Indigenous Empowerment Through Co Management

Co-management boards, established under comprehensive land claims agreements, have become key players in land-use planning, wildlife management, and environmental regulation across Canada’s North. This book provides a detailed account of the operation and effectiveness of these boards while addressing a central question: Have they been successful in ensuring substantial Indigenous involvement in policies affecting the land and wildlife in their traditional territories? While identifying constraints on the role Northern Indigenous peoples play in board processes, Graham White finds that overall they exercise extensive decision-making influence. These findings are provocative and offer valuable insights into our understanding of the importance of land claims boards and the role they play in the evolution of treaty federalism in Canada.

"Co-management boards, established under comprehensive land claims agreements, have become key players in land-use planning, wildlife management, and environmental regulation across Canada's North. This book provides a detailed account of the operation and effectiveness of these boards while addressing a central question: Have they been successful in ensuring substantial Indigenous involvement in policies affecting the land and wildlife in their traditional territories? While identifying constraints on the role Northern Indigenous peoples play in board processes, Graham White finds that overall they exercise extensive decision-making influence. These findings are provocative and offer valuable insights into our understanding of the importance of land claims boards and the role they play in the evolution of treaty federalism in Canada."--

How do Indigenous communities in Canada balance the development needs of a growing population with cultural commitments and responsibilities as stewards of their lands and waters? Caring for Eeyou Istchee recounts the extraordinary experience of the James Bay Cree community of Wemindji, Quebec, who partnered with a multi-disciplinary research team to protect a territory of great cultural significance in ways that respect community values and circumstances. By addressing fundamental questions such as what should be protected and how, Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners reveal how protected area creation presents a powerful vehicle for Indigenous stewardship, biological conservation, and cultural heritage protection.

This open access book crosses disciplinary boundaries to connect theories of environmental justice with Indigenous people's experiences of freshwater management and governance. It traces the history of one freshwater crisis - the degradation of Aotearoa New Zealand's Waipā River- to the settler-colonial acts of ecological dispossession resulting in intergenerational injustices for Indigenous Māori iwi (tribes). The authors draw on a rich empirical base to document the negative consequences of imposing Western knowledge, worldviews, laws, governance and management approaches onto Māori and their ancestral landscapes and waterscapes. Importantly, this book demonstrates how degraded freshwater systems can and are being addressed by Māori seeking to reassert their knowledge, authority, and practices of kaitiakitanga (environmental guardianship). Co-governance and co-management agreements between iwi and the New Zealand Government, over the Waipā River, highlight how Māori are envisioning and enacting more sustainable freshwater management and governance, thus seeking to achieve Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ). The book provides an accessible way for readers coming from a diversity of different backgrounds, be they academics, students, practitioners or decision-makers, to develop an understanding of IEJ and its applicability to freshwater management and governance in the context of changing socio-economic, political, and environmental conditions that characterise the Anthropocene. Meg Parsons is senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, New Zealand who specialises in historical geography and Indigenous peoples' experiences of environmental changes. Of Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage (Ngāpuhi, Pākehā, Lebanese), Parsons is a contributing author to IPCC's Sixth Assessment of Working Group II report and the author of 34 publications. Karen Fisher (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato-Tainui, Pākehā) is an associate professor in the School Environment, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a human geographer with research interests in environmental governance and the politics of resource use in freshwater and marine environments. Roa Petra Crease (Ngāti Maniapoto, Filipino, Pākehā) is an early career researcher who employs theorising from feminist political ecology to examine climate change adaptation for Indigenous and marginalised peoples. Recent publications explore the intersections of gender justice and climate justice in the Philippines, and mātuaranga Māori (knowledge) of flooding.--

The Spaces In Between examines prospects for the enhanced practice of Indigenous political sovereignty within the Canadian state. As Indigenous rights include the right to self-determination, the book contends that restored practices of Indigenous sovereignty constitute important steps forward in securing better relationships between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state. While the Canadian state maintains its position of dominance with respect to the exercise of state sovereignty, Tim Schouls reveals how Indigenous nations are nevertheless carving out and reclaiming areas of significant political power as their own. By means of strategically acquired legal concessions, through hard-fought political negotiations, and sometimes through simple declarations of intent, Indigenous nations have repeatedly compelled the Canadian state to roll back its jurisdiction over them. In doing so, they have enhanced their prospects for political sovereignty within Canada. As such, they now increasingly occupy what Schouls refers to metaphorically as “the spaces in between.” The book asserts that occupation of these jurisdictional “spaces in between” not only goes some distance in meeting the requirements of Indigenous rights but also contributes to Indigenous community autonomy and well-being, enhancing prospects for reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state.

Involving Indigenous peoples and traditional knowledge into natural resource management produces more equitable and successful outcomes. Unfortunately, argue Anne Ross and co-authors, even many “progressive” methods fail to produce truly equal partnerships. This book offers a comprehensive and global overview of the theoretical, methodological, and practical dimensions of co-management. The authors critically evaluate the range of management options that claim to have integrated Indigenous peoples and knowledge, and then outline an innovative, alternative model of co-management, the Indigenous Stewardship Model. They provide detailed case studies and concrete details for application in a variety of contexts. Broad in coverage and uniting robust theoretical insights with applied detail, this book is ideal for scholars and students as well as for professionals in resource management and policy.

Powerful, innovative Indigenous self-governance regimes are increasingly important players in Canadian politics, but little academic work has been done on their structure, operation, and effectiveness. "We Are In Charge Here" examines the central institution of the most populous Indigenous self-governance regime in Canada, the elected Assembly of the Nunatsiavut Government. Nunatsiavut – "our beautiful land" in Inuktitut – was established in 2006 by a modern treaty between the Labrador Inuit and the Canadian state. Graham White offers a thorough observation of the Assembly, based on interviews with Assembly members and others involved in Nunatsiavut politics, observation of Assembly sessions, and a review of official documents, in order to provide a comprehensive picture of the Assembly, its members, and its operations. The book examines the Assembly’s effectiveness in performing traditional legislative functions such as representation, policy making, and accountability. It addresses key concerns including executive-legislative power relations, Inuit influence on Assembly operations, and the Assembly’s role in realizing self-government. Illuminating the intersection of Indigenous self-governance approaches and Western institutions, "We Are In Charge Here" will be of interest to political leaders, legislative officials, and academics concerned with the design and on-the-ground functioning of Indigenous self-government.

During the last decade, there has been a shift in the governance and management of fisheries to a broaderapproach that recognizes the participation of fishers, local stewardship, and shared decision-making.Through this process, fishers are empowered to become active members of the management team,balancing rights and responsibilities, and working in partnership with government. This approach iscalled co-management.This handbook describes the process of community-based co-management from its beginning, throughimplementation, to turnover to the community. It provides ideas, methods, techniques, activities, checklists,examples, questions and indicators for the planning and implementing of a process of community-basedco-management. It focuses on small-scale fisheries (freshwater, floodplain, estuarine, or marine) indeveloping countries, but is also relevant to small-scale fisheries in developed countries and to themanagement of other coastal resources (such as coral reefs, mangroves, sea grass, and wetlands). Thishandbook will be of significant interest to resource managers, practitioners, academics and students ofsmall-scale fisheries.