Assessing the State of Arctic Ecosystem Health: Bridging Inuit Viewpoints and Biological Endpoints on Fish Health

Abstract

As with all of the world’s ecosystems, the Arctic ecosystem is challenged by anthropogenic inputs. As a result of their global vision of the ecosystem in which they live, the Inuit community is concerned with the fact that traditional food may not be edible due to pollution. As part of a broader ecosystem health research program examining the biological, economic, and cultural impacts of environmental contamination in the Arctic, the aim of our project was to assess Arctic ecosystem health by the tentative bridging of scientific and traditional knowledge. Specifically, the goal was to verify a possible relationship between Inuit perception of the health of their ecosystem and scientific assessment of deformities, pollutant levels, and parasites in Arctic char, an important food source for the Inuit. In order to do this, it was necessary to take into account Inuit knowledge of contamination and perceived effects on human and ichtyofauna health. Two fish sampling sites were chosen in Ungava Bay, Nunavik, (northern Québec, Canada) and field sampling took place in August 1994 during the upstream migration of Arctic char. While large amounts of parasites were observed, there were no evident signs of fish health alteration such as deformities or very low condition factors despite the common observation by Inuit that deformities were more abundant than in the past. Although the hypothesis that a possible increase in parasitism in fish due to anthropogenic pollutants could be neither proved nor completely disproved (in particular because of a lack of unhealthy fish), the research process has still proved to be useful; namely, to reassure stakeholders about the quality of the fish stocks studied, to enhance dialogues between researchers and the communities involved in the project, to provide an opportunity for regional stakeholders to guide locally relevant research, and to provide researchers with some understanding of the differences between risks perceived by the general population and dangers identified by the experts.

Weaving Indigenous and Western ways of knowing in ecotoxicology and wildlife health: a review of Canadian studies

“…This number also represents 5% of the total case studies included in the final systematic maps (n = 325) upon which the present work was built upon (i.e., Alexander et al 2019b;Alexander et al 2021;Henri et al 2021, Henri et al unpublished data). Articles were published across 22 years, from 1998 (Pellerin and Grondin 1998) to 2020 (Brunet et al 2020), and there was an exponential increase in studies published after the year 2015. The frequency of studies from 1998-2014 (i.e., 16 years) was six studies (<1/year) compared to 11 studies from 2015 to 2021 (i.e., 6 years) (∼2/year) with five studies published in 2018 alone (Gérin-Lajoie et al 2018;Henri et al 2018;Nesbitt et al 2018;Ostertag et al 2018;Tomaselli et al 2018) (Fig.…”

“…Map of Canada indicating study locations (red symbols). Numbers correspond to studies listed in the legend (Abu et al 2019;Brook et al 2009;Brunet et al 2020;Dube et al 2013;Gérin-Lajoie et al 2018;Henri et al 2018;Hopkins et al 2019;Iverson et al 2016;Knopp 2017;Mantyka-Pringle et al 2017;Nesbitt et al 2018;Ostertag et al 2018;Pellerin & Grondin 1998;Sable et al 2007;Tam 2009;Tomaselli et al 2018;Tsuji et al 2007). Circled locations highlight locations in which more than one study was conducted.…”

“…The focus of many studies was on traditional subsistence species like caribou, muskoxen, common eider, and many aquatic species (Knopp 2017;Henri et al 2018;Tomaselli et al 2018). Many Indigenous communities in Canada, specifically in the Arctic, rely on traditional food sources and thus can be at a greater risk of exposure to contaminants and parasites found within wildlife (e.g., Pellerin and Grondin 1998). Despite the ability of Indigenous Peoples to identify indicators of health and contamination in wildlife and water through sensorial information (e.g., taste, odour, visual evidence of disease, colour, and turbidity), coupling this knowledge with Western scientific tools like laboratory analysis can provide a more holistic understanding of these issues (Ostertag et al 2018;Houde et al 2022).…”

“…Substantial evidence supports the power of bringing together Indigenous and Western ways of knowing. Weaving multiple ways of knowing can provide many mutual benefits to research including improving problem solving (Hopkins et al 2019;Brunet et al 2020), helping to answer questions neither knowledge system could answer on its own (Johnson et al 2016), encouraging co-capacity and authentic relationship building (Sable et al 2007;Brook et al 2009;Mantyka-Pringle et al 2017), enhancing co-management of wildlife (Mantyka-Pringle et al 2017;Ostertag et al 2018), promoting intergenerational knowledge transfer (Gérin-Lajoie et al 2018;Henri et al 2022), and building trust and respect between research partners (Pellerin and Grondin 1998;Adams et al 2014;Tomaselli et al 2018). Specifically relating to wildlife health and conservation, Kutz and Tomaselli (2019) argue weaving Indigenous and Western ways of knowing achieves "betterinformed and more timely and effective decision-making".…”

<i>Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit</i>: Social History, Politics and the Practice of Resistance

“…These questions raise a matter that dominates the literature dealing with IQ, TEK, and IK. What is the best way to integrate indigenous knowledge (particularly cultural and spiritual dimensions) and Western science (Colorado, 1988;Johnson and Ruttan, 1992;Nakashima, 1993;Agrawal, 1995;Bielawski, 1996;Zamparo, 1996;Duerden and Kuhn, 1998;Pellerin and Grondin, 1998;Huntington, 2000;Watson et al, 2003;Collignon, 2004;Whiteman, 2004)? Can this be done?…”