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Journal Article 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."Journal Article Adapting to Climate Change: Social-Ecological Resilience in a Canadian Western Arctic Community(2002) Berkes, Fikret; Jolly, Dyanna"Human adaptation remains an insufficiently studied part of the subject of climate change. This paper examines the questions of adaptation and change in terms of social-ecological resilience using lessons from a place-specific case study. The Inuvialuit people of the small community of Sachs Harbour in Canada's western Arctic have been tracking climate change throughout the 1990s. We analyze the adaptive capacity of this community to deal with climate change. Short-term responses to changes in land-based activities, which are identified as coping mechanisms, are one component of this adaptive capacity. The second component is related to cultural and ecological adaptations of the Inuvialuit for life in a highly variable and uncertain environment; these represent long-term adaptive strategies. These two types of strategies are, in fact, on a continuum in space and time. This study suggests new ways in which theory and practice can be combined by showing how societies may adapt to climate change at multiple scales. Switching species and adjusting the 'where, when, and how' of hunting are examples of shorter-term responses. On the other hand, adaptations such as flexibility in seasonal hunting patterns, traditional knowledge that allows the community to diversity hunting activities, networks for sharing food and other resources, and intercommunity trade are longer-term, culturally ingrained mechanisms. Individuals, households, and the community as a whole also provide feedback on their responses to change. Newly developing co-management institutions create additional linkages for feedback across different levels, enhancing the capacity for learning and self-organization of the local inhabitants and making it possible for them to transmit community concerns to regional, national, and international levels."Journal Article 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."