In a recent Alaska Dispatch News article (May 7) on a newly formed co-management organization, the Kuskokwim River Inter-tribal Fisheries Commission, Lisa Demer reported that some tribal members expressed discontent with state and federal management "which didn't always understand village life and village people."
Co-management of wild resources is based on a "meaningful role" for indigenous Alaskans as defined in Section 801 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). In the Y-K Delta, co-management has operated for years in organizations like the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Regional Advisory Council and The Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group among others. So the Yupik Inter-tribal Fisheries Commission respondents know whereof they speak when they express concerns that village people have been misunderstood or outright marginalized by state or federal managers.
Ostensibly, co-management brings both local resident subsistence fishers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife or state Fish and Game managers together to make decisions about allocation, gear type and openings among others issues that affect salmon. These decisions are critical now that king salmon runs are so low. Historically, however, co-management has not been co-equal because the participants have dramatically different world views and different degrees of political power.
One perspective is that of traditional indigenous salmon fishers, downriver Yupik and upriver Dene, for whom salmon and other wild foods have been a staple for thousands of years and have consequently shaped cultural beliefs and form personal identity. The other perspective is that of wildlife managers who implicitly believe in the superiority of science-based management over other ways of knowing.
The foundation of an indigenous view is based on a multi-millennial heritage of observation and imbuing nature with a willful spirit. It is that willful, sensate spirit that humans interact with through ritual, conscience, and actions. You interact, not manage. Science, whether biology or psychology, cannot explain the concepts of free will or spirit (soul). Consequently, in the rationalist view of empirical science, neither exists and managers roll their eyes when Native leaders talk of the spirit of the salmon.
However, each is closer to the other viewpoint than either group might care to recognize.
The Native view that nature will respond and replicate itself if treated with respect through correct attitudes and practices is very close to the biological concept of ecology where maintenance of trophic energy flows results in more or less stable ecosystem biodiversity.
Kevin Bartley et al. have pointed out another world view disconnect regarding the veracity of science. Science-based managers convert nature into data via measured observations and make predictions based on that data. But biology is not predictable Newtonian physics; it's more like quantum physics with varying degrees of uncertainty. Consequently biologists speak in terms of probability. But in traditional Yupik worldview, probability does not exist -- things either happen or they don't happen. Reality in the Yupik world is not based on probability. When a biologist uses an algebraic Ricker model to predict future salmon returns it is the Yupiks' turn to roll their eyes because if you don't know for sure, you shouldn't say. (And then there are those factory pollock trawlers.)
Bartley et al. note that Yupik people have the concept of a Real Person. A Real Person has wisdom gained from knowing cultural traditions and experience on the land. Real People don't speak in probabilities, live in the area year-round and are engaged in the community. When an Anchorage-based scientist flies into a village, gives a PowerPoint with data at the 95 percent confidence level and flies out on the next available plane grousing about the weather and the possibility of being "stuck in this village" he or she is not a Real Person. The manager is doing what busy managers on expense accounts do and probably has no clue he or she is not taken seriously.
Dominance, in a pluralistic society, can come through overt physical or legal coercion of minority groups. But it can also be subtly covert through a differential power structure and rigid adherence to one's world view without acknowledging its assumptions combined with a disregard for indigenous perspectives. That seems to have happened among some, certainly not all, federal and state Yukon-Kuskokwim fish managers.
We all need to understand the deep investment people of the Kuskokwim and Yukon villages have in their place and their right to a sovereignty of management of traditional resources. That was summed up by Jonathan Samuelson who is quoted by Demer as saying, "This is our river. It has always been our river. Now here we are. This is our table. We can invite people to this table as we see fit."
Alan Boraas is a professor of anthropology at Kenai Peninsula College. He is a co-author of the Bartley et al. document, titled "Understanding and Improving Collaborative Fish and Wildlife Management in Western Alaska," which is available online.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.