changing resource management paradigms, traditional

NTFP Conference Proceedings

Changing Resource Management Paradigms, TraditionalEcological Knowledge, and Non-timber Forest Products

Iain J. Davidson-Hunt1 and Fikret Berkes2

Abstract.—We begin this paper by exploring the shift now occurringin the science that provides the theoretical basis for resource man-agement practice. The concepts of traditional ecological knowledgeand traditional management systems are presented next to providethe background for an examination of resilient landscapes thatemerge through the work and play of humans. These examples oftraditional ecological knowledge and traditional management systemssuggest that it is important to focus on managing ecological pro-cesses, instead of products, and to use integrated ecosystem manage-ment. Traditional knowledge is often discussed by resource manage-ment agencies as a source of information to be incorporated intomanagement practice; in this paper we go further and explore tradi-tional knowledge as an arena of dialogue between resource managersand harvesters. To enter into this dialogue will require mutual re-spect among managers and users for each others’ knowledge andpractice. Such a dialogue could move forest management paradigmsbeyond our current view of “timber or parks” and toward one of trulyintegrated use.

1 Ph.D. student, Natural Resources Institute,University of Manitoba, and member, The TaigaInstitute for Land, Culture and Economy, SuiteA, 150 Main Street South, Kenora, Ontario,Canada, P9N 1S9; e-mail:[email protected].

2 Professor, Natural Resources Institute, Uni-versity of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba,Canada, R3T 2N2; e-mail:[email protected].

INTRODUCTION

“Adopting sustainable development inforestry has meant broadening ouroverarching goal, from sustained yields tohealthy forest ecosystems...Our goal is tomaintain and enhance the long-term healthof our forest ecosystems for the benefit ofall living things, both nationally and glo-bally, while providing environmental, eco-nomic, social and cultural opportunities forthe benefit of present and future genera-tions” (Canadian Council of Forest Minis-ters 1998a: ix-xii, emphasis added).

“We commit ourselves to apply our knowl-edge and expertise to fulfill our vision by,where applicable: Improving our under-standing of forest ecological processes, andenhancing our capacity to manage forestsin a way that will maintain the biologicaldiversity, productivity and resilience ofthese ecosystems” (Canadian Council ofForest Ministers 1998b: 1).

“It seems obvious that the common proce-dure of incorporating TK [traditional knowl-edge] into environmental management isone that serves neither the interests ofAboriginal peoples nor the dominant cul-ture. The full contributions of Aboriginalpeople and their knowledge to managing forsustainable use will not be realized if TKcontinues to be treated as just some othercategory of information to be inserted into,or merged with, western scientific knowl-edge to further the agenda of environmentalmanagers. Rather, they will be realizedwhen we begin to shift focus towardsapplying those management philosophiesand systems that give TK its full meaning,merit, and efficacy” (Stevenson 1998).

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A shift is occurring in how Canadians thinkforests should be managed. As the CanadianCouncil of Forest Ministers (CCFM 1998a)noted, we are beginning to view our forests asecosystems that provide timber, medicinalplants, foods, craft materials, and recreationalopportunities. We are also beginning to realizethat the long-term health of forest ecosystemsand the well-being of people should be comple-mentary, rather than opposing, goals. Ahealthy forest ecosystem is one that supportsmore than just logging activities. There may bepeople felling trees and others picking medici-nal herbs or shooting the rapids in a canoe. Itis also time to move beyond the idea that ahealthy forest ecosystem is one in which thereare no people. Healthy forest ecosystems areplaces where people live, work, and play, aswell as visit.

The Canadian Council of Forest Ministers(1997, 1998a) have worked toward an ecosys-tem vision by outlining a set of criteria andindicators that provide forest managementagencies with the tangible means to integrateeconomic, social, cultural, and ecologicalvalues in forest management. However, thechasm between the vision of a healthy forestecosystem as a vibrant place of activity and itsvision as a “silent cathedral” may not be tra-versed by such an approach. It will also requirethe ability of resource managers to imagine ahealthy forest ecosystem as one that reconcilesindustrial landscapes with conservation land-scapes.

