In this article the author proposes to discuss selected aspects of the significance to Dene of learning through personal experience. He focuses on the relationship between personal experience andknowledge among Sahtuot'ine ("Bearlake People"),' for this relationship is central to an understanding of Bearlake autonomy, knowledge, power, and authority; is relatively public (meaning that Bearlakers do not usually hesitate to discuss it and there is widespread agreement among them about it); and is accessible in the sense that it is not as exotic as other aspects ofthe belief system under consideration. The remainder of the article is organized into four sections. In the first, author reviews selected ideas from Western epistemology that are useful to an understanding of pertinent Sahtuot'ine beliefs and values. In the second, he discusses the Bearlake Athapaskan perspective on personal experience and knowledge. In the third, author offers an interpretation of the preference that SahtUot'ine have for primary knowledge and epistemic justification. This preference and related social practices derive historically from the Bearlake hunter-gatherer modeof production and are linked to Bearlake social relations of production: namely, to disengagementfrom private property and to egalitarian patterns of authority. In the final section, he offers a short summary and suggestions for future research.

In their Responses to Round 1 Information Requests (December 17, 2019), NWT Environment and Natural Resources notes, "The SDMCLCA [Sahtú Dene and Métis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement] implementation plan sets out detailed activities required to fulfil obligations under the SDMCLCA. Projects 13-1 through 13-24 as listed in the implementation plan set out the activities that the parties agree are required to fulfill the wildlife and harvesting management obligations under the SDMCLCA. The implementation plan should be consulted in regards to the granting of permission to harvest on Sahtú lands (Project 13-1) and other wildlife harvesting and management related matters in the Sahtú Settlement Area" (Response 2.2, page 4).

Projects related to Wildlife Management and Chapter 13 of the SDMCLCA begin on page 43 of this document.

This dissertation examines the conflict between Native hunters and federal wildlife conservation programs within the present-day borders of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut from the late nineteenth century to the end of the 1960s.

Conclusions drawn from the body of co-management research generally agree that cultural diversity can enhance the pool of
human resources from which management decisions are drawn. Based on research involving the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation (Yukon Territory), this paper explores whether cultural differences either enhance or hinder the working-group effectiveness of resource co-management boards established under Canada's comprehensive land claims process. In doing so, the authors identify some of the 'hidden' conflicts that can occur when culturally diverse groups, with fundamentally different value systems and colonial histories, enter into a
coordinated resource management process.

Resurgent protectionists advocate a return to strict nature protection characterized by excluding most people from ecologically fragile areas. Certain groups of indigenous residents, namely those with low population densities, simple technologies, and subsistence economies, are seen as conservation friendly, but groups who are experiencing demographic growth, using Western technologies, and producing for the market are perceived as incompatible with biodiversity conservation. Using insights from common property theory as well as ethnographic observations of the Huaorani Indians of Ecuador, the author illustrates how such assumptions constitute a “conservation Catch-22” in which cultural conditions deemed compatible with biodiversity conservation are precisely those from which we would not predict conservationist practices to emerge.

In this article, the author argues that our refusal to consider aboriginal accounts of hunting as perhaps literally as well as metaphorically valid has both contributed to the marginalization of aboriginal peoples and foreclosed important avenues of inquiry into hunting societies and the nature of human–animal relations. The author focuses on human–animal relations as a form of reciprocal exchange and argues that the development of a theoretical framework that can accommodate northern hunters’ ontological assumptions is warranted theoretically as well as politically.

ABSTRACT. In 1976, Inuit leaders in what is now Nunavut began the long process that led to a comprehensive land claim to regain control of their lives and land. Previously, they had seen their economic, social, political, educational, and belief systems diminished and the people disempowered by the imposition of Western systems, structures, and practices. To reverse the existing relations, Inuit leaders had to call upon the ideologies and institutions of the dominant society—a process greatly misunderstood by Inuit harvesters and others within the communities. The disconnect between Inuit harvesters’ expectations of the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement (NLCA) and the realities experienced in the communities have made ocean resource management a site of growing resistance in the North. Common misconceptions were that the Nunavut Government would be an Inuit government and that land-claim “compensation” would involve per capita distributions and injections of cash into the hunters and trappers’organizations. Instead, communities were expected to abide by the decisions of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board—a tripartite joint-management arrangement between the federal and territorial governments and Inuit organizations—and to cooperate with the increasing demands from government departments and science researchers for local information and participation. The community response to these impositions was to obscure the gaze of inquiring governments and outsiders through creative acts of resistance. To mediate the situation, increased involvement from federal and territorial resource managers in terms of support, capacity building, information exchange, and federal/territorial/community relationship building is encouraged.

