Indigenous marine resource management on the Northwest Coast of North America

Abstract

There is increasing recognition among anthropologists that indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast actively managed their terrestrial and marine resources and ecosystems. Such management practices ensured the ongoing productivity of valued resources and were embedded in a complex web of socio-economic interactions. Using ethnographic and archaeological data, this paper synthesizes the ecological and cultural aspects of marine management systems of coastal First Nations. We divide our discussion into four aspects of traditional management systems: harvesting methods, enhancement strategies, tenure systems, and worldview and social relations. The ethnographic data, including memories of living knowledge holders, tend to provide windows into daily actions and the more intangible aspects of management; the archaeological record provides insights into the more tangible aspects and how management systems developed through time and space. This review demonstrates not only the breadth of Northwest Coast marine management but also the value of integrating different kinds of knowledge and data to more fully document the whole of these ancient management systems.