Transcript Fish Conservation and Management Presentation

Use of historical knowledge in fisheries management
Tonya Smith & Bryan Wong
Can Historical Names
and Fishers’
Knowledge Help to
Reconstruct the
Distribution of Fish
Populations in Lakes?
–Johan Spens, 2007.
“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
Historical place names; Rö-lakes
Limnology reports to verify
suitable habitat
Gill netting and electro fishing
Fishermen interviews
TEMPORAL COMPONENT OF DATA

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
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
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
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
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)
Saanich Salishan
Thekey’
• Sockeye
• July
Henen’
Thaw’en
• Humpback salmon
• August
• Coho
• September
(Montler 1991)
SPENS 2007
AIM
THEORY
HYPOTHESIS
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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)
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
Results
Brown
Rö
No Rö
Total
Frequency
47
115
162
0.11
4
1343
1347
0.89
51
1458
1509
1
Trout
No Brown
Trout
Sum
• 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
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 selfsustaining 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
Extinctions

 Interviews stated that 10 of the Ro lakes had lost brown
trout populations in last 80 years, confirmed by archival
data and test fishing
2 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
Gillnetting lacks temporal
perspective can miss extinct spp
Historical names useful for pre
industrial distributions
Interviews can verify presence or
absence reliably
Goal for restoration or
management
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
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
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
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 Domian Wikicommons
What is TLEK?

Slowmuse.wordpress.com
TLEK

Develops over a long
period of time
Is experienced-based
Has important sociocultural and biological
dimensions
dfo-mpo.gc.ca
Why Use TLEK?

Local people very aware of spatial
and temporal distribution of the
resource, critical habitat and
ecological linkages and changes
over time apagemedia.com
Why Use TLEK?

Good source of knowledge for remote
places that may be poorly studied
swedenfishing.com
Why Use TLEK?

Provides
community
support for
management plans
Usp.ac.fj
Why Use TLEK?

 Allows for information collection on a limited
budget
www.peanutbutterandjenny.com
Why Use TLEK?

 Legal incentives and implications
Challenges of
Incorporating TLEK

Cultural Challenges
TEK is often closely associated
with beliefs, values and
experiences
Challenges of
Incorporating TLEK

 Can create distortion of information while being
used in scientific research
Challenges of
Incorporating TLEK

 Purpose of the project that the knowledge is being
used for and how it is incorporated
Challenges of
Incorporating TLEK

 Issues of power dynamics and increasing access to
information
Current Applications of
TLEK

Potential Applications
Jude 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
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
Recommendations

1.
2.
3.
4.
Awareness
Discussion
Co-managment
Surveying use of TLEK
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
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
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.

Questions
