This presentation aired as part of the Great Basin LCC webinar series on December 6, 2017. The presentation was given by Dr. Tamara Wall of the Desert Research Institute
One of the challenges facing public land managers in the Great Basin is identifying adaptation strategies to increase resiliency to climate change in an area that is already struggling with profound environmental challenges. Recent efforts to understand how the Great Basin weathered past droughts and climate variability may offer insight into approaches that could work in future decades. One approach to gather this information is to understand Traditional Knowledge. Gathering this information is challenging and requires an acknowledgment that much of this information is highly sensitive and proprietary. Translating this information into actionable management plans is even more challenging. This project attempts to use an approach that protects the confidentiality of the data and meets the needs of both the tribal community and natural resource managers. This pilot project uses a method of naïve interviewing with tribal youths to gather narrative “micro stories” from elders and key tribal members and then answering a series of carefully constructed questions that allow participants to apply context and meaning to their stories. This approach has several advantages including that it uses tribal members to gather the data and provides a link between the generations to raise awareness about environmental concerns and Traditional Knowledge. This presentation focuses on the challenges of working with culturally sensitive information and using Traditional Knowledge with western science in natural resource management and provides recommendations for using this approach in the future.
