The Canadian Arctic Marine Ecological Footprint and Free Prior Informed Consent: Making the Case for Indigenous Public Participation through Inclusive Education

Abstract

Public participation of the Inuit concerning climate change adaptation in the Canadian Arctic is essential, given the extensive knowledge they possess about their traditional territories, especially as it relates to resources management. Unfortunately, much of this knowledge is not incorporated into the tertiary educational system and hence not part of the knowledge set of the people most likely to engage in public policy discussions and decisions. This article adopts a transdisciplinary approach, using an analysis of historic fish and marine mammal catch with the marine ecological footprint calculated for the year 2000. This scientific data, supported by the principle of free and prior informed consent as defined in United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as well as the Tsilhqot'in case in Canada, demonstrates the need for inclusive education. We conclude that indigenous participation in climate change adaptation policies would benefit immensely from the offering of university programmes that incorporate, in a meaningful way, Inuit traditional knowledge and indigenous rights.

Maternal Indigenous and Artisanal Coastal Nutrition, the SDG Imperative: A Suggested Renaissance of Ethics for Research and Tertiary Education in the Anthropocene Era

“…Some communities may have significant access to caribou as a protein source, while others may not. The need for an educational approach to community-based food security 5,8 is extreme in the Canadian Arctic due to the isolation of the communities and a lack of affordable transportation for protein from southern Canada sources. In the Philippines there is a tendency to take the marine sources of protein somewhat for granted as there is no systematic approach to meet manage coastal resources nor goals for maternal protein intake requirements.…”

AYin‐Yangapproach to education policy regarding health and the environment: early‐careerists' image of the future and priority programmes

“…Thus, the population density is almost 100 times greater in the Philippines, resulting in significant problems associated with scale. Interestingly however, the dependence upon marine ecosystems in the Philippines (Silvestre and Pauly, ) is actually similar to that of the Canadian Inuit culture (Koutouki et al ., ), and requires some form of parallel education policy development. The priority for Canadian Ecohealth inclusions, in terms of the health approach to ecosystems, and identified through the current process are: climate change mitigation, traditional ecological knowledge, and incorporating indigenous and ecocentric approaches in society (Table ).…”

“…The historic challenge regarding Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples, and in particular regarding the potential of Ecohealth (Parkes, 2011), could also be considered further through a programme that expands upon traditional knowledge through an ecocentric approach (Mosquin, 2002) inherent to indigenous peoples, as suggested elsewhere (Koutouki et al, 2015). Work to establish PEP networks based on indigenous Canadian perspectives have been initiated in the Lake Winnipeg Basin and the territory of Nunavut through workshops and pilot studies.…”

Public Participation and Climate Governance: An Introduction

“…In their article on the participation of the Inuit in climate governance in the Canadian Arctic, Konstantia Koutouki, Paul Watts and Shawn Booth emphasize the importance of respecting the collective rights of Inuit communities enshrined in Canadian and international law as well as ensuring that their traditional knowledge is effectively integrated into the design and management of climate adaptation programmes in the Canadian Arctic. 24 Notwithstanding increasing scholarly recognition of the value of traditional Inuit rights and knowledge in responding to climate change, the authors note that Inuit perspectives remain largely absent from Canadian tertiary education, which continues to emphasize Western scientific knowledge over other forms of spiritual, cultural and aesthetic knowledge regarding marine environments and inhabitants. The authors present an innovative transdisciplinary analysis of historic fish and marine mammal catch in the Canadian Arctic that illustrates the potential and the need for cross-cultural and collaborative approaches for reconciling scientific and traditional knowledge in the context of resource governance.…”