PARENT SESSION
Symposium #23: Relationship, Community, and Intergenerational Innovation: Traditional Ecological Knowledge for Ecosystem Restoration .
Sponsored by ESA Sustainable Biosphere Initiative
Organized by: K Klubnikin, K Rodriguez, J Parrotta, and W Covington
Wednesday, August 7. 1:00 PM to 4:30 PM. Leo Rich Theatre.

Ecounits and family units: The spatial distribution of knowledge across the landscape.

DAVIDSON-HUNT, IAIN^*,1, JACK, PHYLLIS², ¹ Natural Resources Institute, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada² Shoal Lake Resource Institute, Shoal Lake, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT- In this paper we discuss the findings of a cooperative research project of the Iskatewizaagegan #39 Independent First nation and the University of Manitoba. The purpose of the study was to examine how a pluralistic, consensus-based research approach can bring different knowledge traditions together in addressing site-specific environmental problems. We describe the research project and the means by which the First Nation attempted to involve young people in land activities. The resource program, which takes school children to a trappers cabin to learn about trapping, was one approach. Another placed youth in direct contact with Aniishinaabe elders to learn traditional knowledge of land resources. An important question we addressed with elders and the community researcher was how knowledge of plant resources is spatially distributed. An emerging idea within TEK discussions is the relational or ecological concepts of local peoples. As we undertook ethnobotanical work to develop a common lexicon for talking about plants; we also thought we could create a similar lexicon for habitats, with a larger goal of delineating commonly understood ecounits. We thought that the primary difference would be in scale of perception. This assumption was only partially correct. Our efforts were only partially successful. We found sophisticated of different habitats, but that the way the knowledge is distributed across the landscape is not by habitat types but by family relationships and histories that are site-specific. Everyone has a specific area with which they have intimate, intergenerational knowledge. Young people are taught about a place through their family activities that are place-centered. If someone needs to know about other areas, there are social and cultural mechanisms for sharing knowledge. Ecological knowledge of the area is a seamless quilt bound together by social and cultural processes.

KEY WORDS: First Nations, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Shoal Lake, Canada, Culture