Can community-based natural resource management improve wildfire policy planning in interior Alaska? Addressing value differences, ineffective participatory processes, and conflicts over traditional ecological knowledge
Dates
Year
2010
Citation
Ray, Lily Amelia, 2010, Can community-based natural resource management improve wildfire policy planning in interior Alaska? Addressing value differences, ineffective participatory processes, and conflicts over traditional ecological knowledge: Clark University.
Summary
A climactically-induced increase in wildfires in the Alaskan boreal forest threatens rural indigenous livelihoods, and indicates a need for community involvement in wildfire policy planning. A diverse literature describes community-based natural resource management, but has not been applied to wildfire management. Through three research papers this dissertation investigates conflicts over wildfire management in rural Alaska and considers community participation as a potential solution. The first paper explores the concept of a "community" perspective on wildfire in the Koyukon Athabascan communities of Galena and Huslia. A Q-sort was used to determine shared perspectives, and showed that Koyukon grouped separately from Caucasian residents [...]
Summary
A climactically-induced increase in wildfires in the Alaskan boreal forest threatens rural indigenous livelihoods, and indicates a need for community involvement in wildfire policy planning. A diverse literature describes community-based natural resource management, but has not been applied to wildfire management. Through three research papers this dissertation investigates conflicts over wildfire management in rural Alaska and considers community participation as a potential solution. The first paper explores the concept of a "community" perspective on wildfire in the Koyukon Athabascan communities of Galena and Huslia. A Q-sort was used to determine shared perspectives, and showed that Koyukon grouped separately from Caucasian residents or agency employees, and that Koyukon perspectives varied according to age. The study shows that in ethnically homogenous communities tied by kinship relations and sharing networks, "community" continues to be a useful construct, and that age is an understudied axis of resource-use differentiation. The second paper is a case study of the Galena Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) participatory process. The results indicate that the CWPP process, which focused on wildland-urban interface risk, had low participation and did not allow community control over goal-setting. This was, however, acceptable to residents, who had little experience with risk management. In contrast, Koyukon residents expressed frustration with wildfire management policies , which affected local forests but did not consider local livelihoods or informal institutions. The paper concludes that participation is most appropriate for issues where residents have a history of local use and management strategies. The third paper investigates knowledge conflicts between wildfire managers and Koyukon residents over the effects of wildfires. An in-depth, ethnographic investigation revealed that conflict came when managers did not recognize the logistical effects of wildfires on Koyukon livelihoods, the effects of climate change on the wildfire regime, or the unpredictability of wildfire effects. The paper concludes that misalignments between local and national narratives of resource change indicate a valuable opportunity to tailor policies to local environments, rather than an insurmountable conflict. Together, these three papers help bridge the gap between wildfire management and Koyukon communities, using insights from the literature on community-based natural resource management.