It is not difficult to imagine that economicactivity and conservation can overlap withinthe same landscape. This is a vision that manyharvesters find acceptable as the manner inwhich the relationship between humans andthe environment should be structured. Tradi-tional ecological knowledge and traditionalknowledge management systems start from thepremise that there is no separation between thelandscapes in which people live and play andthose in which they work. As resource manage-ment paradigms shift toward integrated ecosys-tem management, it appears that there is aconvergence between this new kind of resourcemanagement and traditional ecological knowl-edge, opening a new opportunity for dialogueand mutual learning.

This paper begins by exploring the shift occur-ring in the science that provides the theoreticalbasis for resource management practice. The

concepts of traditional ecological knowledgeand traditional management systems arepresented next, to provide the background foran examination of resilient landscapes thatemerge through the work and play of humans.These examples of traditional ecological knowl-edge and traditional management systemssuggest that it is important to focus on manag-ing ecological processes, instead of products,and to utilize integrated ecosystem manage-ment. Traditional knowledge is often discussedby resource management agencies as a sourceof information to be incorporated into manage-ment practice; in this paper we go further andexplore traditional knowledge as an arena ofdialogue between resource managers andharvesters. Such a dialogue will require mutualrespect among managers and users for eachothers’ knowledge and practice; it could moveforest management paradigms beyond ourcurrent view of “timber or parks” and towardone of truly integrated use.

CHANGING RESOURCE MANAGEMENTPARADIGMS

Institutions and practices of science andtraditional ecological knowledge are oftenpresented as independent and bounded realmsof knowledge that are free from any mutualinfluence. The evolving thinking on science andtraditional ecological knowledge is that bound-aries between knowledge systems are less rigidthan previously thought, and the interchangebetween science and traditional knowledgemore frequent (Agrawal 1995, Usher 2000).Both of us have made such observations in ourwork both in the Canadian North and interna-tionally. We have noted, for example, thesophistication of Latin American Aboriginalpeople in the way they manage forest succes-sion, and the use of diverse landscapes inforested mountain environments in the West-ern Himalaya (Berkes et al. 1998b). We learnedfrom the knowledge of Cree fisherfolk to de-velop a healthy respect and interest in thelinkages between the knowledge of harvestersand resource managers. Collaborative projectswith the eastern James Bay Cree fishersthrough the 1970s and the 1980s provided newinsights that influenced the way we do ecology.

Twenty-five years after he first started workingwith the Cree, Berkes reflected, “Somewhat tomy surprise, I found myself comfortable withthe Cree view of nature, even though, by virtue

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of my Western education and scientific train-ing, I was heavily influenced to resist it”(Berkes 1999: xiv). For the Cree, land was aportfolio of resources that sustained life, andlandscape itself was full of life, spirit, andmystery. Such a “sacred ecology” was verydifferent from the conventional positivistconcept of cut-and-dried, predictable ecosys-tems consisting merely of lifeless, mechanicalprocesses that could be “managed” by techni-cians.

The Cree helped Berkes realize that, “althoughecology is a science, its greater and overridingwisdom is universal. That wisdom can beapproached mathematically, experimentally, orit can be danced or told as myth. It is in Aus-tralian aborigines’ ‘dreamtime’ and in GarySnyder’s poetry... The science of ecology did notdiscuss such views, but Siu, Leopold, McHarg,and later Bateson mentally prepared me to bereceptive to a traditional ecology that did”(Berkes 1999: xv). At the same time, manyother ecologists and scientists were wideningtheir radius of intellectual search and comingto similar conclusions. Partly as a reflection ofthis, by the 1990s, there were major changes inthe way ecosystems were viewed by ecologists.

The old ecology could be characterized asemerging from the mathematics of Newton, thephilosophy of Descartes, and the scientificmethod of Bacon. The paradigm that emergedfrom such foundations was mechanistic andreductionistic. This framework led to the ideathat an ecosystem was an entity that operatedlike a machine. Like any other machine, itcould be disassembled and the parts identified;the whole machine could then be understoodby revealing the mechanisms by which theparts interacted (Holling et al. 1998).

