Program Item Details
TITLE: Dr. Cliff Hickey, Professor of Anthropology, University of Alberta, and Research Team Leader, Sustainable Forest Management Network
SUBJECT: #66 First Nations Involvement in SFM Network Research Programs
SYNOPSIS: One of the six priority areas of research for the Sustainable Forest Management Network is Sustainable Aboriginal Communities. Dr. Cliff Hickey is the anthropologist who leads that team of researchers. Among the many important research tasks is codifying traditional knowlege, but First Nations people are reticent to disclose this information to just anybody.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Intro: Culture plays an important role in shaping our perspective on how things work. And the world of science and technology is not immune from the clash of world views. That's why the Sustainable Forest Management Network has developed as one of its priorities the integration of traditional knowledge and aboriginal values into its research programs. Dr. Cliff Hickey is an anthropologist, and as a research team leader with the Sustainable Forest Management Network. it's his job to promote the concept of sustainable aboriginal communities.
Dr. Cliff Hickey
CH: It means that I do two kinds of things as someone who helps build a network in this general area. I work with communities to identify the kind of information needs that they have in order to manage their own traditional lands in the modern world.
So we decide what kinds of research will give them that information. And then another part of my job is to find the appropriate university researchers who can undertake that research and give back results. I work with those researchers to develop the proposals so they can be supported by the Network, because it's a very competitive situation and it takes a lot of work that way.
I also work with existing researchers who have their own research partnerships with communities, and we work to build that by having annual workshops so we can talk each other about the workd we're doing, and transfer that knowledge more broadly across the country. Because it is a completely national effort.
CC: THIS MUST INVOLVE AN AWFUL LOT OF DISCIPLINES BECAUSE YOU ARE DEALING WITH MODERN SCIENCE AND THOSE APPROACHES. AND THEN YOU ALSO HAVE THE TRADITIONAL PERSPECTIVES OF THE WORLD. HOW DO YOU BRING ALL OF THIS TOGETHER?
Yeah that's a very good question, Cheryl. I'll start by saying a lot of feel we really shouldn't even try to merge the two. They should have parallel tracks.
I don't know if you are familiar with the term, the Two Row Wampum. But there are many of these wampum belts that were presented by various first nations groups to Europeans historically. And they epitomize aboriginal attitudes towards treaties. That this is not subjection, but a willingness to live in the same parts of the world but as separate and distinct societies.
And so, we really don't want to merge the two. But there is an absolute need to develop both of these streams of thinking, knowledge and values. And so that's what we try and do. Some of these research needs are in the discovery of what the values are and codifying them. Because aboriginal societies tend to be very family based. And so any knowedgable individual can talk about their own family's lands, the values and histories associated with them and give them that knowledge which can be used in management regimes. But those individuals won't speak on behalf of an entire community. So someone has to go in there and collect it and build a case, in effect, for the knowledge and value base of each and every other community.
On the other hand, many communities recognize that they need science based knowledge to be added to this so that people will actually listen. Quite often they will say, well, we have no use for the stories that the natives tell us. But those stories are, in fact, full of knowledge, but they won't understand them because we are a very science based society.
So if we can get the ecologists to tell their story, people will listen. And the the combination of the two is often convincing enough that we can influence management and regulatory regimes in the forest.
CC: WHAT ARE YOU ACTUALLY DOING AS RESEARCH FOR THIS?
CH: I and a number of my graduate students and others have been involved with a variety of studies with First Nations, even the ones here in Alberta and the Yukon are fairly diverse. Mostly we're concerned about how people use resources, barriers to that use, what the future holds.
For example, here in central Alberta, we've worked with the Alexis First Nation and Millar Western Forest Products. Our role there has mostly been to help get people talking about a mutuality of needs, in the woodlot and then set up a monitoring situation so people don't just go past each other like ships in the night. Becasue these are two very, very different cultures. And if they don't have some way to see that difficulties are startingto occur in communication, things go awry very quickly. So I think we've been very successful in that. And they've got a very good working relationship and I think that's going to be good into the future.
Now, that's very different from the kind of thing we've been doing with the little Red River Cree Nation of northern Alberta. Here we've been surveying forest use in the more traditional sense, trying to evaluate that in terms of the economy of the community, the cultural and social stability of the communities, and seeing what tradeoffs would occur if the communities got into more economic uses. Would that jeopardize some of the more traditional and spiritual aspects of the society?
We've been doing it in ways that the land managers over those traditional lands can put those values that we've taken from the community and put them into their geographical information systesm and just start doing them.
For example, if we have more setbacks from streams and so on, so you protect the stream from lumbering, what's the tradeoff? How many dollars or jobs are going to be lost because that much wood won't be brought into the community? What about moose habitat, beaver, caribou and so on? So those kinds of tradeoffs that are going to have to be made. And those lead to propositions with the provincial government that regulates how much timber has to be taken, to say, look, there's traditional uses to these forests. So lets modify the Annual Allowable Cut to take these other uses into account.
So that's where the rubber really meets the road. We're doing basic research, but it has some very practical implications.
CC: HOW DO THESE ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES VIEW ALL OF THIS? BECAUSE THIS IS COMING FROM THE NETWORK, AND THERE'S AN OBVIOUS NEED THERE, BUT HOW DO THEY FEEL ABOUT THIS?
CH: That's a very good question and very perceptive, Cheryl, because there's real mix there. And that, of course, reflects the diversity within these communities. The Network actually has five First Nations who are full partners within the Network, just as the Alberta Government is a partner, and Quebec, and various forest industries. We do have First Nations partners. And the reflects the very progressive ideas on the part of many communities.
On the other hand, we've talked with communities that really do have a mixed feeling about working with people like us. They have a recognition that they need to be able to get their views across to the general public, that they have things to contribute to the sustainability of our natural environments. But their own histories jaundice them to exposing themselves.
They're afraid to give away a lot of their own knowledge. Because they're afraid that basically this stuff can be written down and then referred to whenever decisions have to be made, and you don't then have to consult with the communities. And we are very careful about that, because we do recognize that they could be made irrelevant if they're not at the table.
So our approach that way is to ensure to them that what they are doing by providing us the informaiton is to entice the other stakeholders on the land and in the forest to come to the table because they see the First Nations do have information that can be used.
CC: HOW WILL YOUR RESEARCH AND THE WORK YOU ARE DOING THROUGH THE SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENTNETWORK, HOW WILL THAT TRICKLE DOWN? HOW IS THIS ACTUALLY GOING TO BE USED?
CH: Our goal is basically to influence the culture of forest management in this country. That is to say, the policies, the regulations, all these things tht make or set up relationships between all of the stakeholders in our forests have to be modified to take into account the rights and the values of First Nations. The Supreme Court, and many other courts, have said that governments need to consult with First Nations before they make major decisions about resources and the use of lands that were traditionally occupied by these people.
We should not have to keep fighting that particular battle. That should be recognized and First Nations be given an important role in establishing new hopefully improved regulatory regimes.
CC: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
CH: Thank you, Cheryl.
Dr. Cliff Hickey is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alberta and a research team leader with the Sustainable Forest Management Network.
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