Towards sustainable fisheries: Assessing co-management effectiveness for the Columbia River Basin

Co-management theory argues that incorporating local knowledge into fisheries science decision-making can lead to more sustainable fisheries through improved fishery dynamics, reduced harvest pressure, and increased regulatory compliance. The Maine lobster fishery, Japanese fishing cooperatives, and Alaska’s Community Development Quota Program are all considered successful models of fisheries co-management. Co-management arrangements between Pacific Northwest treaty tribes and state managers were first established in the 1970s, following court decisions upholding the tribes’ treaty rights to fish. However, the long-term effectiveness of Pacific Northwest salmon fisheries co-management is not fully understood. Here I present an historical analysis of co-management effects for the Columbia River salmon fishery, from both an ecological and social perspective. 

My research objectives are to (1) evaluate the perceived impact of tribal participation in salmon fishery management decisions (2) assess social, economic, and ecological impacts of fisheries co-management, and (3) understand barriers to co-management efforts in terms of institutional and political frameworks. Building on Evelyn Pinkerton’s research, I use archival materials, scientific literature, and interviews with key actors to define key developments in Columbia River salmon fishery co-management, including legal decisions and the establishment of tribal fish commissions. I then conduct a preliminary analysis of co-management effectiveness over time. 

Initial results suggest that tribal participation in fisheries management has led to ecologically and socially sustainable fisheries management practices in the Columbia River basin, although political disagreements have held back progress. For example, tribal fisheries co-management has led to improved ecological management practices, including new requirements for counting fish harvest levels and monitoring of habitat quality. Co-management has created economic opportunities, such as niche markets for native-caught fish and added-value processing, which can generate larger profits from smaller fish harvests. Increasing tribal fisheries capacity through co-management has also forwarded community efforts to ensure cultural survival by maintaining traditional fishing practices. Institutional and political barriers to co-management that include sovereignty issues, regulatory conflicts, and funding needs present challenges to resolving habitat management problems for the region

Shifting the Framework of Canadian Water Governance through Indigenous Research Methods: Acknowledging the Past with an Eye on the Future

First Nations communities in Canada are disproportionately affected by poor water quality. As one example, many communities have been living under boil water advisories for decades, but government interventions to date have had limited impact. This paper examines the importance of using Indigenous research methodologies to address current water issues affecting First Nations. The work is part of larger project applying decolonizing methodologies to Indigenous water governance. Because Indigenous epistemologies are a central component of Indigenous research methods, our analysis begins with presenting a theoretical framework for understanding Indigenous water relations. We then consider three cases of innovative Indigenous research initiatives that demonstrate how water research and policy initiatives can adopt a more Indigenous-centered approach in practice. Cases include (1) an Indigenous Community-Based Health Research Lab that follows a two-eyed seeing philosophy (Saskatchewan); (2) water policy research that uses collective knowledge sharing frameworks to facilitate respectful, non-extractive conversations among Elders and traditional knowledge holders (Ontario); and (3) a long-term community-based research initiative on decolonizing water that is practicing reciprocal learning methodologies (British Columbia, Alberta). By establishing new water governance frameworks informed by Indigenous research methods, the authors hope to promote innovative, adaptable solutions, rooted in Indigenous epistemologies

Including Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Environmental Assessments: Restructuring the Process

Indigenous peoples around the world are concerned about the long-term impacts of industrial activities and natural resource extraction projects on their traditional territories. Environmental impact studies, environmental risk assessments (EAs), and risk management protocols are offered as tools that can address some of these concerns. However, these tools are not universally required in jurisdictions, and this Forum intervention considers whether these technical tools might be reshaped to integrate Indigenous communities’ interests, with specific attention to traditional knowledge. Challenges include unrealistic timelines to evaluate proposed projects, community capacity, inadequate understanding of Indigenous communities, and ineffective communicatio, all of which contribute to pervasive distrust in EAs by many Indigenous communities. Despite efforts to address these problems, substantive inequities persist in the way that EAs are conducted as infringement continues on constitutionally protected Indigenous rights. This article highlights challenges within the EA process and presents pathways for improving collaboration and outcomes with Indigenous communities

Investigating best practice : doctoral fieldwork experiences with and without Indigenous communities in settler-colonial societies

Through the sharing of personal commentaries about our doctoral fieldwork experiences, this paper contributes to decolonial literatures about academic knowledge generation in settler-colonial societies. The commentaries each illustrate shifting understandings of our roles in perpetuating the colonial knowledge-violence and material power of the academy, and our personal ethics to do something useful in response. Such experiences are often unreported or under reported for diverse reasons. Seeking to address injustice, and to move away from extractive research relationships, we highlight four matters: consent and risk; the resource gap in research collaborations; the consequences of not collaborating with Indigenous people; and, the importance of examining knowledge frames. As constrained and compromised as it is, we argue the doctoral experience is an important opportunity for decolonising the academy. Whilst we appreciate that this paper does not address the material circumstances that perpetuate colonial privilege, we go beyond descriptive reflection to offer prescriptions for change

