Aboriginal forestry in New Brunswick: conflicting paradigms (1).

Abstract

The participation of First Nations in New Brunswick forestry involves complex issues, many of which stem from Aboriginal and Euro-Canadian epistemological constructions of natural resources. Since practice is closely related to mental constructs, the correspondence between these structures has important political implications. Many in the Aboriginal community believe their former existence was in harmony with the natural environment but as Euro-Canadian constructs were imposed, practice was drastically altered. Strategies emerged as various groups chose different ways to deal with the changes. This paper examines the strategies of traditional and contemporary Aboriginal loggers, as well as provincial and Aboriginal governments' attempts to exert control over the management of New Brunswick forests.

Au Nouveau-Brunswick, la participation des Premieres nations a la foresterie s'accompagne de problemes complexes, souvent causes par les constructions epistemologiques autochtones et euro-canadiennes de ce que sont les ressources naturelles. Etant donne que la pratique est etroitement associee aux constructions mentales, le lien entre ces structures a d'importantes implications politiques. Dans la collectivite autochtone, nombreux sont ceux qui croient que leur vie passee etait en harmonie avec l'environnement naturel mais que la pratique s'est considerablement modifiee lorsque les constructions eurocanadiennes se sont imposees. Des strategies ont surgi, correspondant aux facons de traiter avec ces changements des differents groupes. Cet article examine les strategies des forestiers autochtones traditionnels et contemporains, ainsi que les tentatives des gouvernements provincial et autochtones d'exercer un controle sur la gestion des forets du Nouveau-Brunswick.

Keywords

Aboriginal forestry, forest policy, First Nations, Aboriginal-Euro-Canadian relations, epistemologies

Introduction

Since the 1990s, the management of natural resources in the Maritimes has become the focus of much attention. In November 1997, an appeal by the Province of New Brunswick, Regina v. Paul, ruled that the provincial Crown lands were reserved for Aboriginal people and that they have the right to harvest Crown resources. In April of 1998, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal reversed the November decision and the Aboriginal loggers were ordered to stop cutting. While the case continues to be appealed in the Supreme Court of Canada, many Aboriginal groups in New Brunswick have agreed to interim logging agreements with the province that allow them to harvest 5% of the forest industry's annual allowable cut on Crown land.

Constructions of the environment influence the ways in which natural resources--such as forests--are managed. This paper examines how traditional Aboriginal and Euro-Canadian constructions of the environment developed and what occurred when Euro-Canadian constructs were imposed on Mi'kmaq and Maliseet people. The paper also sets the historical context behind the confusion and conflict seen in the Aboriginal forestry practices of one first nation community. In particular, through the example of one community, this paper highlights the tensions that emerge as contemporary Aboriginal people struggle with emerging and contradictory constructions of the environment, while set within a context formed by the still dominant Euro-Canadian construction. Finally, the paper offers recommendations for Aboriginal forestry policy in New Brunswick.

Theoretical Perspectives

The ways in which groups of people perceive their natural environment are socially constructed (Berger and Luckmann 1966) and shaped by cultural traditions, beliefs, economics and, more recently, by scientific management. As different groups live and work in their respective environments, responding and adapting to the flow of seasons, various ways and means of relating to the land emerge, producing commonly sensed worlds. Interactions with other groups that have similar beliefs and practices allow socially constructed relations with the environment to gain objective status through the consensus of meaning and practice. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples inhabit, alter and systematize their landscapes differently. Understandings of the land, empowered by knowledge of rituals connected with particular sites, often vary among those of different culture, age, education and gender (Rapoport 1994), and these perceptions are not static. Although a community's range of choices are initially shaped by the environment, the culture then reshapes the environment in response to those choices. The new, reshaped environment allows a different set of possibilities for the reproduction of culture and new cycles of mutual determination. Thus changes occur both in the cultural and ecological relationships of particular places (Cronon 1983). However, these changes are not random. Social systems bring order, understanding and cohesiveness to practices through beliefs, societal norms and values. New ideas and strategies may be incorporated but only if they fit into the wider context of traditional practices (Berkes 1999). Innovative practices and technology may be successfully adopted if social organization and institutions remain in place (Wenzel 1991) but inappropriate change can bring disastrous results for both the social and ecological order.

There are several examples of research relating to indigenous and European relations to the land (Brody 1981, 1975; Cronon 1983) and to the clash that occurs when European-based systems are imposed on indigenous peoples (Tester and Kulchyski 1994, Povinelli 1993). In addition, there is a growing body of information on contemporary indigenous management systems (Davidson-Hunt et al. 2001, Berkes 1999, Berkes and Folke 1998). Despite this growing literature very little information exists regarding Aboriginal resource management practice on the east coast of Canada. This paper helps to fill that gap. The following sections briefly review the traditional Aboriginal construction of land and resources, contrast this with the Euro-Canadian construction of natural resources and then describe the tensions that emerge in contemporary Aboriginal constructions.

Traditional Aboriginal belief and practice

For thousands of years, the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet people lived within the area now known as the province of New Brunswick. As predominately hunting and gathering societies, they actively managed their resources with subsistence strategies maintained through socio/political controls, reinforced through symbols and rituals (Williams and Hunn 1982). Under traditional government, all major decisions were made by consensus through the clans and were overseen by a council of elders who gave guidance. Usufruct rights determined which clan-based group used, and had responsibility for, their traditional territories. Clan leaders were chosen for life and were responsible for the long-term effects of resource use. Hunting, fishing and harvesting by outsiders without permission was strongly resented and at times led to altercations.

The traditional relationship between the people and the land relied on the acquisition of knowledge and practices passed down over time and across space. Oral traditions contained important information that was communicated through "culturally coded interpretations of personal and collective experience" abstracted from everyday situations (Riddington 1990). Mythic events were perceived as essential truths that established connections or associations and allowed an intimate identification to take place. As a result there was and continues to be a consistent and central belief among Mi'kmaq and Maliseet that the Earth is a living, conscious being that must be treated with respect and care. Oral culture, in the form of environmental myths and beliefs, serves as a control mechanism that promotes the conservation of resources as opposed to hoarding and the accumulation of wealth. Many traditional Aboriginal people in the Maritimes believe that disease and calamity are the result of the mistreatment of the environment and disrespect shown to the beings that inhabit it.

The second source of traditional Aboriginal knowledge is everyday experience or practice. Structured within the boundaries set by nature, lifestyles and long-term strategies were established in which lands and resources were cared for and improved while leaving minimum impact on the diversity of forest lands. Through practical experience, associations and interrelationships among species and environment were noticed and added to local Aboriginal environmental knowledge. For example, one Mi'kmaq elder explained,

... the old people say that when the choke cherry trees

blossom, the bass is coming in. And also when the fresh sea

trout is coming in the alder bush buds are the size of a

mouse's ear ... when the salmon come in the lightening bugs

follow them up river ... (Mi'kmaq elder, from interview

transcripts, 1997)