of the analysis presented in the over the long term. However, it does point to previous pages of this article, there is a signifi- the efficacy of community-based resource cant opportunity for Aboriginal people living in management to sustain natural resources over northern forest communities to nurture this the long term (Berkes and Folke 1998). This new paradigm for forest livelihoods. What are efficacy is particularly notable in communities its potential benefits? How can it be fostered? that have effective customary institutions of resource management. This is especially in In several critical aspects, there is significant contexts where many considerations (including potential to foster this paradigm. First, this the importance of a variety of resources for a potential relates to the “forestry frontier” in variety of important social and economic northern Canada. As has been noted, these purposes) beyond the “market signals” of the lands are also the homelands of Indigenous dominant economy will affect resource use peoples—where most of the people living on (Chapeskie 1995). them are Aboriginal. There is an opportunity to “explore” and implement community-based Even in forest landscapes where Aboriginal forms of resource tenure and stewardship communities live alongside settler communi- practice where Indigenous knowledge and ties, there is significant potential to promote customary resource management expertise is community-based resource management. In given “pride of place.” It is within such models the boreal forests of Canada, for example, that customary resource management tech- tenure and management are typically focused niques and knowledge stand the best chance of on a very few dominant timber species. Such being practiced, and are given the opportunity species are harvested for only a few uses (pulp to adapt to new livelihood pursuits—including and paper, lumber). Customary Indigenous those that are “industrial” or “high tech.” forest management practice in these forests sometimes seems as if it was focused on every The model of community-based resource forest resource (from the creation of forages for tenure management for the forestry frontier in ungulates to fruit harvested for domestic and northern Canada provides an opportunity that commercial use) but timber! In the 20th cen- transcends “ of culture” and “politics of tury, for example, Frances Densmore, who race.” It emphasizes the “local” in resource originally went to study Ojibwe music in north- management, and the benefits that local re- ern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario, got source management and tenure can bring for caught up with another fascination—Ojibwe (or maintaining diverse and abundant ecosystems Chippewa) plant use. Within a relatively short as well as healthy communities within them. period of time, she catalogued an impressive

40 array of Ojibwe uses for more than 200 plants Such an approach to Indigenous knowledge of and trees (Densmore 1928). Within the forests forest resources and resource management of northern Canada, there is the potential to practice does a disservice to the Indigenous generate many economic opportunities from peoples from whose knowledge traditions has special forest products including NTFPs. In been realized much “outside” commercial gain such cases, applying the concepts of pluralism from forest resources. It is also seen by most and consensus-based decisionmaking to Aboriginal people as fundamentally disrespect- resource management between Aboriginal ful. But in addition to this, it has the potential communities and other forest stakeholders to foreclose on many other fruitful opportuni- offers considerable potential (Chapeskie 1995). ties for successful economic collaboration and This can be in the form of new business oppor- partnership to be achieved between Indigenous tunities within which local forest livelihoods people and “outsiders.” and forest resources can be sustained over the long term. There is, for example, an emerging popular interest in how the potential uses of birch bark In the context of the foregoing, and even more are being pursued. The bark of the white birch for the future of our forests, it is important to is a “forest product” that has had numerous remember that “resources are not; they be- traditional uses among the Ojibwe people. It is come.” Why would the larger public and private these traditional uses that have in no small sectors be interested in pursuing a new para- way inspired “outside” researchers to explore digm of forest livelihoods with northern Indig- their broader application. Those who have the enous communities of Canada? To begin with, technological capacity to carry out this re- if anything should be clear to anyone con- search would do well to consider that other cerned with the future of our forests, it is that equally significant potential opportunities the only constant characterizing these forests might arise. This could happen through estab- will be change. From environmental factors to lishing strong