Digital Library of the Commons

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Learning as You Journey: Anishinaabe Perception of Social-Ecological Environments and Adaptive Learning
(2003) Davidson-Hunt, Iain J.; Berkes, Fikret
"This paper explores the linkages between social-ecological resilience and adaptive learning. We refer to adaptive learning as a method to capture the two-way relationship between people and their social-ecological environment. In this paper, we focus on traditional ecological knowledge. Research was undertaken with the Anishinaabe people of Iskatewizaagegan No. 39 Independent First Nation, in northwestern Ontario, Canada. The research was carried out over two field seasons, with verification workshops following each field season. The methodology was based on site visits and transects determined by the elders as appropriate to answer a specific question, find specific plants, or locate plant communities. During site visits and transect walks, research themes such as plant nomenclature, plant use, habitat descriptions, biogeophysical landscape vocabulary, and place names were discussed. Working with elders allowed us to record a rich set of vocabulary to describe the spatial characteristics of the biogeophysical landscape. However, elders also directed our attention to places they knew through personal experiences and journeys and remembered from stories and collective history. We documented elders perceptions of the temporal dynamics of the landscape through discussion of disturbance events and cycles. Again, elders drew our attention to the ways in which time was marked by cultural references to seasons and moons. The social memory of landscape dynamics was documented as a combination of biogeophysical structures and processes, along with the stories by which Iskatewizaagegan people wrote their histories upon the land. Adaptive learning for social-ecological resilience, as suggested by this research, requires maintaining the web of relationships of people and places. Such relationships allow social memory to frame creativity, while allowing knowledge to evolve in the face of change. Social memory does not actually evolve directly out of ecosystem dynamics. Rather, social memory both frames creativity within, and emerges from, a dynamic social-ecological environment."
Combining Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Monitoring Populations for Co-Management
(2004) Moller, Henrik; Berkes, Fikret; O'Brian Lyver, Philip; Kislalioglu, Mina
"Using a combination of traditional ecological knowledge and science to monitor populations can greatly assist co-management for sustainable customary wildlife harvests by indigenous peoples. Case studies from Canada and New Zealand emphasize that, although traditional monitoring methods may often be imprecise and qualitative, they are nevertheless valuable because they are based on observations over long time periods, incorporate large sample sizes, are inexpensive, invite the participation of harvesters as researchers, and sometimes incorporate subtle multivariate cross checks for environmental change. A few simple rules suggested by traditional knowledge may produce good management outcomes consistent with fuzzy logic thinking. Science can sometimes offer better tests of potential causes of population change by research on larger spatial scales, precise quantification, and evaluation of population change where no harvest occurs. However, science is expensive and may not always be trusted or welcomed by customary users of wildlife. Short scientific studies in which traditional monitoring methods are calibrated against population abundance could make it possible to mesh traditional ecological knowledge with scientific inferences of prey population dynamics. This paper analyzes the traditional monitoring techniques of catch per unit effort and body condition. Combining scientific and traditional monitoring methods can not only build partnership and community consensus, but also, and more importantly, allow indigenous wildlife users to critically evaluate scientific predictions on their own terms and test sustainability using their own forms of adaptive management."
Drama of the Commons in Small-Scale Shrimp Aquaculture in Northwestern, Sri Lanka
(2015) Galappaththi, Eranga Kokila; Berkes, Fikret
"Aquaculture, and shrimp aquaculture in particular, can have major social and environmental impacts. However, aquaculture remains an understudied area in commons research. Can aspects of commons theory be applied to solve problems of aquaculture? We examined three coastal community-based shrimp aquaculture operations in northwestern Sri Lanka using a case study approach. These shrimp farms were individually owned by small producers and managed under local-level rules designed by cooperatives (samithis). The common-pool resource of major interest was water for aquaculture ponds, obtained from an interconnected common water body. We evaluated the shrimp farming social-ecological system by using Ostrom’s design principles for collective action. Key elements of the system were: clearly defined boundaries; collaboratively designed crop calendar, bottom-up approach involving community associations, multi-level governance, and farmers-and-government collaborative structures. Together, these elements resolved the excludability and subtractability problems of commons by establishing boundary and membership rules and collective choice rules."
