Use of historical knowledge in fisheries management

1. Use of historical knowledge in fisheries management Tonya Smith & Bryan Wong

2. Can Historical Names and Fishers’ Knowledge Help to Reconstruct the Distribution of Fish Populations in Lakes? –Johan Spens, 2007.

3. “Was the first in primary literature…” • Spens 2007 was the first in primary literature to employ lake names in revealing pre-industrial fish distribution • Map historical distribution of local brown trout populations: no study has been done before this to map historical brown trout ranges or understand the extinction rate • Understanding how anthropogenic changes in freshwater ecosystems in Europe have eradicated or reduced brown trout populations throughout their range • Previously, methods available were interviews and archival data: singular brief snapshot at a local scale • This study enabled historic names and fishers’ knowledge into wider landscapes with a historical dimension

4. Historical place names; Rö-lakes Limnology reports to verify suitable habitat Gill netting and electro fishing Fishermen interviews

5. TEMPORAL COMPONENT OF DATA

6. Support for paper • Aybes & Yalden (1995). Place-name evidence for the former distribution and status of wolves and beavers in Britain. Mamm. Rev. 25(4): 201-226. • Cox, Maehr & Larkin (2002). The Biogeography of Faunal Place Names in the United States. Conserv.Biol. 16(4): 1143-1150. • Place names of range-limited species demonstrated strong fidelity to historical ranges. • spatial patterns of faunal place names are important indicators of a species' historical distribution • these place names reflect culturally important connections between humans and native fauna • analysis of place names may provide important biogeographical information for maintaining or restoring species and habitat components

7. Similar papers • Wallace (1998) mentions the use of mapped place names to indicate past occurrences of sturgeon, whale and halibut banks within the SoG than were once productive fishing habitat gone extinct • Souza and Garcia-Marillo (2001) tested and verified the feasibility of using place names as indicators of historical landscape

8. Inspiration for paper • “got this idea from Tony Pitcher, former head of the Fisheries Center of UBC. He mentioned use of names for their world famous "Back to the future" -program to me when he visited Sweden back in 2000.”-Johan Spens Zoology.ubc.ca

9. BACK TO THE FUTURE PROGRAM • Reconstructing the Strait of Georgia Ecosystem • Multidisciplinary workshop held in November 1997 • Present, 100 years ago before commercial fisheries, 500 years ago before native and European contact Ecologyandsociety.org

10. Native Oral Tradition Using Fish-related Terms from the Saanich Language • Fish names and fishing related terms extracted from: T. Montler, 1991. Saanich North Straits Salish Classified Word List. • Realized close associations between Saanich people and the coastal resources of the San Juan Islands and Strait of Georgia • Illustrated the need for cross validation by natural scientists of word lists in building a reliable database (Jean Paul Danko 1998)

11. SaanichSalishan (Montler 1991)

12. SPENS 2007 AIM THEORY HYPOTHESIS

13. AIM • to show historical lake names from maps, together with limnological surveys, can be useful indicators of past and present fish distribution if properly validated • FISHERS’ + SURVEYS + MAP = BROWN TROUT + + = ALL PHOTOS PUBLIC DOMAIN WIKICOMMONS

14. THEORY • Conventional scientific research done with multi-mesh sized gillnets would be too costly, time consuming and labour intensive to map the thousands of lakes required to study landscape-size presence and absence of fish populations • Therefore attempt to validate historical names from interviews with local fisherman to gather data for larger-scale study • Interviews make it possible to understand changes over the past 80 years, and longer if pieced together with fragmented and rare archival data • Lake names with species are potentially valuable historical records of fisher’s knowledge

15. JOHAN’S HYPOTHESIS • The proportion of “historical brown trout term” lakes (Ro lakes) with/without brown trout populations is the same as for other lakes with/without such populations

16. AREA • 1509 lakes and over 700000 ha of the lake watersheds in the northern boreal region of Sweden (vasternorrland and parts of vasterbotten) • Used one geographic region rather than random sampling of lakes to increase the likelihood of detecting phenomenon in local dialects relevant to the distribution of brown trout PHOTO PUBLIC DOMAIN WIKICOMMONS

17. AREA • Area is sparsely populated and majority of lakes belong to 63 privately owned fisheries management organizations • FMOs are associations of private landowners in this region sell licenses to fishers and manage waters, as well as provide information about the fisheries

18. METHODS • Collected interviews with older fishers and 250 local fishing rights owners in FMOs between 1985-2001, focusing on current species distributions, stocking, introductions and extinctions in all lakes • Also collected similar information conducted by interviews of local fishers in remaining areas not organized by FMOs

19. INTERVIEWS • Began with structured questions of fish species distribution, spawning areas and stalking • Less organized part of the interview worked to evaluate fishers general knowledge and get additional contacts who could provide knowledge about specific areas, fish species or historic events involving the fishery • In return, fishers were given information about conservation and management of lakes, creating a comprehensive knowledge exchange • Data regarding fish presence and absence was collected using two primary sources that confirmed each other

20. INTERVIEWS CONTINUED… • Other Data used included archival data (from three major forestry companies, country and municipality administration, FMOs, The National Board of Fishers etc), historical names from maps (from the Swedish Land Survey 1961-7 and parish, ordinance or village maps dating back to 1672) and limnological surveys (1985-2001)

21. Quality control of presence/absence • Fishers suggested that several hundred of the surveyed lakes held fish • Some were eliminated because they’d been stocked, featured translocated fish or were dependent on hatcheries • Others were eliminated were insufficient trout habitat was found (ie. No substrate for spawning) • The majority of the remaining lakes (162) were verified by gillnet surveys and found to contain past or present self sustaining trout populations

