Indigenous Knowledge and Long-term Ecological Change: Detection, Interpretation, and Responses to Changing Ecological Conditions in Pacific Island Communities |
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Authors: | Matthew Lauer Shankar Aswani |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Anthropology, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-6040, USA;(2) Department of Anthropology and IGP Marine Science, University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA |
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Abstract: | When local resource users detect, understand, and respond to environmental change they can more effectively manage environmental
resources. This article assesses these abilities among artisanal fishers in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. In a comparison
of two villages, it documents local resource users’ abilities to monitor long-term ecological change occurring to seagrass
meadows near their communities, their understandings of the drivers of change, and their conceptualizations of seagrass ecology.
Local observations of ecological change are compared with historical aerial photography and IKONOS satellite images that show
56 years of actual changes in seagrass meadows from 1947 to 2003. Results suggest that villagers detect long-term changes
in the spatial cover of rapidly expanding seagrass meadows. However, for seagrass meadows that showed no long-term expansion
or contraction in spatial cover over one-third of respondents incorrectly assumed changes had occurred. Examples from a community-based
management initiative designed around indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure governance show how local observations
of ecological change shape marine resource use and practices which, in turn, can increase the management adaptability of indigenous
or hybrid governance systems. |
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