The use of these theoretical foundations andframeworks resulted in an ecosystem conceptcharacterized by equilibrium, predictability,linear processes, and controllability. Resourcemanagement used this ecosystem view, to-gether with similar models from economics, tosuggest that resources could be broken downinto discrete categories such as timber, water,and soil. Each discrete category, such astimber, could then be managed independentlyof the others, using maximum sustained yieldand maximum economic yield models, andconstructing supply-demand curves for eachcomponent of the ecosystem. The unstatedassumption was that if each part could be

managed for sustained yield, then the machine(forest) as a whole could be sustained. But, asmany resource managers know, this is not agood assumption, and there are many resourcemanagement disaster stories to prove it(Gunderson et al. 1995).

The emerging scientific paradigm tells a verydifferent story about ecosystems and resourcemanagement. If the old ecology can be charac-terized as a science of the parts, the newecology can be thought of as the science of theintegration of the parts (Holling et al. 1998).This new ecology suggests that ecosystemsmust be understood as integrated and holisticentities that are nested across scales. Ecosys-tems cannot be understood by breaking theminto parts but must be understood as a func-tional and structural whole that exists due tothe relationship among the parts. Ecosystemsin this view are characterized by multipleequilibria; non-linear processes; surprises(perceived reality departing qualitatively fromexpectation, in the sense of Holling 1986);threshold effects; and system flips.

Following the emerging paradigm, the ecosys-tem cannot be broken down into discreetresource categories because of the linkagesamong ecosystem components. Uncertaintybecomes a key property of resource manage-ment due to the unpredictable, non-linear, anduncontrollable nature of the systems beingmanaged. Finally, there is a recognition thatpeople, policies, and politics are as much a partof an ecosystem as are timber, fish, and wild-life. This new view of ecosystems has beenmoving into mainstream thinking, as evi-denced, for example, by the Ecological Societyof America guidelines for ecosystem manage-ment (ESA 1995) and the adoption of ecosys-tem integrity management objectives by ParksCanada.

These developments have led to a flux inresource management, as current practices areno longer supported by the current scientificthinking. The new resource management will“require policies and actions that not onlysatisfy social objectives but, at the same time,also achieve continually modified understand-ing of the evolving conditions and provideflexibility for adaptation to surprises. Science,policy, and management then become inextri-cably linked” (Holling et al. 1998: 347). It couldalso be said that science, policy, management,and people will need to be more closely linkedin the new resource management models.80

Also very significant, the new concept of amultiequilibrium, non-linear, unpredictableecosystem appears to be reducing the distancebetween science and traditional ecologicalknowledge. There is a convergence betweenscience and traditional knowledge, as sciencebegins to perceive humans as part of a worldthat contains a large degree of uncertainty,complexity, and unpredictability. Resourcemanagement is beginning to realize the need“to utilise the self-organizing capabilities ofnatural ecosystems to design harmonioussocial and natural environments; that is, to tryto integrate human production and consump-tion patterns, infrastructure and settlementswith ecosystem processes...” (Berkes et al.1995: 296).

TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

The use of the term traditional ecologicalknowledge or local knowledge is one way ofrecognizing that resource harvesters possessknowledge that they use to make decisionsabout their resource harvesting practices.Many resource harvesters depict their knowl-edge as based upon the practical adaptation oftechnique, technology, and institutions withina local environment. We have been using aworking definition of traditional ecologicalknowledge as “a cumulative body of knowledge,practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive pro-cesses and handed down through generationsby cultural transmission, about the relation-ship of living beings (including humans) withone another and their environments” (Berkes1999: 8).

