Salmon Peoples of the Arctic

The Salmon Peoples of the Arctic project is designing a holistic assessment will focus on “Salmon peoples” as a measure of ecosystem health and outline future data needs that could contribute to the resilience and adaptation of these peoples and the salmon populations upon which they depend.

The primary project deliverables will be three workshop reports, the final of which will be a plan to complete a Salmon Peoples of the Arctic assessment, including a draft table of contents and list of figures.

The project will begin with a place-based comparison of the following river systems:

• the Yukon/Kuskokwim drainage systems (flowing through the US and Canada, the territories used by Athabaskan and Gwich’in tribes, and some Alaska Native tribes represented by the ICC);
• the Kamchatka River drainage (flowing through the Siberian region of the Russian Federation, the territories used by Russian Indigenous peoples); and
• the Deatnu/Teno River drainage (flowing through the Lapland region of Finland and Finnmark County of Norway, the territories used by Saami).

In most cases, salmon on these river systems are undergoing changes that challenge the food security of the peoples who rely upon them.

Importantly, this project aims to organize information about salmon and peoples in ways that are relevant to Indigenous Knowledge holders, leaders, and their communities.

This project engages Indigenous Knowledge at the design stage of an assessment to enable Indigenous Knowledge holders and natural and social scientists of academia and regulatory agencies to co-produce an assessment. The multi-stage workshop approach presents a method of developing and implementing a co-production of knowledge approach, by creating interdisciplinary dialogue between Arctic Indigenous Knowledge holders and scientists to generate the process and knowledge together.