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- Caroline
Butler
- Department of
Anthropology
- University of
British Columbia
- Vancouver,
British Columbia
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Eco-Knowledge Working
Seminar - Issues Position Paper
Regulation and the Fragmentation
of TK
A cursory survey of the literature
on 'traditional knowledge' reveals an emphasis on
continuity, and cumulative acquisition over long periods of
time. Inglis specifies a knowledge base developed over many
hundreds of years (1993: vi). Berkes describes a cultural
transmission of information down through generations (1993:
3), as does Johnson (1992: 4). Legat does not specify a
temporal framework, but relates TK to a "traditional way of
life" (1991: 1). A great deal of the Canadian work on TK has
developed in northern communities, focusing on the
ecological knowledge of Aboriginal peoples. TK is thus
generally associated with communities with long histories of
resource use, specifically indigenous or "non-industrial"
(Berkes 1993:3) societies, assuming continuity, isolation,
and autonomy in resource use. Perhaps it is the primacy of
northern examples and case studies which encourages this
somewhat uncomplicated understanding of 'traditional
knowledge'. My experiences researching the fisheries of the
Fraser River in the lower mainland of British Columbia
suggest that the TK that might be incorporated into
fisheries management regimes in this region is much more
diverse, dispersed, and fragmented than most of the
literature on TK reflects.
My research efforts have focused on
the relationship between state regulations and Aboriginal
fishing activities. During the last century, non-Native
intrusion on the Fraser River, especially in the form of
state regulations and management initiatives, have resulted
in serious disruptions of the Aboriginal fisheries for
salmon and eulachon. Participation and harvest success in
the fisheries has been drastically reduced due to the
imposition of restrictions favoring the expansion of the
industrial fishery at the coast. The last hundred years have
thus effected major changes to the Aboriginal experience of
fishing and thus to the traditional knowledge of the
resource. The result is that traditional or local knowledge
of the fisheries of the Fraser river is not solely an
Aboriginal resource, but rather is dispersed among diverse
and competing user groups who are granted varied degrees of
access to, and thus knowledge of, the river resources by
government fisheries regulations.
Example 1: The Salmon
Fisheries of the Sto:lo First Nation
My M.A. research (1997-98) was
conducted in collaboration with several fishing families of
the Sto:lo First Nation, whose territories stretch along the
Fraser river from Mission to Yale. Our discussions of
fishing revealed that the changes engendered by government
control of Sto:lo fisheries, and non-Native encroachment in
general, has significantly impacted fishing participation
and success, and has shifted the way that fishing activities
are understood in Sto:lo communities.
The last hundred years of
non-Native intrusion into Sto:lo territory is a story of
environmental degradation and increasing alienation of
Aboriginal resources. The influx of settlers into the Fraser
canyon (140 km inland) during the 1858 gold rush initiated
the movement of Sto:lo villages to new communities down
river. While some families retain their canyon fishing
sites, many have lost access to their traditional camps.
During the first decades of this century the construction of
the CP and CN railway lines resulted in landslides that
destroyed many fishing sites and shifted the flow of the
river. The huge slide at Hell's Gate in 1914 resulted in
such a significant quickening of the current that most
salmon were unable to reach their spawning areas and the run
is still recovering from the blow. During the latter part of
the century, pollution, industrial over-fishing, and habitat
loss have resulted in significant changes to the salmon
stocks.
The strongest force inhibiting
fishing participation identified by Sto:lo fishers is the
aggrandizement of government control of the river. The
coastal interception fishery favored by government
regulation has put pressure on the salmons runs resulting in
conservation concerns which impact heavily on the Aboriginal
river fisheries. Increasingly restrictive closures have
inhibited harvest success and have resulted in steadily
shrinking Native participation during the last 5 decades as
Aboriginal fishers found themselves unable to make a living
on the river. Then, the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy (AFS)
which was established post-Sparrow in 1992 to create a
structure for the sale of fresh salmon from the food fishery
allocations of several First Nations including the Sto:lo,
resulted in a dramatic increase in participation. Many
families who had done little fishing during the preceding
decades got back on the river.
Environmental disruption and
degradation in the Fraser canyon has resulted in the loss of
traditional fishing sites and significant transformation to
both the river and the salmon stocks. The growth of a major
coastal interception fishery throughout the century and the
more recent proliferation of sports fishing interests have
created overwhelming competition for the salmon resources.
