Cultural Keystone Species Series Part 2: Introducing Cultural Keystone Species
By Benjamin Green-Stacey, Assembly of First Nations’ Environment Sector and Toktam Sajedi, Monica Shore, and Eduardo Sousa, IISAAK OLAM Foundation
May 5, 2022
This blog was written with contributions and/or guidance from Jessica Lukawiecki (PhD Candidate, University of Guelph), Dr. Allyson Menzies (postdoctoral fellow, University of Guelph), Natowaawawahkaki (Paulette Fox) - Holy Walking Woman (Kainai/Blood Tribe), and Dr. Cheryl Chetkiewicz (Conservation Scientist, Wildlife Conservation Society). All are members of the Conservation through Reconciliation’s Biocultural Indicators and Outcomes Stream.
A note for the reader: The use of ‘First Nations’ in this blog is intentional as it is co-authored by staff from the Assembly of First Nations. Some statements may be applicable to Métis and Inuit Peoples as well but we did not want to generalize.
Part 2: Introducing Cultural Keystone Species
What are Cultural Keystone Species?
In many parts of Canada, First Nations continue to depend on the richness of their lands and waters to meet their cultural and food sovereignty needs. Species that are harvested because of their critical role in food sovereignty, art, language, ceremony, spirituality, and identity, are what we often refer to as Cultural Keystone Species (CKS).
CKS are the salient species that hold up the ecosystems of our territories and significantly shape the cultural identity of our nations. They are often iconic species that have played essential roles in diet, livelihood, traditional medicines, and materials used for clothing, shelter, and tools, and have been featured since time immemorial in the languages, ceremonies, knowledge systems, and narratives that have shaped Indigenous cultures.
CKS offer indicators for ecosystem health and community resilience; protecting them ensures the survival of the communities which depend on them. Stewarding and conserving CKS requires a holistic approach, one that accounts for the relationships between places, ecosystems, and cultures.
The relationship between CKS and First Nations can also extend beyond the physical and into metaphysical and spiritual realms, like that of the relationship between the sturgeon and the Stó:lo people.
“There are people who are sturgeon people and they have another level of teachings that come from sturgeon. They carry an understanding of those species, far more than most families … every single year we go to the river and we feed the river and explain what we’re doing, and how we’re going to do it…” - Ernie Victor, Sto:lo Research and Resource Management Centre Fisheries Manager
A caribou stands at the edge of a grassy clearing in Miawpukek First Nation territory. Photo Credit: Jessica Lukawiecki.
Ethnobotanists Nancy Turner and Ann Garibaldi have outlined six elements that should be considered when identifying a CKS:
1. The intensity and variety of ways the species is used;
2. The species' influence on language;
3. The species' role in cultural practices ( for example: traditional practices, ceremonies);
4. The continuation of the species' importance, even as cultural identity changes over time;
5. The irreplaceability of the species by another species accessible to the group, and;
6. The species' role in activities outside its own territory (for example, trade).
The debate over what exactly constitutes a CKS, and whether that is the right term to understand the concept is ongoing. What is clear, however, is that protections offered by species at risk legislation are not extended to CKS; some CKS are critically important to Indigenous Peoples while continuing to maintain abundant populations. The differences in what constitutes CKS and what constitutes an “at-risk” species for the purposes of the Species at Risk Act (SARA) leaves CKS without legal protection that could otherwise prevent declines.
How Are Species at Risk Listed?
Within SARA, Species at Risk (SAR) are listed based on an assessment of trends in their population, habitat status, threats they face, and available Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge. These assessments are carried out by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), an independent, arms-length advisory group to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada.
COSEWIC was established by SARA to examine the status of wildlife species it suspects may be at risk. COSEWIC assessments make recommendations directly to the Minister to list a species as extinct, extirpated, endangered, threatened, of special concern, data deficient, or not at risk.
The Minister then has 90 days to indicate whether they plan to accept or reject the recommendation, and up to 9 months to conduct consultations and ultimately accept, reject, or refer the recommendation back to COSEWIC for further consideration.
The listing process is important to highlight because once a species is listed, it significantly limits how Indigenous Peoples (or anyone) can relate to or interact with it (for example, the ability of Indigenous rights holders to hunt and fish). It is also important to know that despite the COSEWIC requirement to consider ATK in their assessments, the mechanisms for this consideration are inadequate, and need to be updated in order to fully consider the socio-economic and biocultural impacts of species mismanagement on First Nations. Learn more about the listing of species process here.
Examples of CKS
SAR and CKS are not the same thing, but, as Natowaawawahkaki (Paulette Fox) Holy Walking Woman points out, they are also not mutually exclusive. Trees like red cedar and large mammals such as buffalo may be considered CKS for different First Nations but only the buffalo might be considered a SAR because of the threats they face.
Many of the CKS in the boreal zone, for example, are not at risk, are not rare, and are not regulated by Crown governments, the consequence is that they are not a priority for environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), or government protection or stewardship.
Those CKS, however, are critical for the well-being and survival of people and cultures who define themselves by their relationship with these species and their environment. If the habitat of a CKS is harmed by approved management practices, such as spraying herbicides in the boreal forest and impacting the trees or plants which sustain that CKS, this practice also harms the surrounding community.
