COS 6-6
Negotiating Indigenous knowledge and science: A case study of co-management and eco-cultural restoration with the Karuk Tribe in the Klamath Basin, California
Indigenous communities are increasingly engaging in environmental management decisions, with the potential to shift our understandings of complex socio-ecological systems. Yet for communities like the Karuk Tribe, located in the Klamath Basin of Northern California, forest management decisions are caught up in a longstanding dispute over Indigenous land rights and extractive resource management policies. This study examines an attempt to resolve such conflicts through a collaborative management arrangement between the Karuk Tribe and the U.S. Forest Service, which attempts to implement Karuk eco-cultural management strategies on federal forest lands. The study asks how the Karuk Tribe is linking Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and scientific ecological knowledge (see Kimmerer 2000) to achieve its desired ecological and political outcomes. It also asks whether such co-management initiatives with tribes have contributed to broader changes in Klamath Basin forest governance. Research methods included interviews of key actors, participant observation, and document analysis.
Results/Conclusions
Results demonstrate that the specific co-management initiative studied did not result in a lasting collaborative management institution; however, it did facilitate a careful analysis of the linkages between Karuk TEK and Western scientific knowledge with lasting repercussions. This work outlines several examples of how Karuk understandings of eco-cultural restoration are now being recognized within local and regional natural resource management networks. These include local fire safe councils, and regional fire policy groups. The research also identifies some of the institutional barriers that prevented full collaboration between the Karuk Tribe and forest service in this case. Findings contribute to a broader debate around appropriate linkages between Western science and Indigenous knowledge systems, and acknowledge that contestations over expertise unfold within a specific sociopolitical context. The study finds that current conflicts over forest management are embedded in a long history of colonial in the Klamath region. Therefore, broader restorative justice approaches that may be needed in order to address resource management conflicts between tribes and state agencies.