Program Item Details
TITLE: Dr. Marc Stevenson, Anthropologist and Director of the Aboriginal Research Program Sustainable Forest Management Network
SUBJECT: #46 Traditional Knowledge and Forest Management
SYNOPSIS: What can western science learn from traditional aboriginal knowledge when it comes to managing the resources and landbase where first nations people live? This is a question facing researchers and resource developers who are concerned about forest sustainability, not just from an environmental perspective, but also a cultural and economic perspective. As he develops research programs for the Sustainable Forest Management Network centred at the University of Alberta, Dr. Marc Stevenson is using his experience as an anthropologist to look at how the two world views can complement one another. Western science elicits information and data. Aboriginal systems of knowledge are based on relationships and the interconnectedness of humans, plants, animals and all of creation.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Intro: Dr. Marc Stevenson is an anthropologist who has spent much of his time working with Inuit and First Nation’s people. As the Director of the Aboriginal Research Program for the Sustainable Forest Management Network, it’s his job to find ways in which two world views can come together. Those of the scientist and those of the aboriginal elder.
Dr. Marc Stevenson
MS: That may be a source of conflict for one who thinks there is such a thing as absolute truth and only a single objectivity out there that works for everybody and that’s not the way it is. The objectivity is something that all scientists aspire to but can never escape. They always bring their values, belief systems, theirs biases and assumptions to their interpretation of real world phenomena. And, there is no way to escape that. And, it’s simply not an issue as far as I understand for aboriginal people who do acknowledge their subjectivity, do not strive to be objective, in all cases. But, have a more comprehensive view of the world. Another way of looking at it perhaps are the differences is in the systems of management. Our culture, western science and its environmental resource management paradigm attempts to manage resources or the knowledge and information that counts in managing resources is often the knowledge that aboriginal people don’t have. They’ve been very good at managing something else, not the resources. What they’ve been doing and I’ve had this told to me by Inuit hunters, elders, Nuchelnuf elders, Shuswap elders, all sorts of aboriginal elders. If they do not manage resources, that’s an offence against the creator, that’s abrogation of their responsibility in the natural world. But what they do manage and I’ve pressed them on it and in subtle and appropriate ways. ěWhat do you manageî, I’ve asked them and they’ve said ěWell, we’ve managed relationships, we manage connections. That’s what we can do something about. We can’t do anything about the resources themselves but we can manage our relationship and connections with them and our activities.î Now, that’s profound, that’s a profound difference in the two systems. That we’re managing two totally different things and the knowledge and information that counts, okay, in those two systems are fundamentally different. So, in one way, but I would argue they are also complementary. There is some knowledge that I think for effective decision making that western science and its environmental resource management paradigm can contribute specific knowledge about the resource, specific information about the resource base, knowledge that aboriginal people, for example, may not have in terms of numbers, quantities, things like this. Whereas, I think the aboriginal people and elders can contribute a lot about the relationship. That’s the management unit.
CC: WHAT COULD WE LEARN FROM THAT? WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE?
MS: Traditional knowledge or the knowledge that aboriginal people have relied upon to sustain the relationship with themselves and to the natural world It’s a broad base of knowledge that looks just not at the resource. Man does not stand outside and above any species or any other species on this earth but is, in fact, has a reciprocal or equitable relationship with other plants, animals. And, when you sort of turn it around and the relationship becomes the management unit, then that opens the door for and begs the question of ‘what are we managing’ right? Are we managing the resource base for what and for whom, right? Or are we managing the relationship and this is where aboriginal rights comes into it. The issue of aboriginal rights is fundamental to the issue of bringing and incorporating the knowledge of aboriginal people and their values into environmental decision making. And, we have to be very specific and have a specific understanding that at the end of the day, these people may have a lot of rights to bring their knowledge. Not trivialize their knowledge and force it into the environmental resource management paradigm of the dominant culture but bring their own knowledge and systems of management to the table. The two war wampum that was given to the red coats back in 1764, year after the Royal Proclamation, reflected this concept of duality, of the two cultures living side by side, not jumping into each other boats or canoes but living side by side, but going up together in the same direction. That’s a good model for co-management and the incorporation of aboriginal people and their values and knowledge and management systems into decision making with respect to the environment.
CC: CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF SOME OF THE RESEARCH THAT’S GOING ON IN THIS AREA.
MS: Okay. The model we’ve been talking about is being applied for example in Shoal Lake with the Shoal Lake First Nation and some researchers out of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. And, so far has been very successful in terms of buy-in from the First Nation community. Another example of research development that we’re working on is between the Heart Lake First Nation and ALPAC (Alberta-Pacific). ALPAC is now into variable retention logging which basically opens the door for foresters and forest planners to work together with aboriginal people!=aboriginal elders and trappers, land users and youth, to design forest cutting plans that incorporate the values that aboriginal people want sustained and the values that ALPAC want sustained. They’re not necessarily divergent. In a lot of cases they want the same values but their specific values that the Heart Lake First Nation do want sustained that can be incorporated into forest cutting plans if you adopt that variable retention logging model. So this is a prime example, a prime sort of on the ground example, of incorporating aboriginal people and their values and their knowledge into, for example, forestry.
CC: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE OTHER AREAS THAT YOU WOULD BE TRYING TO DEVELOP RESEARCH PROGRAMS IN?
MS: Here in the Network we have something under Dr. Cliff Hickey’s leadership. We have a research initiative called the Sustainable Aboriginal Communities Initiative. And we’re focused on four specific areas of research. Now it took us a couple of years to develop this research program and it took quite an extensive program of consultation with aboriginal people and aboriginal forestry experts across Canada. But finally we’ve developed this program research initiative that has four specific priorities. The first priority is the one that we sort of have been talking about. Is the integration of aboriginal people, their knowledge, their management systems and philosophies into sustainable forest management. The second priority that we have is research into accommodating aboriginal and treaty rights into sustainable forest management. What issues need to be addressed under that research are, you know, is basically an open book right now. One of the ones that needs serious attention is our provincial forestry regulations and whether they are, in fact, in concert with the fiduciary obligation of the government to aboriginal peoples whether they are an infringement of those rights and if so, how can we fix that so that provincial forestry legislation and regulation does not infringe aboriginal and treaty rights but actually accommodates them. That’s an area of research we need to look at. Another priority research are within a sustainable aboriginal communities initiative is looking at economic development and capacity development in First Nation communities so that they can effectively participate in the benefits!=both the economic and managerial benefits of sustainable forest management. A fourth one is actually developing measurements. Criteria and indicators to see how well we’re doing!=our industry partners are doing at those other three things. And, that will hopefully tie-in with other certification efforts. In so doing, we are providing a valuable service to the Network and to sustainable forest management generally because, and specifically our industry partners, because we’re giving them a leg up on the competition. Because down the road it’s conceivable that most of the public will only buy so called green certified wood. And, within Canada that stamp has a significant and will have significant aboriginal component to it.
CC: THANK YOU VERY MUCH
MS: You’re welcome. Thank you.
Dr. Marc Stevenson is a coordinator with Aboriginal Research Program at the Sustainable Forest Management Network.