First Nations perspectives on species management are entirely distinct from colonial approaches. While Canada’s SAR philosophy has been based on managing for scarcity, the approaches of First Nations are firmly rooted in understanding the reciprocal needs of nature and people, and recognize the need to manage for abundance. Social responsibilities are critical to the conservation of biodiversity. As Natowaawawahkaki (Paulette Fox), Holy Walking Woman argues, we, collectively, need to understand and communicate the needs of our CKS and then make those our conservation priorities.
The stewardship of CKS is relational, meaning that for CKS to flourish, it is not enough to protect the species and the habitats; we also need to protect the relationships that Indigenous Peoples have to those species.
A good example is the cultural use of fire. Fire is critical to sustaining the presence of many berry-producing shrubs that are CKS, and in the absence of fire, those species diminish in the landscape.
When national (and other) parks were created by colonial governments, Indigenous peoples and their burning practices were removed from the landscape. As noted by the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership, Parks Canada and some fire agencies are beginning to recognize the value of Indigenous fire knowledge and creating space for Indigenous ceremony and exercise of that knowledge in planning for and carrying out prescribed burning. Re-introducing a fire regime in places like parks and wilderness areas is one way to reestablish relationships between Indigenous Peoples and those CKS like certain berry shrubs that were reliant on recurring fires for their existence.
In fact, using fire in re-establishing a relationship between a people and their CKS could be considered a “cultural keystone practice”.
Protecting CKS within the SARA Framework
While a formal SARA listing carries the weight of legal protections and prohibitions as part of the provided mechanisms for their protection, these measures can serve as a double-edged sword for First Nations wanting to exercise their harvesting and stewardship rights. While CKS have no such formalized forms of protection in Canadian legislation, there are underutilized and unused mechanisms within SARA that could enable their protection even before a listing consideration is ever required.
Sections 11 and 12 of SARA give the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada the authority to enter into conservation agreements, including for species not at risk, with “any government in Canada” for the purposes of monitoring species, implementing management plans, conducting research, protecting habitat, and / or raising public awareness about a species. These tools enable bilateral agreements with Indigenous governments (including potentially non-Indian Act governments), and if negotiated thoughtfully, could enable First Nations-led stewardship for the benefit of CKS.
These tools, however, are not magic fixes. SARA only applies to federal crown lands, and if a CKS’ range extends onto provincial crown lands, the agreement would need tripartite support to be effective.
CKS and SAR management represent two very distinct worldviews and approaches to species stewardship. First Nations stewardship of CKS is grounded in recognizing and respecting the relationships between people, species, and places in order to ensure strong ecosystem health, the abundance of species, and that our own human needs are met.
As we move forward in decolonizing the relationships with our territories and the plants and animals that also call them home, First Nations must be empowered to take the lead in conservation.
In some places, this may include looking to underutilized protections afforded by SAR legislation. In other places, we may look to revitalize Indigenous legal orders and methods of decision-making to assert traditional governance practices and the continued exercise of stewardship and harvesting rights and responsibilities. This could be achieved through the creation and maintenance of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs), which will be the topic of our next blog post.
Upcoming in the CKS Blog Series:
Future posts will explore:
How Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) can support a place-based approach to CKS planning and conservation
The role of Guardians Programs in protecting CKS
Frameworks for monitoring and measuring CKS
Planning for Abundance: How CKS principles can inform Federal-Provincial-Territorial SAR policies and approaches
Send your questions about CKS to monica@iisaakolam.ca and we’ll do our best to address these through the CKS Blog Series!
References
Cristancho, Sergio; Vining, Joanne. 2004. Culturally Defined Keystone Species. Human Ecology Review. 11 (2): 153–164. https://www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/her112/cristanchovining.pdf
Council of Canadian Academies, 2012. Aboriginal Food Security in Northern Canada: An Assessment of the State of Knowledge. https://foodsecurecanada.org/resources-news/resources-research/report-northern-aboriginal-food-insecurity?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvJKQnfyN6AIVMhh9Ch2Jmw4YEAAYASAAEgKwAvD_BwE
Freitas, C. T., P. F. M. Lopes, J. V. Campos-Silva, M. M. Noble, R. Dyball, and C. A. Peres. 2020. Co-Management of Culturally Important Species: A Tool to Promote Biodiversity Conservation and Human Well-Being. People and Nature. 2:61–81. doi: 10.1002/pan3.10064. https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pan3.10064
Garibaldi, Ann; Turner, Nancy. 2004. Cultural keystone species: implications for ecological conservation and restoration. Ecology and Society. 9 (3). https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss3/art1/
Oliriz, C.; Parlee, B. 2020. Towards Biocultural Conservation: Local and Indigenous Knowledge, Cultural Values and Governance of the White Sturgeon (Canada). https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7320
Natowaawawahkaki (Paulette Fox), Holy Walking Woman (Kainai/Blood Tribe), CRP Biocultural Research Stream meeting, November 2021.
Paine, R. T. 1969. A note on trophic complexity and community stability. The American Naturalist 103: 91-93. http://ib.berkeley.edu/labs/power/classes/2006fall/ib250/16.pdf
Power M. E., D. Tilman, J. A. Estes, B. A. Menge, W. J. Bond, L. S. Mills, G. Daily, J. C. Castilla, J. Lubchenco, and R. T. Paine. 1996. Challenges in the quest for keystones. Bioscience 46(8): 609-620. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/46/8/609/237132
Reyes-Garcia et al. (2020). Cultural Keystone Species subgroup Functional Interactions and Biodiversity Targets (FItBiTs) working group. Retrieved from: https://licci.eu/cultural-keystone-species/.