and enduring collaborative accelerating technological developments trans- partnerships with Ojibwe people to pursue the forming the global economy, change is now a broader potential of these uses. In one discus- constant for forest communities and stakehold- sion on the topic of the uses of birch bark that ers. While the demand for forest resources I had recently with Ojibwe people who are continues to rise on a global scale, technologi- engaged in forest livelihood pursuits, I was cal innovation in the form of mechanization presented with an array of other special forest continues to make more and more forestry product possibilities from other trees—uses workers redundant. Forest communities in that I had never come across before. They were northern Canada generally are in crisis. In the intriguing to say the least. Do they have a context set out in this paper, the future of broader application? Who knows. Certainly, Indigenous forest communities, which have however, the partnership approach to exploring historically been excluded from the larger forest them is worth serious consideration—not only economy, is even more fraught with danger. At for what “outsiders” can learn from Indigenous the same time, significant opportunity also co- people, and vice versa, but how they might exists within this crisis. each contribute to the economic well-being of their respective societies. Aside from the potential of Indigenous knowl- edge and customary forest stewardship practice to contribute to the sustainable use of forest SUMMARY resources, Indigenous knowledge traditions have the potential to contribute significantly to This paper has considered how a new paradigm a diverse “best end use” and “highest value of forest livelihoods might be built to foster the use” forest economy. Indigenous traditional economic security and cultural well-being of ecological knowledge (TEK) has the potential to Indigenous communities in the forest regions of serve as a “partnership resource” in fostering a northern Canada, and what this new paradigm diverse forest economy in northern Canada might look like. This new paradigm is steeped that places priority on community-based in consensus-based decisionmaking and participation. For many years now, TEK has collaborative cross-cultural economic partner- been used as a resource by outside interests ships. To realize this paradigm constitutes a for economic purposes. It has often been seen tremendous challenge. Not least of this chal- as “a gift for the taking.” lenge is the task of settler society in Canada to 41 NTFP Conference Proceedings let go of some of its most long-standing as- it can foster collaborative strategies for eco- sumptions about Indigenous societies in this nomic security that are rooted in the deepest country. aspects of Indigenous culture.

I would like to state this challenge in practical This issue is crucially important for the eco- terms: To focus on the ecological knowledge or nomic well-being of Indigenous peoples in the even resource management practices of Indig- northern forest regions of Canada. But, as I enous peoples as “traditional” sets up what I have noted above, it is also important in the have come to see as a problematic dualism context of the broader issue of biodiversity between this knowledge and the knowledge of conservation. The issue of biodiversity conser- what are called “advanced” industrial societies. vation is generally considered to be one of the This dualism makes it too easy for “us” in most important of our time. The present global “advanced industrial societies,” especially those ecological “extinction spasm” we are witnessing of us belonging to groups with vested interests is viewed as threatening the very foundations of in the northern forestscapes of Canada, to future human security (Wilson 1988). We have instrumentalize the “value” of “traditional” been told that, “...hope for the future is condi- knowledge for our own purposes. Such a tional on decisive political action now to begin dualism leads to a view that appreciates the managing environmental resources to ensure value in TEK solely in terms of our advanced both sustainable human progress and human industrial societies (e.g., it can be of value in survival” (World Commission on Environment state management of natural resources; it can and Development 1987, 1). provide pharmaceuticals for us). Such a dual- ism also tends to neglect the more profound In seeking guidance to a sustainable future, significance and meaning of the economic, many in the “developed world” have turned social, and cultural values of the societies out their attention to the relationship between of which so-called TEK has arisen. Simply put, culture and conservation. Significant efforts are no matter how this dualist discourse of scien- now being made to document and to under- tific, traditional, or Indigenous knowledge is stand the inextricable link between biological presented, the implication is that some societ- and cultural diversity (Wilcox and Duin 1995). ies are more evolved than others. It even draws A good number of these efforts are focused on the conclusion that some societies are living in the knowledge of Indigenous peoples of their static, primitive, or fossilized states. lands and its potential value in biodiversity conservation efforts. We must discard the ideology of the “tradi- tional” Indigenous person, whether that person I believe that in the promotion of biodiversity lives in the Canadian sub-Arctic or in conservation, for non-Indigenous people to Amazonia, as a “hunter-gatherer” practicing a understand and appreciate a deeper and more way of life that “...involves subsisting primarily profound value of what some call traditional on wild plants and animals...