Knowledge and foresight: the predictive capacity of traditional knowledge applied to environmental assessment

Roué, Marie; Nakashima, Douglas

doi:10.1111/1468-2451.00386

Cited by 28 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Scholars acknowledged that implicit assumptions throughout the EA process, and in other processes and sciences in which IK is invoked, can unintentionally position IK as the supplementary "handmaiden" of science (Stevenson 1996). Similarly, EA processes value IK only after its problematic "scientization" (Ellis 2005, p. 72) into a form palatable to western managers, scientists, and policy-makers (Roue and Nakashima 2002;Ellis 2005;O'Faircheallaigh 2007;Sandlos and Keeling 2016). Despite growing recognition that Indigenous and local knowledge have functioned as independent approaches in environmental management for millennia (Turner et al 2000;Trosper 2003;Houde 2007;Berkes 2012;Housty et al 2014) and increasing scrutiny of the dominance of western scientific knowledge (Latour 1998(Latour , 1999Menzies and Butler 2007) this perception of knowledge hierarchy limits the efficacy of the application of IK to federal policy processes.…”

Section: Epistemological Obstaclesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indigenous knowledge and federal environmental assessments in Canada: applying past lessons to the 2019 impact assessment act

Eckert

Claxton

Owens

et al. 2020

FACETS

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Policy-makers ideally pursue well-informed, socially just means to make environmental decisions. Indigenous peoples have used Indigenous knowledge (IK) to inform decisions about environmental management for millennia. In the last 50 years, many western societies have used environmental assessment (EA) processes to deliberate on industrial proposals, informed by scientific information. Recently EA processes have attempted to incorporate IK in some countries and regions, but practitioners and scholars have criticized the ability of EA to meaningfully engage IK. Here we consider these tensions in Canada, a country with economic focus on resource extraction and unresolved government-to-government relationships with Indigenous Nations. In 2019, the Canadian government passed the Impact Assessment Act, reinvigorating dialogue on the relationship between IK and EA. Addressing this opportunity, we examined obstacles between IK and EA via a systematic literature review, and qualitative analyses of publications and the Act itself. Our results and synthesis identify obstacles preventing the Act from meaningfully engaging IK, some of which are surmountable (e.g., failures to engage best practices, financial limitations), whereas others are substantial (e.g., knowledge incompatibilities, effects of colonization). Finally, we offer recommendations for practitioners and scholars towards ameliorating relationships between IK and EA towards improved decision-making and recognition of Indigenous rights.

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Section: Epistemological Obstaclesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indigenous knowledge and federal environmental assessments in Canada: applying past lessons to the 2019 impact assessment act

Eckert

Claxton

Owens

et al. 2020

FACETS

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“…Humans are part of a community of beings, related to all fish and wildlife, and sharing the same Creator (Berkes 1999). Destruction of the natural world is, thus, a threat to human well being (Roué and Nakashima 2002). Traditional cultural beliefs http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art4/ of the Cree include the notion that animals control the hunt; it is the fish that decide to make themselves available to be caught (Berkes 1999).…”

Section: Summary Of Cree Community Values and Practices Relating To Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Traditional and Evolutionary Knowledge in Biodiversity Conservation: a Population Level Case Study

Fraser¹,

Coon²,

Prince³

et al. 2006

E&S

109

108

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ABSTRACT. Despite their dual importance in the assessment of endangered/threatened species, there have been few attempts to integrate traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and evolutionary biology knowledge (EBK) at the population level. We contrasted long-term aboriginal TEK with previously obtained EBK in the context of seasonal migratory habits and population biology of a salmonid fish, brook charr, (Salvelinus fontinalis) inhabiting a large, remote postglacial lake. Compilation of TEK spanning four decades involved analytical workshops, semidirective interviews, and collaborative fieldwork with local aboriginal informants and fishing guides. We found that TEK complemented EBK of brook charr by providing concordant and additional information about (1) population viability; (2) breeding areas and migration patterns of divergent populations; and (3) the behavioral ecology of populations within feeding areas; all of which may ultimately affect the maintenance of population diversity. Aboriginal concerns related to human pressures on this species, not revealed by EBK, also help to focus future conservation initiatives for divergent populations and to encourage restoration of traditional fishing practices. However, relative to EBK, the relevance of TEK to salmonid biodiversity conservation was evident mainly at a smaller spatial scale, for example, that of individual rivers occupied by populations or certain lake sectors. Nevertheless, EBK was only collected over a 4-yr period, so TEK provided an essential long-term temporal window to evaluate population differences and persistence. We concluded that, despite different conceptual underpinnings, spatially and temporally varying TEK and EBK both contribute to the knowledge base required to achieve sustainability and effective biodiversity conservation planning for a given species. Such integration may be particularly relevant in many isolated regions, where intraspecific diversity can go unrecognized due to sparse scientific knowledge or undocumented TEK, and where governmental agencies and local communities increasingly seek to find common ground on which to address biodiversity issues.

