Research

INTRODUCTION

Indigenous peoples have their own knowledge systems that have flourished for thousands of years (McGregor 2004) and have been advocating for these systems and social change for centuries (Simpson 2001). Both internationally and within Canada, attempts have been made in the recent decade to build bridges between biological and cultural diversity agendas and bring both Western science and Indigenous and local knowledge systems together into the science-policy interface (Gunn 2021, McGregor 2021). Although some government (territorial/federal/provincial) policies and legislations have been more successful at integrating knowledge systems because they have taken a more holistic approach, many of these attempts have had limited success because Indigenous knowledge is not just knowledge and extractive, but a way of life and generally requires support for Indigenous self-determination (McGregor 2021). In such cases, Indigenous knowledge is often seen only as legitimate when it agrees with Western science, and knowledge is often separated from Indigenous philosophies, ethics, processes, laws, and traditions (Simpson 2001, McGregor 2004, Ellis 2005). These failures are reflective of broader issues, including the failure to address power imbalances between Indigenous and non-Indigenous authorities (Nadasdy 1999, Berkes 2009, 2012). It is also important to note that when Indigenous and Western ways of knowing are described, they are often presented as dichotomies in a way that can have racist underpinnings (e.g., Western science as rigorous and systematic, Indigenous knowledge as intuitive and unempirical; Castleden et al. 2017). The terms “Indigenous” and “Western” are used to represent two knowledge systems with distinct histories and characteristics, as well as similarities, both of which are subject to change over time (Levac, L., L. Mcmurtry, D. Stienstra, G. Baikie, C. Hanson, and D. Mucina 2018, unpublished manuscript). The key distinction is that Indigenous knowledge is place-based and rooted in the relationship between humans and their environment, whereas Western science tends to seek universal rules that apply everywhere, by isolating study targets from their surroundings (e.g., Berkes 2012, Gonet 2024).

Efforts to build bridges between knowledge systems that exist uniquely and equally rather than controlling and validating one another (Pastora Sala and Dilay 2016) have led to the development of broad frameworks or approaches, such as two-eyed seeing (Bartlett et al. 2012), the Two Row Wampum approach (T’hohahoken Michael Doxtater 2011), and “brick and thread” sensibilities (Jimmy et al. 2019), as well as specific methods. Methods used by Indigenous communities include, for example, Indigenous storytelling, sharing circles and talking circles, arts-based methods, inclusion of wisdom keepers, participatory modeling, and many others (e.g., Brodnig and Mayer-Schönberger 2000, Mistry and Berardi 2016, Mantyka-Pringle et al. 2017, Ogletree et al. 2019; Levac, L., L. Mcmurtry, D. Stienstra, G. Baikie, C. Hanson, and D. Mucina 2018, unpublished manuscript). Indigenous land use and cultural mapping is another way to document, through cultural, spiritual, and material use of their surroundings, the connectedness between people and the physical environment they live within (Tobias 2009).

Indigenous land use and cultural mapping and similar approaches, such as Indigenous participatory mapping (Vergara-Asenjo et al. 2015), Indigenous occupancy mapping (Tobias 2009), or Indigenous knowledge mapping (Chambers et al. 2004), have evolved to improve on the mapping of cultural values often misunderstood or ignored by non-Indigenous institutions and actors. These efforts have provided greater coverage of the different meanings (e.g., intrinsic, cultural) landscapes might hold for communities (Poole 2003, Pert et al. 2015, Ogletree et al. 2019). This has been particularly important for processes such as land use and conservation planning, which are frequently lacking in their ability to reflect a broad range of values and knowledge systems (King 2010, Ogletree et al. 2019).

Land use and conservation planning initiatives have often struggled to bring together Indigenous and science-based knowledge systems in a unified planning effort (Jackson 2005, O’Flaherty et al. 2008). These challenges are in part reflective of the state’s approach to land planning in what is now known as Canada (referred to as Canada hereafter). For example, over the history of nature conservation in Canada, parks and protected areas have forced Indigenous populations to relocate or have imposed jurisdictions that eliminated Indigenous practices, economies, and connections to those lands (Zurba et al. 2019). Although efforts in the past 5–10 years have been made by those within land and conservation planning to address these histories, the broader question of whether engaging with multiple knowledge systems can be achieved meaningfully within land planning efforts remains. Where Indigenous communities choose to engage in land use and conservation planning processes alongside non-Indigenous authorities, rather than processes that do not involve non-Indigenous authorities (e.g., How We Walk with the Land and Water, https://www.howwewalk.org/), those communities need the ability to participate in ways that enable them to mobilize their knowledge systems, on their terms, and in ways that inform the process from the beginning (Davidson-Hunt and Michael O’Flaherty 2007). As noted previously, methods such as cultural mapping have been useful for Indigenous communities to that end. However, there remain critical gaps in understanding of how multiple methods that engage with both Indigenous and Western knowledge systems can work together within those processes. There also remain questions as to whether such efforts are truly a shift away from previous knowledge integration efforts, or simply the same approach with a new name.

We examined the extent to which two tools, i.e., Indigenous land use and cultural mapping and a conservation prioritization software called Zonation, can be useful in bringing together Western scientific and Indigenous knowledge systems to inform conservation and land use planning. We look specifically at the experiences of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, a First Nation in the Yukon, northern Canada, during the conservation planning exercises they undertook within a regional land use planning process. This planning process stems from the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Final Agreement or modern treaty and therefore exemplifies a process intended to embody a government-to-government relationship. Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s approach of “walking in two worlds” was intended to meet the need of a regional plan that reflects the values of multiple governments. The approach drew on both Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in knowledge, represented through Indigenous land use and cultural mapping (i.e., ecosystem services identified by the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government to be important in the region), as well as Western science, represented through the conservation prioritization software. In this approach, the “two worlds” exist independently, but in relation to one another. This means giving equal weight, significance, and value to both Indigenous knowledge and Western knowledge. Neither knowledge system should exert control over the other:

We are open to multiple ways of knowing and being. We share our thoughts and our skills and continually seek to build upon them by learning from others. It is not our place to judge the authenticity or validity of another’s experiences. We believe there are many truths and perspectives and together they make us stronger. (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in 2019:4).

The land includes the spirit world, culture, and history, and these seemingly intangible aspects must be assessed with the same rigor and weight as is given to chemical analysis of water or soil. The two worlds approach was considered necessary in part because the regional planning process required Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in to identify specific regions of high use and high conservation value, hence their interest in both cultural mapping and conservation prioritization tools. Furthermore, the regional land use planning process is purposefully designed to create a collaborative relationship among parties who may not always have consistent land values. It is therefore imperative for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in to be able to identify, communicate, and map their values in a way they can be considered meaningfully alongside more traditionally mapped values, such as mineral potential.

