Knowledge co-production and co-management of Arctic wildlife

We live in an era of rapid climate change in which the Arctic is experiencing amplified impacts that its residents, particularly its Indigenous inhabitants, have directly observed and experienced over the past several decades (ACIA 2005; IPCC 2019). Many of the issues affecting Arctic peoples and ecosystems today can be characterized as “wicked” problems, or those problems to which there is no single solution (Balint et al. 2011). Wicked problems necessitate drawing upon all relevant sources of information to approach problem using diverse and integrated approaches that transcend knowledge systems and disciplines. This special issue is intended to contribute to the evolution of Arctic science towards a more collaborative approach that includes Inuit and scientists and their knowledge systems to advance the state of knowledge about Arctic wildlife and Inuit subsistence under changing conditions. The articles included in this issue are situated within the context of wildlife co-management bodies that have evolved as a significant innovation of Inuit land settlement agreements across the Canadian Arctic. Although not always implemented robustly, the meaningful inclusion of Inuit and their knowledge systems is both implicit and explicit in co-management (Rodon 1998; Berkes and Armitage 2010; Watson 2013). This, however, is not always the case for Arctic research. In recent years, Inuit have raised various concerns about Arctic research, pointing out that it has frequently failed to address questions and concerns of central interest to community members, failed to engage Inuit knowledge as an important body of knowledge with significant insights for Arctic research; and — even when it does recognize Inuit knowledge — failed to facilitate participation of community members in science on an equal basis with Western-trained scientists (Gearheard and Shirley 2007; ITK and NRI 2007; Brunet et al. 2014; ITK 2018).

This special issue was conceived based on sessions focusing on co-management, community-based monitoring, and knowledge co-production organized at three consecutive ArcticNet Annual Scientific Meetings between 2017 and 2019. These sessions drew a wide variety of presentations involving researchers and northern residents who offered insights and commentary about the challenges and opportunities presented by co-management, community-based monitoring, and knowledge co-production in the contemporary Arctic. ArcticNet is a Canadian network of researchers, Indigenous organizations and peoples, and private sector partners studying the impacts of climate change in the Canadian Arctic. Its Annual Scientific Meeting draws both funded ArcticNet projects as well as Arctic researchers from inside and outside Canada working on similar themes and topics. For the most part, participants in the ArcticNet sessions were working on these themes within Canada, and the papers in this special issue are also Canadian in regional focus. Although the issues, challenges, and innovations they describe are specific to the Canadian context (and varied by community and region within Canada), we believe that readers working and living in northern regions outside of Canada will find commonality and perhaps also useful juxtaposition with the examples and issues raised in this collection.

The special issue includes articles that reflect the practices of knowledge co-production and co-equal authorship that we see as an important evolution for the field of Arctic research. Wilson et al. open the special issue with their article about the Sikumiut Model, a decolonizing methodology for non-Indigenous researchers and a co-developed model from Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet), Nunavut, to support Inuit self-determination in research. Hovel et al. then discuss the utility of community-based monitoring projects that engage with traditional knowledge to inform natural resource conservation and management in the context of two projects in the Gwich’in Settlement Area, Northwest Territories, that focus on muskrat and broad whitefish, both of which are species of great cultural importance to Gwich’in. Henri et al. discuss the potential of collaborative research for mobilizing Inuit knowledge to support informed and inclusive decision making about wildlife using a study of light geese abundance and habitat alterations in some portions of the central and eastern Canadian Arctic drawing upon the knowledge of Inuit from Arviat and Salliq, Nunavut. The application of a knowledge coevolution framework that fosters a progression towards improved co-management and community-led research is illustrated by Schott et al. through an example of a food security fishery research project in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut. In Aklavik, Northwest Territories, Worden et al. investigated the reduced beluga harvest and found that both ecological and social changes operating across scales are affecting the feasibility of the harvest and the motivation and knowledge to participate. Peacock et al. describe a framework to better include Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and local ecological knowledge in wildlife health assessments tested in a community-based monitoring program for muskoxen and caribou in Nunavut and the Inuvialuit and Sahtu Settlement Areas. The concept of “human-relevant environmental variables” (HREVs) is introduced by Fox et al. to describe how Inuit and scientists studying weather in Clyde River, Nunavut, work together to synthesize complex variables to better predict weather to inform safe travel and activities on the land. Kourantidou et al. discuss the role of marine resource indicators as potential “boundary objects” that can help bring together Inuit and western understandings of marine resources to improve shared co-management decisions that utilize both knowledge systems. Etiendem et al. present an overview of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board’s (NWMB) Community-Based Monitoring Network (CBMN), established in 2012, describing some of the challenges and opportunities that the NWMB faced in trying to incorporate this “hybrid” form of information in co-management decision-making.

The special issue concludes with three commentaries that offer unique perspectives that emphasize the value of Inuit knowledge offered on its own terms and reflect on challenges to incorporating Inuit and Indigenous knowledge in academic processes. Pedersen et al. share the perspectives of Inuit youth from four Nunavut communities on how researchers conducting studies in Nunavut can incorporate Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) and meaningfully engage Inuit communities in research. Drawing upon observations and experiential knowledge from Inuit harvesters with a scientific assessment, Pettit-Wade et al. describe and interpret an unusual account of gelatinous organisms at high densities during summer 2019 in the eastern Amundsen Gulf, near Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories. Finally, Loseto et al. draw on discussions from an ArcticNet side event on Indigenous knowledge and engagement in academic publishing to reflect on what it would take to truly involve Indigenous collaborators in the editorial process.

We would like to thank the contributors to this special issue for the hard work they have demonstrated in their research and in their careful analysis of the contemporary challenges of co-production and co-management; we appreciate that they are working to refine and demonstrate the value of these approaches and the need to continue to invest effort to reform these institutions. And in particular, we thank the northern community partners in the projects that are described here, as well as those who are co-authors of these papers and commentaries. Thank you for your leadership and willingness to teach both researchers and northerners through your example. Quyanna, Qujannamiik, Nakurmik, Koana, Quana, Quyanainni, Hąį’, Máhsi, Máhsı, Mahsì, Mársı, Kinanāskomitin