Even though there is no clear delineationbetween traditional ecological knowledge andscience (Agrawal 1995), the recognition oftraditional knowledge as a legitimate kind ofknowledge is significant. It shows that thedistinction between traditional ecologicalknowledge and science is not the absence orpresence of management systems but theexistence of different concepts of management.Traditional ecological knowledge may best beconsidered as a knowledge-practice-beliefcomplex. Traditional knowledge may bethought to consist of four mutually interrelatedspheres that are nested in one another: localknowledge of plants and animals; land andresource management systems; social institu-tions; and world view. Local knowledge of land,animals, plants, and landscapes can include

knowledge of taxonomies, spatial and temporalcycles, and behaviors. Land and resourcemanagement systems use such knowledge todevelop appropriate practices, tools, andtechniques for a local environment. Traditionalresource management systems also requireappropriate institutions that allow interdepen-dent harvesters to coordinate activities, cooper-ate in tasks, devise rules for social restraint,and enforce those rules. Finally, the world view(ethics, religion, values) allows resource har-vesters to weave their perceptions of the envi-ronment into a coherent system of knowledgeand practice.

Is traditional ecological knowledge relevant tocurrent resource management? The term“traditional” is considered by some to denoteknowledge and practice that is old and un-changing. However, there is not necessarily acontradiction between the terms tradition andchange; change is simply what is noted iftradition is sampled along a temporal spec-trum. Tradition often changes by adaptiveprocesses and incorporates trial-and-errorlearning. Tradition further implies that there ishistorical continuity in culture and in thesystem of knowledge. The term “tradition” hasoften been used by resource harvesters toemphasize that their knowledge has beengenerated out of accumulated practical experi-ence. Often the term of choice of Aboriginal andother people close to the land, it refers toknowledge and practice generated out of the lifeexperiences of generations of harvesters them-selves.

TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGEIN PRACTICE—DISTURBANCE AND

SUCCESSION

Traditional ecological knowledge has not onlygenerated the proverbial “grist for the academicmill” but has also resulted in distinctive land-scapes found across the world. We can, forexample, learn about forest reclamation ingrassland ecosystems from the Kayapo peopleof Brazil. As shown in figure 1, the Kayapo usecrumbled termite and ant nests and mulch toinitiate a process of forest succession thatresults in expanding forest islands in thegrasslands (Posey 1985). The process begins byplanting useful crops into the preparedmounds (apete) for up to 3 years. Sweet pota-toes and yams may be harvested for up to 5years, and papaya and bananas may last as

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long as 7 to 10 years. Different fruit and nuttrees are seeded or transplanted to the apete sothat the resultant forest acts as a source ofproducts for many years. The forest also con-tinues to attract animals and birds who bringnew seeds into the forest or disperse them toother areas of the grassland. The result of thismanagement practice is a grassland landscapewith interspersed forests. The knowledge of therelationship between disturbance and forestsuccession is one of the common traits of manyforest management systems based upon tradi-tional ecological knowledge.

Systems of forest management that use theecological processes of disturbance and forestsuccession in an intentional manner often relyupon long fallow periods between intentionaldisturbances to allow for the conservation ofecological processes such as nutrient cyclesand species recruitment. Useful plants areplanted, transplanted, and harvested followingthe initial disturbance and for many yearsduring the period of forest fallow. These usefulplants can include food, medicines, and timber.If greater levels of production are required,then the forest management systems are oftenmodified so that the fallow period may beshortened or bypassed altogether. Succession

management systems grade into what might betermed agroforestry systems of management.An example is shown in figure 2, which depictsthe kebun-talun management system of WestJava, Indonesia. The kebun-talun systemsequentially combines agricultural crops withtree crops by moving from a mixed garden ofannual crops (kebun) to a mixture of annualcrops and perennials (kebun-campuran) to amixed forest of trees and understory plants(telun) (Christianty et al. 1986). This type ofmanagement practice leads to the classic patchmosaic or quilt landscape. However, the quilthas to be thought of not only as dispersedpatches of kebun, kebun-campuran, and talunover space but also as each patch shifting overtime. As the fallow period continues to de-crease, the kebun-campuran system can movetoward a different ecological arrangementcalled a homegarden.

The homegarden, such as the pekarangan inWest Java, is an intensification of the kebun-talun in which the fallow period disappearsaltogether (Christianty et al. 1986). One way tothink of this is to imagine one patch of the quiltwhere the kebun-campuran-talun cycle oc-curred. Instead of managing a variety ofpatches, each at a different temporal stage of

Figure 1.—Enhancing biodiversity through the creation of forest islands, apete, by the KayapoIndians of Brazil. Through a number of devices the behavior promotes patchiness and heteroge-neity in the landscape in time and space. Source: adapted from Posey (1985).

