A multiple evidence-based approach to Métis community-based monitoring: a case study from the South Athabasca Oil Sands Area, Alberta, Canada

Ecology and Society: a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability

article

Dermot T. O'Connor¹  Diane Scoville²  Ron Donald²  Virginia Donald²  John Witney²  Ole Ellefson²  Garry Jewell²  Louella Jewell²  Vicky Silkie² 

[1] Oak Road Concepts;Athabasca Landing Métis Community

关键词: community-based monitoring;    Indigenous and local knowledge;    Métis;    multiple evidence-based approach;    photomapping;    South Athabasca Oil Sands;   

DOI  :  10.5751/ES-13678-270427

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Resilience Alliance Publications

【 摘 要 】

This original research article provides a case study that describes how Métis indigenous knowledge was incorporatedinto the design of a community-based monitoring (CBM) program in the South Athabasca Oil Sands Area of Alberta, Canada.Athabasca Landing Métis Community (ALMC) members have traditional knowledge of local wildlife and climatic conditions in aregion that has seen intense oil and gas-related industrial activity over the last 50 years. Informed by a multiple evidence-based approachto CBM, ALMC’s program design combined traditional hunting, fishing, trapping, and plant gathering activities with photomappingmethods. By taking geo-referenced photos of their environmental observations, which they shared with other project participantsduring regular monitoring meetings, Métis knowledge holders connected changes in local conditions such as resource scarcity or speciesabundance to broader ecological processes including climate change. Further, the monitoring program had an innovative cultural campcomponent that brought elders, heads of family, and youth together to deliberately interact and pass on Indigenous and local knowledge.The information drawn from photomapping, cultural camps, and traditional knowledge shared during meetings was gathered into adatabase. The database serves as a repository of traditional knowledge and land use data that will support ALMC’s ongoing efforts toidentify territory to promote self-governance and assert rights to lands and resources. We discuss how the ALMC’s adoption of amultiple evidence-based approach to monitoring asserts control over data collection methods, storage, and dissemination, supportslocal capacity for self-determination, and amplifies the voices of Métis harvesters in the resource management sector.

【 授权许可】

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