WORKING GROUP REPORTS Monday, June 19th, 2000

Theme: Qualitative Methods and the American Eel Fishery Group A Monday, June 19, 2000 John Prosper, Mi'kmaq' Fish & Wildlife Commission: Problem of commercial fishery for eels a few years ago, UIC recipients, others, non-licensed fishers; little response from DFO despite recognition of world wide diminution. Glass eel fishery; can't understand how that can be carried on; haven't even felt the effects of that yet. Pleaded with DFO not to release licenses, but province-wide there are 7 or 8 licenses, including one that is assigned to one of the native bands in Cape Breton. American eel assessment; materials distributed shows that First Nations fisheries are not accounted for in any respect. Only recently that recreational fishery for eels accounted for at all. Difficult to do historical reconstruction. Reproductive biology also poorly known; questions about reproduction in Sargasso Sea, diff. between European and American eels. Ecpath model for Eastern Scotia shelf, _______?, asked whether survey evidence of large eel: occasional reporting but infrequent and no numbers. no evidence of mass migration. Jim Williams: a lot of information published--progression of newly hatched larvae from Sargasso Sea, moving north and branching out. Interest in Sargasso Sea comes from interest from aquaculture. Great amounts of interest on the ecology of American Eel; stock assessment docs not good indicator of knowledge. Question should be where do we go from here, rather than old questions about Sargasso Sea. Document traditional EK; would that be useful in relation to negotiations with DFO? Tom McGuire, ASMFC, April 2000 report; ref. to SS, not referenced so apparently "the truth". unquestioned. JW: but if you want ahead and do something constructive.... Jeff Johnson: spiny lobster fishery in Florida; heavily studied in terms of life history but nothing about where they came from. Analogous. ...the question was, there was a problem, and what do we do about the problem. Fishermen working together with state and federal governments to come up with a solution to the management problem (which was congestion), without scientific data. Prosper: is our problem local or part of worldwide problem? What is causing it? Is there something we or others can do ? In parts of Cape Breton, the Mi'kmaq around Bras d'Or Lakes, may have over fished in parts of the lake. Used to come and fish with us a lot---where Junior Marshall was fishing when he got into trouble--around here. Why important? My elders..., food, eel is very tasty; they were always plentiful, a bank they could rely on when times got tough (eels fished winter and summer). Makes them feel insecure.... Johnson: local fishers' theories? Answer: local fishermen see it as do to overfishing in the local area; the increased demand, overseas market and market in the states---trucking directly across the border--everyone was fishing and everyone was selling. Williams: recreational fishery, sold, but lower quality because sold when dead. Prosper: spearing on the ice, some problem because dying when speared but shipping them across the border. Williams: Acadian eel fisherman in New Brunswick has similar impression, all the blame goes on the people fishing recreationally with flambeau, at night. Prosper: Here, coming down from PEI, with torches, fishing at night. Johnson: perception that unlicensed recreational and poaching activities are to blame for decline. What knowledge about the behavior of eels? Prosper: we've always heard stories about how eels at certain times and places would ball up and people seemed to equal that to breeding procedures or something. ... Yeah, I know of one place where people report that happening. Would be important social science research, to document this. Williams: a lot of tagging of elvers moving up into the lakes;... Glass eel fishery--extremely conc. when elvers come back to the mouths of the rivers. Managing,. when irreuicible ignorance. Alternatives to use of scientific arguments to stop/control fisheries? Prosper: we have a legal way of approaching the problem, working with Acadian fishermen; want to take some science with us to challenge DFO's practice of continuing to hand out commercial licenses at this point. Do Acadians fish eels upriver too? Williams: most in the estuaries; some comm. fishermen fish the lakes as well. Prosper: some MM fish in the rivers up to the lakes. JW: recreational fish by-catch; DFO allows traps and pots in some lakes but not others. It's a big money product. Tracy: useful to have testimony of large numbers of elders about past practices. Focus groups helpful/biased? Jeff Johnson: paper on focus groups; status differentials, dominance patterns; need to be careful how designed. McGuire: need for exploratory work on population structure. Holm: better to invest in eco-knowledge project or more biological research? McCay: value of talking with the elders, collecting data on their memories of past catches, timing, etc. and beginnings of commercial/recreational fisheries. Williams: resources for local research have been extremely small, versus Sargasso Sea problem. Problem, if catches go down, even less demand for more research; how to justify work of research scientist and technicians for a small fishery. Johnson: deep ocean biology is very hard. Miniaturization, tiny radio tags to monitor movements. McCay: mapping movement of glass eel fishery, showing it is unsustainable, this one of the last places. Mi'kmaq knowledge, should be documented. Tracey: Adlam: Mi'kmaq, Miramichi River, AFS agreements, 1992, Atlantic salmon; go back 50 years, very good knowledge of behavior and char. of salmon in river areas they know; as result of the agreements, able to integrate scientific knowledge, acquired from training, courses. But fairly specific to particular river areas. specificity of local knowledge, for migratory species....a major issue. McCay: Honey-bee network model; knowledge shared farmer to farmer, fisher to fisher, rather