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the kebun-talun cycle, a person may build ahouse on the patch and begin to manage it as apekarangan. The pekarangan combines theannual crop plants with perennial plants formarket and home consumption. Species fromeach stage of the kebun-talun cycle may bebrought into the pekarangan depending upon

Figure 3.—A representative homegarden (pekarangan), West Java, Indonesia. Source: adapted fromChristianty et al. (1986).

Figure 2.—Successional stages of the kebun-talun system, West Java, Indonesia. Source: adaptedfrom Christianty et al. (1986).

the market and home needs of the manager. Asshown in figure 3, the diversity in thepekarangan is greater than in any one stage ofthe kebun-talun cycle. The loss of the temporaldimension of management is compensated forby the more intense management of verticalspace within one patch.

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as in all others previously mentioned, a supple-mentary management objective is the creationof edge habitat to increase the abundance offorest animals and thus the chance of success-fully hunting such animals. The outcome of thetaungya management practices is a landscapethat is less variable over time, but highlyvariable within a given patch of land, as thesystem takes advantage of vertical spaceinstead of horizontal space (canopy, understoryshrubs and herbs).

The previous four examples have demonstratedthat forest management based on traditionalknowledge can vary from low to high intensity.All of these systems are based upon the use ofdisturbance and succession as a managementtool to produce for the market, home consump-tion, and aesthetic pleasures. These systemsappear to reflect practices that can also beuseful for temperate forest ecosystem manage-ment and for ecological rehabilitation.Robinson and Handel (2000) point out, “Eco-logical restoration can be likened to acceleratedsuccession, in part because it aims to pass overthe early phases of community development,when recovery can be delayed by the effects ofpast degradation... Following severe habitatdamage, the reclamation phase closely re-sembles primary succession, in which mostorganisms colonize from external source popu-lations. Indeed, a common goal of ecologicalrestoration is to initiate natural populations asdispersing immigrants” (Robinson and Handel2000: 174). The experimental work of Robinsonand Handel (2000) demonstrates that habitatislands can act as sources of seeds that can bespread to surrounding land by dispersalagents. This is similar to the practice of forestmanagement in Canada whereby islands ofvegetation are left scattered throughoutclearcuts to act as a seed source and habitatfor dispersal agents. The recognition of thelinkages between disturbance, dispersalagents, and succession appears to be an areain which the distance between traditionalecological knowledge and science is indeedshrinking and ripe for a process of mutuallearning.

Figure 4.—Idealized taungya system of cultiva-tion using coconut palms as the dominanttree species. (A) Early stage—Coconutintercropped with annuals and short-termperennials. (B) Middle stage—Canopy coverdoes not allow understory layer. (C) Latestage—High canopy allows light penetrationand production of understory crops such ascoffee or cacao. Source: adapted fromJordan (1986).

A similar agroforestry system is the taungya ofBurma, shown in figure 4. In this system apatch of land is planted with both annual cropsand perennial tree crops (Jordan 1986). In theearly years, before the canopy of the treescloses, annual crops hold nutrients and pre-vent erosion. After the canopy closes, it ispossible to plant understory crops, such ascoffee or cacao, that take advantage of thespace and diffuse light that filters through thecanopy. The intensification of forest manage-ment thus uses disturbance to create inten-sively managed patches of forest but abandonsthe fallow period. In this management system,

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TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGEIN PRACTICE—ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT

One of the emerging approaches in forestmanagement practice is ecosystem-basedmanagement (CCFM 1997, 1998a). Ecosystem-based management uses systems ecologytheory, along with adaptive learning and prac-tice. However, it is a management approach inwhich theory and practice are at the earlystages of development and can thus benefitfrom insights provided by traditional ecologicalknowledge. Only recently has it come to theattention of ecologists that ecosystem-likeconcepts exist in the land wisdom of severalAmerindian, Asia-Pacific, European, andAfrican cultures (Berkes et al. 1998a).

