Huna Tlingit Traditional Environmental Knowledge, Conservation, and the Management of a “Wilderness” Park

Abstract

A study of Huna Tlingit traditional gullegg harvests in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, indicates that local traditional environmental knowledge includes a sophisticated appreciation of glaucouswinged gull (Larus glaucescens) nesting biology and behaviorin particular, an understanding of this gull as an indeterminate layer with a modal clutch size of three. The community has applied knowledge to the design of sustainable eggharvesting strategies. The dominant strategy is to take eggs from nests with one or two eggs but leave nests with three or more; an alternative strategy advocates partial harvests from threeegg clutches. The case study is related to a critical review of work questioning the contributions of traditional environmental knowledge to sustainable resource management, past and present. In particular we argue against a new orthodoxy that discounts the capacity of indigenous communities to conserve the natural resources of their lands.