Fishing regulations have dramatically diminished Aboriginal
access to the river, and have resulted in major shifts in
participation during the last few decades. Sto:lo fishing
activity declined as a result of restrictive regulations and
then was seriously increased as a result of a shift in
government policy. The last hundred years have been a time
of incredible disruption and change on the Fraser River.
Even the last decade alone has seen significant upheaval in
the Sto:lo fisheries through regulation shifts. The
uncertainties of run size and the instability of the AFS
agreements result in major differences in fisheries practice
season to season.
The fishers of the Sto:lo First
Nation hold a great deal of 'traditional' knowledge about
the river, the salmon, harvesting and preservation
techniques, and customary practices of conservation,
allocation, and distribution. My arguments are in no way
intended to discount or downplay the wealth and integrity of
this body of knowledge. However, the incredible disruptions
experienced in the Sto:lo salmon fisheries during the last
hundred years complicate a discussion of traditional
knowledge and Fraser River fisheries management. There are
many different types of information about Sto:lo fisheries
today. There is knowledge about where fishing sites used to
be before the landslides, and data about where the
salmon-rich eddies are now found. There are understandings
of customary fishing sites tenure, and new genealogies of
disputes arising from AFS-induced competition between Sto:lo
fishers over particular sites and treaty-induced battles
between First Nations over territorial boundaries. During
the last few decades of struggles over the Aboriginal right
to sell fish, knowledge of "black market" distribution
routes for salmon sale and how to evade DFO enforcement
officers has become as integral to making a living on the
river as the 'traditional' knowledge of salmon habits. New
fishers, motivated by the AFS pilot sales program, have
forced food fishers off the river. Indeed, the structure of
the AFS has placed food and Aboriginal commercial fisheries
in competition. Elders complain that there are too many
people who don't know what they are doing on the river.
Preservation techniques such as wind drying have been
transformed in response to shorter fishing periods and
denial of access to certain salmon runs.
One Sto:lo Elder has witnessed his
fishing rights be transformed from unlimited access, to
restriction through weekly closures, to limitation to 48
hour openings. He complains that he cannot gauge the run
from the river's edge, but needs to have his net in the
water to know what the salmon are doing. Fisheries
regulations have significantly limited Sto:lo access to the
river and in doing so, have fragmented Sto:lo fishing
knowledge and pluralized the TK of the river in general.
When seeking to integrate Sto:lo knowledge into fisheries
management, one must talk to Elders who can map the family
fishing sites, and younger fishers who know where one can
fish without getting one's nets cut. One must investigate
the old methods of drying fish on racks in the canyon, and
find out about the new necessity of finishing the process
off with an electric fan in the basement because the
openings are too short. One can find out the old patterns of
salmon migration from the Elders, but valuable knowledge of
stocks could also be gleaned from the non-Native commercial
skippers at the mouth of the river. Fisheries regulations
have created different categories of fishers, and each one
has a different understanding of the river and its
resources. Fisheries management must incorporate the
knowledge of Aboriginal food fishers and Aboriginal
commercial fishers - those of each different Nation along
the river, and of the anglers and the 'industrial' fishers
at the coast to achieve an understanding of a fishery that
has been increasingly inhibited and segregated.
Example 2: The Eulachon
Fisheries of the Fraser River
The eulachon (or oolichan) is a
small anadromous fish that spawns in 15 rivers in British
Columbia. During the last hundred years, the run has been
nearly destroyed by mismanagement and regulatory
neglect.
The Fraser River eulachon fishery
developed into a 'modern' industrial fishery during the last
decades of the nineteenth century, disengaging the harvest
from Aboriginal patterns of production and exchange. By 1900
eulachons ranked 5th among BC fisheries. The
market slumped considerably during the 1920s with the
development of more valuable fisheries, but exploded in the
1940s with a new demand for inexpensive feed for fur farms.