Regional planning in the Yukon was established through the Umbrella Final Agreement (UFA; Government of Canada, the Government of Yukon, and Council of Yukon First Nations 1993). Although it is important to remember that Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s relationship to its homeland and authority as stewards of the land exists independently of its Final and Self-Government Agreements, in the context of regional planning, these agreements are an important additional source of authority. This agreement entrenched Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s role as a decision maker and full participant alongside the Yukon Government in the process. These power dynamics are especially important given the need for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s control over how cultural and land use information is interpreted within regional planning. Moreover, it marks an important shift away from

decisions dominated by non-Aboriginal values and institutions to co-management and the increased authority and capacity of Aboriginal governments. Land use planning supports this transition through regional planning commissions or boards and through an emphasis on recognizing Aboriginal cultural values and giving communities a meaningful voice (Kennett 2010:41).

This process is quite different from any participatory process because Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in is not a stakeholder, but a decision maker alongside the Yukon Government in the context of their regional planning. Each party has the right to accept, reject, or modify the plan.

In this case study, we also explored how the conservation prioritization method and software, Zonation, can be modified with Indigenous cultural values and subsistence use areas in an effort to better understand the extent to which the approach can be adapted to include other variations of bio-cultural attributes in partnerships with Indigenous peoples. Although the software has previously proven useful in the context of regional planning, limited attention has been paid to linking Indigenous values or other social data in Zonation planning processes for the delivery of more equitable and culturally appropriate approaches. Our aim is to provide insight and reflection into the methodology of using these tools together, as well as their overall utility in carrying out Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s approach of walking in two worlds. The novel contribution relates to the process of bringing together Indigenous and Western scientific knowledge systems to inform decisions in a real-world conservation and land use planning context. Indeed, this documentation is being sought after in the land use and conservation planning community as a process model: the very impetus for our work.

METHODS

Study location

The case study presented is from the Yukon, Canada within the traditional territory of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (64,000 km²; Fig. 1). This geographic scope was selected because the boundaries of the Dawson regional planning process broadly align with Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s traditional territory. The region is part of the ice-free landscape known as Beringia, which has significantly impacted the landform and ecology of the region. There are two ecozones in the planning area (Taiga Cordillera and Boreal Cordillera), as well as six ecoregions (Dawson Regional Planning Commission 2020). The Yukon River and its tributaries are a significant component of the regional ecosystem, as are wetlands, which form about 10% of the planning region. Climate change is impacting average annual temperatures in the region, which are anticipated to increase by 4.7–5.3 degrees Celsius by the end of 2100 (Dawson Regional Planning Commission 2020). Harvested species in the area, such as moose, caribou, salmon, and medicinal plants, are often identified as culturally important ecological values. The region also includes critical habitats and ecosystems that support those species, such as wetlands, migration routes, spawning beds, and mineral licks. However, it is also important to acknowledge that Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in recognize that all species and habitats play an important role in overall ecological function (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in 2023).

Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people are a diverse mix of families descended from Hän, Gwich’in, Northern Tutchone, and other Athabaskan language groups. For Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in:

We have occupied this territory for all time. Our enduring relationship with our land is our heritage. Our stories are written on the land and our place in this world is created, understood, and owned through these stories (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in 2019).

For thousands of years, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people have occupied, traveled, and harvested throughout their traditional territory, the entire planning region, and beyond. The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in continue to live off the land, practice their own traditional laws, and develop their own economic links with Indigenous neighbors and newcomers.

Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in governance has evolved and adapted over time, including:

practices independent of, despite, or in opposition to a colonial power, as well as collective organization, diplomatic processes, and traditional institutions (Winton 2019:10).

These governance practices are related to, but distinct from, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government. In 1998, the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in signed Final and Self-Government Agreements. These agreements, sometimes referred to as a modern treaty, were based on the blueprint Umbrella Final Agreement of 1990.

Among other things, the UFA outlines the process for regional land use planning in the territory, including relevant principles, responsibilities, and governing bodies. For example, regional planning processes are required to use the knowledge and experiences of Yukon First Nations and residents (Government of Canada, the Government of Yukon, and Council of Yukon First Nations 1993). They are also required to “take into account oral forms of communication and traditional land management practices of Yukon Indian People” (Umbrella Final Agreement 11.4.5.6). The UFA established the Yukon Land Use Planning Council (YLUPC), an arms-length organizing body made up of nominees selected by the Council of Yukon First Nations, Yukon Government, and Government of Canada. For each planning region, including the Dawson district that encompasses Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and neighboring First Nations’ traditional territories, a regional planning commission is created.

The Dawson Regional Planning Commission is made up of three nominees from the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government and three nominees from the Yukon Government. These members are independent, rather than representative, of the government by which they are nominated. Planning commissions and the YLUPC provide recommendations; territorial and First Nation governments, in this case Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, retain the authority to approve, reject, or modify a recommended regional land use plan. Although the governments involved in the Dawson planning process aim to arrive at a mutually agreed-upon plan, the Yukon Government’s and Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s respective authorities to approve, reject, or modify the regional plan are tied to Settlement and non-Settlement land designations. Under the UFA, lands are divided into Settlement (in effect, owned by or under some control of the First Nation) and non-Settlement (often referred to broadly as Crown land) lands. Within the category of Settlement lands, Category A lands include surface and sub-surface land rights for the First Nation, while Category B and Fee Simple are exclusive to the surface only (Government of Canada, the Government of Yukon, and Council of Yukon First Nations 1993). The UFA identifies that a cap of 16,000 square miles (roughly 8.5% of the Yukon’s total land mass) can be set aside for Settlement land. Of this, no more than 10,000 square miles (roughly 5.3%) can be Category A (Government of Canada, the Government of Yukon, and Council of Yukon First Nations:81). On non-Settlement lands, Aboriginal rights, titles, and interests are “ceded, released and surrendered” (Umbrella Final Agreement 1993:5.10.1). However, Yukon First Nations retain various rights and obligations (e.g., harvesting rights), which are exercised across a traditional territory and beyond. It is also important to note that these designations do not impact Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s relationship with and obligations to their homeland under Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in law, including on non-Settlement lands.

Consequently, under the UFA, the Yukon Government’s authority to approve, reject, or modify a regional land use plan applies in the context of non-Settlement land and Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s authority applies to Settlement land. However, thus far in the regional planning process in the Yukon, the Yukon First Nation and territorial governments have been able to arrive at an agreed-upon regional plan and have not yet had to test the boundaries of these authorities.