Based on the Australian experience, this article makes the case that “wildlife managers could play a greater role in ensuring that Indigenous wildlife harvesting is sustainable and helping to address community health and employment challenges facing Indigenous Australians in remote and rural areas. Wildlife managers need to listen more to what Indigenous people say they want from their country and for their people, such as increased game to supplement their diet and security for totemic species, to maintain culture. In pre-colonial Australia, adherence to customary law maintained wildlife species Indigenous Australians wanted. Today the long-term sustainability of Indigenous wildlife harvesting is threatened. Where Indigenous communities lack leadership and other social problems exist, their capacity to apply customary land-and sea-management practices and to operate cultural constraints on wildlife use is reduced. The Indigenous right to hunt should coexist with responsible management.

“Improved wildlife management that combines science and traditional knowledge has implications for Indigenous people worldwide. Western science can support Indigenous passion for caring for the land. It can draw on traditional Indigenous practice and, through reciprocal learning, help reinstate Indigenous law and culture in communities. In Australia, wildlife managers could be more engaged in supporting Indigenous Australians in activities such as surveying populations and estimating sustainable yields, identifying refuge areas, maximising habitat diversity, controlling weeds and feral animals, and exchanging information across regions.

“Although support for Indigenous land and wildlife management has risen in recent years, it remains a minor component of current Australian Government resource allocation for addressing Indigenous need. Wildlife management could be a stronger focus in education, training and employment programs. Proactive wildlife management conforms to both the western concept of conserving biodiversity and Indigenous wildlife management; it can support sustainable harvesting, provide employment and income, create learning and training opportunities and improve Indigenous health. If greater expenditure were directed to Indigenous wildlife management, wildlife managers, especially Indigenous wildlife managers, could become more engaged in cultural initiatives across traditional and scientific practices and so contribute to programs that address the health and motivational challenges facing Indigenous communities.”

Contemporary subsistence hunting practices of North American Indians have been questioned because of hunters’ use of modern technologies and integration of wage-based and subsistence livelihoods. Tribal traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) has been questioned on similar grounds and used as justification for ignoring tribal perspectives on critical natural resource conservation and development issues. This paper examines hunting on the Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation in North Central Wisconsin, USA. Results indicate the importance of traditional moral codes in guiding a community’s contemporary hunting practices.

This article is a summary of the author's personal experience in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, augmented by a number of in-depth interviews with people involved in co-management organizations across Canada. The author was involved in all aspects of co-management from biologist and facilitator to executive director, member, and chair of several organizations. 

ABSTRACT. We studied a case of failure in applying traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in comanagement as the basis for formalhunting regulations. We based the study on the Porcupine Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) Herd “let the leaders pass” policy, establishedfor the Dempster Highway of the Western Canadian Arctic, and identified conditions creating barriers in the successful application ofTEK through comanagement. Stated as propositions, identified barriers include: (1) the context-specific nature of TEK limits itsapplication in resource management regulations; (2) changes in traditional authority systems, hunting technology, and the socialorganization of harvesting caribou affect the effectiveness of TEK approaches in a contemporary social setting; (3) indigenous effortstoward self-government and political autonomy limit regional comanagement consensus in a heterogeneous cultural landscape; (4) themismatch of agency enforcement of hunting regulations and TEK-based education is problematic. We analyzed the case through fourhistorical phases of caribou management, complementing the study with a literature review of TEK and wildlife comanagement toexplain why TEK integration of caribou leaders in regulatory resource management fell short of success. Identifying and understandingthe social dynamics related to these barriers make apparent solutions for transforming the comanagement process.