than fisher-researcher.... Prosper: fairly recent, Pictou meeting; traditional area, Afton, Pictou Landing, PEI, starting to talk about traditional area. Adlam: critical perspectives on scientific knowledge Get native and non-native fishers to share and discuss localized knowledge. Important to identify patterns running through this. Johnson: analogous; comparisons of Western and folk knowledge and combined to deal with specific illness episodes. McGuire: treat balling as hypothesis; is it true? if so, what is it about? Adlam: aboriginal people have long seen salmon and eel as social beings. Prosper: food fishery priority after conservation, for the native people. Given what is happening to other stocks, someone has to take responsibility; ..they told us don't take any action, it's not a problem. Davis: Research approach, networking Acadien and Mi'kmaq; linking estuary-based, riverine, lacustrine fisheries and sources of knowledge. Davis: Information system, enabling local management. McCay: Local management, enabling information system. Adlam: technology, location of capture; Aboriginal/ non-aboriginal. Multi-species... Ecosystem: what happens depends on what others are doing. Multi-fishers, multi-gear types, multi-species..... Unbounded problem (McGuire), need to focus; Local institutions, assuming management roles. Adaptive management Local management boards; should DFO take on the role? partly doing already through aboriginal fishing strategy. A logical extension of what is already in the works. Prosper: AFS; 'so-called guardians'--ineffective through the years; they haven't done much. There is no strategy, you ever seen a copy of one? (Adlam: agreements on Miramichi) Agreements are agreements, but there is no strategy. There's bands here, too..... but DFO has spent millions of dollars on it, and it's ineffective. Over $5.5 million and nothing, zero to show for it. We would not agree with DFO handling this issue at all. I can speak for the district of PEI, Pictou and Antigonish. Money may come from some capacity-building initiative that comes out of the Marshall decision. Seen DFO initiative, out of Eskasoni...no, we don't want too much to do with it. Strategy: they keep referring to it, but there is nothing on paper. So it's up to the individual in DFO , how they feel. Davis: Eel, the panda of the oceans--can't get it to breed in captivity. Social research, done in partnership, ...through the communities. Document the distribution of knowledge about eels, scientific and user / First nations communities. Adlam: need local autonomy, some kind of management mechanism. Miramichi agreement, working quite well. Some aboriginal communities have not entered into them as well. Davis: little input from First Nations people in the Miramichi salmon stock assessment process 4 years ago or so. Strategy is mainly to maintain control and make sure the way they're managed is based on past practices. Proposal: devolve management authority to local groups, possibly Mi'kmaq-based (but with potential links/membership from Acadians, others), to grant right to determine use. Prosper: conservation being the first priority, food fishery the second priority; if not enough eel to fulfill the food requirement, how can you allow commercial fishery. That comes from Sparrow, not Marshall. So can be argued as closed, or managed. Elver/ glass eel issue. Another issue discussed with DFO; no logic to having those licenses out there. Adaptive management idea: right to allocate rights of access, use, in exchange for responsibility for monitoring and researching, and communicating results. A way to redress the imbalance of research to date, provide incentive for a more precautionary approach and for increasing knowledge. Possibly creating a regional for management of fisheries with very very little knowledge. Document dependence on resource; in relation to claims for compensation in the future? Historical attachment, DFO; long-term cultural dependence, important to document very quickly (Barbara Neis). If there are inequities, begin to look at ways to adjust them. Prosper: a jurisdiction gap...and DFO seems to take the liberty of filling that gap; in my mind the Mi'kmaq can fill those gaps too. Neis: PEI, licensing; staking a claim. Prosper: Mi'kmaq not taking licenses, on purpose.   Group B Monday June 19, 2000 Different questions for different groups....(A Guideline relative to method) Methods (pragmatic...) for Eels . What are the questions There is science problem/mystery... Designing research to be helpful to science Species or fishery as starting point Eel or , more broadly, estuaries fisheries Very important to Mi'kmaq.... "Traditional management", history, Access, changes in distribution, language of conservation What has been relationship between Mi'kmaq and non-native government and non-native fishers? What's going on with Eel reproduction? "How can we keep the eels alive?" Contributing to conservation and management is the issue? What's history of eel.... (p. 3)? Eel Specific questions: History of eels (a' la biography of Cod?) Abundance Management Location Technologies Use Beliefs Rights Mi'kmaq Non-native (comm., rec., poachers) Science Managers (Caution: Not fixed not homogenous) Ecological/environmental processes and history: by catch what do they eat habits habitats (Are there other species to explore? The "canary") Actual Methods Oral history: Biographies... Map biographies... Career histories... Historical documents: fishery history, history of participation Participatory methods: Community based research Network analysis: Transmittal of ecological and environmental knowledge processes Guidelines: Multidiscipline (e.g., biologists) Dual objectives to acknowledge To fishery community Broader objective to understand fishery generally Stomach contents: Sampling profiles Etc. Systematic tests for differences in perception (e.g., Q Method). Post qualitative exploration of differences and similarities between groups of people that resulted from histories.