Iain J. Davidson-Hunt

Adaptive co‐management for social–ecological complexity

Building trust through collaboration, institutional development, and social learning enhances efforts to foster ecosystem management and resolve multi-scale society–environment dilemmas. One emerging approach aimed at addressing these dilemmas is adaptive co-management. This method draws explicit attention to the learning (experiential and experimental) and collaboration (vertical and horizontal) functions necessary to improve our understanding of, and ability to respond to, complex social–ecological systems. Here, we identify and outline the core features of adaptive co-management, which include innovative institutional arrangements and incentives across spatiotemporal scales and levels, learning through complexity and change, monitoring and assessment of interventions, the role of power, and opportunities to link science with policy.

Living on the Edge: Ecological and Cultural Edges as Sources of Diversity for Social-Ecological Resilience

A well-known facet of ecosystems is that the edges—the boundaries or transitions from one ecosystem to another—often exhibit high levels of species richness or biodiversity. These transitional areas often show features of species composition, structure, and function representative of the ecosystems they transcend, as well as having their own unique array of species and characteristics. Cultural transitional areas—zones where two or more cultures converge and interact—are similarly rich and diverse in cultural traits, exhibiting cultural and linguistic features of each of the contributing peoples. This results in an increase in cultural capital, and resilience, by providing a wider range of traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom on which to draw, especially in times of stress and change. We propose that indigenous peoples whose living territories traverse ecological edges have a correspondingly increased access to economically important resources and therefore have a greater capacity for flexibility. Finally, we suggest that indigenous peoples are drawn to areas having a high incidence of ecological edges, and furthermore, that they actively create and maintain ecological edges. This practice provides them with a greater diversity of cultural capital and helps to maintain their flexibility and resilience. Examples from several regions of Canada are provided, from the southern interior of British Columbia, to the Lake Winnipeg watershed of Manitoba and Ontario, to James Bay.

Researchers, Indigenous Peoples, and Place-Based Learning Communities

Relations between external researchers and indigenous communities have been increasingly strained by differences in understanding and in expectation about the relevance of research. In the field of resource management, the potential for conflict over research is increased by the politics surrounding control over the resource management decision making processes. In this article, we propose the creation of dialogic networks that engage researchers and indigenous people as collaborators in a process of knowledge production. Such an applied research process can produce context-specific knowledge networks that support management and planning decisions by indigenous people; these networks we refer to as place-based learning communities. We present a researchers perspective on this approach through our experience with the Shoal Lake Resource Institute of Iskatewizaagegan No. 39 Independent First Nation located in northwestern Ontario.

Indigenous Knowledge and Values in Planning for Sustainable Forestry: Pikangikum First Nation and the Whitefeather Forest Initiative

Although still posing challenges, science-based knowledge (including interdisciplinary work) is leading current forest-management planning. How then can indigenous communities mobilize their own knowledge to support their desire to develop new ways of managing the forest? In northern Ontario, the provincial government has developed a cross-scale planning approach that allocates certain responsibilities to First Nations in order to support their vision and knowledge, yet at the same time addresses provincial planning goals. Within this context, research on woodland caribou ( Rangifer tarandus) was conducted in collaboration with Pikangikum First Nation to support their participation in forest-management planning. The outcomes of this research are used as a focal point for discussing some of the stressors that influence cross-scale planning for forestry in northern Ontario. The paper concludes that resolving cultural differences in a forest- management planning context is not entirely necessary to move forward with collaborative planning for the conservation of woodland caribou habitat.

Cultural Management of Living Trees: An International Perspective

Abstract Culturally modified trees, or CMTs, are a phenomenon of forest-dwelling peoples worldwide, from North America to Scandinavia, to Turkey, to Australia. Living trees from which materials are harvested (edible inner bark, pitch and resin, bark, branches), or which are modified through coppicing and pollarding to produce wood of a certain size and quality, or which are marked in some way for purposes of art, ceremony, or to indicate boundary lines or trails, all represent the potential of sustainable use and management of trees and forested regions. Often their use is associated with particular belief systems or approaches to other life forms that result in conservation of standing trees and forests, and preserving or enhancing their habitat value and productivity, even while they serve as resources for people. Various types of culturally modified trees have religious or spiritual significance, tying people to their ancestors who used the trees before them, and signifying traditional use and occupancy of a given region. Although some CMTs are legally protected to some extent in some jurisdictions, many are at risk from industrial forestry, urban expansion and clearing land for agriculture, and immense numbers of CMTs from past centuries and decades have already been destroyed. The diverse types, and the patterns of CMT creation and use, need further study; these trees, collectively, are an important part of our human heritage.

