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Topic

Contributions to the Ethnoecology of GaalGahlyan/Galgahl’yáan Northern Abalone (Haliotis kamtschatkana) in Haida Gwaii

School of Environmental Studies

Date & location

• Tuesday, December 17, 2024

• 10:00 A.M.

• Clearihue Building

• Room B021and Virtual

Reviewers

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Natalie Ban, School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria (Supervisor)

• Dr. Nancy Turner, School of Environmental Studies, Uvic (Member)

• Dr. Wade Davis, School of Environmental Studies, Uvic/UBC (Non-unit Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Dan Okamoto, Department of Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley 

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Don Juzwishin, School of Health Information Science, UVic 

Abstract

It is generally accepted that we humans have both entered, and caused, the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth. As humanity continues to degrade ecosystems on local, regional, and planetary scales, we are affecting a social condition scientists call the shifting baselines syndrome (SBS), wherein each generation of people come to regard a progressively poorer environment as “natural.” The concept was first described for the oceans, where biodiversity loss, particularly in marine fisheries, has been documented for decades, from local to global scales. It is well established that, historically, a failure to prioritize or even include ecosystem effects in many government-run fisheries, including those managed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada, has led to the gross mismanagement of stocks, and has contributed to many fisheries’ declines, along with a general neglect of the importance of fisheries for local communities, specifically Indigenous Peoples, for both subsistence and culture. By minimizing or omitting the importance of ecosystem effects and Indigenous Peoples’ relationships with local fisheries, an essential part of sustainable management has been lost. Such is the case with the endangered marine gastropod Haliotis kamtschatkana, northern abalone, a culturally salient species for the Haida Nation. This dissertation focuses on a case study of a commercial abalone fishery and its multigenerational impacts on the Haida and their homeland, Haida Gwaii. I draw on theoretical and methodological approaches in the interdisciplinary field of ethnoecology to answer: How have differing worldviews and relationships towards abalone and the natural world—as reflected in divergent approaches to harvesting and management—come to shape the history and current status of abalone in Haida Gwaii? How has the decline of a culturally important species affected an Indigenous Nation? What does the framing of shifting baseline syndrome contribute to analyzing knowledge and decline of a culturally important species? What are some ways of overcoming shifting baselines? Findings from semistructured interviews with multiple generations of Haida Knowledge Holders indicate abalone are imbricated in Haida life in many ways, including matters of historical, social, cultural, nutritional, economic, symbolic, spiritual, artistic, and political significance. The historic non-Haida boom-and-bust commercial abalone fishery in the 1970s–80s and the resulting moratorium in 1990 were found to have cascading impacts on multiple generations of Haidas and their ability to sustain customary harvesting practices. The rapid collapse of abalone stocks was found to have caused a loss of experiences and intergenerational transmission of Haida Knowledge, findings that accord with other recent applications of the SBS to Indigenous Knowledge. Historic and ongoing fisheries and conservations policies are shown to be causing the SBS. And yet, the Haida response to the abalone crisis presented examples to prevent and reverse SBS, including measures to restore the abalone populations with data collection and monitoring programs, public education initiatives, and reducing the extinction of abalone experiences for young Haida through a variety of measures. Haida Knowledge of abalone has largely been ignored in past abalone management and fisheries paradigms; however, the continuation of this knowledge is critical to future management of abalone in Haida Gwaii. Findings here highlight the need for conservation policies to evolve to support, rather than suppress, the intergenerational transmission of Haida Knowledge of abalone.