NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area

Tags: social sciences, resource management, ecological monitoring

Objective(s): To bring together indicators from multiple sources, along with multi-stakeholder perspectives, to provide a comprehensive evaluation of indicators to meet the goals of managing agencies.

Project Description: The overarching objective of this project is to bring together indicators from multiple sources, along with multi-stakeholder perspectives, to provide a comprehensive evaluation of indicators to meet the goals of managing agencies. In order to accomplish this the research team aim to: 1) Identify the stakeholder objectives to be used for monitoring marine resources, 2) creating a comprehensive data on indicators (ecological, social, economic) used in monitoring across the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR), and 3) develop methods to select indicators to be used for monitoring at the regional scale that suit the needs of multiple co-management agencies. In order to identify the long term objectives of co-management agencies and the current indicators being used, consultations with individuals from each agency will be used. Community consultation will be used to identify gaps in current monitoring programs and provide feedback to the selection of regional indicators. This process will involve focus groups with individuals selected through the Hunters and Trappers Committee’s (HTCs) to represent the community as a whole. This project is heavily focused on knowledge co-production to identify and evaluate ecological, social, and economic indicators to support long-term monitoring in the ISR. The three main stages of this project are to 1) Identify multi- stakeholder objectives for marine resource use in the Beaufort Sea; 2) assess linkages between ecological, social, and economic factors through the use of conceptual models; and 3) identify and evaluate existing indicators for monitoring. At each of these stages co-management agencies and community members are invited to participate. During year 1, the Beaufort Sea Partnership meeting will serve as a forum to present preliminary research on multi-stakeholder objectives and receive feedback. During year 2, focus groups in each community are anticipated to identify linages for conceptual models. In year 3, community consultations are expected to validate the selection of indicators. Co-management agencies (Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Fisheries Joint Management Committee, and Hunters and Trappers Committee’s) will be involved in project milestones. During 2016 and 2017 community tours will be used to update community members of completed work and notify them of upcoming work. In addition, research updates will be sent to the HTCs and presentations will be made to both the Fisheries Joint Management Committee (annually in January) and Inuvialuit Game Council (summer or fall quarterly meetings). Research presentations and materials will also be available at the Beaufort Sea partnership (BSP) meeting annually (fall 2016 and 2017) where we will provide representatives from each community and all BSP members with updates. We will also provide partners at the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation with materials to distribute. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from February 15, 2017 to October 27, 2017.