DIVERSITY OF COMMON PROPERTY RESOURCE USE AND DIVERSITY OF SOCIAL INTERESTS IN THE WESTERN INDIAN HIMALAYA

Resources of mountain environments are often held and used as commons. This paper examines the use of moun- tain commons in two villages in the Manali area, Kulu Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India, where the land settlement of 1886 pro- vided the local people with well defined resource rights and allowed a degree of local control. Each village had a resource area which included a series of zones from agricultural land at about 2,000 m to the highest pastures at about 4,000 m. Within this area, ten categories of land use were identified: three kinds of private property agricultural land; four kinds of common-property graz- ing land; and three kinds of forest land, two of which had elements of common-property. Diversity of land use was due to a diver- sity of interests based on gender, caste, and ethnicity. Village-based social institutions, mahila mandals and mimbers, allowed these di- verse interests a voice in resource management.

Anishinaabe Adaptation to Environmental Change in Northwestern Ontario: a Case Study in Knowledge Coproduction for Nontimber Forest Products

Interaction, negotiation, and sharing knowledge are at the heart of indigenous response to global environmental change. We consider Anishinaabe efforts to devise new institutional arrangements in response to the process of colonialism and changing global markets. Our findings are based on collaborative research undertaken with Anishinaabe colleagues from Pikangikum First Nation, northwestern Ontario. We worked with elders to understand their knowledge, preferences, and opinions regarding appropriate institutional arrangements for the co-production of knowledge required to develop nontimber forest products. We began our research by asking about the values, institutions, and conditions that guide plant harvesting, and then the conditions necessary to coproduce new knowledge regarding plant products with external partners. Results were discussed during focus groups and community meetings, and were modified based on that feedback. This research resulted in a framework based on the values, institutions, and conditions that are necessary for the coproduction of new knowledge. In this framework, Pikangikum people—through Anishinaabe teachings and collaborative partnerships—guide knowledge coproduction through meaningful participation as research advisors in the development of knowledge, institutions, and technologies. Coproducing knowledge in response to environmental change requires new institutional arrangements that provide community control, meaningful collaboration and partnerships, and significant benefit sharing with Pikangikum people.

ISKATEWIZAAGEGAN (SHOAL LAKE) PLANT KNOWLEDGE: AN ANISHINAABE (OJIBWAY) ETHNOBOTANY OF NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO

ABSTRACT We worked with Iskatewizaagegan (Anishinaabe) elders to create a holistic representation of their plant knowledge as well as a more standard ethnobotanical system of classification. In order to understand the holistic approach, chosen by elders to represent their plant knowledge, it was necessary to understand the ontology, epistemology and phenomenology of plant knowledge. This is explored through an examination of the ethnobotanical data, collected in 2000 and 2001, as a system of classification that includes the processes of classification, nomenclature, and identification. In conclusion, we propose that elders emphasize a holistic ethnobotany since they believe plant knowledge resides in the plants of a place and the relationships between persons and plants of that place. This leads to the conclusion that a critical factor in perpetuating knowledge over time, and between generations, is the ongoing creation of relationships through land-based activities.

Adaptive learning, technological innovation and livelihood diversification: the adoption of pound nets in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil

This paper examines the adoption of a technology to appropriate an ecologically constrained resource within the context of a restructuring fisheries sector utilising the conceptual lenses of adaptive learning and practice. Participant observation and semi-structured interviews were undertaken in the coastal community of Ponta Negra, Paraty, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from May 2010 to March 2011. The materials collected were translated and transcribed into English and then manually coded. Through a restorying process the English transcripts were developed into an analytical narrative that described the process of the adoption of pound nets and how this initiated a process of social differentiation between fishing households. The pound net technology constituted a new field of practice that both created and constrained opportunities for livelihood diversification. In this case, individual adaptations made to diversify household economies initiated a cascading process of social differentiation within a coastal community.

Partnerships towards NTFP development: perspectives from Pikangikum First Nation

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a community perspective on partnerships with the goal of researching, designing, developing and commercializing non-timber forest products (NTFPs) based on indigenous knowledge and resources from Pikangikum First Nation, northwestern Ontario, Canada. Design/methodology/approach - Framed by the Whitefeather Forest Research Cooperative agreement, a collaborative and ethnographic research design was adopted with the Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation and the Whitefeather Forest Elders Steering Group in Pikangikum First Nation. Over the period of two years, initial research planning meetings were held with community representatives, fieldwork and interviews with community Elders and leaders were conducted, and three community workshops were held. Findings - Community Elders and leaders articulated a cautious interest in developing ethical, collaborative partnerships that support the Whitefeather Forest Initiative and the communitys social, cultural, economic and environmental goals. Developing NTFPs through partnerships is a procedural issue that requires giving Elders a primary role in advising and guiding partnerships at all stages of NTFP planning, research and development. Partners would be expected to build respectful and diligent partnerships that interface knowledge systems, maintain good relations, and generate mutually defined benefits. Research limitations/implications - This community-specific approach provides insight for Aboriginal groups, governments, universities, and corporations seeking to develop access and benefit sharing agreements, policies, or protocols in light of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol. Originality/value - This paper offers perspectives, principles, and community member narratives from a Canadian indigenous community, Pikangikum First Nation. These perspectives describe how this community envisions potential research, development and commercialization of NTFPs through joint and mutually beneficial partnerships.