Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Beluga Whales: Local Documentation and Cooperative and Cooperative Application in Alaska

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) offers potential benefits in manyareas, including biological and ecological research, resourcemanagement, and other facets of human interactions with the naturalworld. Realizing these benefits involves linked steps of documentation,analysis, application, and integration with other forms of knowledge.While previous research by P.I. Huntington on TEK of beluga whales hasexplored the semi-directive interview as a practical method fordocumenting TEK, further research is needed to (a) explore the potentialfor local documentation of TEK, (b) characterize the subsequent steps bywhich TEK can be used, and (c) develop models for doing both.The proposed project addresses three related questions:Can the semi-directive interview methodology be successfully used oradapted for use in locally-managed efforts to document TEK? How is TEK used in the cooperative management setting of the AlaskaBeluga Whale Committee? Can the results of (1) and (2) be generalized to other cases in Alaska,the Arctic, or the world?To address these questions, the project has four objectives:Local Documentation of TEK: Conduct locally-managed documentationprojects, using the semi-directive interview method, on TEK of belugawhales. Application of TEK: Examine the structure, management, and conduct ofthe ABWC and its meetings to assess the role that TEK plays. Analysis: Compare the results of (1) and (2) with existing informationon other cooperative management bodies in Alaska, and other attempts touse TEK both in Alaska and elsewhere. Workshop: Hold a workshop in the final year of the project, to summarizeand synthesize what has been learned, to assess how these results havecontributed to understanding of TEK and its use, and to identify futureresearch needs.This research will develop models for documenting TEK and for using TEKto improve research on and management of natural resources. These modelswill identify significant factors influencing the documentation and useof TEK, including those that may influence the applicability of ourmodels in other settings.