Although the regional planning process for the Dawson region has been delayed at several points, in June 2022 the Dawson Regional Planning Commission released its Recommended Plan (Dawson Regional Planning Commission 2022). At the time of writing, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and Yukon governments are reviewing the plan and will either approve it, reject it, or provide a final round of recommendations to arrive at a Final Recommended Plan. The final land use plan for the Dawson region will identify designations for different areas and then provide guidance for activities within those areas, such as providing management directions, identifying values, and identifying surface disturbance and linear density thresholds. In the process of creating these designations, the planning commission requested that the two governments identify high priority areas for conservation.

Study scope

In 2019, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and partnering co-authors initiated a joint project to respond to the Dawson Regional Planning Commission’s request to identify high use and valued areas in the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in traditional territory. In addition to its role in the regional planning process, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in wanted its own land use and cultural maps as a mechanism for working with the territorial government about the need to establish protected areas. To address these needs, the project team first conducted a land use and cultural mapping exercise. These maps were then digitized to create both individual maps and density and hotspot maps. Finally, a Zonation analysis was conducted using multiple scenarios, with the purpose of identifying conservation priorities. The results of this work contributed to a submission that was made by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in to the Dawson Regional Planning Commission in December 2020 (Appendix 4).

The regional scope of this project encompasses the Dawson planning region and Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in traditional territory. Although this large geographic scope presented challenges for data collection and analysis, it was a necessary part of the overall project purpose of informing the regional land use planning process. Without the time or resources to undertake a mapping exercise in more specific detail across the entire Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in traditional territory, the project team proceeded with the understanding that high-scale information was preferable to none.

The two project partners for this work included Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the Wildlife Conservation Society of Canada (WCS Canada). Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government controlled how their knowledge and worldviews were shared throughout the project, provided guidance on the direction of the project after consulting internally with Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Chief and Council, provided support for data collection and analysis, and led citizen engagement. Non-Indigenous co-authors not affiliated with the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government provided technical support in the planning of the project and during data collection and analysis. As a Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in project, the data from this project were owned, stored, and maintained by the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government staff, per OCAP principles (First Nations Information Governance Centre 2023). The Wildlife Conservation Society of Canada retained a password protected copy of the data.

Mapping exercise

Sharing of traditional knowledge was based on a modification and blending of techniques developed by Tobias (2000, 2009) and Ramirez-Gomez et al. (2013, 2015). Land use and cultural mapping data were shared at a three-day camp in February 2019 and at one-on-one mapping interviews in Dawson City in March 2019. Participants and family groups were nominated by the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government.

Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in leaders were present during the camp and at the start of the interviews to build trust with researchers and ensure that the participants understood the research approach and agenda. Although this limited the confidentiality of the interview data, it was an important aspect of ensuring participants felt comfortable discussing potentially private information, especially when one of the interviewees was not a Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizen or staff member. Each participant signed a prior informed consent recorded with the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Heritage Department. In total, 30 Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in community members were interviewed. The age of participants ranged from youth (< 30 years of age), adults (31–59 years of age) to elders (> 60 years of age). Land use experiences also varied. Interviews were conducted primarily in English, except for two elders, in which their grandchild or daughter helped to translate into Hän.

During the camps and interviews, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in invited community participants (elders, citizens, and youth) to develop their own individual maps of land-based knowledge and values. These maps were coded according to their name, year of birth, location of birth, and mother’s maiden name in a password protected database. Each interview began with an overview of the process, an explanation of the map legend, and a presentation of the base map. Using a standardized interview guide, each Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in participant was interviewed first about their general interests in the land and their history of being on the land (Appendix 1). This was followed up, if the participant was willing, with more particular questions about the location of the activities and indicators using prompting questions (Table 1). These questions were focused on place-based experiences on the land that could be mapped, e.g., some places where he or she had harvested animals or plants, or had personal experiences coming from the land within living memory (i.e., within their lifetime); any knowledge that was passed down from their ancestors regarding places on the land; and their ideas for future protection and other uses of the land.

Using permanent felt-tipped, color-coded markers, place-based land uses and other traditional knowledge were marked as points or polygons on geo-referenced world topographic maps (1:125,000 scale) containing major highways, roads, waterbodies, the Dawson planning region, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in traditional territory boundaries, settlement lands, territorial parks, and protected and special management areas (Fig. 2). The color-coding system included four categories: red for provisioning services, orange for cultural services, blue for income generation services, and green for future protection and land use planning. These categories and their associated services were originally drawn from the literature (e.g., Tobias 2000, 2009, Ramirez-Gomez et al. 2013, 2015) and then presented to the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government for review. Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in representatives modified some activities and indicators to better represent their values and requested to add the fourth category for future protection and land use planning. The interview guide and mapping exercise was piloted with a prominent elder and leader before being implemented with the broader Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in community.

With regard to hunting and fishing, areas used for both current and past family activities related to hunting and fishing and actual hunter-kill sites were recorded as polygons and points. Trapping involved many different fur-bearer species and occurred repeatedly over the years along the same routes or traplines. Each individual’s trapline was mapped as a series of connected lines, where possible, or as a polygon if accurate linework was not possible. Plant and wood resources were mapped as either points or polygons, depending on the size of the area harvested.

To reduce interviewee fatigue, no attempt was made to record the exact year when specific land uses took place, but instead we collected a general record of how they used the land throughout their whole life. In addition, the number of land use categories was reduced to some extent, especially regarding plants and some animals. For example, medicine plants were treated as a generic group. Ducks were mapped as a single category, instead of species. Most interviews lasted just over an hour, but some involving more experienced harvesters and elders lasted several hours. When completed, the individual maps were coded as per Appendix 2 with help from the interviewer and recorder.

Digitization and cartographic illustration

To prepare for the digitization of the traditional knowledge features, ancillary data were downloaded from Geomatics Yukon’s spatial data portal (https://mapservices.gov.yk.ca/GeoYukon) including major roads, trails, rivers and creeks, surveyed land parcels, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in settlement land parcels, protected areas, boundaries for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s traditional territory and the Dawson planning region. The World Topographic Map and the World Hillshade were used as the basemap layers (Esri Canada 2019).

Each polygon, line, and point drawn on the maps were digitized and saved as GIS vector data using ArcGIS Pro 2.3.1 software. The data were projected to North American Datum 1983 Yukon Albers (EPSG 3578) to minimize distortion. The map features were digitized as accurately as possible following the features that were hand-drawn on the paper maps and referring to additional notes recorded by the interviewers. Natural and anthropogenic features (e.g., rivers, valleys, mountain ridges, contours, traditional territory boundaries, highways, and roads) were used to guide the digitization. Roads and small creeks were recorded as line features whereas large rivers were recorded as polygons.

Each map and all data were feature coded (see Appendix 2) according to the name of the interviewee and land use type: (1) provisional, (2) cultural, (3) income generating activities (past and present), and (4) future land use and protection of the land. A binary spatial database was created to enable easy querying (1 = present, 0 = absent) for each attribute feature (79), totaling 51 points, 182 lines, and 481 digitized polygons.

Several derivative maps were created to illustrate the collective land use and cultural activities provided from the individual maps. Density and hotspot maps were produced to visually emphasize areas with high land use and value. Density maps involved setting up a transparency value for the layers so that darker areas represented more overlapping features. Hotspot maps involved exporting the vector data into raster data and executing overlapping analysis to count the number of overlapping features. Symbology settings were then used to highlight areas with more overlapping features. One density map and one hotspot map were developed for each ecosystem service category and were printed and shared with Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in community members to check for inaccuracies and gaps in the data.

Zonation analysis

Zonation software is a freely available conservation spatial planning tool (https://www.syke.fi/zonation/en/) widely used for integrating connectivity, multi-species spatial information, and other biodiversity and environmental features into different stages of land use planning (e.g., Gordon et al. 2009, Di Minin and Moilanen 2012) by creating a hierarchal ranking of the potential conservation value across any given landscape. Zonation software was chosen over other conservation prioritization software, such as Marxan and ConsNet, to balance the requirements of many predefined biodiversity features simultaneously in ecologically informed land use planning, while allowing the users to apply negative weights for anthropogenic disturbance (Lehtomäki and Moilanen 2013).

In this exercise, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in staff and citizens, with the support of the co-authors, were tasked with integrating and ranking environmental features alongside the values mapped during the cultural and land use mapping exercise (see Table 1). These Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in values were prioritized by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in in the exercise by being weighted higher than the following environmental features. The specific justification for the weighting of different values was an internal process led by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and reflective of its historical and cultural context, the details of which are beyond the scope of this paper.

Ecosystems

Seven bioclimatic zones were extracted for the study area and separated into presence/absence layers for boreal alpine tundra, boreal high, boreal low, boreal subalpine, subarctic subalpine tundra, subarctic subalpine, and subarctic woodland (see Appendix 3 for list of data sources). The presence and absence of wetlands were also included from a local wetland inventory (Ducks Unlimited Canada 2021).

Wildlife

Presence and absence of mineral licks, moose, thinhorn sheep, alpine raptors, and riparian raptors were extracted from wildlife key areas. Alpine raptors included raptors such as Golden Eagles and Gyrfalcons. Riparian raptors included Peregrine Falcon occurrence records from Yukon Conservation Data Centre (CDC) and wildlife key areas for Bald Eagle, Osprey, and Peregrine Falcon from Geomatics Yukon. The datasets were combined using the merge function in ArcGIS.

We obtained moose density, caribou annual home ranges, Fortymile caribou corridors, a Fortymile caribou resource selection model, and Porcupine caribou herd frequency from the Yukon Government Department of Environment. The moose density was based on a combination of the number of moose that were counted in censused survey units and the estimated number of moose in those survey units that were not censused for Dawson West and Goldfield herds. The resolution of the moose density was 3720 m x 3720 m grid cells, and the distribution values ranged from 0–50 survey units. Caribou annual home ranges showed the presence/absence of woodland caribou mountain herds, i.e., Hart River, Clear Creek, and Klaza herds (see https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/867dbea319fe49d3afe46e87d61f42ee for further details on caribou herds in the Yukon). Fortymile caribou corridors showed the fall and summer areas within the Fortymile caribou herd range. These were merged and converted into a binary raster dataset. The Fortymile caribou resource selection model contains the relative qualities of Fortymile caribou herd range per grid cell. The original data are based on a two-week time scale in both spring/summer (May-Sept) and fall/winter (Oct-April; see Suitor 2023 for details). For the purpose of this analysis, we used the summer model because the summer range covered more area within the planning area. Porcupine caribou herd frequency shows where caribou have been and core areas of use (see Porcupine Caribou Technical Committee 1993). The data contain overlapping polygons, which were converted into frequency of use per 100 m grid cell.

A salmon habitat layer was provided by the Yukon Land Use Planning Council in consultation with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and contains chinook spawning and movement as two separate classes. A value of one was assigned to movement and a value of two to spawning areas. The data originally consisted of line and polygon features. The line features were buffered by 50 m to create polygons of 100 m width. This allowed for the lines to be combined with the polygons and show up at a 100 m grid resolution once converted to a raster. A Dolly Varden (species of salmonid fish) dataset was obtained from CDC and contained presence/absence of Dolly Varden spawning sites. Data for grayling and whitefish were absent and therefore not included but are of importance to Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in harvesters. Bird probabilities were provided by Environment and Climate Change Canada. The dataset originally contained the probability of 61 bird species for each of the 7 bioclimatic zones. For our purposes, we used the mean probability across all species to run Zonation.

Climate change

Two climate change layers were used in the Zonation analysis: cliomes and climate connectivity. The cliomes dataset contains low and high value cliomes (Rowland et al. 2016). High value cliomes represent higher resiliency and a lower number in cliome shifts (0 and 1) per pixel with alternate climate change projections, whereas low value cliomes represent lower resiliency and a higher number in cliome shifts (2, 3, and 4). For the purpose of the analysis, we extracted 0 and 1 climate shifts and used the extracted 0 and 1 climate shift layer as a conservation value. Climate connectivity identifies linkages among protected areas that promote long-term connectivity and have the potential to facilitate species movements under projected climate change (Carroll et al. 2018). Corridors were modeled to reflect climatic gradients and avoided areas with high anthropogenic disturbance. Climate corridors in the original data were split into four quartiles (1, 2, 3, 4), representing corridor value, with comparatively high potential for movement indicated in quartiles 1 and 2, and lower movement potential in quartiles 3 and 4. For our purposes, the data were represented in two categories: high connectivity (1 and 2) and low connectivity (3 and 4).

Conservation threat

In addition to the ecological and biodiversity input layers, conservation threat layers were chosen to represent the presence of alternative land use activities and conservation constraints. We used a land-use layer provided by WCS Canada (L. Moore and C. Mantyka-Pringle 2020, unpublished manuscript), which used existing human footprint data from multiple sources and assigned land use classes, including agriculture, energy, forestry, heritage, mining, provision, recreation, rural, transport, urban, and an unknown class to each feature. These alternative land-uses were represented as cost layers and given negative weights, whereas all the other ecological, biodiversity, and cultural layers were given positive weights.

Data preprocessing

All geospatial files were projected into NAD Yukon Albers 1983 and converted to raster files. Due to the runtime of Zonation, files were resampled to a 100 m resolution. To successfully run Zonation, all files needed to have the same number of grid cells and line up with each other. Rasters were therefore snapped to the Canadian digital elevation model (CDEM) and then clipped to the Dawson planning region. Any line or point features that were processed to raster were buffered by 50 m so the features would show up on a 100 m resolution. As a result, any data that originated from point or line features occupied one grid cell in width.

Spatial prioritization

We trialled six prioritization scenarios to explore how the environmental and biodiversity related data influenced the distribution of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s mapped values. To generate the scenarios, we interviewed ~10 Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government staff, citizens, and other select representatives to generate weights of the different layers. In the first two scenarios, we ran Zonation with the Indigenous mapped values, but without conservation threat layers. The second two scenarios included conservation threats and the Indigenous mapped values. The final set of scenarios included conservation threats but no Indigenous mapped values, as requested by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in. See Appendix 3 for an example of one of the six scenario rankings.

Zonation was run using the Core Area Zonation (CAZ) as the removal rule. Core Area Zonation bases ranking on the most important occurrence of a feature in the cell. Therefore, it is able to identify high-priority areas that have a high occurrence level for a single rare and/or highly weighted feature. Even generally feature-poor cells can thus be identified as priorities (Di Minin et al. 2014). The removal rule was set to 1, the warp factor to 200, and the edge removal to 1. The Tombstone Territorial Park was used as a mask because this region is already protected, to give unprotected areas higher priority.

All scenarios were presented to Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in as maps for review. Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in subsequently decided to use just one scenario with the conservation threats (see Appendix 3), but excluding their Indigenous mapped values.

Due to data incongruences, the Zonation output and land use and cultural maps were simply overlaid with another Fortymile caribou model, rather than consolidating and geo-analyzing them. Technical staff then derived polygons comprising these base layers, guided by individual staff knowledge and expertise in various fields (natural resources, fish and wildlife, culture and heritage). The final map and other materials for the submission to the regional planning commission were part of a citizen engagement process led by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in. Citizen engagement included a survey (in person and online) and direct engagement (e.g., phone calls, home visits) to ensure the submission aligned with citizen perspectives and needs (see Appendix 4). The final submission was then approved by the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Council.

RESULTS

Individual maps

In total, 26 individual maps were created from 30 individual or family group interviews. Some maps had fewer features (< 10 points; < 10 polygons) whereas others had up to four times or more (> 40 points and/or polygons). Some participants were not comfortable answering specific questions in relation to their hunting or fishing spots but were comfortable discussing the importance of certain areas for protecting specific species. On these occasions (n = 3), their map evolved into a single protection map (Fig. 3).

Collective cultural values

Density maps displayed areas in which several ecosystem services or landscape features overlap and therefore represent areas perceived by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in participants to be of collective importance. These maps highlighted the importance of rivers and existing roads for easier access to the land for harvesting and recreational activities (Fig. 4A). Caribou, moose, and fish (grayling, salmon, and whitefish) were indicated as high value species for subsistence use. However, furbearers (e.g., beaver, lynx, marten, wolf), porcupines (for their quills), berries, and other plants were also regularly mapped in places for clothing, cash income, and medicines. Headwaters, wetlands, and mountain ranges were highlighted as important features for protection under climate change (Fig. 4C). Key wintering grounds, natural springs, spawning creeks, migration routes, and river buffers were also emphasized as being significant areas for protection (Figs. 3, 4C). Cultural activities were widespread and focused on historic sites and important gathering places for healing, connectedness to the land, and spiritual well-being (map not shown for ethical reasons). Income generating activities were also spread throughout the landscape (particularly for traplines), but with some overlap along roads and in parks for tourism and guiding opportunities and biological surveying (Fig. 4B).

Ecological Zonation priorities

The ecological Zonation output prioritized areas in the northern region of the Dawson planning region for conservation (Fig. 5). This was partly due to the higher ranking of specific ecosystems, including Boreal Low, Subarctic Woodland, and Subarctic Alpine Tundra zones. However, high priority areas were also designated south of the planning region, particularly the Fortymile caribou summer range in the Matson Highlands and the riparian zones along the Yukon River, Stewart River, Ladue River, and White River. This is due to Zonation retaining habitat for all species weights and landscape layers, and these areas are important areas for fish, wildlife, and connectivity. The ranking of cells is also affected by the relative negative weightings of the conservation threat land-use layers, particularly the mining footprint in the Klondike River, Indian River, Bonanza Creek, Hunker Creek, and Dominion Creek and the urban development near Dawson City. In comparison to the other two ecological prioritization scenarios in which Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in ranked their values with conservation threats, the results are broadly similar with some variance in the Goldfields (Stewart River), Hamilton Creek area, and Coffee Creek area (see Appendix 5).

Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s final conservation priorities map

The Zonation analysis did not produce a conservation priorities map as originally planned. During the Zonation exercise, citizens and staff identified a number of challenges with the approach and its applicability to land use planning. First, many participants felt that it was inappropriate to rank Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s Indigenous and ecological knowledge as a quantitative data set within this hierarchical framework. There was general unease with including the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in cultural land use and future protections layers in the ranking survey because of this. Although it is extremely important to capture this information and ensure it informs conservation planning, it was felt that “this information should be included in the right way” and guide the process as a separate and complimentary product, i.e., mapped information that was presented independently rather than hierarchically weighted.

Second, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in beliefs and way of life are rooted in traditional law. For Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, it is not culturally appropriate to consider the land in relation to trade-offs, compromises, and priorities. Land is interconnected and must be considered in its entirety. Stewardship responsibilities obligate Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in to care for the land, water, and animals as an integrated and interconnected whole, respecting and nourishing relationships that connect past with present, and land users today with their ancestors. The exercise to identify priority areas for conservation, particularly that of ranking individual component inputs, was extremely challenging because concepts such as trade-offs and priorities transgress traditional law and are not congruent with Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in values and ways of understanding.

Third, the overly technical nature of the Zonation prioritization limited participation to technical staff and made the scenario outputs virtually inaccessible to non-technical staff. This level of inaccessibility occurred both during the survey ranking stage as well as the mapped scenario output stage. The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in planning team was challenged with how to communicate the process and results in a meaningful way to Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizens.

Finally, challenges with data quality, scale, and completeness across the region had a limiting effect on the efficacy of the Zonation output in areas in which information was unavailable, partially complete, or very coarse. Although umbrella species or available data sets were used as a proxy to consider values underrepresented by the existing data (e.g., weighting alpine habitats higher to consider cold water needs for salmon bearing streams), the effectiveness of this approach remained unclear and contributed to apprehension about this process.

For these reasons, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in opted to use a purely ecological Zonation scenario output (with no ranking of cultural inputs) as one of four mapping tools that informed their land use planning conservation assessment. In other words, although Zonation did not in itself produce a comprehensive conservation priority output for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, it proved useful in creating a purely ecological scenario to inform planning staff where ecological conservation hotspots for protection were located within a broad landscape (recognizing the limitations mentioned above). This Zonation layer overlaid with the Cultural Land Use layer (Figs. 4A, B combined with a cultural service density map not shown for confidentiality reasons), Future Protections layer (Fig. 4C), and a Fortymile caribou habitat model (not shown but available from the Yukon Government Department of Environment), supported a technical review and citizen consultation, and informed a multi-prong conservation planning approach which used Zonation as a key building block within the process. Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s final conservation priorities map (Fig. 6) is now available online (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in 2020a) and is supported by an in-depth package outlining the foundations identified and key values around water, habitat for fish and wildlife, ecological integrity, settlement land, cultural continuity, a sustainable economy, traplines, and the cultural landscape. The map is split into three categories, including conservation areas, and two stewardship areas, and the goals of each are described in Ninänkäk hǫzǫ wëkätrënòhcha (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in 2020b; see Appendix 4).

DISCUSSION

We explored Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s approach to bringing together Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in knowledge and Western science during a conservation planning exercise undertaken to inform the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s contribution to regional planning in its traditional territory. This approach, called “walking in two worlds”, was put into practice using two tools: Indigenous land use and cultural mapping and a conservation prioritization software called Zonation. We set out to understand the extent to which these tools were useful in bringing together two knowledge systems without falling into the persistent challenges of integration. We also sought to provide insight into the methodology of applying Zonation software in a novel way, by modifying its application with Indigenous cultural values and subsistence use areas.

Land use and cultural mapping as a tool

The strengths of cultural and land use mapping as a tool for Indigenous communities participating in regional planning have long been established, including benefits related to community empowerment, documenting and preserving ecological knowledge for future generations, informing decision making, and encouraging participation as active partners within decision making (Robinson and Ross 1997, Kopra and Stevenson 2007). Importantly, mapping is relatively easy, adaptable, and offers opportunities for Indigenous communities to represent their traditional knowledge and values in a way that brings awareness of their interests to a wider community (Engler et al. 2013). Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s experience with the land use and cultural mapping exercise it undertook during the regional planning process affirmed many of these strengths. For example, the exercise promoted intergenerational communication in storytelling between elders and youth. When a family teamed up and worked together on a map during the mapping exercise, many stories were shared from older generations to younger generations about traditional travel routes, camps, or how current ecosystems and species ranges compare to the past.

Another example of the strengths of this tool for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in was the feeling of community empowerment. Paper maps were returned to community members after the project because many citizens expressed the desire to share their map with their families and keep adding to it. The importance of an evolving map can be fostered by families and the community as one tool for sharing stories and preserving and transferring knowledge. With permission, we share two quotes from two Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizens after reflecting on the process:

The mapping interview was a positive experience for me. I enjoyed seeing the importance of my knowledge for the planning of our entire traditional territory (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in youth, March 29, 2019).

Being clear with the knowledge of how we use and respect our lands is very important to our Citizens. Without Conservation our Citizens will be forced to sit aside and continue to watch our lands be disrupted. We have been watching this for a long time, but no longer. By gathering this information and sharing it on a map it shows how Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Citizens are using the land and keeping our culture alive. By showing our conservation priorities, we are setting a healthy future for our youth, who we will leave to protect for their grandchildren (Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Deputy Chief Simon Nagano, November 30, 2020).

In addition to strengths, experiences with land use and cultural mapping elsewhere in Canada have pointed to a number of challenges with the process (e.g., Natcher 2001, Wyatt et al. 2010). It is notable that Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in was able to avoid at least some of these challenges because it led the mapping process and is a decision maker in the regional planning process. As a result, some concerns related to how Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in knowledge is used, interpreted, and controlled were avoided; a significant step given the challenges experienced by Indigenous communities involved in industry-funded land use mapping and research within consultation processes (Natcher 2001). This experience also affirmed the importance of land use and cultural mapping activities that are tied to a meaningful planning process (Kopra and Stevenson 2007).

In addition to challenges related to how Indigenous knowledge is used, interpreted, and controlled, experiences in Canada have also pointed to methodological issues for how cultural and land use maps are created and used. These issues include concerns about the limitations of maps to convey important information, such as the ways in which land use has and will continue to change and the importance of the “blank spaces” on the map (Wyatt et al. 2010). Addressing such concerns requires ensuring that the broader contexts of Indigenous land use and land relationships are captured (e.g., through accompanying texts, qualitative studies, etc.) (Wyatt et al. 2010, McIlwraith and Cormier 2016). These limitations were similarly experienced by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in. For example, the density and hotspot maps (see Fig. 4) created by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the co-authors can be interpreted as areas with high and low intensity use but need a narrative for implementation. Critically, the steady decline of Yukon River salmon shows strongly on the income generating map (Fig. 4B) due to lack of polygon overlay along the Yukon River, which was once a main traditional food staple and commercial salmon fishery for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in. However, since 2013, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in have voluntarily refrained from fishing Chinook salmon until salmon stocks and the sustainability of the fishery improve.

Similarly, although there were areas in the southern portion of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s traditional territory that were not highlighted as high activity areas for provisional services (see Fig. 4A), this did not mean that they are not valued or used. The south-east areas near the Indian River valley and McKinnon Creek in particular were once important hunting and gathering grounds for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in before the Klondike Gold Rush, a migration of 30–40,000 prospectors that came to the Klondike region to discover gold between 1896–1899. Pressure on this region from miners and other land users, as well as the related displacement of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people from the area, has only continued over the last century. The Klondike placer gold fields have since produced approximately 20 million oz of gold (http://www.klondikegoldcorp.com/). Although the gold field areas within the southern part of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s traditional territory are still valued and used by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in for cultural practices, the overwhelming concentration of activity in this area has made cultural practices very challenging. These “blank spaces” on the maps that were generated by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in require recognition of how land use has changed and the forces that have changed it, as well as how it will continue to change in the future.

