GRIZZLY BEAR MONITORING by the HEILTSUK PEOPLE AS a CRUCIBLE for FIRST NATION CONSERVATION PRACTICE Version: 1 Submitted: 2012-10-26 PDF Created: 2012/10/29
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Ecology and Society - ES-2012-5316 1 This Portable Document Format version of the manuscript has been automatically created for your convenience. It was NOT submitted by the author and so may not be a perfect rendering of the content of the submitted documents or the accompanying html files. Please refer to the html version of the manuscript if you encounter any difficulties. Tables, figures, and appendices can be found at the end of the document. You may use the bookmarks on the left to jump to these attachments. Research GRIZZLY BEAR MONITORING BY THE HEILTSUK PEOPLE AS A CRUCIBLE FOR FIRST NATION CONSERVATION PRACTICE Version: 1 Submitted: 2012-10-26 PDF Created: 2012/10/29 1. ABSTRACT 2. ABSTRACT 3. Guided by deeply-held social and cultural values, and increasingly sanctioned by legal decisions, 4. First Nations [indigenous] people in Canada are rapidly regaining authority to manage natural 5. resources. Often, however, indigenous values clash with the western philosophies and scientific 6. approaches commonly applied to resource management. Here we integrate worldviews and practices in a 7. “bear-salmon-human” system in Heiltsuk Territory (in what is now also referred to as coastal British 8. Columbia, Canada). Specifically, we share not only the ecological results from a monitoring project 9. that used a molecular genetics approach to monitor grizzly bears, but also the broader 10. socio-cultural drivers and implications of our work. Non-invasive sampling of bears occurred between 11. 2006 and 2009 in the Koeye watershed, a stronghold for grizzly bears, salmon and the Heiltsuk. 12. Demographic analyses and sampling in adjacent areas showed that there is a regionally-significant 13. population of bears that congregate at the Koeye each salmon spawning season, with very few new 14. bears detected among years. We also detected early evidence of a declining trend in population, best 15. explained by declining salmon numbers. These data, collected by the Heiltsuk for the Heiltsuk, 16. directly inform local decision-makers tasked with growing responsibility to manage this system 17. against a backdrop of widespread loss or declines of both bears and salmon in North America since 18. European colonization. Moreover, our extensive time in the Koeye among grizzlies and salmon served 19. to reconnect Heiltsuk people with the land and resources; these experiences in turn reinforce the 20. conservation-oriented philosophy that inspired the research. We argue that successful resource 21. management by indigenous people will require approaches like ours, in which science-based management 22. is embedded within a socially and culturally appropriate context. Such a strategy can maintain 23. ancient intimacy with traditional lands and resources as well as provide a powerful engine for 24. conservation. 25. Key words: First Nations science; social and ecological resilience; bear population monitoring; 26. non-invasive mark-recapture; grizzly bear; values; conservation; traditional stewardship; salmon; 27. British Columbia 28. INTRODUCTION Indigenous or First Nations people across parts of North America are actively 29. reinvigorating lifestyles and livelihoods that were largely or wholly disrupted by European Ecology and Society - ES-2012-5316 2 30. colonization. The success of this endeavor rests fundamentally on control and stewardship of 31. traditional lands and the ecological integrity of associated resources. Although international law 32. and conventions recognize the rights of indigenous peoples to maintain or regain control of these 33. natural assets (review in Colchester 2004), this principle is only slowly manifesting into practice. 34. Support for aboriginal agency in resource management emerges from the growing awareness that 35. conservation strategies disregarding the rights and needs of indigenous peoples not only threaten 36. conservation values and outcomes, but also represent an egregious human rights violation (e.g. 37. Alcorn and Royo 2007; see Filardi et al 2012). 38. Strategies that embrace enduring connections between indigenous people and their lands are 39. increasingly recognized as key to achieving tangible conservation outcomes (Chapin 2004). Across 40. northern North America, traditional territories of indigenous people comprise some of the highest 41. priority areas for conservation (Oviedo et al. 2000), making self-determination in resource 42. management an otherwise unavailable engine for improved resource stewardship and conservation (e.g., 43. Delcourt 1987; Saleh 1998; Schwartzman & Zimmerman 2005; Xu et al. 2005; Nepstadt et al. 2006; 44. Filardi et al. 2012). 