Plant Management Systems of British Columbia\u27s First Peoples

This article provides an overview of the diverse plant resource management strategies of First Nations of British Columbia. Management practices range from relatively large-scale (geographically) and longterm activities – such as the use of fire to clear prairies and subalpine meadows – to very focused actions, such as the pruning of individual shrubs. We describe plant resource management practices and the diverse methods used to identify them, and focus on three case studies to augment this description. These case studies exemplify the range of plants and ecosystems that were managed as well as the combinations of strategies and outcomes encompassed within these systems. While we focus our review on coastal British Columbia, we recognize that these are practices that occurred throughout northwestern North America. We also recognize that plant management is nested within a larger continuum of management practices that encompassed terrestrial and aquatic animals and their ecosystems (Carpenter, Humchitt, and Eldridge 2000; Lepofsky and Caldwell in press; Thornton et al. 2010). We end this summary with a discussion of how traditional and “new” management approaches introduced by European newcomers were integrated into “moditional management systems,” and we identify some of the more recent trends in the study of Indigenous management systems. Finally, we focus on future prospects for traditional plant management as part of the contemporary movements towards ethnoecological restoration, cultural renewal, and enhanced food security for Indigenous peoples – a point explored more fully in the final section of this special issue

Nonparametric estimation of correlation functions in longitudinal and spatial data, with application to colon carcinogenesis experiments

In longitudinal and spatial studies, observations often demonstrate strong correlations that are stationary in time or distance lags, and the times or locations of these data being sampled may not be homogeneous. We propose a nonparametric estimator of the correlation function in such data, using kernel methods. We develop a pointwise asymptotic normal distribution for the proposed estimator, when the number of subjects is fixed and the number of vectors or functions within each subject goes to infinity. Based on the asymptotic theory, we propose a weighted block bootstrapping method for making inferences about the correlation function, where the weights account for the inhomogeneity of the distribution of the times or locations. The method is applied to a data set from a colon carcinogenesis study, in which colonic crypts were sampled from a piece of colon segment from each of the 12 rats in the experiment and the expression level of p27, an important cell cycle protein, was then measured for each cell within the sampled crypts. A simulation study is also provided to illustrate the numerical performance of the proposed method.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009053607000000082 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

" Dans une hotte ". L'importance de la vannerie dans l'économie des peuples chasseurs-pêcheurs-cueilleurs du Nord-Ouest de l'Amérique du Nord

« Dans une hotte »L'importance de la vannerie dans l'économie des peuples chasseurs-pêcheurs-cueilleursdu Nord-Ouest de l'Amérique du Nord.Pour saisir l'importance de la vannerie dans la culture et l'économie traditionnelles des peuples du Nord-Ouest de l'Amérique du Nord, l'auteure passe par l'histoire, la diversité des paniers et de leurs usages, l'investissement en temps, énergie et savoirs nécessaires à leur production. Principaux contenants pour la récolte, le transport et l'entreposage des aliments, les paniers font partie intégrante des systèmes saisonniers de production alimentaire de la région. Le travail de la vannerie revient traditionnellement aux femmes. Ce travail renvoie à un système complexe de savoirs qui non seulement comprend les techniques et l'art de la fabrication, mais s'étend aux aspects écologiques et culturels de la cueillette et de la transformation des matières premières. Au cours des ans, la production et la fonction des paniers ont changé, mais le travail de vannerie subsiste. Les vannières d'aujourd'hui remarquent toutefois l'impact de l'exploitation industrielle des forêts et des activités humaines sur les végétaux qu'elles utilisent. L'auteure propose des pistes de recherche sur les aspects écologiques et économiques de la vannerie.Mots clés : Turner, écologie, Amérindiens, chasseurs-cueilleurs, pêcheurs, artisanat, vannerie" Info a Basket Carried on the Back " : Importance of Basketry in Gathering/Hunting/ Fishing Economies in Northwestern North AmericaThe role of basketry in traditional cultures and economies of the Northwest region is surveyed and examined, together with the history, diversity and applications of baskets, and the investments of time, energy and knowledge required to produce them. As major containers for food harvesting, transportation and storage, baskets have been an integral part of the seasonal food production Systems in the region. Basketmaking is traditionally women's work. It reflects a complex system of knowledge incorporating not only the techniques of the art, but the ecological and cultural aspects of harvesting and processing the materials. Changes in the production and functions of baskets over time are discussed. Basketmaking continues to the present, but basketmakers have noted impacts of industrial forestry and other recent human activities on the materials they use. Directions for further research in the ecological and économie aspects of basketmaking are suggested.Key words : Turner, ecology, Native Americans, hunters and gatherers, fishing people, handicrafts, basketr

Back to the Clam Gardens

In the following story, Kwakwaka’wakw Clan Chief Adam Dick, known by his traditional name Kwaxsistalla, travels back to the clam gardens off the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, where his grandparents raised food and passed down a huge body of traditional ecological knowledge. The story also documents the first of a series of trips to be undertaken over the next two years to document waxsistalla’s unique and detailed knowledge and experiences of the food harvesting and other resource‐based activities of his Qawadiliqallalan of the Tsawataineuk people of Kingcome Inlet

Comparison of Continuous Records of Near-Bottom Dissolved Oxygen from the Hypoxia Zone along the Louisiana Coast

