Theory and Practice from the Cultural Rainforests of Kitasoo/Xai’Xais Territory
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Biocultural approaches to environmental management and monitoring: theory and practice from the cultural rainforests of Kitasoo/Xai’xais Territory by Bryant DeRoy B.Sc., University of British Columbia, 2013 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in the Department of Geography ÓBryant DeRoy, 2019 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. Biocultural approaches to environmental management and monitoring: theory and practice from the cultural rainforests of Kitasoo/Xai’xais Territory by Bryant DeRoy B.Sc., University of British Columbia, 2013 Supervisory Committee: Dr. Christopher Darimont (Department of Geography) Supervisor Dr. Christopher Bone (Department of Geography) Committee Member Dr. Iain McKechnie (Department of Anthropology) Outside Member ii Abstract Biocultural approaches to Environmental Management (EM) and monitoring are an emerging strategy in sustainability planning. Unlike functional ecological approaches to EM, which exclude humans from ecological systems, biocultural EM approaches incorporate humans, communities and their values as integral part of ecological systems, and are grounded in collaborative processes that develop locally relevant management objectives and monitoring practices. Biocultural indicators are a key aspect of biocultural EM, providing links between worldviews, knowledge systems, agencies and institutions at various scales to guide and streamline implementation of management objectives. Although many Indigenous Peoples have been continually practicing biocultural approaches to EM for thousands of years, challenges exist in contemporary EM scenarios where multiple worldviews, political boundaries and knowledge systems collide. Some of the challenges or gaps in contemporary biocultural approaches are based in theory, and others are in practice. In Chapter One I highlight one of these gaps – the lack of guiding criteria to develop biocultural indicators in contemporary biocultural EM and monitoring. To address this gap, I propose a novel suite of six criteria (culturally salient, supportive of place-based relationships, inclusive, sensitive to impacts, perceptible, linked to human well-being) drawn from a case study in Kitasoo/Xai’xais Territory in the area now referred to as the North and Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada. In Chapter Two, I highlight a challenge in practice—the development of spatial models that incorporate a community-led approach. I show how this community-engaged approach benefitted the development and application of a landscape scale suitability model for culturally modified trees, a priority biocultural indicator. In conclusion, this theoretical and practical work identifies opportunities to amend existing Provincial and Federal legislation in order to support biocultural approaches to EM in Canada and shows how biocultural approaches may be applied in other social-ecological systems near and abroad. iii Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents .................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ........................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ........................................................................................................ vii Dedication/Acknowledgement ............................................................................. viii Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 Literature Cited ........................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 1: Biocultural indicators to support locally-led environmental management and monitoring ............................................................................................... 8 Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 8 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 9 Case study ................................................................................................................................ 12 The nuances of environmental management implementation and co-governance in the Great Bear Rainforest ..................................................................................................................... 12 Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 15 Lessons from the Great Bear Rainforest and beyond ........................................................... 15 Emergent criteria to evaluate the utility of biocultural indicators ....................................... 16 Challenges ............................................................................................................................. 23 Sense of place: a robust biocultural indicator ...................................................................... 27 Limitations ............................................................................................................................ 29 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 30 Literature Cited ...................................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 2: Indigenous Knowledge and Remotely-Sensed Data to model landscape suitability of a biocultural indicator: culturally modified trees ...... 42 Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 42 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 43 Methods .................................................................................................................................... 46 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 46 Study Area ............................................................................................................................. 47 Biocultural diversity field survey methods ............................................................................ 49 Recording culturally modified trees from field surveys ........................................................ 51 Georeferencing CMTs from previous surveys ...................................................................... 53 iv Sample size and summary of occurrence data ...................................................................... 53 Remote sensing ...................................................................................................................... 55 Predictor variables of CMT occurrence ............................................................................... 56 Suitability modelling approach ............................................................................................. 61 Results ...................................................................................................................................... 65 Multi-criteria evaluation using sensitivity analysis .............................................................. 65 Analytical Hierarchy Process based on MCE rank .............................................................. 69 Discussion ................................................................................................................................ 72 Cultural, landscape and ecological predictors and the role of incorporating local and Indigenous Knowledge .......................................................................................................... 72 Applying spatial models for biocultural indicators .............................................................. 75 Limitations ............................................................................................................................ 76 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 77 Literature cited ........................................................................................................................ 77 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 83 Policy implications .................................................................................................................. 85 Literature cited ........................................................................................................................ 87 Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 89 Appendix A: Supplementary Figures ........................................................................................ 89 Appendix B: