Bridging Traditional Ecological
Knowledge and Science to Create a
New Environmental Society
How Can We Bring Together the Takers
and Leavers to Reach a Better
Understanding of the World We Live In?
Dean Howard Smith
Northern Arizona University
Characteristics of Indigenous
Economic Systems
 Extensive Trading Networks
 Investment
 Varied production methods
 Property rights clearly delineated
 Wildlife (herd) and forest management
Characteristics of Indigenous
Economic Systems
Shared risk versus private risk
Specialization and division of labor
Extended transportation systems
Sustainable resource management
Characteristics of Indigenous
Economic Systems
Pre-contact societies had extensive and
varied economic systems with
comprehensive resource and environmental
management traditions.
Corn production extended from southern
Chile to Canada and from sea level to
elevations in excess of 10,000 feet
Smith’s Social Compatibility
Theory
Social systems evolve to take into account
various conditions
Native American societies changed when
their political and economic systems were
taken away.
The Colorado Plateau and the SW changed
due to the Big Buildup
What will happen when we say goodbye
to the swift pony and the hunt? It will be
the end of living and the beginning of
survival.
Chief Seattle
The pony was a post-contact technology
leading to adaptive behavior of the
plains Indians. The adjustments
evidenced by the introduction of the
pony into the productive process
included changes in the spiritual,
environmental and other sub-systems.
Chief Seattle foresaw a new
equilibrium of compatibility simply
involving survival instead of living.
Similarly, when the Waikato-Tainui lost
their lands, they had difficulty “socially,
politically and economically” when
they lost their economic base. Recent
legislation in New Zealand is allowing
them to regain their own selves
Mainstream Global Society
 Uranium tailings
 Global warming
 Loss of biodiversity
 Air and water pollution
 Ozone depletion
Loss of Compatibility
When the supermarket and the
drugstore are empty, the dumpster and
the crackhouse become attractive. When
the keystone players are excluded, the
flim flam players and connivers govern.
When the economic base is excluded,
survival can even become uninteresting
when the connivers offer alternatives.
Coevolution Theory
Society and the environment coevolve to
reach a level of compatibility
When one system changes, the other does
as well
Reducing “Indian fires” results
in catastrophic fires
In the coevolutionary paradigm, the
environment determines the fitness of how
people behave as guided by alternative ways
of knowing, forms of social organization,
and types of technologies. Yet at the same
time, how people know, organize and use
tools determine the fitness characteristics of
an evolving environment. At any point in
time, each determines the other.
Richard Norgaard
Bridging Native Societies with
Modern Economies
A world-view substantially different from
mainstream society: nature and humans are
symbiotic. Humans do not have a dominant
status.
Not the duality of extraction or
preservation; rather, a shared existence
within the spatial and spiritual
environment.
Extraction Or Preservation
Extraction = Takers
– Use all resources for human benefit without
regard to the environment
Preservation = Leavers
– Leave nature alone and save all natural
ecosystems free of human interaction
Examples of Environmental
Society
Nissenbaum and Shadle
– No net degradation to the salmon fisheries for
the Puyallup Tribe
• Similar to the wetlands replacement program for
the Waikato-Tainui
Examples of Environmental
Society
Anderson and Nabhan
– Organpipe Cactus National Monument
• Similar to:
– Sustainable growth and harvesting
– Indian fires
Examples of Environmental
Society
Plotkin
– Pharmaceutical development, forest
preservation and economic development
Trosper, Boulding, Pierotti and
World-Views
Does human development supercede the
rest of nature? NOT
Is pure economic development above
social and cultural development? NOT
Is economic development even desirable?
NOT ALWAYS
Or is sustainable development
of the available resources
preferable? PERHAPS
How can you buy the sky? How
can you own the rain and the wind?
Chief Seattle
Only with your smile and your soul can
you share the sunshine.