A practical guide to including traditional knowledge in wildlife co-management

In our community-based monitoring program of muskoxen, local hunters contribute both biological samples from hunted animals and their observations of wildlife health and ecology. We present a framework for how both kinds of knowledge can be used to inform status assessments. Photo | Fabien Mavrot

Article 29: Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands or territories and resources. States shall establish and implement assistance programmes for indigenous peoples for such conservation and protection, without discrimination.

- The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)

Effective co-management of natural resources relies on sharing both power and responsibility among Indigenous People, local resource users, and governments.

Despite growing efforts to implement co-management in the Arctic and beyond, current management paradigms are still largely based in conventional western science, making it difficult to place equal weight on other knowledge types.

For example, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) largely bases its wildlife status assessments on quantitative criteria such as the percent decline in population size. Traditional knowledge is most often incorporated into such assessments via consultation and engagement processes, the outcomes of which can be context-dependent, variable, and opaque.

In this paper, we present a transparent and replicable approach to including local and traditional knowledge in wildlife status assessments that can be used to inform wildlife co-management.

Read this open access paper on the Arctic Science website.

We break down the boundary between scientific and traditional knowledge by drawing on multiple knowledge types to identify and inform key indicators of wildlife health.

The outcome of our status assessment framework is a traffic-light assessment of wildlife health that is easily understood and used in co-management processes.

We propose a framework for wildlife status assessments where local and traditional (ecological) knowledge (LEK/TEK) and scientific knowledge can both identify indicators of health and inform specific metrics of those indicators. The outcome is a traffic-light assessment of wildlife health that can be used to inform co-management decisions. Here, we illustrate how the framework can be applied to data from a community-based monitoring program of muskox health.

We illustrate the application of this assessment framework drawing on data from a long-term community-driven monitoring program of muskox and caribou health in the Canadian Arctic. Indicators, such as body condition of animals, can be assessed by multiple metrics that are informed by different knowledge types (e.g., measured back-fat thickness and hunter’s qualitative assessment of body condition).

Knowledge to inform such metrics has been documented via conventional science, hunter-based sampling, and interviews. By drawing on different knowledge types to both identify and inform indicators of population health, there is the opportunity for local and traditional knowledge to drive the design and application of status assessments.

The meaningful inclusion of local and traditional knowledge in wildlife status assessments is a step towards Indigenous Peoples achieving self-determination and greater autonomy in wildlife management, and is more equitable and ethical than hierarchical science-management systems.

A hunter from Kugluktuk, NU heads out on the tundra in search of caribou. In our community-based monitoring programs in Cambrudge Bay, Kugluktuk, and Ulukhaktok, hunters have provided both biological samples from hunted animals and observations of animal health and ecology that can be incorporated into status assessments via our proposed framework. Photo | Xavier Fernandez Aguilar

Drawing on multiple knowledge types also facilitates monitoring and assessment in remote communities, broadens our understanding of wildlife ecology, and can improve the detection of emerging trends in wildlife health — all of which are increasingly important in the Arctic as rapid environmental changes are affecting both wildlife and community health.

Read the paper — Linking co-monitoring to co-management: bringing together local, traditional, and scientific knowledge in a wildlife status assessment framework by Stephanie J. Peacock, Fabien Mavrot, Matilde Tomaselli, Andrea Hanke, Heather Fenton, Rosemin Nathoo, Oscar Alejandro Aleuy, Juliette Di Francesco, Xavier Fernandez Aguilar, Naima Jutha, Pratap Kafle, Jesper Mosbacher, Annie Goose, Ekaluktutiak Hunters and Trappers Organization, Kugluktuk Angoniatit Association, Olokhaktomiut Hunters and Trappers Committee, and Susan J. Kutz.