Investigating Best Practice: Doctoral Fieldwork Experiences With and Without Indigenous Communities in Settler-colonial Societies

Through the sharing of personal commentaries about our doctoral fieldwork experiences, this paper contributes to decolonial literatures about academic knowledge generation in settler-colonial societies. The commentaries each illustrate shifting understandings of our roles in perpetuating the colonial knowledge-violence and material power of the academy, and our personal ethics to do something useful in response. Such experiences are often unreported or under reported for diverse reasons. Seeking to address injustice, and to move away from extractive research relationships, we highlight four matters: consent and risk; the resource gap in research collaborations; the consequences of not collaborating with Indigenous people; and, the importance of examining knowledge frames. As constrained and compromised as it is, we argue the doctoral experience is an important opportunity for decolonising the academy. Whilst we appreciate that this paper does not address the material circumstances that perpetuate colonial privilege, we go beyond descriptive reflection to offer prescriptions for change

Giving Back Through Time: A Collaborative Timeline Approach to Researching Karuk Indigenous Land Management History

This research note is part of the thematic section, Giving Back Through Collaboration in Practice, in the special issue titled “Giving Back in Field Research,” published as Volume 10, Issue 2 in the Journal of Research Practice

Negotiating knowledges, shifting access: Natural resource governance with Indigenous communities and state agencies in the Pacific Northwest

Despite an increasing interest among land managers in collaborative management and learning from place-based Indigenous knowledge systems, natural resource management negotiations between Indigenous communities and government agencies are still characterized by distrust, conflict, and a history of excluding Indigenous peoples from decision-making. In addition, many scholars are skeptical of Indigenous communities attempting to achieve self-determination through bureaucratic and scientific systems, which can be seen as potential mechanisms for co-opting Indigenous community values (e.g. Nadasdy 2003). This dissertation considers how Indigenous communities and state agencies are meeting contemporary natural resource governance challenges within the Pacific Northwest. Taking a community-engaged scholarship approach, the work addresses two exemplar case studies of Indigenous resource management negotiations involving forest management with the Karuk Tribe in California (U.S.) and the Xáxli'p Indigenous community in British Columbia (Canada). These cases explore the ways and degree to which Indigenous peoples are advancing their self-determination interests, as well as environmental and cultural restoration goals, through resource management negotiations with state agencies--despite the ongoing barriers of uneven power relations and territorial disputes. Through the 1990s and 2000s, both the Xáxli'p and Karuk communities engaged with specific government policies to shift status quo natural resource management practices affecting them. Their respective strategies included leveraging community-driven management plans to pursue eco-cultural restoration on their traditional territories, which both overlap with federal forestlands. In the Xáxli'p case, community members successfully negotiated the creation of the Xáxli'p Community Forest, which has provided the Xáxli'p community with the exclusive right to forest management within the majority of its traditional territory. This de jure change in forest tenure facilitated a significant transfer of land management authority to the community, and long-term forest restoration outcomes. In the Karuk case, tribal land managers leveraged the Ti Bar Demonstration Project, a de facto co-management initiative between the Forest Service and the Karuk Tribe, to conduct several Karuk eco-cultural restoration projects within federal forestlands. Because the Ti Bar Demonstration Project was ultimately abandoned, the main project outcome was building the legitimacy of Karuk land management institutions and creating a wide range of alliances that support Karuk land management approaches. Through my case studies, I examined how Indigenous resource management negotiations affect knowledge sharing, distribution of decision-making authority, and longstanding political struggles over land and resource access. I first asked, how is Indigenous knowledge shaping natural resource management policy and practice? My analysis shows that both communities are strategically linking disparate sets of ideas, including Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Western scientific knowledge, in order to shape specific natural resource governance outcomes. My second question was, how does access to land and resources shift through Indigenous resource management agreements? This work demonstrates that both communities are shifting access to land and resources by identifying "pivot points": existing government policies that provide a starting point for Indigenous communities to negotiate self-determination through both resisting and engaging with government standards. And third, I considered how do co-management approaches affect Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination? The different case outcomes indicate that the ability to uphold Indigenous resource management agreements is contingent upon establishing long-term institutional commitments by government agencies, and the broader political context.This work emphasizes the importance of viewing the world from the standpoint of individuals who are typically excluded from decision-making (Harding 1995, 1998). Pursuing natural resource management with Indigenous peoples is one way for state agencies to gain innovative perspectives that often extend beyond standard resource management approaches, and consider longstanding relationships between people and the environment in a place-based context. Yet the assumption that tribal managers would export Indigenous knowledge to agency "professionals" or other external groups, supposedly acting on behalf of Indigenous peoples, reflects a problematic lack of awareness about Indigenous perspectives on sovereignty and self-determination--central goals for Indigenous communities that choose to engage in natural resource management negotiations. Several implications emerge from these findings. First, Indigenous community representatives need to be involved in every step of natural resource management processes affecting Indigenous territories and federal forestlands, especially given the complex, multi-jurisdictional arrangements that govern these areas. Second, there is a strong need to generate funding that enables Indigenous communities to self-determine their own goals and negotiate over land management issues on a more level playing field. Finally, more funding must be invested in government programs that support Indigenous resource management