Oxygen depletion is a seasonally dominant feature of the lower water column on the highly-stratified, riverine-influenced continental shelf of Louisiana. The areal extent of hypoxia (bottom waters ≤2 mg l−1 dissolved oxygen) in mid-summer may encompass up to 9,500 km2, from the Mississippi River delta to the upper Texas coast, with the spatial configuration of the zone varying interannually. We placed two continuously recording oxygen meters (Endeco 1184) within 1 m of the seabed in 20-m water depth at two locations 77 km apart where we previously documented midsummer bottom water hypoxia. The oxygen meters recorded considerably different oxygen conditions for a 4-mo deployment from mid-June through mid-October. At the station off Terrebonne Bay (C6A), bottom waters were severely depleted in dissolved oxygen and often anoxic for most of the record from mid-June through mid-August, and there were no strong diurnal or diel patterns. At the station 77 km to the east and closer to the Mississippi River delta (WD32E), hypoxia occurred for only 50% of the record, and there was a strong diurnal pattern in the oxygen time-series data. There was no statistically significant coherence between the oxygen time-series at the two stations. Coherence of the oxygen records with wind records was weak. The dominant coherence identified was between the diurnal peaks in the WD32E oxygen record and the bottom pressure record from a gauge located at the mouth of Terrebonne Bay, suggesting that the dissolved oxygen signal at WD32E was due principally to advection by tidal currents. Although the oxygen time-series were considerably different, they were consistent with the physical and biological processes that affect hypoxia on the Louisiana shelf. Differences in the time-series were most intimately tied to the topographic cross-shelf gradients in the two locations, that is, station C6A off Terrebonne Bay was in the middle of a broad, gradually sloping shelf and station WD32E in the Mississippi River Delta Bight was in an area with a steeper cross-shelf depth gradient and likely situated near the edge of a hypoxic water mass that was tidally advected across the study site

Where our Women Used to Get the Food" : Cumulative Effects and Loss of Ethnobotanical Knowledge and Practice; Case Study from Coastal British Columbia

Abstract: Knowledge and practices of indigenous peoples relating to local plants used for food, medicine, materials, and other purposes are threatened in many parts of the world. The reasons for declining knowledge and use of traditional resources are complex and multifaceted. We review a series of case examples of culturally valued food plants in British Columbia and identify a suite of interacting social and environmental factors that have resulted in decreased use of and dwindling cultural knowledge about these plants over the past 150 years. Reasons for this loss include compounding influences of changing knowledge systems owing to religious conversion and residential schools, loss of indigenous languages, loss of time and opportunity for traditional practices owing to participation in the wage economy, increasing urbanization of indigenous populations, loss of access to traditional resources, restriction of management practices for sustaining these resources, and most recently, forces of globalization and industrialization. Efforts to renew and restore traditional practices and relationships with plants and environments must recognize the cumulative effects of these factors and find ways to retain and reinforce the knowledge and practices still held by individuals and communities, to reverse some of the negative influences on cultural retention, and to develop new, relevant, and effective ways to revitalize languages, cultures, and ethnobotanical knowledge within contemporary contexts. Key words: indigenous peoples, ethnobotany, British Columbia, traditional food, food security. Résumé : Les connaissances et les pratiques des peuples indigènes, concernant les plantes locales utilisées comme aliments, médicaments, matériaux et autres usages, sont en danger dans plusieurs parties du monde. Les raisons pour le dé-clin des connaissances et de l'utilisation des ressources traditionnelles sont complexes et multiples, Les auteurs revoient une série de cas types de plantes alimentaires culturellement importantes en Colombie Canadienne et identifient un ensemble de facteurs sociaux et environnementaux interactifs, qui ont conduit à une diminution de leur utilisation et à une disparition de la connaissance culturelle au sujet de ces plantes, au cours des 150 dernières années. Les raisons pour cette perte incluent des influences interactives liées au changement de systèmes de connaissance dû à la conversion religieuse et aux écoles résidentielles, à la perte des langages indigènes, à la perte d'opportunité et de temps pour les pratiques traditionnelles liées à la participation à l'économie salariale, l'augmentation de l'urbanisation des populations indigènes, la perte d'accès aux ressources traditionnelles, les restrictions des pratiques d'aménagement pour maintenir ces ressources, et plus récemment, les forces de globalisation et d'industrialisation. Les efforts pour renouveler et restaurer les pratiques traditionnelles, et les relations avec les plantes et l'environnement, doivent tenir compte des effets cumulatifs de ces facteurs et trouver les moyens de retenir et de renforcer la connaissance et les pratiques encore détenues par les individus et les communautés, de renverser certaines des influences négatives sur la tradition culturelle, et de développer de nouvelles façons efficaces et pertinentes pour revitaliser les langages, les cultures et les connaissances ethnobotaniques, dans un contexte contemporain

Kwakwaka’wakw “Clam Gardens”: Motive and Agency in Traditional Northwest Coast Mariculture

The indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast of North America actively managed natural resources in diverse ways to enhance their productivity and proximity. Among those practices that have escaped the attention of anthropologists until recently is the traditional management of intertidal clam beds, which Northwest Coast peoples have enhanced through techniques such as selective harvests, the removal of shells and other debris, and the mechanical aeration of the soil matrix. In some cases, harvesters also removed stones or even created stone revetments that served to laterally expand sediments suitable for clam production into previously unusable portions of the tidal zone. This article presents the only account of these activities, their motivations, and their outcomes, based on the first-hand knowledge of a traditional practitioner, Kwakwaka’wakw Clan Chief Kwaxistalla Adam Dick, trained in these techniques by elders raised in the nineteenth century when clam “gardening” was still widely practiced