Reevaluating the Co-management Success Story

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The integration of science and traditional knowledge (TEK), a cornerstone of contemporary cooperative management, entails translating First Nation people's life experiences into forms compatible with state wildlife management (e.g., numbers and lines on maps), with all the risks of distortion inherent in any translation process. Even after such a translation, however, knowledge-integration remains fraught with difficulties, many of which seem on the surface to be technical or methodological. Surprisingly, despite these difficulties, the literature is full of accounts of successful co-management. I call for a more critical and nuanced analysis of co-management, one that takes different perspectives into account and calls into question what we mean by "success" in the first place. To this end, I examine the case of the Ruby Range Sheep Steering Committee (RRSSC), a co-management body in the southwest Yukon that some have held up as a model of success. Over the course of three years, RRSSC members gathered information about Dall sheep (Ovis dalli dalli) from many sources and managed to express it all in forms compatible with scientific wildlife management. Yet, even then-with a single exception-RRSSC members failed to integrate their knowledge about sheep. Although there were numerous technical and methodological obstacles to knowledgeintegration, the underlying reasons for this failure were ultimately political. Thus, a focus on the political dimensions of knowledge-integration is essential to an understanding and assessment of co-management.Key words: traditional knowledge, cooperative management, space, time, trust, power, Dall sheep, wildlife, First Nations, Yukon RÉSUMÉ. L'intégration de la science et du savoir écologique traditionnel (SET), une pierre angulaire de la cogestion pratiquée de nos jours, nécessite que soit traduit le vécu des gens des Premières nations sous des formes compatibles avec la gestion gouvernementale de la faune (p. ex., chiffres et lignes sur les cartes), avec les risques de distorsion inhérents à toute opération traduisante. Mais même après une telle traduction, l'intégration du savoir reste truffée de difficultés, dont un grand nombre semble être de prime abord d'ordre technique ou méthodologique. Curieusement, malgré ces difficultés, la documentation regorge de témoignages de cogestion réussie. Je réclame une analyse plus critique et plus nuancée de la cogestion, une analyse qui tienne compte de différents points de vue et remette en question ce que l'on entend tout d'abord par «réussite». À cette fin, j'examine le cas du Comité directeur du mouflon de Ruby Range (RRSSC), organisme de cogestion situé dans le sud-ouest du Yukon et qui est cité par certains comme un modèle de réussite. Au cours d'une durée de trois ans, les membres du RRSSC ont collecté de l'information sur le mouflon de Dall (Ovis dalli dalli) auprès de sources multiples et ils sont parvenus à l'exprimer entièrement sous des formes compatibles avec la gestion scientifique de la faune. Pourtant, même là -à ...

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