Negotiating knowledges, shifting access: Natural resource governance with Indigenous communities and state agencies in the Pacific Northwest

Despite an increasing interest among land managers in collaborative management and learning from place-based Indigenous knowledge systems, natural resource management negotiations between Indigenous communities and government agencies are still characterized by distrust, conflict, and a history of excluding Indigenous peoples from decision-making. In addition, many scholars are skeptical of Indigenous communities attempting to achieve self-determination through bureaucratic and scientific systems, which can be seen as potential mechanisms for co-opting Indigenous community values (e.g. Nadasdy 2003). This dissertation considers how Indigenous communities and state agencies are meeting contemporary natural resource governance challenges within the Pacific Northwest. Taking a community-engaged scholarship approach, the work addresses two exemplar case studies of Indigenous resource management negotiations involving forest management with the Karuk Tribe in California (U.S.) and the Xáxli'p Indigenous community in British Columbia (Canada). These cases explore the ways and degree to which Indigenous peoples are advancing their self-determination interests, as well as environmental and cultural restoration goals, through resource management negotiations with state agencies—despite the ongoing barriers of uneven power relations and territorial disputes. Through the 1990s and 2000s, both the Xáxli'p and Karuk communities engaged with specific government policies to shift status quo natural resource management practices affecting them. Their respective strategies included leveraging community-driven management plans to pursue eco-cultural restoration on their traditional territories, which both overlap with federal forestlands. In the Xáxli'p case, community members successfully negotiated the creation of the Xáxli'p Community Forest, which has provided the Xáxli'p community with the exclusive right to forest management within the majority of its traditional territory. This de jure change in forest tenure facilitated a significant transfer of land management authority to the community, and long-term forest restoration outcomes. In the Karuk case, tribal land managers leveraged the Ti Bar Demonstration Project, a de facto co-management initiative between the Forest Service and the Karuk Tribe, to conduct several Karuk eco-cultural restoration projects within federal forestlands. Because the Ti Bar Demonstration Project was ultimately abandoned, the main project outcome was building the legitimacy of Karuk land management institutions and creating a wide range of alliances that support Karuk land management approaches. Through my case studies, I examined how Indigenous resource management negotiations affect knowledge sharing, distribution of decision-making authority, and longstanding political struggles over land and resource access. I first asked, how is Indigenous knowledge shaping natural resource management policy and practice? My analysis shows that both communities are strategically linking disparate sets of ideas, including Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Western scientific knowledge, in order to shape specific natural resource governance outcomes. My second question was, how does access to land and resources shift through Indigenous resource management agreements? This work demonstrates that both communities are shifting access to land and resources by identifying "pivot points": existing government policies that provide a starting point for Indigenous communities to negotiate self-determination through both resisting and engaging with government standards. And third, I considered how do co-management approaches affect Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination? The different case outcomes indicate that the ability to uphold Indigenous resource management agreements is contingent upon establishing long-term institutional commitments by government agencies, and the broader political context. This work emphasizes the importance of viewing the world from the standpoint of individuals who are typically excluded from decision-making (Harding 1995, 1998). Pursuing natural resource management with Indigenous peoples is one way for state agencies to gain innovative perspectives that often extend beyond standard resource management approaches, and consider longstanding relationships between people and the environment in a place-based context. Yet the assumption that tribal managers would export Indigenous knowledge to agency "professionals" or other external groups, supposedly acting on behalf of Indigenous peoples, reflects a problematic lack of awareness about Indigenous perspectives on sovereignty and self-determination--central goals for Indigenous communities that choose to engage in natural resource management negotiations. Several implications emerge from these findings. First, Indigenous community representatives need to be involved in every step of natural resource management processes affecting Indigenous territories and federal forestlands, especially given the complex, multi-jurisdictional arrangements that govern these areas. Second, there is a strong need to generate funding that enables Indigenous communities to self-determine their own goals and negotiate over land management issues on a more level playing field. Finally, more funding must be invested in government programs that support Indigenous resource management

Giving Back Through Collaborative Research: Towards a Practice of Dynamic Reciprocity

In this thematic section, contributors critically examine their attempts to put community engaged scholarship into practice as a means of giving back. In this form of research practice, informants become community research partners, who work with academic researchers to co-create research questions, protocols, and outcomes. Following participatory and feminist research principles, the authors in this section describe their work balancing research and action, as part of a broader social change project. The authors also discuss their efforts to generate more even power dynamics in their research collaborations with marginalized communities, and the challenges that arise in doing so. As community engaged scholars, the authors find the research process to be as important as, and interconnected to, their research products. Thus, the collaborative research process becomes an ongoing and dynamic form of giving back in itself