One of the lessons from traditional knowledgeregarding ecosystem-based forest managementis that we need to move from a view that seeshumans as external managers of forest ecosys-tems to one that considers humans to beintegral components of forest ecosystems. Thisshift in perspective allows us to recognize thedependence of all human societies on the life-support functions of the ecosystem and theways by which this may continue into thefuture (Berkes et al. 1998a). An ecosystem-based approach to forest management also

needs to focus on spatially bounded units ofland or water, consider everything within thisunit to be interlinked, and recognize that unitsare nested and linked from smaller to largerscales.

Table 1 presents some of the applications of anecosystem view as seen in traditional knowl-edge and management systems. Science-basedresource management may never embrace all ofthe elements of such systems, such as theirspiritual aspects. However, it is still possiblethat we can learn about ecosystem-basedmanagement from these long-standing ex-amples of integrated resource management.

The tambak management system shown infigure 5 was used in Indonesia to establishmixed freshwater and seawater fish ponds indelta ecosystems and associated lagoons(Costa-Pierce 1988). The paddy rice fields wereused to produce both rice and fish during theflooded period of rice production. The nutrientrich wastes of the paddy rice—fish productionsystem were allowed to flow downstream intopolyculture ponds (tambak) where shrimps,crabs, fish, vegetables, and tree crops could beproduced. The wastes of this system thenflowed into the flooded mangrove forests thatenriched the coastal fisheries. The lesson of

Table 1.—Examples of traditional applications of the ecosystem view. Source: Berkes (1999)

System Country/region Reference

Watershed management of salmon rivers Amerindians of the Williams and Hunn (1982);and associated hunting and gathering Pacific Northwest Swezey and Heizer (1993)areas by tribal groups

Delta and lagoon management for fish South and Southeast Asia Johannes et al. (1983)culture (tambak in Java), and theintegrated cultivation of rice and fish

Vanua (in Fiji), a named area of land Oceania, including Fiji, Ruddle and Akimichi (1984);and sea, seen as an integrated whole Solomon Islands, Baines (1989)with its human occupants ancient Hawaii

Family groups claiming individual The Ainu of northern Japan Watanabe (1973);watersheds (iworu) as their domain Ludwig (1994)for hunting, fishing, gathering

Integrated floodplain management (dina) Mali, Africa Moorehead (1989)in which resource areas are shared bysocial groups through reciprocal accessarrangements

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this example is that by paying attention toecosystem processes we can also generateecosystem products. The linking of the paddy-pond-coastal lagoon to take advantage ofnutrient wastes allowed the productivity of theentire system to increase by utilizing theoutputs of one system as an input to the other.

Other examples of integrated watershed man-agement can be found in the vanua system ofFiji and the ahupua’a of ancient Hawaii (table1). The ahupua’a system of Hawaii, shown infigure 6, included entire valleys and stretchedfrom the top of a mountain down to the coastand shallow waters. Each watershed wasmanaged by a chieftanship, a social groupunder the authority of the king. The idealizedversion of this system shown in figure 6 in-cluded the following elements: forest zone

(protected by taboo) at the top of the mountainfor water catchment and erosion prevention;integrated farming zones in the uplands andcoastal zone; coconut palms along the coastlineto provide protection from storms and wind;and brackish water and seawater fish ponds.

The Hawaiian system no longer exists, butsimilar systems of watershed management canbe found in other Asia-Pacific cultures, includ-ing Fiji and the Solomon Islands. The idea ofmanaging a watershed as a unit historicallyappears in a number of different geographicalareas, from the ancient Swiss and Turks to thepeoples of the Far East (Berkes et al. 1998a). Inour studies, we have found elements of water-shed management in village resource areas inthe Himalayas of northwest India in a temper-ate forest region. As shown in figure 7, each

Figure 5.—Traditional Indonesian coastal zone management. Source: adapted from Costa-Pierce(1988).

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Figure 6.—The ahupua’a system of ancient Hawaii. Source: adapted from Costa-Pierce (1987).