This article examines unique Indigenous legal methodologies for learning law on and from the land. The author discusses his own experience in teaching Anishinaabe law on his reserve to demonstrate how students can develop deeper understandings of their professional responsibilities.

There has been a growing momentum toward a greater recognition and explicit use of Indigenous laws in the past several years. According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, the revitalization and recognition of Indigenous laws are essential to reconciliation in Canada. How, then, do we go about doing this? In this article, the authors introduce one method, which they believe has great potential for working respectfully and productively with Indigenous laws today. They engage with Indigenous legal traditions by carefully and consciously applying adapted common law tools, such as legal analysis and synthesis, to existing and often publicly available Indigenous resources: stories, narratives, and oral histories. By bringing common pedagogical approaches from many Indigenous legal traditions together with standard common law legal education, they hope to help people learn Indigenous laws from an internal point of view. The authors share experiences that reveal that this method holds great potential as a pedagogical bridge “into” respectful engagement with Indigenous laws and legal thought, within and across Indigenous, academic, and professional communities. In conclusion, they argue that, while this method is a useful tool, it is not intended to supplant existing learning and teaching methods, but rather to supplement them. In practice, the authors have seen that this method can be complementary to learning deeply through other means. There are many methods to engage with Indigenous laws, and there needs to be critical reflection and conversations about them all.

Abstract: Despite broad recognition of the value of social sciences and increasingly vocal calls for betterengagement with the human element of conservation, the conservation social sciences remain misunderstoodand underutilized in practice. The conservation social sciences can provide unique and important contributionsto society’s understanding of the relationships between humans and nature and to improving conservationpractice and outcomes. There are 4 barriers—ideological, institutional, knowledge, and capacity—tomeaningful integration of the social sciences into conservation. We provide practical guidance on overcomingthese barriers to mainstream the social sciences in conservation science, practice, and policy. Broadly, we recommendfostering knowledge on the scope and contributions of the social sciences to conservation, includingsocial scientists from the inception of interdisciplinary research projects, incorporating social science researchand insights during all stages of conservation planning and implementation, building social science capacityat all scales in conservation organizations and agencies, and promoting engagement with the social sciencesin and through global conservation policy-influencing organizations. Conservation social scientists, too, needto be willing to engage with natural science knowledge and to communicate insights and recommendations clearly. We urge the conservation community to move beyond superficial engagement with the conservationclearly. We urge the conservation community to move beyond superficial engagement with the conservationsocial sciences. A more inclusive and integrative conservation science—one that includes the natural andsocial sciences—will enable more ecologically effective and socially just conservation. Better collaborationamong social scientists, natural scientists, practitioners, and policy makers will facilitate a renewed and morerobust conservation. Mainstreaming the conservation social sciences will facilitate the uptake of the full rangeof insights and contributions from these fields into conservation policy and practice.

Graphic Recording is a method of drawing dialogue in real-time in meetings and workshops. It is a way to collect information that is being given by participants visually, and in a way that shows that the organizers are listening to what is being said. It is also a way to quickly verify that the information collected is correct as the participants are able see how the recorder understood it and suggest any changes.

Though we’ve only started recently, the SRRB has gotten great feedback on the recordings done at community meetings and workshops. Community members have said these graphic recordings are a great way to communicate information because indigenous people are visual learners and these images allow them to see the connection between what is being said and what is being drawn.

A team of graphic recorders will be joining the Public Listening session in January to assist in portraying the evidence that is being presented and communicating it to the participants as well as the Board as they are making their decisions.

This is a Discussion Paper drafted by the Indigenous Statement Working Group, presented at the 17^th North American Caribou Workshop in 2018. It includes the Indigenous Calls to Action for Caribou. 

This is a letter from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) addressed to the SRRB. It addresses a number of questions ENR seeks further clarity. 

This is a response letter from the SRRB to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The SRRB provides provides background information regarding the Board's approach to the Public Listening Session. The Board also provides responses to ENR's questions and comments from a previous  pdf letter. (1.58 MB)