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Operationalizing Ecological KnowledgeKevin St. Martin NRC
Research Associate As an operational definition of ecological knowledge, I focus on the "local" aspect more than the "traditional." While I think "traditional" is a useful adjective, it is the difference in scale and its association with community that I find important for my work. "Local ecological knowledge" is clearly differentiated from the primarily area-extensive and overwhelmingly numerical knowledge produced by fisheries science and utilized in management. Highlighting and incorporating local ecological knowledge has wide ranging implications for both science and management. Clearly this definition does not account for the diversity of local ecological knowledges amongst resource users (e.g. native fishers, non-native commercial fishers, recreational fishers). While acknowledging such diversity is important, it is not the entry point into my work. My focus is on the "local" and its embeddedness in places and how that is distinct from standard fisheries science. Which "local" knowledge and how it is to be gathered and/or utilized will be specific to each study. In the case of the lobster fishery (the example I will use below), I suspect there will be areas/locations where native local knowledge is most relevant and other areas where non-native knowledge will dominate. Introduction
In the attached materials I focus on the lobster fishery. This fishery, like lobstering in many other parts of the world, is well suited for the sort of intervention I have in mind: one where the spatial aspect of local ecological knowledge is important and where community or co-management solutions to fisheries management problems seem appropriate. In the southern gulf area (the area of the lobster fishery described in the documents sent to all seminar participants) the lobster fishery, after several years of unprecedented harvest, is starting to decline. Unfortunately, the standard controls on inputs into the fishery no longer seem adequate to conserve the resource and, therefore, output controls are suggested. However, the status of the resource is difficult to gauge and scientists do not have enough information (relative to other fisheries?) to devise schemes (TACs?) dependent upon accurate measures of abundance or stock structure. The documents that were provided indicate that co-management might be the solution to several issues such as data collection and enforcement of any new regulations. While I am enthusiastic of any attempt at co-management or impulse in that direction, I am concerned that specific systems for ecological data collection from/by fishers, which seem so central to such management regimes, are typically not defined in any detail and less often tested beforehand. In addition, the spatial nature of fishers' ecological knowledge is seldom acknowledged, making its collection via group forums or individual interviews impossible when these encounters are purely verbal and/or textual. For these reasons, I am proposing a map based method for the collection of ecological knowledge relevant to the lobster fishery and I suggest that it be part of a larger institutionalized system where knowledge is jointly produced by fishers and scientists as part of a co-management regime. However, as a researcher (as opposed to a manager), I am interested to not only develop and test a prototype methodology but to assess the possibility for its institutionalization within a co-management regime. In addition, I am interested to explore the degree to which such research might facilitate or constitute a co-management regime. That is, will developing explicit methods for fishers and scientists to work together engender new regimes of management founded upon such collaborations? Can new discourses of community participation in fisheries assessment create communities of fishers and scientists eager and able to co-manage the resource? This second level of research confounds the development of a methodology with the assessment of a methodology to contribute to a co-management regime of resource use. While difficult, I hope that our work at the St. FX seminar will contribute on both levels. The methodology below outlines a cartographic approach to collecting ecological knowledge. It focuses on fishers spatial knowledge and its transformation into "legitimate" digital data for analysis. Many issues concerning who is collecting such knowledge and for what purpose are not discussed in any detail. While the purpose and use of the data collected through this method and its implications for a co-management regime are not explicitly reflected in the method itself, they were considered during its development. A Method for Collecting and Analyzing Spatial Ecological KnowledgeThe bits that follow are only pieces of a method for gathering and assessing fishers ecological knowledge. They include:
Why A Map Biography Approach?The method suggested here is a "map biography" interview that should be part of a larger interview protocol (I will bring an example to the seminar of a detailed interview protocol). The map biography uses maps and mapping methods as the main medium of the interview process. Ecological information is either drawn directly on maps or is prompted by the maps but remains verbal. In either case, the career history of the fisher is the temporal context while the fisher's fishing grounds is the spatial context for the interview. The map biography method is vital to gathering lobster fishers' ecological knowledge because that knowledge, like that of other fishers, is primarily spatial. That is, the information that they need to be successful lobster fishers is dominated by the necessity to collect information concerning specific locations to catch lobster and the attributes of those places. The spatial nature of their knowledge is supported by the their extensive experience as navigators and cartographers of their own environments, and maps are the method with which fishers organize their work. The map (spatial) information they record (of the environment broadly defined) may be held within their memories, in log books, on nautical charts, or even within their own geographic information systems (GIS are computer-based systems for the storage, retrieval, and analysis of digital geographic data). The centrality of map use and map-making (either literal or cognitive) by fishers is evident when nautical charts are used within individual interviews. Experience has shown that the chart in not just a medium for the recording of information that would otherwise be verbal; rather, it becomes a forum for the entire interview.1 Fishers will use the map as a prop for the discussion of an enormous range of topics that the interviewee might not have linked to locations or spatial issues generally. While representing the domain for a fisher's working life, standard nautical charts offer a common language that both the interviewer and interviewee can understand. The follow quote, referring to a project designed to solicit ecological information about beluga whales, illustrates the centrality of maps to the interview process.