22. Results • 29% of all lakes with historic or present brown trout populations had Rö in its name • 92% of Brown Trout lakes had Rö as part of its name • 11% chance a randomly chosen lake would be a have brown trout in it • Hypothesis: • the number of Rö lakes with/without brown trout is proportionate to number of Brown Trout populations if any lake is randomly chosen….is rejected • Therefore:Rö Lakes were associated with historic or present self sustainable populations

23. Interview Results • Interviewees were successful in identifying all lakes with past or present self sustaining brown trout populations (though 2 lakes mentioned had populations that had gone extinct and 2 had been stocked) • interviewees may have been slightly overly optimistic regarding self-sustaining populations (maybe also unaware of recent extinctions) • validated with combined data from test-fishing results, stocking records, other archival data and habitat surveys • Also validated fishers knowledge of lakes with an absence of brown trout • No new populations unknown to interviewees were discovered

24. Extinctions • Interviews stated that 10 of the Ro lakes had lost brown trout populations in last 80 years, confirmed by archival data and test fishing2 additional lakes were found to have experienced extinctions through test fishing • Limnological surveys and archival data suggest that all lakes with extinct populations had experienced major anthropogenic changes more so than lakes where populations still existed

26. Historic names--“Rö-lakes” • Spatial and temporal data, linked to traditional names, can be used in a variety of ways: • Identify suitable habitat • Obtain landscape inventories of fish species • Anthropogenic impacts or past natural disturbances can be identified when named species are not present • Works with statistics to provide information about lakes over large areas rather than alone as a brief, single snapshot

27. Problems in Translations • 3 lakes with ro in the name were omitted because found to have originated with Ry, meaning something other than brown trout • Also used röding for arctic char, but rö lakes were found to be unsuitable habitat for arctic char

28. Discussion • Historical names in maps convey important fishers knowledge on environmental history, which can be important for conservation and management • Simple map overview successfully identified 1/3 of all lakes in 1509 containing brown trout • Same amount by sampling of gillnets would take 5 years and would miss extinct populations and lack the temporal perspective indicated by the map names

29. Inspiration • Integrating historical fishers names and knowledge can be used in fisheries sciences to move from a brief snapshots at local scale into landscape-wide context with a historical scale Rembrandt Public DomianWikicommons

30. What is TLEK? Slowmuse.wordpress.com

31. TLEK dfo-mpo.gc.ca

32. Why Use TLEK? apagemedia.com

33. Why Use TLEK? swedenfishing.com

34. Why Use TLEK? Usp.ac.fj

35. Why Use TLEK? • Allows for information collection on a limited budget www.peanutbutterandjenny.com

36. Why Use TLEK? • Legal incentives and implications

37. Challenges of Incorporating TLEK

38. Challenges of Incorporating TLEK • Can create distortion of information while being used in scientific research

39. Challenges of Incorporating TLEK • Purpose of the project that the knowledge is being used for and how it is incorporated

40. Challenges of Incorporating TLEK • Issues of power dynamics and increasing access to information

41. Current Applications of TLEK

42. Potential ApplicationsJude Mathooko in Hydrobologia 1. Pollution and ecotoxicology 2. Lunar rhythms and fishing 3. Daily weather predictions, seasons and fishing schedules 4. Traditional technology, selection of gear, and techniques 5. Spawning and aggregations of fish 6. Location and identification of rare or endangered fish species 7. Systems topography and traditional fishing spots 8. Division of labour in fisheries

44. Principles of Incorporating TLEK • Explicitly acknowledge existence and value of TLEK • Understand value to knowledge holders and create co-operative management • Investigate why western science and traditional knowledge do not agree

45. Recommendations • Awareness • Discussion • Co-managment • Surveying use of TLEK

46. Inclusion of TLEK by DFO • Aboriginal Aquatic Resource and Oceans Management Program • Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy • Aboriginal Funds for Species at Risk Program • Pacific Intergrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative

47. Conclusions • Monitoring and reporting on the effectiveness of these and similar initiatives • Traditional knowledge is a useful tool for both increased information for fisheries conservation and management and the inclusion of local knowledge holders in resource management planning

49. References • Aybes & Yalden (1995). Place-name evidence for the former distribution and status of wolves and beavers in Britain. Mamm. Rev. 25(4): 201-226. • Cox, Maehr & Larkin (2002). The Biogeography of Faunal Place Names in the United States. Conserv.Biol. 16(4): 1143-1150. • Danko, Jean Francois. 1998. Building a Reliable Database from a Native Oral Tradition Using Fish-Related Terms from the Saanich Language. In UBC Fisheries Centre Research Reports. Edited by D. Pauly, T.J. Pitcher and D. Preikshot. Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. pp. 29-33. • DFO Website: http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/abor-autoc/agreements-ententes-eng.htm • Mathooko, Jude Mutuku (2005). Application of traditional ecological knowledge in the management and sustainability of fisheries in East Africa: a long-neglected strategy? Hydrobiologia 537(1): 1 – 6 • Montler, Timothy. 1991. Saanich, north straits Salish classified word list. Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No. 119, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, p. 171. • Murray, Carol. (2011). Incorporation of traditional and local ecological knowledge and values in fisheries management. Canadian Electronic Library (Firm); ESSA Technologies (Firm); Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council. • Wallace, Scott, S. 1998. Sources of Information Used to Create Past and Present Ecosystem Models of the Strait of Georgia. In UBC Fisheries Centre Research Reports. Edited by D. Pauly, T.J. Pitcher and D. Preikshot. Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. pp. 19-21.

50. Questions