Jeremy Brammer
Project
An evidence-based approach to knowledge integration in Arctic wildlife researchCanada’s north is changing, and adapting to these changes will be an ever present dilemma for northern communities. In particular, conducting the long-term ecological monitoring that is necessary to inform these local adaptations is logistically challenging and generally uncommon. However, community-based ecological monitoring, also known as local knowledge systems, have existed in these regions for generations. Increasingly, efforts are being made to integrate this local knowledge with scientific monitoring efforts, a task that has been dubbed the “Integration Project”. However a number of barriers are believed to be limiting the success of this project: these range from technical issues (like how to properly record and transmit local knowledge), to fundamental ones (like who gets to define what is valid and invalid knowledge). My objective is to develop a pragmatic approach to knowledge integration through monitoring tools and research techniques that facilitate communication between northern communities and institutionalized science. In so doing, I will develop an evidence-based approach for the application of multiple epistemologies to northern wildlife research and management decisions.
