Bridging Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Science to Create a New Environmental Society How Can We Bring Together the Takers and Leavers to Reach a Better Understanding of the World We Live In? Dean Howard Smith Northern Arizona University
Characteristics of Indigenous Economic Systems ¬ Extensive Trading Networks ¬ Investment ¬ Varied production methods ¬ Property rights clearly delineated ¬ Wildlife (herd) and forest management
Characteristics of Indigenous Economic Systems ¬Shared risk versus private risk ¬Specialization and division of labor ¬Extended transportation systems ¬Sustainable resource management
Characteristics of Indigenous Economic Systems ¬Pre-contact societies had extensive and varied economic systems with comprehensive resource and environmental management traditions. ¬Corn production extended from southern Chile to Canada and from sea level to elevations in excess of 10, 000 feet
Smith’s Social Compatibility Theory ¬Social systems evolve to take into account various conditions ¬Native American societies changed when their political and economic systems were taken away. ¬The Colorado Plateau and the SW changed due to the Big Buildup
What will happen when we say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? It will be the end of living and the beginning of survival. Chief Seattle
The pony was a post-contact technology leading to adaptive behavior of the plains Indians. The adjustments evidenced by the introduction of the pony into the productive process included changes in the spiritual, environmental and other sub-systems.
Chief Seattle foresaw a new equilibrium of compatibility simply involving survival instead of living.
Similarly, when the Waikato-Tainui lost their lands, they had difficulty “socially, politically and economically” when they lost their economic base. Recent legislation in New Zealand is allowing them to regain their own selves
Mainstream Global Society ¬ Uranium tailings ¬ Global warming ¬ Loss of biodiversity ¬ Air and water pollution ¬ Ozone depletion
Loss of Compatibility
When the supermarket and the drugstore are empty, the dumpster and the crackhouse become attractive. When the keystone players are excluded, the flim flam players and connivers govern. When the economic base is excluded, survival can even become uninteresting when the connivers offer alternatives.
Coevolution Theory ¬Society and the environment coevolve to reach a level of compatibility ¬When one system changes, the other does as well
Reducing “Indian fires” results in catastrophic fires
In the coevolutionary paradigm, the environment determines the fitness of how people behave as guided by alternative ways of knowing, forms of social organization, and types of technologies. Yet at the same time, how people know, organize and use tools determine the fitness characteristics of an evolving environment. At any point in time, each determines the other. Richard Norgaard
Bridging Native Societies with Modern Economies ¬A world-view substantially different from mainstream society: nature and humans are symbiotic. Humans do not have a dominant status. ¬Not the duality of extraction or preservation; rather, a shared existence within the spatial and spiritual environment.
Extraction Or Preservation ¬Extraction = Takers – Use all resources for human benefit without regard to the environment ¬Preservation = Leavers – Leave nature alone and save all natural ecosystems free of human interaction
Examples of Environmental Society ¬Nissenbaum and Shadle – No net degradation to the salmon fisheries for the Puyallup Tribe • Similar to the wetlands replacement program for the Waikato-Tainui
Examples of Environmental Society ¬Anderson and Nabhan – Organpipe Cactus National Monument • Similar to: – Sustainable growth and harvesting – Indian fires
Examples of Environmental Society ¬Plotkin – Pharmaceutical development, forest preservation and economic development
Trosper, Boulding, Pierotti and World-Views ¬Does human development supercede the rest of nature? NOT ¬Is pure economic development above social and cultural development? NOT ¬Is economic development even desirable? NOT ALWAYS
Or is sustainable development of the available resources preferable? PERHAPS
How can you buy the sky? How can you own the rain and the wind? Chief Seattle Only with your smile and your soul can you share the sunshine.
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