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village of the Beas watershed was granted asection of forest under the land settlementduring the period of British rule. These unitsintegrated alpine pastures, highland forests,forest meadows, upland agricultural land, andirrigated agricultural land on the valley floor.Both the forest and the agricultural areashowed high biodiversity, in part because of thediversity of different social groups with differ-ent specializations (such as herding vs. agricul-ture), and in part because the dominant villageagriculturalists used a variety of resources(e.g., different kinds of wood for different

purposes) for their livelihoods (Berkes et al.1998b).

One of the lessons from these examples ofintegrated watershed management is that it ispossible to maintain both a productive and adiverse landscape through the integration ofdifferent types of land use. For modern re-source managers, this will require devisingmanagement strategies that focus on ecosys-tem functions and process at the landscapescale, while paying attention to increasing thediversity of products that can flow from a

Figure 7.—Management zones of two villages in the Himalayas of northwest India. Forest zoneincludes demarcated protected forest (DPF) and undemarcated protected forest (udf). Agriculturalzones (A) are also shown. Source: Berkes et al. (1998b).

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management unit. Such approaches have infact been proposed for the sustainable manage-ment of tropical forest ecosystems (Lugo 1995).

It would be naive to suggest that the traditionalmanagement systems such as those mentionedabove could be imported directly into thevariety of ecological and social contexts thatmake up the boreal and cold temperate forestregions. What may be possible depends on theimagination and practice of the managers,workers, harvesters, and inhabitants of theseregions. For example, by recognizing the valueof both timber and non-timber forest products,we can increase the intensity and diversity offorest management, an idea consistent withsome of the traditional systems discussedabove, even though some of these examplesmay at first seem rather exotic. At this rela-tively early stage of ecosystem-based forestmanagement in the boreal and cold temperateforest regions, it is through such explorationsthat we can begin to imagine what ecosystem-based forest management may look like “on theground.”

We can also learn from the principles developedby people who have investigated these systems.Janis Alcorn, for example, has derived sevenprinciples from traditional knowledge andmanagement systems. These principles canprovide guidance as we address the challengeto focus on ecosystem processes while meetingthe productive needs of society. She recom-mends that ecosystem-based managementstrategies (1) take advantage of native trees andnative tree communities; (2) rely on nativesuccessional processes; (3) use natural envi-ronmental variation; (4) incorporate numerouscrops and native species; (5) be flexible; (6)spread risks by retaining diversity; and (7)maintain reliable backup resources to meetneeds should the regular livelihood sources fail(Alcorn 1990).

NON-TIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS ANDCHANGING RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

PARADIGMS

Traditional ecosystem knowledge and tradi-tional management systems have often beenplaced in opposition to science-based manage-ment systems. However, with the advent of thechanging views on ecosystems, there appearsto be an increasing convergence betweentraditional ecological knowledge and some of

the holistic science that pays attention to non-linear dynamics, complexity, uncertainty, andthe location of human activities firmly withinthe ecological and social environment. We knowsomething that we did not know 20 years ago:some traditional ecological knowledge is verygood science, and some traditional manage-ment systems are very good managementsystems. For example, the practices of theKayapo are currently reflected in the pages ofthe Journal of Ecological Applications (Robinsonand Handel 2000), while the designs of ecosys-tem-based management appear strikinglysimilar to the landscapes created by Hawaiianand Himalayan systems of forested watershedmanagement.

Many traditional knowledge practices are alsoconsistent with scientific trends toward ecosys-tem-based management that focus on ecosys-tem processes, health, and resilience instead ofmaximum sustained yields of single species(Holling et al. 1998). It may not be possible to“manage” nature, but as Nancy Turner says,“you can keep it living” (Turner, this volume).“Keeping it living” in the boreal and cold tem-perate forests depends upon paying attentionto ecological processes, such as disturbanceand succession, and integrated resourcesmanagement.

