Programs > TEK
Modern forest management aims at inclusion of social, cultural and spiritual
values. At the same time, First Nations groups wish not only to preserve
their heritage, but also to see that heritage given its proper place in
decisions that affect the land. A recent article by Brian Savage in the
Western Native News (July 1997), in an article titled "Wendy Grant-John,
candidate for AFN grand Chief" describes some of the difficulties
encountered in this process: "A central problem for government officials
is the incredible diversity of problems and concerns that each Native
band faces across the country ... You can't put in place one thing across
the country and think you're going to get success and support because
each community is so unique, their needs so different from the other."
Forest management is based to a great extent on analysis of information stored
in computers, but the anecdotal nature of traditional knowledge makes it difficult
to represent in the computer, in a way that helps the needs of communities to
be individually addressed. For example, studies of traditional knowledge among
the Dene of the Northwest Territories are described in the reports of the Dene
Cultural Institute, which indicate that "Most traditional knowledge
information is presented in anecdotal form and is therefore difficult to classify
and analyze. Often people will discuss several different subjects in answer
to one question. Because the information is often difficult to separate without
taking it out of context it is necessary to develop some system of cross-referencing
for any system of data classification. At the time of writing this document
no computerized system of data management was in use for our Ft. Good Hope project."
Elicitation, representation and use of knowledge is a major of area of research
in the field of Artificial Intelligence, leading to development of knowledge
bases and expert systems. I have worked for many years in development of forest
management Decision Support Systems. In recent years I have used a range of
Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches, and have proposed possible ways of
representing the interaction of community and environment in a manner that can
be used to show the differences among communities. I also proposed methods for
representing different codes of environmental ethics, and for storage and analysis
of anecdotal information.
In the summer of 1997, I initiated a project on elicitation, representation
and use of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in relation to resource management,
to bring modern AI approaches to bear on this issue. The project was in collaboration
with the Nicola Tribal Association (contacts: Harold Aljam, Mandy Jimmie) in
Merritt, BC, and with the involvement of the Nicola
Valley Institute of Technology (NVIT) (a First Nations College - contact:
Sharon McIvor). Members of five bands in the area were involved: Coldwater,
Upper Nicola, Lower Nicola, Nooaitch and Shackan. Interviews were conducted
by Holly Meuse.
The aim of the project is to show the flow of knowledge from :
a) The reasoning behind each question; why the question was asked and what
we expected to find out.
b) The questions themselves; their categorization and interconnectedness.
c) The range of responses to each question.
d) The inferences that can be drawn from the responses, and
e) The link between the inferences and resource management (such as aspects
of the BC Forest Practices Code)
A database
of the literature background, questions, responses, inferences and links has
been created. We would like to use the database as the focus of a discussion
of Traditional Knowledge in Resource Management.
Wendy Cocksedge of the University of Victoria assisted in providing synopses
of the literature and in making inferences from the responses.
Curran Crawford and Robert Banfield provided programming assistance.
Copyright (c) Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada 1998
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