[without the ecological knowledge (TEK) and what others capacity] to regulate the growth and reproduc- call Indigenous knowledge (IK), it is necessary tion of the life forms on which people depend” to move beyond focusing on the technical (Plog et al. 1980, 210). Such assumptions can content of TEK or IK; that is, what Indigenous no longer serve our long-term ecological and peoples know about the land. Rather, what is economic interests. Rather, we must adopt a required is that we re-evaluate some of our new paradigm that allows us to see how, for most basic assumptions about the cultural example, “[n]ative peoples’ interactions both contexts out of which TEK has arisen. We need past and present with native plants, may offer to better appreciate how and why Indigenous some interesting yet novel [to non-Indigenous peoples know what they know of their lands. people], approaches to wildland management... We need to understand that while forest re- [that] may prove effective safeguards against sources might be used for different purposes by their rarity” (Anderson 1993, 173). This under- Indigenous people in Canada today, Indigenous standing can be applied to the whole range of institutions and practices of customary re- resource management questions we face with source stewardship have an enduring value for respect to biodiversity conservation today. today and for tomorrow. Equally important for Indigenous communities,

42 Taking up this task will also allow those of us Blackburn, T.C.; Anderson, K. 1993. Before the who consider ourselves as being other than wilderness: environmental management by “Indigenous” or “traditional” to re-consider native Californians. Menlo Park, CA: some of our most basic assumptions about our Ballena Press. relationships with the “natural” others of our world. We need to understand the roots of the Chapeskie, A.J. 1995. Land, landscape, inadequacy of our discourse, as well as the culturescape: Aboriginal relationships to inadequacy of the practice of resource manage- land and the co-management of natural ment and conservation. By doing this, we can resources (Paper prepared for the Royal come to understand how, for example, the Commission on Aboriginal Peoples) (Avail- dualist idea of protecting some land from able on CD-ROM as part of: For Seven humans through conservation while allowing Generations: An Information Legacy of the development on the rest of it may be ultimately Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. futile. It is to concerns such as these that Ottawa: Libraxus Inc., 1997). Indigenous knowledge has as much to offer as it does to fostering local Aboriginal economic Chapeskie, A.J. 1999. Culture, landscape and security. Let us seize the present opportunity diversity. In: Posey, D., ed. Cultural and to address these concerns from our local forest spiritual values of biodiversity: a comple- communities through to the level of broad mentary contribution to the global public policy and move toward meeting the biodiversity assessment. Nairobi and Lon- challenge at hand. don: United Nations Environment Programme and Intermediate Technology Publications: 76-79. LITERATURE CITED Clapp, R.A. 1998. The resource cycle in forestry Anderson, K. 1993. Native Californians as and fishing. The Canadian Geographer. ancient and contemporary cultivators. In: 42(4): 129-144. Blackburn, T.C.; Anderson, K., eds. Before the wilderness: environmental management Cronon, W. 1983. Changes in the land: Indi- by native Californians. Anthropological Pap. ans, colonists, and the ecology of New 40. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press: 151- England. New York, NY: Hill & Wang. 174. Dauvergne, P. 1997. Shadows in the forest. Academic American Encyclopaedia. 1980. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. North America. Volume N. Densmore, F. 1928. Uses of plants by the Berkes, F. 1989. Cooperation from the perspec- Chippewa Indians. 44th annual report of tive of human ecology. In: Berkes, F., ed. the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Common property resources: ecology and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, community-based sustainable development. 1926-1927: 275-397. (Re-published by London: Belhaven Press: 70-88. Dover Publications, New York, 1974).

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