|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For information on the Harriman Retraced Expedition e-mail: harriman2001@science.smith.edu |
|
|
When you become a biologist or
scientist, you do so because you're seeking "truth" or the
right answers. It never really occurs to you that you might
simply be part of another value system and represent one of
several opinions. This is made worse because most of us who
live in the US don't experience a lot of cross cultural
interaction. We live in the majority culture where our own
value system is the predominant one. When you're a graduate student
in biology or wildlife management, you learn that if you
follow the scientific method you'll find the "truth". You
don't expect people to question the premise of your approach
-- the interpretation of the data, yes -- but not the
construct of the study and the approach -- and certainly not
your world view. There is an underlying assumption that
people will defer to "good" science and acknowledge that it
represents reality. As residents of the United
States and members of a western European culture, we also
believe in democracy. It is a fundamental part of the way we
think and make decisions and how we live. Inherent in
democracy is a system where we vote and a majority vote
determines the outcome. We can have a vote -- and decide an
issue -- with 49 of 100 people dissenting. This is in real
contrast to many Native communities where decisions are made
by consensus not by the majority. And in fact, until there
is consensus, there is no decision. Alaska has one of the most
democratic systems of wildlife management in the country.
Long before it was popular in other places, we had citizen
committees involved in wildlife management issues and
actions. We hire biologists as the official people who study
animals and tell the rest of us about the intricacies of
their lives, and then communities designate individuals to
interface with biologists and work with them to make
decisions about the uses of fish and wildlife. This system
works pretty well in urban centers -- or in small non-native
communities where the culture acknowledges that western
science and a system of experts is the appropriate way to
collect information about wildlife and a majority vote is a
satisfactory way to make decisions. The complication comes when we
expect people who have a different world view and a
different way of making decisions to buy into this system.
For rural and especially Native people in Alaska, fish and
wildlife is not only something to view and occasionally to
hunt, it is food and an integral part of their lives. It
isn't food for a special occasion or food you eat when "dad
goes hunting" but every day sustenance. Consequently, people
pay a lot more daily attention to where animals are and what
they are doing... and, they want to be considered not only
in decisions about how they may use fish and wildlife but
also in the studies of these animals. They have local
knowledge and informed opinions about the status of the
animals the live around and depend upon. Non-native people
may also have this same approach to wildlife and it's use,
but by and large they culturally compatible with the
existing wildlife management system and are comfortable
working within that system and making themselves
heard. This is really where the concept
of co-management was born. People wanted to have a say in
the decisions that government agencies and "outsiders" made
about how and when they could and should use the fish and
wildlife around them. And, they wanted to evaluate the
information used to make those decisions based on their own
experiences on the land or the sea. Interestingly, this very
same issue was one of the basic motivations for Alaska
statehood 40 some years ago... but it was a state federal
issue, not a Native non-native issue. Co-management hasn't been an
easy idea for wildlife agencies and managers to accept.
They're used to calling the shots -- not because they're
self-righteous but because they feel they have been trained
and hired to do this job. It's hard to share your job -- and
it's hard to see your job description change in front of
your eyes when you're not sure you know how to do the new
job. By the same token, it's not easy for people who live in
an area and depend on its resources- and have done so for
generations - to see outsiders come in and assume they are
better qualified than anyone else to make
decisions. For co-management to really
work, it has to really be a 2-way street. Everybody has to
give up something for anybody --both people and animals - to
win. It has been a not-very-funny joke for a lot of years
that the managing agencies think that co-management means
that "you cooperate and we manage." By the same token,
co-managing doesn't mean just doing whatever you
want. So what is co-management? It's
when two groups of people come together and share the
responsibility for managing a resource as equal partners.
For it to work, there has to be a common end goal -- healthy
animals -- but flexible methods of getting to this end. In
most parts of the country, harvests are controlled by
individual seasons and bag limits that are designed to
provide opportunity to individuals but not necessarily
success. In Alaska, the moose hunting seasons are set to
occur while the leaves are on the trees and it's very hard
to see moose. Hunters get a chance to have a great hunting
experience, but not many of them get a moose. In contrast,
when the hunters in Point Lay go after caribou, it is
because they plan to eat them and they need to succeed. They
don't want to hunt only within a 2 week period when they are
least likely to succeed and when it's too hot to preserve
the meat -- nor do they want to confine their hunting to a
few weeks of the year. One man may hunt for several families
and elders -- and be a poor fit for a one hunting
license-one animal way of doing business. The trick is coming up with a
system that safeguards the animals yet gives people the
maximum amount of control over their lives. Because most
Americans eat domestic animals, we've gotten away from
thinking about wild fish and animals as food. They're
watchable wildlife and a symbol of wild country and the
things the rest of us don't have any more. But the reality
in Alaska is that moose and caribou and harbor seals and
beluga whales - all the things you come here to see - are
not only wild and beautiful to see and photograph, but they
are also good to eat and carve and sew and use. And there is
no reason we can't use as well as conserve if we do it
right. One of the thorny issues we face
when we get into co-management is what information we use
and how we get it. For example -- population estimates. When
we develop policy for safeguarding wildlife against impacts
from human activities such as fishing or oil and gas
development, we tend to use very conservative or "risk
averse' estimates of things like population size. While that
may be entirely appropriate for those sorts of applications,
it is less so when managing someone's food. And when we use
such estimates and defend them as "real" and not
intentionally conservative, we lose people's trust and
respect. Co-management can allow us to
get beyond the "us and them" that so often exists in many
cross-cultural groups and find a "we." Instead of distrust
because one side doesn't know what the other is doing, it
allows -- and in fact requires -- that people work together
to collect and interpret information. The result is that
instead of constantly fighting over the science, people
share the conduct of science. They put their heads together
to come up with better ideas about how to do things right so
that animals are around for our grand children and our great
great grand children to both watch and use.
For information on the Harriman Retraced Expedition e-mail: harriman2001@science.smith.edu
Expedition
Log
Home | 2001 Expedition | 1899 Expedition | Maps | Log | Educators and Students | Film | Century of Change | After Expedition | About This Site