In the 1950s a large 'sports' fishery developed, with Fraser
Valley residents dipnetting huge landings for personal
consumption alongside the commercial gillnetters. Aboriginal
harvests were less than 1/10 the size of the sports fishery
at this time. During the 1950s the eulachon spawning became
inconsistent above Mission and the fish have not reached
Sto:lo territory in 20 years. In 1994 the run collapsed,
precipitating the first conservation initiative on the
stock. The incipience of license limitation provoked an
unprecedented number of fishers to participate in the 1996
season, resulting in a harvest more than 3 times the
precautionary quota. The commercial eulachon fishery total
quota is now set at 20 tonnes; Aboriginal food fisheries for
the Fraser River Nations harvest a few tonnes. The shrimp
trawl fishery off the west coast of Vancouver Island takes
an eulachon bycatch of up to 150 tonnes.
Serious biological study and
monitoring of the eulachon has only been initiated since the
collapse of the stock in 1994. Past run sizes cannot be
accurately estimated as fishers were never required to
report their catches. Commercial fishers suggest that the
last few decades the fishery has been limited by market
demand not run size, so they were unable to gauge the
capacity of the stock. Aboriginal harvests reflected just a
fraction of the total eulachon landings on the Fraser and
several Aboriginal eulachon fisheries have been lost as the
fish have ceased to reach the higher limits of their
spawning areas during the last few decades. The eulachon run
has experienced significant disturbance during the last
century. In addition to unstable commercial harvests
throughout the century and the more recent devastating
bycatch mortality, the eulachon have suffered major spawning
habitat loss through industrial activity and water
pollution. The regulatory neglect of the eulachon fishery
throughout the twentieth century has resulted in a situation
where the lack of accurate biological and statistical data
on the run begs the integration of traditional knowledge in
the management of the fishery. However, decades of
mismanagement of the fishery has engendered an instability
that limits the ability of both Aboriginal and non-Native
commercial fishers to maintain or develop a comprehension of
the fishery that can deal with such externalities as a trawl
bycatch almost 10 times their combined total harvest. The
effective exclusion of Aboriginal fishers from the
commercial fishery and the restriction of eulachon food
fishing has dislocated the fishery from the traditional
systems of control, harvest, and conservation of the First
Nations of the Fraser river. During the last 30 years
several commercial fishers have developed a general
understanding of the run and have closely monitored their
own catches. However, the new license limitation has
excluded some of the more experienced fishers from the
fishery.
Evaluating Change
Limits to TK such as those
suggested by my research experiences have been discussed in
the literature on TK and folk management. Johnson suggests
that there has been an unfortunate erosion of TK in
Aboriginal communities, but emphasizing that this reflects
an evolution of knowledge, rather than a loss (1992: 4).
Chief Robert Wavey asserts that TK is often incorrectly
assumed to allow for instant knowledge of altered
circumstances and suggests that the need to integrate TK and
other information increases with the degree of disruption
(1992: 13, 16). Legat acknowledges that rapid social change
threatens TK (1991: 9) and Sadler and Boothroyd note the
inability of traditional self-management systems to cope
with some external forces (1993: 12). McGoodwin's
description of viable indigenous management systems focuses
on the need for social and economic stability (1994: 51).
Traditional knowledge and the fisheries management systems
associated with such knowledge are reliant on the continuity
of use of a resource and stability in the circumstances of
exploitation. Ruddle describes 'local knowledge' as
"empirically based and practically oriented" (1994: 162);
thus, serious disruption of access to and control of a
resource necessarily impinges upon this practical knowledge
base. It is not my contention that TK in disrupted
environments, and in highly regulated and competitive
harvesting situations is not a viable source of information
relevant to conservation and management. Rather, I think
researching local understandings in such circumstances is
crucial, however, such research is necessarily more
complicated and involved than perhaps some of the TK
literature would suggest. TK in such circumstances is plural
and fragmented, it must be gathered from many different
groups and individuals, and must be evaluated in light of
each individual's experience of resource access and use.
Lawrence F. Felt successfully
fleshes out these issues in his discussion of the social
construction of knowledge among Atlantic salmon fishers.
Felt argues that the successful utilization of indigenous
knowledge lies in "understanding the processes and context
within which local knowledge is produced" (1994: 253). He
suggests that articulations about resources must be
deconstructed to illuminate how such conclusions are
constructed by external factors such as experience of
imposed management restrictions, competition for the
resource, and degree of political participation (ibid.).
Quotas eliminate a fisher's ability to detect stock
depletion (1994: 270) and union members feel pressure to
echo union position (1994: 276); such factors have
significant influence on a fisher's description of the
health of a salmon run. Felt concludes that the more
regulated, commercial and competitive a fishery is, the more
important an understanding of the contexts and social
construction of user knowledge becomes.
