Community-Based Narwhal Management in Nunavut, Canada: Change, Uncertainty, and Adaptation

Abstract

ABSTRACT To promote sustainable forms of community-based resource management, advocates and analysts must examine not only how multiple participants act collectively, but how they respond to change and uncertainty in ways that foster learning and build capacity for management adaptation. In the community-based narwhal management context, a number of issues influence prospects for adaptation and learning. Among the issues examined, the integration of remote communities in Nunavut into the market economy and the subsequent demand for cash to purchase key commodities create new and diverse motivations (collective vs. individual), which increasingly influence natural resource management decisions. Also, the formalized nature of the community-based narwhal management framework, despite efforts to transfer more authority to communities, may still create barriers to local Inuit participation in decision making. Finally, resource mobility and complexity makes the clarification of resource rights difficult, thus inhibiting the collective action required to foster learning. This problem is compounded by the challenge of effectively integrating formal science and traditional knowledge to better understand resource complexity.