Resource Degradation, Marginalization, and Poverty in Small-Scale Fisheries: Threats to Social-Ecological Resilience in India and Brazil
(2014) Nayak, Prateep K.; Oliveira, Luiz E.; Berkes, Fikret
"In this study we examine poverty in local fisheries using a social-ecological resilience lens. In assessing why 'fishery may rhyme with poverty', Christophe Béné suggests a typology of impoverishment processes, which includes economic exclusion, social marginalization, class exploitation, and political disempowerment as key mechanisms that accelerate poverty. We extend his analysis by exploring these four mechanisms further and by intertwining them with processes of environmental change and degradation. Our goal is to understand poverty in local fisheries as a process rooted in social and institutional factors as influenced by ecological dynamics. We argue that understanding poverty will require a focus on the social-ecological system (SES) as a whole, and addressing poverty will mean rebuilding not only collapsed stocks but the entire social-ecological system, including restoring relationships between resources and people. Information from two cases, the Chilika Lagoon on the Bay of Bengal in India, and the Paraty region on the southeastern coast of Brazil, is used to understand how fishery social-ecological systems come under pressure from drivers at multiple levels, resulting in a range of impacts and pushing the system to a breaking point or collapse. We analyze elements of what it takes for the whole system to break down or collapse and push fishers into poverty and marginalization. The Chilika SES has already broken down, and the Paraty SES is under pressure from multiple drivers of change. The two cases help contrast key dynamics in the social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental spheres, for lessons on system collapse and recovery. Rebuilding fisheries may be examined as a process of building and strengthening resilience. The challenge is to make the fishery social-ecological system more resilient, with more flexibility and options, not only within fishing activities but also within a range of other sectors."
The Scientist as Facilitator or Adaptive Co-Manager?
(2005) Berkes, Fikret
"Doug Wilson's commentary addresses the crucial problem of building the knowledge commons we need to be able to care for the environment. The example he uses is the fishery, he commons with which he is most familiar. But he could easily have used other commons such as wildlife, forests, or rangelands. In building the argument, he discusses different forms of knowledge, and analyzes the reasons why certain kinds of knowledge sway more power, while making the important point that there are, in fact, many different knowledge cultures (and not just the two kinds, Western scientific vs. informal local knowledge)."
The Intersections of Biological Diversity and Cultural Diversity: Towards Integration
(2009) Pretty, Jules; Adams, Bill; Berkes, Fikret; Ferreira de Athayde, Simone; Dudley, Nigel; Hunn, Eugene; Maffi, Luisa; Milton, Kay; Rapport, David; Robbins, Paul; Sterling, Eleanor; Stolton, Sue; Tsing, Anna; Vintinnerk, Erin; Pilgrim, Sarah
"There is an emerging recognition that the diversity of life comprises both biological and cultural diversity. In the past, however, it has been common to make divisions between nature and culture, arising partly out of a desire to control nature. The range of interconnections between biological and cultural diversity are reflected in the growing variety of environmental sub-disciplines that have emerged. In this article, we present ideas from a number of these sub-disciplines. We investigate four bridges linking both types of diversity (beliefs and worldviews, livelihoods and practices, knowledge bases and languages, and norms and institutions), seek to determine the common drivers of loss that exist, and suggest a novel and integrative path forwards. We recommend that future policy responses should target both biological and cultural diversity in a combined approach to conservation. The degree to which biological diversity is linked to cultural diversity is only beginning to be understood. But it is precisely as our knowledge is advancing that these complex systems are under threat. While conserving nature alongside human cultures presents unique challenges, we suggest that any hope for saving biological diversity is predicated on a concomitant effort to appreciate and protect cultural diversity."