Another methodological challenge experienced by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in was that the meaningful descriptions and worldviews that accompanied the mapping process weren’t always compatible with GIS (Chambers et al. 2004). For some mapping participants, particularly elders, their entire traditional territory was expressed as being valuable and important to them and their identity. They had real difficulties and genuine concerns in selecting specific places or identifying individual resources, especially when communicating about their spiritual connection to the land. These concerns are grounded in Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s deeply rooted knowledge about the importance of land connectivity. These are important teachings that have stemmed from lived experiences that the co-authors were unable to map. It is the voices of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizens themselves that need to accompany their maps and express their ways of knowing and their relationships to the land.

To address the above methodological challenges, the project team found that it was important to clarify the role of the interviewer. The interviewer’s role was not to divide or compartmentalize Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizens’ thoughts, but rather to let the interview unfold and listen, modifying questions if necessary and allowing each participant to document/draw what they liked on paper. This sometimes resulted in the entire traditional territory being circled as part of the protection layer (see Fig. 4C) or the documenting of their story, for example, about the importance of all headwaters for clean and sustained water. In addition, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in presented a narrative document to accompany the conservation prioritization maps that were created for the Dawson Regional Planning Commission, called Ninänkäk hǫzǫ wëkätrënòhcha (Appendix 4). This document addressed key components that the map could not communicate, such as the importance of the “blank” spaces and the broader context for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in land relationships.

A zonation perspective

Zonation software is a freely downloadable program that has frequently been used within regional planning. However, limited attention has been paid to whether, and if so, how, Zonation can be used to consider a broader range of values and data, such as values identified by Indigenous communities or social-ecological data. This research found that the cultural and land use maps (both individual and collective) could be incorporated into the Zonation prioritization model to add a broader range of values, including the importance of species, habitat, water, traditional stories (e.g., stories tied to specific places), and the cultural and spiritual value of the landscape for the next seven generations. However, as noted previously, inherent limitations to the modeling software demonstrated that although such data can be included, this does not imply that they should be included.

Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in found requirements of Zonation, namely the need for quantified data within a hierarchical framework and the need to consider trade-offs, priorities, and compromises in the context of the land, were incompatible with Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in ways of knowing and law, especially when Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in land use and cultural values were included. This dichotomy belief is consistent with other Indigenous knowledge systems (McGregor 2021) and is a key difference between Western and Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Moreover, the technical nature of the software made it difficult to communicate. Nonetheless, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in staff identified both strengths and limitations to the software. When run with a purely ecological scenario, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in found the output (Fig. 5) was useful in that it could be combined with cultural values (Fig. 4) to create conservation priorities maps (Fig. 6), which was accompanied with a narrative, Ninänkäk hǫzǫ wëkätrënòhcha (Appendix 4).

The Zonation analysis also faced challenges related to data quality, scale, and completeness. In the case of Chinook salmon, there are data gaps for both salmon spawning and rearing habitats under climate change (Brown et al. 2017). Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in decided to work around this limitation by weighing the bioclimate zone subalpine areas higher in reflection of the conservation need to protect headwater streams that are important for cooler water temperatures and that provide thermal refugia for other climate sensitive species. However, concerns were still expressed about whether all critical salmon habitats were systematically included in the ranking process due to data deficiencies.

Lessons from walking in two worlds and implications for land planning

Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s approach of walking in two worlds drew on land use and cultural mapping as a tool to engage with Indigenous ways of knowing and being, as well as Zonation software to engage with Western scientific knowledge. It is worth reiterating that these knowledge systems are not set in stone and are not solely dichotomous. For example, both the cultural mapping approach and Zonation software drew on existing understandings to produce visual maps, even if those understandings were grounded in different relationships with the land, and the maps were created through different processes that reflect different ways of knowing. These tools individually have both strengths and challenges. It is equally important to consider these tools together, reflect on the extent to which they were useful in overcoming the persistent challenges of knowledge integration and discuss implications for conservation and regional planning.

Numerous issues with integrating Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge systems have been identified to date (e.g., Simpson 2001, McGregor 2004, Ellis 2005, Berkes 2009, 2012). Central to these issues is the fact that Indigenous knowledge is frequently separated from its broader philosophical and historical context. In the two worlds approach laid out by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, the cultural and land use mapping exercise ensured that Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in philosophies, ethics, laws, and land relationships were presented in a narrative alongside the final conservation priorities map presented to the Dawson Regional Planning Commission. This narrative was central to reflecting the ways in which land use changes over time.

Understanding and communicating how land use changes over time is especially critical within regional land use planning because land use will only continue to change in the future. Although cultural and land use mapping literature has identified the need for ensuring maps are updated over time (Kopra and Stevenson 2007), the same concept applies to regional planning. A regional plan that respects Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in land relationships and land uses, which change over time in response to changes on the land, similarly requires updating. Although regional plans in the Yukon are reviewed every five years, there is little indication about what this process entails. Ensuring opportunities for updating land use and cultural maps, as well as their associated narratives, and facilitating a process through which these updates can inform revisions to the regional plan, could contribute to a regional plan that is respectful of traditional land management practices, as required under the UFA. Moreover, it is critical to ensuring that land use and cultural mapping remains meaningful, rather than becoming a path to setting in stone a specific set of land uses in perpetuity. As McIlwraith and Cormier (2016:48) note, traditional land use mapping often remains “a colonial action that separates Indigenous people from land by identifying precisely where development can and cannot occur.”

In contrast to the land use and cultural mapping efforts, the Zonation analysis failed to protect the relationship between Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in knowledge and its broader context when it attempted to integrate cultural values into the prioritization exercise. As Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in noted during the exercise, the concept of trade-offs and priorities in the context of land relationships is incompatible with Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in law and ethics. The Zonation exercise also reinforced another persistent challenge of knowledge integration efforts, specifically the fact that Western science often seeks to legitimize Indigenous knowledge. For Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, this was experienced when cultural values were translated to quantifiable data that were presented within a hierarchical model. Within the metaphor of walking in two worlds, these were critical stumbling points. However, these failures also led to a shift in approach, whereby the Zonation exercise was run as a solely ecological scenario.

