NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region

Tags: Inuvialuit Boreal Caribou

Objective(s): The objectives of this Study Design are to: 1) Collaborate with Inuvialuit co-management bodies to design a Study that explores how Inuvialuit land users classify habitats. This will enable cross-referencing of Inuvialuit land classification knowledge with Western scientific classifications. 2) Identify knowledge gaps surrounding the habitat use of boreal (woodland) caribou within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region and address those gaps through community workshops and targeted interviews with Inuvialuit knowledge holders.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No. 5929. The objectives of this Study Design are to: 1) Collaborate with Inuvialuit co-management bodies to design a Study that explores how Inuvialuit land users classify habitats. This will enable cross-referencing of Inuvialuit land classification knowledge with Western scientific classifications. This objective ensures that Inuvialuit knowledge will inform the creation of habitat importance maps which will be used to develop the Inuvialuit Boreal (Woodland) Caribou Range Plan. 2) Identify knowledge gaps surrounding the habitat use of boreal (woodland) caribou within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region and address those gaps through community workshops and targeted interviews with Inuvialuit knowledge holders. The results from the workshop(s) and interviews will define what habitat areas in the ISR are important to boreal (woodland) caribou. The study methodology will consist of two community-based workshops for Inuvialuit knowledge holders, one workshop in Inuvik (for Aklavik, Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk participants) and one in Paulatuk (for Paulatuk participants), and several community-based individual or small-group semi-structured interviews in each of the four mainland Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR) communities: Aklavik, Inuvik, Paulatuk, and Tuktoyaktuk. A contractor of the GNWT’s choosing will be conducting the study on behalf of the principal investigator (GNWT-ECC), based on the study design that was collaboratively developed with the mainland HTCs, IGC, and WMAC(NWT). The contractor will be coordinating and facilitating the workshops along with trained community member assistants. Interviews will be conducted either by the contractor and/or community assistants (often called community resource technicians), depending on the preference and capacity of the individual HTCs. The contractor will work with the community HTCs to have them identify participants for the workshop and hire community-based staff to assist or lead the workshops and interviews. The contractor will work with community staff hired by the HTCs to train them on the background of the project, and in any additional methodology training that is required. Some community staff have training in facilitation and interview methodologies, while others may not; this will be identified by the HTCs. The workshops will consist of two components spread over two days; a storytelling space surrounding boreal (woodland) caribou and Inuvialuit knowledge of habitat classification. The Study Design methodology for habitat classification was drawn from Inuvialuit HTC and co-management board engagement as well as from the Inuvialuit Traditional Knowledge of wildlife habitat on the Yukon North Slope (Wildlife Management Advisory Council 2018). In that study, land-users and scientists gathered in a workshop to discuss and categorize major ecosystem types in ways both groups could understand, using the Yukon Ecological Land Classification (ELC) which helped link traditional knowledge with scientific understanding of habitats. Similar ELC methodologies were used and described in the Gwich’in Community-Led Boreal (Woodland) Caribou Traditional Knowledge Studies to Support Range Planning: Report I. Gwich’in Habitat Classification (2023). Communication with community HTC boards and staff, including resource persons and community resource technicians or other short-term staff hired for the project, will be ongoing throughout the research process. HTCs have identified how they should be involved in the process and this is identified in detail in the Study Design that will guide the project. The study lead will work with HTCs to identify how many community staff will be hired to support the project and to hire and train these staff. The study lead will work with the HTCs to identify participants for the workshops and interviews. The study lead will work with the community staff and participants to conduct interviews, verify individual interview information and, to the extent desired by staff and participants, analyze and interpret results. All HTCs have indicated that they will verify their community data after analysis, before the results are finalized. The study lead will arrange meetings with the HTCs to do this. Some HTCs have indicated that presenting back to the community is mandatory, while others have requested that there is the option for a community meeting and indicated that they will make this decision at a later date. Communication will also be ongoing with the regional Inuvialuit organizations, IGC and WMAC(NWT), with the contractor attending all or most of their quarterly meetings to provide updates on the status of the project. IGC will provide the final verification of the results before they are shared with ECC-GNWT, according to the terms of the data sharing agreement. Other communication will include the development of a short, plain-language summary to be shared with the communities, possibly videos of participants from the story-telling circle and interviews (dependent on consent), and sharing the shapefiles and printed maps with the Inuvialuit Knowledge habitat classification information developed in the study. A final report will be developed and shared with IGC and WMAC(NWT), who will determine the audience this report will be shared with. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from: December 02 - December 31, 2024