A Conclusion of Sorts

A conclusion of sorts

Local food systems are complex and adaptive systems, comprised of multiple interrelated dimensions and nodes defining overall system function and value. We did much work to try to characterize the local food systems of Nunavik and Eeyou Istchee using a variety of approaches and lenses to try to communicate their multidimensionality and uniqueness. We adopted two very different approaches to assessing anticipated impacts of climate change on the supporting condition of ecological production, including key wildlife species consumed as food. One is a modelling approach focused on climate-diversity and climate-productivity gradients, in a manner that is blind to the details of species identities, interactions, and habitats. Its focus on generalities is a strength, because, amidst uncertainty and unprecedented change, general predictions are more likely to turn out correct than highly specific predictions. But its generality is also a weakness because the details of species identities, interactions, and habitats matter - to ecological outcomes, to local food systems, and to the people of Eeyou Istchee and Nunavik. That these details matter is reflected in the extent to which regional organizations and community partners tended to direct us towards and offer collaborative support for projects focused on direct and immediate knowledge gaps and priority areas related to wildlife populations, food security, and climate change. This is why the bulk of our work has been focused on knowledge co-production at a finer scale of resolution oriented around key wildlife species and environmental change concerns in Eeyou Istchee and Nunavik. At this level of detail and reality, predicted outcomes are less general and less confident. We can say that climate change affects different biotic and abiotic factors, such as precipitation, vegetation cover, species interactions, etc., which have varied effects on terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems and equally varied direct and indirect impacts on wildlife species in these ecosystems. With all these interactions at play, it is difficult to predict the specific species and community responses to climate change.

A question posed by Williams and Jackson (2007) is: “How do you study an ecosystem no ecologist has ever seen?” At the end of a too-long final report, the short answer to this question is we can’t. And by extension we can’t know what the future holds. As a conclusion to a science research report, and and in a report that begins with 20 key findings, this may seem to be ending with a whimper. But as a conclusion about what we have learned along the way - about research both on and with Indigenous Peoples, about knowledge co-production, and about climate change research - it speaks to a truth we are beginning to better understand. In the words of Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall, who shared the concept of two-eyed seeing with the academic world,

“Only remembrance of the science of humility will ensure we do not destroy creation with our human ingenuity.”

“Only when we see with two eyes, will Western Science be something more than blind and Aboriginal thought something more than lost.”
Marshall (2005)

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