Blending Science with Traditional Ecological Knowledge

1. Blending Science with Traditional Ecological Knowledge • Frank K. Lake • Environmental Science, Graduate Ph.D program • US Forest Service-Redwood Sciences Lab • Raised in NW California • Fisheries and Fire Ecology • Traditional Ecological Knowledge • Photo: Willow Fuels Transects

2. Traditional Ecological Knowledge • “A cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with the environment…is both cumulative and dynamic, building on experience and adapting to changes” • (Berkes 1999:8 in Sacred Ecology).

3. Cultural Environmental Management Practices • “Practices employed by Indigenous peoples often mimicking natural disturbance processes in the management and utilization of natural resources” • Lake (2003). • Also called: Indigenous land use practices, Native American land management, traditional resource management, etc.

4. Cultural Environmental Management Practices • Mimic natural physical and biological disturbance processes • Fire (seasonality and location may differ) • Animals (extent and duration may differ)

5. Cultural Environmental Management Practices • Buffer against extreme ranges of natural variability • Fosters biodiversity and productivity • Can be applied to research, management and restoration efforts today

6. Humans? Lertzman, Spies, and Swanson 1997

7. Effective Communication: Differences and similarities between SEK and TEK

8. Technology Transfer and Integration • Choosing an appropriate scale • (Organism, Habitat, Ecosystem, Global) • Place based knowledge vs. Regional studies • Finding a common language • Methodologies of acquiring knowledge about resources • Responsibilities for the knowledge • Method of evaluation: Criteria and Indicators • Consequences of management practices

9. Possible Examples of the Integration TEK and SEK • Fire Ecology-Prescribed Burning Projects • Wildlife Management, Restoration, and Monitoring • Riparian/Aquatic Ecology, Management, Restoration, and Monitoring • Plant Community Ecology-Physical and Biological Interactions • Hydrology, Water Quantity and Quality

10. Indigenous/Cultural Fire Regimes • Alternate seasons of burning for different kinds of settings. • Frequencies with which fire are set and reset over varying periods of time. • Corresponding intensities with which fuels can be burned

11. Indigenous/Cultural Fire Regimes • Specific selection of sites fired and those that are not. • A range of natural and artificial controls that humans employ in limiting the spread of fire: time of day, winds, fuels, slope, relative humidity, and natural/human fire breaks • Lewis 1982

12. Hunting Crop Management Insect Collection Pest Management Range Management Fireproofing Clearing Areas For Travel Tree Felling/Fuel Wood Clearing Riparian Areas Basket Materials Documented Reasons For Indian Fire Use[Williams (2000) modified from Lewis]

13. National Fire Plan: Defensible Space, Fuels Reduction and Cultural Goods

14. TEK and Resource Management • Wildlife Management, Restoration, and Monitoring • Historical Distribution and Abundance of Wildlife Species • Understanding Ecological Requirements of Threatened and Endangered Species or Degraded Ecosystems • Improved Monitoring Effectiveness • Species Reintroduction Programs

15. Restoration practices that account for multiple values

16. Fisheries • TEK and Western Science

17. Fisheries: Salmon • Traditional Fishing Practices • Scientific Monitoring • Collaborative Learning

18. TEK and Resource Management • Hydrology, Water Quantity and Quality • Landscape level use of fire influenced vegetation communities affecting interception, infiltration, evapo-transpiration, and soil moisture retention levels in watersheds. • Prescribed fires influenced water yield affecting the timing and amount of surface runoff and spring fed flows to the channel networks. • Photo: Biswell 1989

19. TEK and Resource Management • Plant Community Ecology-Physical and Biological Interactions • Historical or Reference Ecosystem Processes and Function • Climatic or Natural Variability • Management Needs to Restore or Maintain Threatened or Endangered Plant Species or Communities • Plant, Soil, Wildlife/Insect Interactions • Restoration or Conservation of Species • Invasive species

20. What is missing and how do we return it back to being a functional part of the bigger systems again? Are there remnants of a once healthier more diverse and productive ecosystem?

21. What is our reference? • What do we compare our present condition to? • Is how it was… what we want now? • Do we value what it was like and the services it provided? • Are there things that we want now that were not desired in the past?

22. Dearhorn Mountain-Lower Trinity River 1954 and 1990 Photo CIBA

23. Global Climate Change • Agreement among senior scientist and tribal elders • Scale of ecological change affecting natural resources • Scale of Indicators: biogeochemical to ecosystem • Phenology: Temporal and spatial changes in plants and animals

24. Questions? How might TEK and/or an Indigenous perspectives of land management or restoration practices be of value in your program or projects? What do you think are the advantages of incorporating TEK in to research or management?