Forests & Oceans for the Future Discussion and News

Upcoming Seminar Presentation: January 11, 2006.

Dr. Kurt Grimm (UBC, Earth & Ocean Sciences).
“What is Sustainability? Simple, Complex and Essential.”
Time: 5:00 – 6:30 pm
Place: AnSo Building, Rm 2107

For background reading: Kurt Grimm on Katrina.

Edited by Charles R. MenziesTraditional Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Management

Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Management examines how traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is taught and practiced today among Native communities. Of special interest is the complex relationship between indigenous ecological practices and other ways of interacting with the environment, particularly regional and national programs of natural resource management.

Focusing primarily on the northwest coast of North America, contributors look at the challenges and opportunities confronting the local practice of indigenous ecological knowledge in a range of communities, including the Tsimshian, the Nisga’a, the Tlingit, the Gitksan, the Kwagult, the Sto:lo, and the northern Dene in the Yukon. The contributors consider how traditional knowledge is taught and learned and address the cultural importance of different subsistence practices using natural elements such as seaweed (Gitga’a), pine mushrooms (Tsimshian), and salmon (Tlingit). Several contributors discuss the extent to which national and regional programs of resource management need to include models of TEK in their planning and execution.

This volume highlights the different ways of seeing and engaging with the natural world and underscores the need to acknowledge and honor the ways that indigenous peoples have done so for generations.

Charles R. Menzies is a member of the Tsimshian nation and an associate professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia. He is a coauthor of BC First Nations Studies.

The contributors include Kimberly Linkous Brown, Caroline Butler, Helen Clifton, John Corsiglia, David Griffith, Stephen J. Langdon, James McGoodwin, Charles R. Menzies, Paul Nadasdy, Gloria Snively, and Nancy Turner.

From April 20-23, 2006 I was an invited participant at the Muros Congress on Tourism and Fishing Communities. This event was organized by a variety of government and university centers, most notably the Centre for Studies in Tourism based at the University of Santiago de Compostella. The objective of the congress was to explore the ways in which tourism might be combined with the more traditional activities of commercial fishing to provide a long term and sustainable economic future for the municipality of Muros. Speakers involved representatives of Galician communities who had tried various tourism approaches, local academics, and representatives such as myself who were invited to present on the experiences in places as disperse as Northern Norway, Wales, and British Columbia. My own talk, available below as an mp3 file and a pdf version of my power point presentation, focused upon the ways in which tourism in Prince Rupert has developed in the context of Prince Rupert’s fishing industry.

Muros Talk

• mp3 audio version. Please note introduction and some other comments are in Galician. The language of the presentation is English.
• pdf version of powerpoint presentation.
• newspaper story from La Vox de Galicia