The salmon and eulachon fisheries
described above have undergone massive disruptions during
the last 100 years, the most significant being concentrated
in the last 30 years and resulting from regulatory and
management shifts. Both fisheries have diverse user groups
in competition for an increasingly limited resource with a
commercial value, and access to the resource is almost
completely controlled by government fishing regulations. The
integration of TK in the management of these fisheries thus
requires a comprehensive investigation of the practical
knowledge of all resource users and an examination of the
processes of knowledge construction influencing their
articulations. Working from Felt's suggestions, the
successful utilization of TK in the management of the BC
fisheries would require the development of a method of both
documenting and evaluating user knowledge. Salmon fishery
regulations have created discrete and competing categories
of resource users. Comprehensive knowledge of the resource
does not rest with any one group as a result of government
restrictions on access and harvest success. Aboriginal food
fishers, Aboriginal commercial fishers, sports fishers and
non-Native commercial fishers represent different knowledge
bases that should be integrated. The articulations of these
resource users must be considered in light of their
experiences of resource access, both in terms of individual
involvement and longer collective traditions of
participation. While Aboriginal fishers offer a
comprehension of the fishery accumulated from 'time
immemorial', the domination of the salmon harvests by the
coastal interception fishery during this century lends
significance to the 'newer' knowledge of commercial fishers.
Equally significant are the variations of knowledge within
these groups. The eulachon fishery requires a similar survey
of both former or marginalized users, and the prioritized
commercial fishers who have received a license since the
inception of the limited-entry fishery.
The new focus on the incorporation
of traditional knowledge into fisheries management systems
reflects an awareness of the need to integrate scientific
and "non-scientific" knowledge systems. However, it is
crucial that TK not be constructed as a monolithic foil to
scientific data. TK of a resource may be fragmented,
partial, vestigial, dispersed, and influenced by political
and social forces (see Felt). It may reside with diverse and
competing resource users and may require evaluation in light
of the limitations to access resulting from the history of
fisheries regulations. Regulation, perhaps more than any
other factor in recent years, has constructed the
circumstances of fishing and therefore regulatory
experiences must be considered when utilizing traditional
knowledge. Furthermore, the rapid rate of change in
contemporary fisheries means that 'traditional' knowledge
might need to incorporate relatively new insights and recent
experiences in order to provide a more comprehensive
understanding of a resource.
REFERENCES
Berkes, Fikret (1993) "TEK in
Perspective" in TEK: Concepts and Cases ed. Julian
Inglish. Ottawa: International Program on TEK, International
Development Research Center.
Felt, Lawrence F. (1994) "Two Tales
of a Fish: The Social Construction of Indigenous Knowledge
Among Atlantic Canadian Salmon Fishers" in Folk
Management in the World's Fisheries eds.Christopher L.
Dyer and James R. McGoodwin. Niwot: University Press of
Colorado. 251-285.
Inglis, Julian ed. (1993) TEK:
Concepts and Cases. Ottawa: International Program on
TEK, International Development Research Center.
Johnson, Martha (1992) Lore:
Capturing Traditional Environment Knowledge.
Yellowknife: Dene Cultural Institute, International
Development Research Center.
Legat, Alice ed. (1991) Report
of the Traditional Knowledge Working Group. Yellowknife:
GNWT.
McGoodwin, James R. (1994)
"Nowadays, Nobody Has Any Respect: The Demise of Folk
:Management in a Rural Mexican Fishery" in Folk
Management in the World's Fisheries eds.Christopher L.
Dyer and James R. McGoodwin. Niwot: University Press of
Colorado. 43-54.
Ruddle, Kenneth (1994) "Local
Knowledge in the Folk Management of Fisheries and Coastal
Marine Environments" in Folk Management in the World's
Fisheries eds.Christopher L. Dyer and James R.
McGoodwin. Niwot: University Press of Colorado.
161-206.
Sadler, Barry and Peter Boothroyd
(1993) Traditional Environmental Knowledge and
Environmental Assessment. CEARC.
Wavey, Chief Robert (1993)
"Indigenous Knowledge and Community-Based Resource
Management" in TEK: Concepts and Cases ed. Julian
Inglis. Ottawa: International Program on TEK, International
Development Research Center.
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