Maps and map biographies can be seen as supplements to or subsets of verbal interviews or they can be seen as central to the interview process itself. In addition to their importance relative to gathering ecological/environmental information, the role of maps may extend beyond the interview process. For example, statements about environmental phenomena by fishers are often seen as anecdotal and unscientific; however, once aggregated and contextualized in map form (particularly digital map form), information from fishers has a different and arguably greater rhetorical power. The map, as has been its role historically, serves to objectify and legitimate observational data. This process may prove valuable to fishers traditionally stifled by other forms of scientific information. The wide use of maps and mapping technologies by people struggling to legitimate their claims to land and resources speaks to this point. Finally, using a map biography approach to fishers' ecological knowledge allows fishers' information to not only contribute to biological assessment but to become part of larger systems of resource management. GIS is increasingly used for environmental decision making relevant to managing access to and allocation of resources. While such a system is only part of any co-management regime, it is a conduit for fisher input and participation. Indeed, there are a growing number of examples where GIS for resource management is initiated and maintained by resource users themselves. In this case, mapping technologies are not just the tools used to access information from, for example, lobster fishers, but they are the means for lobster fishers to produce systems of community management of resources. Lewis (1995) lists the advantages of using maps as the medium for both collecting information on shared resources and managing those resources collectively. His example of community GIS in Zambia, although not a case involving marine fisheries, illustrates some of the advantages of using mapping technologies and GIS for community resource management. Lewis notes:
Toward a Map Biography MethodThe map biography method is embedded within a larger interview context where verbal information is solicited before and after the actual mapping exercise. Materials for the entire interview would typically include:
The overall process consists of asking questions and drawing on charts in a comfortable setting with enough room to spread out a chart and draw on it (this restricts the sites of interviews more than just a verbal session). The interviews should be recorded for later transcription and text analysis. If mylar overlays are used, they should be appropriately registered for later digitizing and spatial analysis (see the diagram below). Background Information The first questions to ask during an interview should focus on basic background information from the interviewee. Questions regarding fishing history, their position in the fishery (e.g. boat owner, captain, crew), etc. Here the questions most relevant to the map biography sections are those that establish a timeframe for the participation of the interviewee in the fishery in question (e.g. lobster fishery). However, to help place the individual timeline in context, an industry timeline should be developed before the interview and presented as a standard reference (several copies on stock card). The industry timeline should list events and regulations relevant to the lobster fishery that will help the individual develop a personal career timeline. The personal career timeline should indicate at least three periods: beginning, middle, and current (or end if retired) (c.f. Neis et al. 1999; Ferguson et al. 1998). First Section The first round of the map biography is designed to gather the general spatial pattern of a particular fisher and how that pattern may have changed over time. This will indicate the range of a fisher and the scale of environmental information available. To begin to collect this information, the following questions about their patterns of fishing could be asked. These questions should be asked in the context of an established timeline corresponding to their careers and using the industry timeline provided. Repeat for each of three periods in their careers:
Here they should draw the "typical" areas they fished during the time period in question. They should be as specific as possible about the boundaries and the shapes of each area. As they draw each area, each polygon or line should be labeled for the time period (A, B, C) as well as a unique identifier for each area (1, 2, 3, etc.). In some (many?) cases the same area will be labeled in two different time periods. That's fine (e.g. a polygon might be labeled C2 as well as A3). The drawing of areas on maps is a somewhat more difficult procedure than expected. Different fishers, without instruction, will draw an area in a variety of ways. It is best to demonstrate how an area should be drawn. Otherwise it is difficult to later tell what was meant by a particular mark on the map. For example, polygons indicating areas must be closed (in this case we can assume they mean all areas inside) and lines indicated some linear feature not closed (in this case we'll assume they only mean along the line itself). As a follow up to each "typical" year, they should be prompted to discuss the following:
If the interviewee wants to get very specific about a particular area the interviewer should say that we'll be doing that in the next part of the interview and we can start with this area, etc. Second Section In this second section, the objective is to gather more ecological detail (i.e. an environmental history) about individual areas they have drawn. This section should start with an area that the interviewee seems to know a lot about, maybe one that showed up in several time periods as important. The first detail to obtain is some indication of the exactness of the area in question (in terms of the drawing).
For the history of the area some timeline should be used (either the standard regulation timeline provided or the timeline of their personal history) and supplemented with a sheet to be filled out for each area. The sheet contains columns of standard data for the areas (on catch, spawning, environment, changes, etc.). It is important, for the production of a standardized database, that standard information be collected for each area. One sheet should be used for each area and contains space for three time periods for each area. These are topics that could be discussed using the sheet. (I will bring an example to the seminar). For each area (repeat of up to three time periods):
While this seems like a lot of information, I think in table form it could go pretty quickly. After the first area, the interview could move on to other areas that they know. Other areas similar to the one just identified (in the section above) should be pursued next. Areas where much of the data (characteristics) is the same could speed the interview. In addition if the information itself turns out to be to vague to be useful analytically, it might be a good framework for generating more specific textual data (discussions of how a particular regulation changed what was going on in a specific place, etc.). Assessing Potential for Co-Management? In addition to all this spatial/historical data above, I'd like to also assess the potential for co-management and the construction of a system of ecological knowledge collection, storage, and analysis (GIS?). I'm not sure how to assess such a potential. Perhaps the interview could include questions such as:
I think collecting the spatial/map/historical data is only half the story. The other half is about assessing the potential to collect it regularly, to get fishermen to see a benefit in collecting the data, etc. Flowchart of an Imagined Ecological Knowledge System
1. My dissertation research was closely linked with a project initiated by the Gloucester Fishermens Wives Association and Drs. Madeleine Hall-Arber (MIT) and Christopher Dyer (URI). The main objectives of this research project were to obtain fishers oral histories in both oral and map-biography formats that would detail their fishing practices and locations over the length of their careers. Another primary objective was to assess and obtain fishersÕ traditional environmental knowledge. 24 fishers were interviewed during 20 separate interviews between May and December 1997.
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