Do Berries Listen? Berries as Indicators, Ancestors, and Agents in Canada's Oil Sands Region

Baker, Janelle Marie

doi:10.1080/00141844.2020.1765829

Cited by 23 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Identifying which of these areas have existing value to Indigenous communities would be highly valuable and could be achieved through community partnership. Maps like what we have shown here may also find application in identifying areas made inaccessible by resource extraction, or those with lost or diminished capacity for harvesting [27] where patches are irreplaceable. Overall, this work provides a suite of tools and a methodological framework for modeling and managing wildlife values and a cultural keystone species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…This is especially important when fruit production is limiting to vulnerable wildlife species, such as grizzly bear [24], and given that access to areas of high-quality fruit is important to Indigenous Peoples [9,18,25]. In Alberta's oil sands region, proximity to resource extraction may be limiting traditional use of fruiting shrubs due to concerns regarding trace element contamination [26], accessibility, and diminished land and resource health due to a loss of reciprocity between humans and non-human life [27], highlighting the need to understand where productive fruit patches occur now, and where they may change in the future given forest disturbance (both natural and anthropogenic) and succession that alter these resources.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Predicting Occurrence, Abundance, and Fruiting of a Cultural Keystone Species to Inform Landscape Values and Priority Sites for Habitat Enhancements

Nielsen

Dennett

Bater³

2020

Forests

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Environmental niche modeling is an increasingly common tool in conservation and management of non-timber species. In particular, models of species’ habitats have been aided by new advances in remote sensing and it is now possible to relate forest structure variables to understory species at a relatively high resolution over large spatial scales. Here, we model landscape responses for a culturally-valued keystone shrub, velvet-leaf blueberry (Vaccinium myrtilloides Michaux), in northeast Alberta, Canada, to better understand the environmental factors promoting or limiting its occurrence, abundance, and fruit production, and to guide regional planning. Occurrence and abundance were measured at 845 and 335 sites, respectively, with both strongly related to land cover type and topo-edaphic factors. However, their influence varied widely, reflecting differences in the processes affecting occurrence and abundance. We then used airborne laser scanning (ALS) to characterize horizontal forest canopy cover for the study area, and related this and other geospatial variables to patterns in fruit production where we demonstrated a five-fold increase in fruit production from closed to open forest stands. We then simulated forest canopy thinning across the study area to identify places where gains in fruit production would be greatest following natural disturbance or directed management (e.g., thinning, prescribed burning). Finally, we suggest this approach could be used to identify sites for habitat enhancements to offset direct (land use change) or indirect (access) losses of resources in areas impacted with resource extraction activities, or simply to increase a culturally-valued resource through management.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting Occurrence, Abundance, and Fruiting of a Cultural Keystone Species to Inform Landscape Values and Priority Sites for Habitat Enhancements

Nielsen

Dennett

Bater³

2020

Forests

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“…Action 10'). Community members have opportunity to review drafts of annual reports and decide on changes and approaches to monitoring based on their own environmental observations, IK and community needs (Baker 2020). Presently, the project continues to evolve and has recently expanded to include 4 additional Indigenous communities in the Athabasca region (Fort McKay Metis, Fort McMurray First Nation, Fort McMurray Metis and Conklin Metis).…”

Section: Accepted Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 2016, the WBEA began working with the Alberta government to provide independent ambient air monitoring for the OSM program. The WBEA is an important part of the OSM program (Baker, 2020;WBEA, 2020) The WBEA monitors the air 24 h a day and 365 days a year under two main air-monitoring networks. The first, the Atmospheric Pollutant Active Monitoring Network, is a continuous ambient-air-monitoring network providing data for the public, industries, and local Indigenous communities.…”

Section: Air Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indigenous communities living in the OSR have their own culturally relevant way of observing the effects (response) of emissions on the land because they have long-standing IK that allows knowledge holders to recognize change (Foster et al, 2019). In 2010, Elders of the FMFN began noting changes in the quality and quantity of berries in traditional patches and approached the WBEA with their concerns (Baker, 2016(Baker, , 2020Foster et al, 2019). The Berry Harvesting project was consequently formed to explore contamination concerns (Oil Sands Monitoring Program, 2019).…”

Section: Berry Harvesting (Community-led)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Essential components and pathways for developing Indigenous community‐based monitoring: Examples from the Canadian oil sands region

Beausoleil

Munkittrick

Dubé

et al. 2021

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

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Monitoring in the Oil Sands Region of Alberta, Canada". The series documents the history of monitoring in the region and critically reviews a synthesis of monitoring results published within key environmental theme areas to identify patterns of consistent responses or effects, significant gaps in knowledge and recommendations for improved monitoring, assessment and management of the region Acknowledgements: This work was funded under the Oil Sands Monitoring Program (OSM) but does not necessarily reflect the position of the OSM. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Fuzzy cognitive mapping as a tool to assess the relative cumulative effects of environmental stressors on an Arctic seabird population to identify conservation action and research priorities

Rooney

Daniel

Hedd

et al. 2023

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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In the Arctic, chemical contaminants, shipping, oil pollution, plastic pollution, changing habitats in relation to climate change and fisheries have been identified as environmental stressors to seabirds such as Fulmarus glacialis (northern fulmar; qaqulluk; ᖃᖁᓪᓗᖅ), but rarely have these stressors been considered within a cumulative effects framework in this species which is currently showing a declining populations trend. As a novel tool to understand cumulative effects within a conservation context, we applied a fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) approach that allows experts to arrange key factors and their interrelationships, organizing their understanding of the components of a complex issue into a graphical representation; a ‘cognitive map’. This process was grounded in local environment concerns as documented in several Nunavut‐specific reports and discussions, and worked with western‐trained seabird experts with knowledge of northern fulmar populations to assess the inter‐related environmental threats to fulmars as a way to combine these stressors in a cumulative effects framework and identify conservation actions and knowledge gaps. We found strong agreement that the main stressors affecting northern fulmar populations in Canada include pollution (11% total influence (TI)), shipping activities (16% TI), hunting and fishing (18% TI) and mining/oil and gas exploitation activities (22% TI). The indirect influence of threats on northern fulmar population size (57% TI) exceeded the total direct influence (43% TI), emphasizing the value of cognitive mapping in cumulative effects assessment for a more holistic understanding of interacting stressors. Participants expressed substantial uncertainty regarding the strong relationships leading from the concepts, commercial fishing activity in the BBDS and the North Atlantic fisheries activity, indicating that these potential stressors require more research. Similarly, uncertainty was expressed about the potential effects of zodiac traffic, ship strikes of northern fulmar, number of oil spills and magnitude of oil spills on northern fulmar. By characterizing individual factors as manageable or not, we determined that stressors are largely manageable with enforcement of existing policies (58% TI)—importantly, fishing activities were both highly influential on fulmars and deemed manageable, which will inform ongoing co‐management planning in the region.

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Do Berries Listen? Berries as Indicators, Ancestors, and Agents in Canada's Oil Sands Region

Cited by 23 publications

References 28 publications

Predicting Occurrence, Abundance, and Fruiting of a Cultural Keystone Species to Inform Landscape Values and Priority Sites for Habitat Enhancements

Predicting Occurrence, Abundance, and Fruiting of a Cultural Keystone Species to Inform Landscape Values and Priority Sites for Habitat Enhancements

Essential components and pathways for developing Indigenous community‐based monitoring: Examples from the Canadian oil sands region

Fuzzy cognitive mapping as a tool to assess the relative cumulative effects of environmental stressors on an Arctic seabird population to identify conservation action and research priorities

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