Can indigenous community-based monitoring act as a tool for sustainable self-determination? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Extractive resource industries and indigenous community-based monitoring: Cooperation or cooptation?
The Extractive Industries and Society, 2020
This special issue is an interdisciplinary collection of papers that explores the many dimensions of Indigenous community-based monitoring (ICBM). The focus is on areas/sites in Canada, and to a lesser extent internationally, where Indigenous peoples have assumed a role in the monitoring of industrial activities. This collection provides the reader with an understanding of the current status and effectiveness of ICBM in advancing the territorial rights and interests of Indigenous peoples. Themes explored include ICBM contributions to Indigenous self-determination, jurisdictional and the politics of exclusion, issues regarding gender and racial identity, the roles of science and Indigenous knowledge within these efforts as well methods to sustain and implement strategies derived from ICBM programs such as impact and benefit agreements.
Ecology & Society, 2022
This original research article provides a case study that describes how Métis indigenous knowledge was incorporated into the design of a community-based monitoring (CBM) program in the South Athabasca Oil Sands Area of Alberta, Canada. Athabasca Landing Métis Community (ALMC) members have traditional knowledge of local wildlife and climatic conditions in a region that has seen intense oil and gas-related industrial activity over the last 50 years. Informed by a multiple evidence-based approach to CBM, ALMC's program design combined traditional hunting, fishing, trapping, and plant gathering activities with photomapping methods. By taking geo-referenced photos of their environmental observations, which they shared with other project participants during regular monitoring meetings, Métis knowledge holders connected changes in local conditions such as resource scarcity or species abundance to broader ecological processes including climate change. Further, the monitoring program had an innovative cultural camp component that brought elders, heads of family, and youth together to deliberately interact and pass on Indigenous and local knowledge. The information drawn from photomapping, cultural camps, and traditional knowledge shared during meetings was gathered into a database. The database serves as a repository of traditional knowledge and land use data that will support ALMC's ongoing efforts to identify territory to promote self-governance and assert rights to lands and resources. We discuss how the ALMC's adoption of a multiple evidence-based approach to monitoring asserts control over data collection methods, storage, and dissemination, supports local capacity for self-determination, and amplifies the voices of Métis harvesters in the resource management sector.
This article provides a critical overview of consultation, impact assessment, and traditional land use research as these methods of extracting knowledge intersect in the oil sands region of northern Alberta. Based on our experience as anthropologists working in policy analysis, consultation, impact assessment, and community-engaged ethnographic research with impacted communities, we examine public participation and risk assessment procedures, including those conducted through documents and those conducted through personal or group interviews − primarily with Crees. Alberta's oil sands industry has expanded exponentially in recent decades; however, consultation, impact assessment, and accommodation of Cree, Dene, and Métis interests in the region have not kept up with best practices established during the same timeframe. We point to a number of examples where consultation and impact assessment processes have supported an overall political economic push to develop the oil sands as quickly as possible. We argue for improved participatory processes to inform more open political and scientific debate.
A review of Indigenous knowledge and participation in environmental monitoring
Ecology and Society
There is a growing interest by governments and academics in including Indigenous knowledge alongside scientific knowledge in environmental management, including monitoring. Given this growing interest, a critical review of how Indigenous peoples have been engaged in monitoring is needed. We reviewed and analyzed the academic literature to answer the following questions: How have Indigenous peoples participated in environmental monitoring, and how has their participation influenced monitoring objectives, indicators, methods, and monitoring outcomes? We also summarized how this literature discussed power, governance, and the use of both Indigenous and scientific knowledge in environmental monitoring efforts. We found that the literature most often characterized participation as data collection, and that higher degrees of participation and power held by Indigenous peoples in environmental monitoring leads to initiatives that have different objectives, indicators, and outcomes than those with heavier involvement of external groups. Our review also showed that a key challenge of conducting effective monitoring that leverages both Indigenous knowledge systems and science is the power imbalances that uncouple Indigenous monitoring efforts from management. We encourage future initiatives to carefully consider the ways in which power and governance shape their programs and the ability of their monitoring to lead to meaningful management actions.
Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 2017
Aboriginal communities can be negatively affected by resource development, but often they do not have a full opportunity to participate in project review and the resulting monitoring and mitigation activities. Cumulative impacts of resource development are also typically neglected in monitoring protocols that focus on a limited number of environmental values, rather than adopting a long-term, holistic view of development over time and space. Community-based environmental monitoring (CBEM) is emerging as a way to meaningfully include local Aboriginal citizens in the decision-making process as well as the assessment of the long-term impacts of the development of natural resources. We explored opportunities and barriers for developing CBEM programs that meet the needs of small and rural Aboriginal communities that are faced with the rapid and widespread development of natural resources. We conducted interviews with a local Aboriginal community, and natural resource management practitioners who could provide perspectives on the application of CBEM to resource management in north-central British Columbia, Canada. Results demonstrate that CBEM offers a locally adapted and culturally appropriate approach to facilitate the participation of Aboriginal communities in natural resource decision making and management. The interpretation of the specific role and purpose of CBEM differed among participants, depending on their objectives for and concerns about natural resource development. However, all parties were consistent in viewing CBEM as an effective method for engaging in dialogue, cooperation, and tracking environmental change. The development or improvement of CBEM programs should consider the efficacy of monitoring protocols, social cohesion and relationships, ability to inform decision-making, and effectiveness of CBEM for the members of the community.
Indigenous guardians as an emerging approach to indigenous environmental governance
Conservation Biology, 2020
Over the past three decades, Indigenous Guardian programs (also known as Indigenous Rangers and Watchmen) have emerged as an institution for Indigenous governments to engage in collaborative environmental governance. Using a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature for research conducted in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa/ New Zealand, and the United States, we sought i) to characterize the emergence of Indigenous Guardians in the literature; and ii) to explore whether those Guardian approaches are representative of Indigenous approaches to environmental governance. Using a multi-step relevance screening methodology, we reviewed 83 articles published since 1995, that report on, critique, and/ or comment on Indigenous Guardians. Our findings indicate that most articles were published in the last decade, focus on Australia, and are considered to be in a social science discipline. Further, while the majority of articles were led by a university, only half of those included an Indigenous scholar, community, or group on the author team. Finally, only a limited number of surveyed Guardian programs were locally led and exemplified Indigenous governance, according to two well-known community-based monitoring typologies. These findings indicate that more research is required to understand the implications of current Guardian programs for Indigenous self-determination, particularly when embedded within a broader Western environmental governance structure. Few functional solutions to these complex issues are currently proposed in the literature yet are increasingly fundamental to achieving conservation and climate targets, as well as reconciliation.
2018
This thesis examines the incorporation of Indigenous Local Knowledge (ILK) in the environmental governance regime in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories, Canada. In the Mackenzie Valley, the incorporation of ILK in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and the regulatory processes is one of the distinctive features of environmental governance in the region. However, the depth of the use of ILK in the decision-making processes of the co-management boards established as a result of the Comprehensive Land Claims Agreements, is unknown. The broad objective of this study was to identify the role of the co-management boards in incorporating ILK in the natural resource management framework. This study included 14 semi-structured interviews with representatives from the comanagement boards and the Tlicho government. I also reviewed the literature and documents evidencing the incorporation of ILK in actual project assessments and in mining Effects Monitoring programs. I conclude that the co-management boards provide extensive procedural opportunities for Aboriginals to volunteer ILK. These Boards have also instituted policies and guidelines outlining requirements for developers to consider ILK in various stages of the lifecycle of projects. These factors combined with Aboriginal representation on the Boards, and the facilitative role of Aboriginal governments, have led to an increased incorporation of ILK within and outside of the environmental assessment process. However, a critical examination of the programs incorporating ILK in the post EA phase shows a tendency among developers to choose aspects of ILK that are easily blended with Western scientific data points, lending credence to claims by some researchers that in many cases, ILK is used to fill gaps in scientific information, rather than used in its cultural or spiritual context, as an alternative way of knowing. In spite of these shortcomings, EA comanagement system in Canada's North is unique in considering Indigenous peoples' knowledge systems in the environmental assessment and regulatory phases.