The Decoupling of Salmon Social-Ecological Systems
Throughout western North America, Pacific salmon form the foundation of social-ecological systems. Indigenous systems of governance and management of salmon have been shaped by the knowledge gained through millennia of experience harvesting and stewarding local salmon populations. This deep cultural knowledge of salmon and sustainable management practices has been passed down through generations creating some of the most resilient social-ecological systems in the world.
However, over the past 300 years, the salmon social-ecological systems on Canada’s North Pacific Coast have undergone a major transformation. The destructive forces of colonization have eroded Indigenous management institutions and practices, disrupting the balance that had been established in these salmon social-ecological systems over the course of millennia. Colonial policies of assimilation and control have shifted natural resource governance away from local, place-based Indigenous management institutions towards state-led centralized management institutions. This transformation has decoupled local resource users from management decisions and led to the exclusion of Indigenous Peoples from environmental decision-making in Canada.
Using a case study of Skeena River watershed, Canada’s second-largest salmon-bearing watershed, this paper examines problems of fit between contemporary environmental governance institutions (in the form of Canadian Environmental Assessments) and Indigenous salmon social-ecological systems. This research suggests that contemporary environmental governance policies and processes are fundamentally misaligned with several key attributes of salmon social-ecological systems.
Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.
Alleviating these mismatches requires aligning our governance systems with the ecological reality of salmon ecosystems. Indigenous institutions have long considered the natural properties of salmon ecosystems in harvesting and management practices and have developed laws and governance institutions that support the sustainable use of salmon. Empowering Indigenous systems of governance and management institutions is therefore one avenue for addressing mismatches between institutions and salmon social-ecological systems.
In addition to empowering Indigenous governance systems, we need to develop more stringent and effect laws that protect the salmon biocomplexity that underpins the resilience of salmon social-ecological systems. This could include recognizing existing Indigenous laws and approaches to resource management or developing legal rights for salmon to ensure that they have what they need to thrive and persist. Either way, the path forward will require rethinking our relationship with nature and reimagining how salmon are considered in environmental decision-making processes if there is to be any hope for addressing current mismatches in salmon social-ecological systems.
Read the paper — Mismatches in salmon social–ecological systems: Challenges and opportunities for (re)alignment in the Skeena River watershed by Katrina Connors.