The study of non-timber forest products hasrun a parallel course to the study of traditionalecological knowledge and ecosystem-basedforest management. Non-timber forest productstudies of the past tended to focus more onproduction than on managing ecosystemintegrity and process. However, the study ofnon-timber forest products provides an emerg-ing arena of investigation in which ecology,traditional ecological knowledge, ecosystem-based forest management, and production canbe brought together. Many non-timber forestproducts are linked to the ecological processesof disturbance and succession. Althoughtimber is also linked to these processes, a focuson non-timber forest products provides themeans by which we may be able to reverse theorder of priority for forest management.

Ecosystem-based forest management meansprotecting the integrity, health, and resilienceof ecosystems. It does not focus primarily onresources but rather on the sustainability ofecosystem processes necessary to provide theseresources. Only then can we evaluate theproducts that emerge from these processes over

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and mutual learning between scientists, re-source managers, and traditional resourceharvesters/managers through the establish-ment of cooperative research projects to answerresearch questions of mutual interest. How-ever, this will require scientists and resourcemanagers who are not just interested in mininginformation from traditional harvesters/man-agers but who are also willing to re-think thewhole paradigm of resource management alongwith traditional harvesters/managers: scien-tists and resource managers who are able toenvision the linkages between livelihoods andecosystems, and able to imagine healthy forestecosystems as vibrant places where people live,work, play, and visit. The linkages betweenecosystem studies, traditional ecological knowl-edge, ecosystem-based forest management,livelihoods, and non-timber forest productsprovide a new direction for research and appli-cation that will lead us toward the vision of theCanadian Council of Forest Ministers to man-age Canada’s forests as ecosystems.

LITERATURE CITED

Agrawal, Arun. 1995. Dismantling the dividebetween indigenous and scientific knowl-edge. Development and Change. 26(3): 413-439.

Alcorn, Janis. 1990. Indigenous agroforestrystrategies meeting farmers’ needs. In:Anderson, A.B., ed. Alternatives to defores-tation. New York, NY: Columbia UniversityPress.

Baines, G.B.K. 1989. Traditional resourcemanagement in the Melanesian SouthPacific: a development dilemma. In: Berkes,F., ed. Common property resources: ecologyand community-based sustainable develop-ment. London: Belhaven: 273-295.

Berkes, Fikret. 1999. Sacred ecology: tradi-tional ecological knowledge and resourcemanagement. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor andFrancis.

Berkes, Fikret; Folke, Carl, eds. 1998. Linkingsocial and ecological systems: managementpractices and social mechanisms for build-ing resilience. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press. 459 p.

time and space. Timber, shrubs, herbs, mush-rooms, animals, birds, and bacteria all havetheir own distributions in time and spacerelative to disturbance. For example, fireweed(Epilobium angustifolium L.) occurs in the earlyyears following a disturbance, ginseng (Panaxquinquefolius L.) is found under mature forestcanopies, while highbush cranberry (Viburnumtrilobum L.) often occurs along riverbanksdisturbed periodically by spring flooding.Fireweed and ginseng have both been used asmedicines while highbush cranberry is anedible berry. Ecosystem-based managementrequires that we consider ecological processesfirst and then link production to those pro-cesses—not the other way around.

A shift in priority from product to processopens up a whole new set of research ques-tions. For instance, if we are interested inshortening the period between timber harvests,we need to consider both the ecological andsocial implications of such a managementdecision. In Indonesia the pekarangan reflectsa similar decision to intensify forest manage-ment. One of the implications is that withintensification comes the need to recognizeprivate property rights. However, we need to beaware that this is not the only possible alterna-tive. If intensification is an option but not arequirement, then it may be possible to exam-ine the ecological processes and the value ofthe products that flow from the ecologicalprocesses of a forest ecosystem.

What would such a multiple-species manage-ment system look like across the landscapeand over time? What are the production/technological constraints for such a system ofproduction? What is the distribution of prod-ucts in space and time? What is the value ofthese products? What institutional changeswould be required? A focus on non-timberforest products opens up a whole new set ofquestions that science and ecosystem-basedforest management are only beginning toconsider. These questions, however, have beenconsidered within traditional ecological knowl-edge and traditional management systems.

The study of non-timber forest products opensup an area of research that can contribute toecosystem-based forest management through afocus on ecosystems and traditional ecologicalknowledge. There is a potential for dialogue

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