Local Values and Data Empower Culturally Guided Ecosystem‐Based Fisheries Management of the Wuikinuxv Bear–Salmon–Human System

Abstract

Despite numerous examples of ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) addressing tradeoffs between ecological and commercial fishery interests, local social and cultural concerns are less frequently considered. We illustrate how Indigenous fishery harvest goals and data from locally driven wildlife research can inform EBFM, guided by cultural values of respect for and reciprocity with wildlife. Grizzly bears Ursus arctos horribilis hold particular importance for the Wuikinuxv First Nation in Rivers Inlet, British Columbia, where people and bears have coexisted as consumers of Sockeye Salmon Oncorhynchus nerka for millennia. The region's valuable commercial fishery, active

An updated end-to-end ecosystem model of the Northern California Current reflecting ecosystem changes due to recent marine heat waves

“…Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) are a group of general interest within the NCC due to their economic [84,85], ecological [86][87][88][89], and cultural [90][91][92][93] benefits and their large scale declines across much of their range [94,95]. Some populations of Chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha) are listed as threatened or endangered [96] while others continue to be commercially and recreationally fished [97,98].…”

Inclusive approaches for cumulative effects assessments

“…Broadly speaking, Indigenous peoples, their communities and their governments operate under holistic principles of respect and reciprocity for the plants and animals with whom they share their homelands, whereby interconnections in ecosystems are acknowledged and accounted for. These principles certainly stand in the region in which our work took place (see below), with Indigenous governments and knowledge holders in the territories of the Kitasoo Xai'xais, Nuxalk, and Wuikinuxv Nations and their neighbouring Nations (Figure 1), who holistically steward biodiversity on their lands and waters through ecosystem‐based approaches (Adams et al, 2021; Artelle et al, 2021; Brown & Brown, 2009; Great Bear Rainforest Order, 2016; Reid et al, 2022). As such, it was important for both the Nations and the research team that our process reflected those interconnections as much as was possible within expert elicitation and modelling methodologies which are necessarily reductionist.…”

“…The staff of the Stewardship Departments of the Kitasoo Xai'xais, Nuxalk and Wuikinuxv First Nations (hereafter ‘Nations’; Figure 1) agreed to join into a research partnership with us. We invested time and resources in initial scoping meetings with each Nation before designing the CEA process, building upon years of relationships and partnerships our research team and Nation staff had from previous work in the region (Adams et al, 2021; Artelle et al, 2021; Walsh et al, 2020).…”

Re‐imagining the precautionary approach to make collaborative fisheries management inclusive of Indigenous Knowledge Systems

“…Accordingly, fisheries scientists are learning that Two‐Eyed Seeing – a term created by Mi'kmaw Elder Albert Marshall to encapsulate the pairing of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems – can better support the resilience of socio‐ecological systems (Reid et al, 2021). Examples include collaborations to determine escapement levels for Pacific salmon ( Oncorhynchus spp., Salmonidae) that allow bears and people to share a common resource along the same river (Adams et al, 2021), and collaborations identifying the best locations to spatially protect declining fish species (Aswani & Hamilton, 2004). When the Indigenous eye and the Western scientific eye look at the same problem together, they can create a much clearer picture.…”