Bahamian Fishers Ecological Knowledge Research Initiative
Ghost Stories - Pioneering Bahamian Guides: Their Knowledge, Their Stories, and Opportunities for Resource Management.
A research project - book - film documentary - PhD Dissertation
Tom Karrow, PhD Candidate and Lead Bahamas TEK Researcher, works along-side Shawn Leadon at the Andros Island Bonefish Club in March 2014 on fisheries habitat maps using Google Earth satelite imagery.
Shawn is the son of the famous Rupert Leadon.
Shawn has been flyfishing since the age of 7, and guiding since he was a teen. Shawn is a wealth of local environemental knowledge. He learned a great deal from his father and, through decades of keen observations on the flats, as captian of his own boat, he has a unique understanding of local processes.
A hypothetical fishery habitat map, illustrating the idea behind this research project.
Fisheries Habitat Mapping
"This research initiative will gather local ecological knowledge (LEK) from elder Bahamian Bonefish guides to generate fisheries habitat maps. Through the use of particpant geographical information systems (PGIS) and LEK held by elder guides accross the Bahamas, I will work to generate these critical maps for enhanced conservation practices"....
Tom Karrow 2013
From the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust Journal, 2013 pp. 32/33.
“One of the challenges to developing long-term conservation plans for flats fisheries involves no spatial data on the fisheries or habitat critical to the fisheries. Because of this lack of information, it is not possible to create a proactive conservation plan, to address threats to the fisheries and the critical habitats or to address user conflicts....
The Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership used a mapping strategy to protect important fishing and hunting areas in the American West, an approach that may be applicable in the Bahamas. In this approach, TRCP worked with hunters and anglers to identify areas where they hunted and fished, and also mapped important fish and game habitats. This information was then used to prioritize areas for conservation to ensure that other activities did not infringe upon hunting or fishing or cause damage to habitats. The SAME can be accomplished in the Bahamas to create a (series of) flats fishing habitat conservation map (s). The Map (s) can help to better inform natural resource managers as they design and implement conservation strategies, whether area closures or user-group limitations. Flats fishing areas would be prioritized for conservation, reducing user-group conflicts and lessening the chance that managers will close flats fishing areas.”
More about PGIS.......
"PGIS practice is usually geared towards community empowerment through measured, demand-driven, user-friendly and integrated applications of GIT&S, where maps become a major conduit in the process. The practice is multidisciplinary in nature, relies on the integration of ‘expert’ with socially and gender differentiated local knowledge, and builds on high levels of stakeholders’ participation in the processes of spatial learning, analysis, decision making and action."
Geo-referencing and visualising Indigenous Spatial Knowledge (ISK) helps communities engage in peer-to-peer dialogues and promotes their issues and concerns vis-à-vis higher level authorities and economic forces. Georeferenced ISK is also used in more adversarial contexts like in the case of tenure mapping where indigenous communities have adapted participatory mapping methodologies to regain a maximum measure of control over ancestral lands and resources."
"The integrated and multifaceted process of which PGIS is a component, gives communities confidence in interacting with outsiders and adds authority to local knowledge. In fact, there is power associated with the practice as ‘flashy’ map outputs can be highly communicative forms of spatial representation, communicate information immediately, convey a sense of authority and are rarely disputed."
"As a result, if appropriately utilized, the practice may have profound implications and stimulate innovation and social change. More importantly and unlike traditional GIS applications, PGIS aims at placing control on access and use of culturally sensitive spatial data in the hands of those who generated these thereby protecting traditional knowledge and wisdom from external exploitation."
More on PGIS...http://pgis2005.cta.int/background.htm