A critical lesson learned for this process is related to the timing of when the two worlds come together; by integrating cultural values into the Zonation exercise early in the process, the approach perpetuated the failures of knowledge integration. However, overlaying the two maps at the end of the process was more effective to ensure that the independent integrity of the two knowledge systems was maintained. Another critical lesson was the importance of providing a narrative, not just for cultural and land use mapping, but also for the final conservation priorities map. This narrative allowed Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in to communicate to the planning commission the tension between prioritizing specific areas for conservation and Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in beliefs and law. As Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in explained:

our priorities lie in protecting the system as an interconnected whole, not in protecting site-specific areas. Nonetheless, the conservation priorities in this document identify areas that would create a network of protected areas that will continue to allow species to move, adapt and survive as their habitats change, mitigating the effects of climate change. (Tr’ondëk Hwëch'’n 2020b:7)

Although such an approach may not be suitable for all Indigenous authorities engaged in land planning efforts, it was ultimately useful for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in in presenting its conservation priorities to the regional planning commission.

A third key failure of knowledge integration efforts has been their perpetuation of power imbalances between Indigenous and non-Indigenous authorities that lead to the continued privileging of dominant ways of knowing, doing, and being (Nadasdy 1999, Berkes 2009, 2012). There are two processes in which power dynamics were at play in this work that are especially relevant to this discussion.

First, the project itself involved non-Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Western scientists; the power and authority often afforded to Western scientists as experts influences researcher interactions, interactions that benefit from critical reflection as a research practice (Daley 2010). In the context of this project, these dynamics were approached in part through the positioning of the project as one component of an internal process led by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in in preparing its submission to the planning commission. Non-Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in co-authors were positioned in the role of technical supports and Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in was the decision maker on the project. The desire to take a walking in two worlds approach was expressed by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in; the avenues through which they engaged with Western science were subsequently supported by the non-Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in co-authors. It was through the process of applying this approach that issues arose, which proved to be a critical point at which Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s role as the decision maker on the project was significant. Although power dynamics are always at play, ensuring Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s role as decision maker was central to ensuring Western ways of knowing and being were not privileged at the expense of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in knowledge and worldviews.

The power dynamics at play within the broader regional planning process are also relevant to this work. The walking in two worlds approach undertaken by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in was pursued in part because of the request by the planning commission to identify conservation priorities. This request reflects a planning process that continues to reflect dominant worldviews on the land, specifically one that seeks to put boundaries on a map and requires First Nations to engage in trade-offs. Although Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in did produce a final conservation priorities map, this process inherently required them to compromise their values, beliefs, and laws related to the interconnectedness of land. This limitation has also been observed in other planning regions in the Yukon, namely the Peel Watershed (Caddell 2018). It also reflects critiques of dominant approaches to regional planning more broadly. As King (2010:106) explains:

even when Indigenous peoples try to insert their perspectives into the planning process, ultimately, those perspectives are marginalized through a corruption of the process or an unwillingness to share power.

Nonetheless, while the parties to the planning process are equally represented on the planning commission, there are inherent limits to Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in decision-making authority baked into the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Final Agreement. Should the parties disagree on the regional plan, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s authority to accept, reject, or modify the plan may be limited to Settlement Land only. However, as noted during the Zonation exercise, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in beliefs, values, and law dictate that land is interconnected and that Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in stewardship obligations apply to the entirety of their traditional territory and are not contained within the limited Settlement Lands upon which Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in retain decision-making authority.

Thus, the knowledge bridging efforts undertaken by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in were supported by their position as a decision maker within the regional planning process. However, they were nonetheless influenced by the structural power dynamics of the governance system more broadly. However, these structures are not set in stone. The two worlds approach undertaken by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in demonstrated flexibility; when the process was not working for them, they shifted. A similar shift may be required within regional planning. Although the UFA does establish limitations to the planning process in its ability to disrupt dominant power dynamics, it also does not specifically require it. In other words, there remains flexibility in how planning could be carried out, potentially in ways that address the persistent challenges of knowledge bridging identified here, should state governments be willing to undertake such an exercise. Furthermore, there exists inherent discrepancies in the ways in which the words of the UFA provisions are interpreted by different parties. This framework agreement is largely interpreted from a Western perspective and standpoint, yet this presents obvious limitations when juxtaposed with an Indigenous worldview. There are opportunities to view the UFA and individual final and self-government agreements from a more holistic lens when implementing important processes such as regional land use planning (Staples 2022).

The lessons learned from the two worlds approach, as well as the specific mapping exercises undertaken by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, may be useful to other Indigenous communities. Key lessons have been identified related to the methodology of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s approach, as well as the overall approach. In addressing the challenges of knowledge integration, such as separating Indigenous knowledge from its broader context, Western science seeking to legitimize and control Indigenous knowledge, and reinforcing existing power dynamics, this approach experienced varying degrees of success. Practical lessons, such as ensuring regional planning processes evolve to reflect changes in Indigenous land use over time and how the two worlds of Indigenous knowledge and Western science systems are brought together, may be useful for others engaged in similar work. Reflections on the broader structural power dynamics experienced by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in also pose challenges for regional planning and its future: a future that is still being written.

ETHICS AND POSITIONALITY STATEMENT

Ethics statement

All co-authors signed and adhered to Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s community knowledge protocol for conducting research and accessing community knowledge as part of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s Land Stewardship Framework and Land Vision. Wildlife Conservation Society of Canada staff also signed a commitment letter with Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in approved by Chief and Council and followed First Nations Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession (OCAP^®) principles of their own data. OCAP^® is a registered trademark of Canada’s First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC); additional information can be found on their website (https://fnigc.ca/ocap-training/). The project was driven by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and all content related to Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in knowledge systems was drawn from existing materials provided by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, with their consent. This research benefited Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in by creating a foundational piece that supported Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in staff in vocalizing and mapping conservation areas of key importance to Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizens and to further their Indigenous governance lens.

Positionality statement

Chrystal Mantyka-Pringle, Piia Kortsalo, Stephanie Saal, and Kiri Staples are all non-Indigenous individuals trained in Western academic institutions. Although Jody Beaumont, Chris Clarke, Natasha Ayoub, and Katie Fraser have worked as staff members for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in government for many years, none of the authors are Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizens. The authors recognize that this positionality influenced the project and their relationship to the work. Establishing clear ethical guidelines to ensure that the work was driven by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, appropriately represented Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in knowledge system, and served Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in needs was a central part of this project. This paper represents a meaningful collaborative partnership between co-authors and Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, with emphasis on respect for Indigenous self-determination, relationship building, reciprocity, and co-creation. It aimed to assist Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Government’s ability to clearly articulate important conservation values and meaningfully inform the Dawson regional land use planning process and other Indigenous-led conservation initiatives. Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in provided thoughtful reviews of various drafts of the manuscript and shared existing resources to ensure that their knowledge systems were appropriately represented within the work. Other co-authors provided technical capacity to support the government mandated work that is guided by Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s strategic plan.

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