Indigenous marine resource management on the Northwest Coast of North America

Dana Lepofsky,Megan Caldwell

doi:10.1186/2192-1709-2-12

Abstract

There is increasing recognition among anthropologists that indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast actively managed their terrestrial and marine resources and ecosystems. Such management practices ensured the ongoing productivity of valued resources and were embedded in a complex web of socio-economic interactions. Using ethnographic and archaeological data, this paper synthesizes the ecological and cultural aspects of marine management systems of coastal First Nations. We divide our discussion into four aspects of traditional management systems: harvesting methods, enhancement strategies, tenure systems, and worldview and social relations. The ethnographic data, including memories of living knowledge holders, tend to provide windows into daily actions and the more intangible aspects of management; the archaeological record provides insights into the more tangible aspects and how management systems developed through time and space. This review demonstrates not only the breadth of Northwest Coast marine management but also the value of integrating different kinds of knowledge and data to more fully document the whole of these ancient management systems.

Highlights

There is increasing recognition among anthropologists that indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast actively managed their terrestrial and marine resources and ecosystems
In part spurred on by evidence of traditional plant management practices, regional ethnobiologists, working with traditional ecological knowledge holders, have documented parallel management practices in marine resources and ecosystems (Hunn et al 2003; Langdon 2006a, 2006b; Thornton et al 2010a, 2010b). That such practices were widespread in the past is not surprising given the fundamental importance of marine resources in the lives of Northwest Coast peoples (Newton and Moss 2005; Ellis and Swan 1981; Ellis and Wilson 1981; Moss 1993)
Archaeologists have been slower to embrace the idea of marine resource management on the Northwest Coast, and in particular that management systems played a role in ensuring ongoing access and availability of resources

Summary

Introduction

There is increasing recognition among anthropologists that indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast actively managed their terrestrial and marine resources and ecosystems. A combination of archaeological and ethnographic information indicates that harvest times were extended through the construction of holding ponds built into intertidal fish traps (e.g., White 2011; Lepofsky 2005; Caldwell et al 2012) (Figure 4).

Results

Conclusion