Cumulative environmental impacts driven by anthropogenic stressors lead to disproportionate effects on indigenous communities that are reliant on land and water resources. Understanding and counteracting these effects requires knowledge from multiple sources. Yet the combined use of Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Scientific Knowledge (SK) has both technical and philosophical hurdles to overcome, and suffers from inherently imbalanced power dynamics that can disfavour the very communities it intends to benefit. In this article, we present a 'two-eyed seeing' approach for co-producing and blending knowledge about ecosystem health by using an adapted Bayesian Belief Network for the Slave River and Delta region in Canada's Northwest Territories. We highlight how bridging TK and SK with a combination of field data, interview transcripts, existing models, and expert judgement can address key questions about ecosystem health when considerable uncertainty exists. SK indicators (e.g., bird counts, mercury in fish, water depth) were graded as moderate, whereas TK indicators (e.g., bird usage, fish aesthetics, changes to water flow) were graded as being poor in comparison to the past. SK indicators were predominantly spatial (i.e., comparing to other locations) while the TK indicators were predominantly temporal (i.e., comparing across time). After being populated by 16 experts (local harvesters, Elders, governmental representatives, and scientists) using both TK and SK, the model output reported low probabilities that the social-ecological system is healthy as it used to be. We argue that it is novel and important to bridge TK and SK to address the challenges of environmental change such as the cumulative impacts of multiple stressors on ecosystems and the services they provide. This study presents a critical social-ecological tool for widening the evidence-base to a more holistic understanding of the system dynamics of multiple environmental stressors in ecosystems and for developing more effective knowledge-inclusive partnerships between indigenous communities, researchers and policy decision-makers. This represents new transformational empirical insights into how wider knowledge discourses can contribute to more effective adaptive co-management governance practices and solutions for the resilience and sustainability of ecosystems in Northern Canada and other parts of the world with strong indigenous land tenure.

BackgroundMany Indigenous communities in Canada live with high-risk drinking water systems and drinking water advisories and experience health status and water quality below that of the general population. A scoping review of research examining drinking water quality and its relationship to Indigenous health was conducted.ObjectiveThe study was undertaken to identify the extent of the literature, summarize current reports and identify research needs.DesignA scoping review was designed to identify peer-reviewed literature that examined challenges related to drinking water and health in Indigenous communities in Canada. Key search terms were developed and mapped on five bibliographic databases (MEDLINE/PubMED, Web of Knowledge, SciVerse Scopus, Taylor and Francis online journal and Google Scholar). Online searches for grey literature using relevant government websites were completed.ResultsSixteen articles (of 518; 156 bibliographic search engines, 362 grey literature) met criteria for inclusion (contained keywords; publication year 2000–2015; peer-reviewed and from Canada). Studies were quantitative (8), qualitative (5) or mixed (3) and included case, cohort, cross-sectional and participatory designs. In most articles, no definition of “health” was given (14/16), and the primary health issue described was gastrointestinal illness (12/16). Challenges to the study of health and well-being with respect to drinking water in Indigenous communities included irregular funding, remote locations, ethical approval processes, small sample sizes and missing data.ConclusionsResearch on drinking water and health outcomes in Indigenous communities in Canada is limited and occurs on an opportunistic basis. There is a need for more research funding, and inquiry to inform policy decisions for improvements of water quality and health-related outcomes in Indigenous communities. A coordinated network looking at First Nations water and health outcomes, a database to store and create access to research findings, increased funding and time frames for funding, and more decolonizing and community-based participatory research aimed at understanding the relationship between drinking water quality and health outcomes in First Nations communities in Canada are needed.

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A challenge for transdisciplinary sustainability science is learning how to bridge diverse worldviews among collaborators in respectful ways. A temptation in transdisciplinary work is to focus on improving scientific practices rather than engage research partners in spaces that mutually respect how we learn from each other and set the stage for change. We used the concept of Nicolescu’s “Hidden Third” to identify and operationalize this transformative space, because it focused on bridging “objective” and “subjective” worldviews through art. Between 2014 and 2017, we explored the engagement of indigenous peoples from three inland delta regions in Canada and as a team of interdisciplinary scholars and students who worked together to better understand long-term social–ecological change in those regions. In working together, we identified five characteristics associated with respectful, transformative transdisciplinary space. These included (1) establishing an unfiltered safe place where (2) subjective and objective experiences and (3) different world views could come together through (4) interactive and (5) multiple sensory experiences. On the whole, we were more effective in achieving characteristics 2–5—bringing together the subjective and objective experiences, where different worldviews could come together—than in achieving characteristic 1—creating a truly unfiltered and safe space for expression. The novelty of this work is in how we sought to change our own engagement practices to advance sustainability rather than improving scientific techniques. Recommendations for sustainability scientists working in similar contexts are provided.

ObjectiveTo present the co-creation of a whiteboard animation video, an enhanced e-storytelling technique for relaying traditional knowledge interview results as narratives.DesignWe present a design for translating interview results into a script and accompanying series of figures, followed by technical steps to create a whiteboard animation product.MethodOur project used content analysis and researcher triangulation, followed by a collaborative process to develop an animated video to disseminate research findings. A 13-minute long whiteboard animation video was produced from a research study about changing environments in northern Canadian communities and was distributed to local people. Three challenging issues in the video creation process including communication issues, technical difficulties and contextual debate were resolved among the supporting agencies and researchers.ConclusionsDissemination of findings is a crucial step in the research process. Whiteboard animation video products may be a viable and culturally-appropriate form of relaying research results back to Indigenous communities in a storytelling format.