Can Small-Scale Commercial and Subsistence Fisheries Co-Exist? Lessons from an Indigenous Community in Northern Manitoba, Canada
(2016) Islam, Durdana; Berkes, Fikret
"Subsistence (or food) fisheries are under-studied, and the interaction between subsistence and commercial fisheries have not been studied systematically. Addressing this gap is the main contribution of the present paper, which focuses on how to deal with the challenge of overlapping commercial and subsistence fisheries. The study was conducted in Norway House Cree Nation, with qualitative data collection and questionnaire surveys. Commercial fishing in Norway House takes place during spring/summer and fall seasons, whereas subsistence fishing takes place throughout the year. Commercial fishing mostly occurs in the open waters of Lake Winnipeg; subsistence fishing in rivers adjacent to the reserve and in smaller lakes inland. How do fishers and the community deal with overlaps and potential conflicts between the two kinds of fisheries? The main mechanism is the separation of the two temporally and spatially. In the remaining overlap areas, conflict resolution relies on monitoring of net ownership and informal communication. The first mechanism is regulatory but really de facto co-management in the way it is implemented. The second is consistent with Cree cultural values of respect, reciprocity and tolerance."
Community-based Enterprises: The Significance of Partnerships and Institutional Linkages
(2010) Seixas, Cristiana Simao; Berkes, Fikret
"Community-based institutions used to be driven by local needs, but in recent decades, some of them have been responding to national and global economic opportunities. These cases are of interest because they make it possible to investigate how local institutions can evolve in response to new challenges. A promising set of cases comes from the UNDP Equator Initiative, a program that holds biennial searches to find and reward entrepreneurship cases that seek to reduce poverty and conserve biodiversity at the same time. What can we learn from these local entrepreneurship cases that seem to be playing at the global level? Here we focus on partnerships and horizontal and vertical linkages in a sample of ten Equator Initiative projects. We find that successful projects tend to interact with a large array of support groups, typically 10–15 partners. Based on information from on-site research, these partners include local and national NGOs; local, regional and (less commonly) national governments; international donor agencies and other organizations; and universities and research centres. These partners provide a range of services and support functions, including raising start-up funds; institution building; business networking and marketing; innovation and knowledge transfer; and technical training. These findings indicate that a diverse variety of partners are needed to help satisfy a diversity of needs, and highlight the importance of networks and support groups in the evolution of commons institutions."
An Investigation of Cree Indian Domestic Fisheries in Northern Quebec
(1979) Berkes, Fikret
"Domestic or subsistence fisheries of the eastern James Bay Cree. were studied, mainly in Fort George, by direct observation. These fisheries were characterized by large numbers of participants, low catches per day and per fisherman, but high catches per length of net used, as compared to commercial fisheries. Most stocks appear lightly utilized, but in the vicinity of larger settlements there is evidence that some stocks are overfished. The total catch may be increased by distributing the fishing effort more evenly over a larger area. Fish resource base of the region appears suitable for supporting local economic development with respect to recreational fisheries and native-run commercial fisheries for the local market, as well as maintaining the domestic fishery."
Commonisation and Decommonisation: Understanding the Processes of Change in the Chilika Lagoon, India
(2011) Nayak, Prateep Kumar; Berkes, Fikret
"This article examines the processes of change in a large lagoon system, and its implications for how commons can be managed as commons in the long run. We use two related concepts in our analysis of change: commonisation and decommonisation; 'commonisation' is understood as a process through which a resource gets converted into a jointly used resource under commons institutions that deal with excludability and subtractability, and 'decommonisation' refers to a process through which a jointly used resource under commons institutions loses these essential characteristics. We analyse various contributing issues and dynamics associated with the processes of commonisation and decommonisation. We consider evidence collected through household and village level surveys, combined with a host of qualitative and quantitative research methods in the Chilika Lagoon, the largest lagoon in India, and one of the largest lagoons in Asia. We suggest that in order to keep the Chilika commons as commons will require, as a starting point, a policy environment in which legal rights and customary livelihoods are respected. With international prawn markets stabilised and the 'pink gold rush' over, the timing may be good for a policy change in order to create a political space for negotiation and to reverse the processes causing decommonisation. Fishers need to be empowered to re-connect to their environment and re-invent traditions of stewardship, without which there will be no resources left to fight over."

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