45. Opportunities for these conservation gains are particularly relevant in Canada, where First Nations 46. are rapidly regaining sovereignty in resource management. Long embedded in Canada’s 47. Constitution Act of 1982, and increasingly empowered by landmark court decisions, the legal notion 48. of aboriginal rights and title provides indigenous people considerable authority in resource 49. management within their territories (reviews in Dalton 2006; Sullivan 2006; Wyatt 2008). One way 50. this transition has been operationalized is via a process termed “co-management”, 51. broadly referring to power- and responsibility-sharing between federal or provincial government and 52. indigenous people. The nature of these arrangements varies from limited local consultation as a part 53. of government or academic research to local indigenous governments regaining substantial 54. self-management capacity and authority (Notze 1995). 55. Ultimately, the fullest transfer of authority (to self-determination) moves beyond an administrative 56. process to include a fundamental shift in the value systems and institutional cultures that govern 57. resource management. Western philosophies emphasize linear, positivistic or teleological notions, 58. often optimizing use of individual resources. Common management prescriptions such as 59. “maximum sustainable yield” in fisheries or forestry illustrate these approaches in 60. practice. In contrast, abundant evidence suggests that non-teleological indigenous approaches to 61. resource management can be characterized by respect and reciprocity at the scale of ecosystems or 62. landscapes; relationships among species and between human and non-human life are emphasized (for 63. examples see Castree 2003, Cajete 2000, Tuhiwai Smith 1999, Turnbull 1993-4, and Nelson 1986). In a 64. mutually reinforcing way, First Nations perspectives on entities like “wildlife” or 65. “timber” influence the way in which resources are treated and managed by aboriginal 66. people. 67. These different philosophical approaches have generally clashed (e.g. see Price et al. 2009). 68. Typically, western perspectives dominate, driving what has been called “green 69. imperialism”. This phenomenom occurs when science-based, non-aboriginal approaches trump 70. meaningful indigenous participation in resource management (Grove 1995, Dowie 2009). One consequence 71. of this conflict is a continued under-appreciation of the potential synergies between these 72. disparate worldviews and a general failure to integrate coherently the knowledge and tools 73. associated with each. 74. There is growing evidence, however, that integration across science-based management perspectives 75. and those of other cultures can improve conservation outcomes (e.g. Cash et al 2003 and references 76. therein). Specifically, science-based knowledge can be effectively incorporated into aboriginal 77. management settings when it is respectful of multiple knowledge sources, acknowledging so called 78. “legitimate knowledge” (Clark and Holliday 2006). Learning how to integrate these 79. worldviews and practices, however, requires careful consideration. To this end, we examine here a 80. “bear-salmon-human” system in Heiltsuk Territory (in what is now referred to as coastal Ecology and Society - ES-2012-5316 3 81. British Columbia [BC], Canada; Fig. 1). 82. Bear-salmon-human systems: a social-ecological crucible within Heiltsuk Territory 83. For their entire existence, the Heiltsuk People have lived among and interacted with grizzly bears 84. (Ursus arctos) and salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.). In fact, where the three still co-occur, interactions 85. among bears, people, and salmon represent some of the most ancient and enduring confluences between 86. ecology and human culture in North America (e.g. Clarke and Slocombe 2009). Along the Pacific coast, 87. salmon are posited to have spawned societies of great social and ecological resilience (Trosper 88. 2003). In a similar way, coastal grizzly bear diet and demography are largely driven by salmon 89. abundance (e.g. Hildebrand et al 1999, Gende and Quinn 2004; Levi et al 2012). Humans and bears 90. certainly interacted on spawning streams, with the activities of one undoubtedly influencing the 91. other. Accordingly, this long-term legacy of interaction provides a strong social-ecological 92. framework to support the conservation of grizzlies and salmon by groups like the Heiltsuk, who still 93. live with these natural assets and who are re-asserting their management rights. 94. Efforts to re-establish management authority, however, come at a challenging time for 95. bear-salmon-human systems. Across BC, myriad human stressors, including climate change, habitat 96. loss, pollution, hatcheries, and over-exploitation since European colonization have caused 97. widespread extirpation and run declines of up to 50% or more of