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“…Environmental knowledge, cultural values, history, politics, and the broad concerns and aspirations of their people may often inform the speech of an elder or other land user participating in an environmental hearing or technical session. Such speakers rarely limit themselves to a specific topic, but rather provide holistic analyses and broad statements (Snowshoe, 1977;Roue and Nakashima, 2002). An account by elder Morris Lockhart in a public hearing concerning an expansion of the Ekati Diamond Mine (MVLWB, 2002) covered many subjects, including his personal history, aboriginal identity and values, the colonial experience, and previous industrial developments and their impacts upon his people and the land.…”

Section: The Role Of Metaphormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Traditional knowledge experts derive their legitimacy and knowledge from their membership in a lineage intimately tied to a culture and a territory. In effect, these experts (e.g., elders) act as individual manifestations of a culture's collective knowledge and wisdom (Goulet, 1998;Roue and Nakashima, 2002). This is not to say that these experts know everything about their people's traditional knowledge.…”

Section: The Scientization Of Traditional Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Meaningful Consideration? A Review of Traditional Knowledge in Environmental Decision Making

Ellis¹

2010

ARCTIC

121

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ABSTRACT. In Canada's Northwest Territories, governments, industrial corporations, and other organizations have tried many strategies to promote the meaningful consideration of traditional knowledge in environmental decision making, acknowledging that such consideration can foster more socially egalitarian and environmentally sustainable relationships between human societies and Nature. These initiatives have taken the form of both "top-down" strategies (preparing environmental governance authorities to receive traditional knowledge) and "bottom-up" strategies (fostering the capacity of aboriginal people to bring traditional knowledge to bear in environmental decision making). Unfortunately, most of these strategies have had only marginally beneficial effects, primarily because they failed to overcome certain significant barriers. These include communication barriers, arising from the different languages and styles of expression used by traditional knowledge holders; conceptual barriers, stemming from the organizations' difficulties in comprehending the values, practices, and context underlying traditional knowledge; and political barriers, resulting from an unwillingness to acknowledge traditional-knowledge messages that may conflict with the agendas of government or industry. Still other barriers emanate from the co-opting of traditional knowledge by non-aboriginal researchers and their institutions. These barriers help maintain a power imbalance between the practitioners of science and European-style environmental governance and the aboriginal people and their traditional knowledge. This imbalance fosters the rejection of traditional knowledge or its transformation and assimilation into Euro-Canadian ways of knowing and doing.Key words: traditional knowledge, environment, aboriginal, governance, power, Northwest Territories, policy, management RÉSUMÉ. Dans les Territoires du Nord-Ouest du Canada, les gouvernements, les sociétés industrielles et autres organisations ont essayé de nombreuses stratégies pour promouvoir une prise en considération sérieuse du savoir traditionnel dans le processus décisionnel visant l'environnement, reconnaissant qu'une telle prise en considération peut favoriser des relations plus égalitaires sur le plan social et plus durables sur le plan écologique entre les sociétés humaines et la Nature. Ces initiatives ont pris la forme de stratégies «descendantes» (préparant les autorités de gouvernance environnementale à accepter le savoir traditionnel) et de stratégies «ascendantes» (favorisant la capacité des Autochtones à peser sur la prise de décisions visant l'environnement). Malheureusement, la plupart de ces stratégies n'ont eu que des effets bénéfiques marginaux, en raison surtout de leur échec à surmonter certains obstacles cruciaux, dont les entraves à la communication, nées de la diversité des langues et styles d'expression propres aux détenteurs de savoir traditionnel; les obstacles d'ordre conceptuel, issus des difficultés qu'ont les organisations à saisir les valeurs, les prat...

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Knowledge and foresight: the predictive capacity of traditional knowledge applied to environmental assessment

Cited by 28 publications

References 5 publications

Indigenous knowledge and federal environmental assessments in Canada: applying past lessons to the 2019 impact assessment act

Indigenous knowledge and federal environmental assessments in Canada: applying past lessons to the 2019 impact assessment act

Integrating Traditional and Evolutionary Knowledge in Biodiversity Conservation: a Population Level Case Study

Meaningful Consideration? A Review of Traditional Knowledge in Environmental Decision Making

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