Indigenous Knowledge and remotely sensed data inform landscape suitability models for a biocultural indicator: culturally modified trees in Kitasoo/Xai’xais Territory
Led by the Kitasoo/Xai’xais (KX) Stewardship Authority in what is now referred to as coastal British Columbia, we used diverse data sources to develop a suitability heatmap (model) for a key indicator of cultural heritage and Indigenous stewardship, culturally modified trees (CMTs).
CMTs are trees that bear evidence of past use (commonly for bark and wood resources) by Indigenous Peoples, thereby providing tangible evidence of historic landscape occupation, use, and stewardship.
Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.
Our team comprised of scholars and Indigenous Stewardship Authority staff developed and evaluated eight spatial variables to predict areas of CMT suitability. Six were biological and physical variables that drew upon satellite imagery and airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data. KX staff led the conceptual development of two variables that drew upon historic and contemporary relationships with CMTs and KX lands and waters.
We used the location data of recorded CMTs from KX field surveys conducted in 2018 in addition to archived archaeological reports containing ~30 years of survey data from the British Columbia Archaeology Branch to evaluate the influence of each variable in predicting CMT suitability.
We found cultural predictor variables including cost distance from shore and distance to known habitation sites to be among the most influential in predicting CMT suitability. We applied the final model to estimate the overlap between areas of CMT suitability and forestry potential.
We found that locations with high CMT suitability occur across 51% greater area inside the region zoned for commercial timber harvest than outside.
This work shows how a locally led approach can improve both the development and application of suitability modelling in environmental management and monitoring.
Read the paper — Combining high-resolution remotely sensed data with local and Indigenous Knowledge to model the landscape suitability of culturally modified trees: biocultural stewardship in Kitasoo/Xai’xais Territory by Bryant C. DeRoy, Vernon Brown, Christina N. Service, Martin Leclerc, Christopher Bone, Iain McKechnie, and Chris T. Darimont
