Northern Yukon/
Arctic Borderlands Ecological Knowledge Co-op

Contents

Day 1 - March 23, 1998

• The Knowledge Co-op: a brief overview
• Understanding change within ecosystems
• A Web site tour and a look at the indicators
• Vegetation monitoring project in Old Crow

Day 2 - March 24, 1998

• 1998 Community-based monitoring report
• Linking indicators with the Porcupine Caribou Herd
• What factors affect harvest levels for the Porcupine Caribou Herd
• Report from the Alaskan Gwich'in on community involvement
• Developing charity status for the Knowledge Co-op

Day 3 - March 25, 1998

• Wrap-up and decision time
• Getting Alaska involved
• Deciding on a permanent name
• Closure
• Action items arising from the Third Annual Gathering

Appendix 1: Skits 1 & 2

Appendix 2: Sources of funding and estimates of expenditures

Appendix 3: List of participants

Day 1 - March 23, 1998

This year, the gathering of the Northern Yukon Ecological Knowledge Co-op (renamed during the meeting to the Arctic Borderlands Ecological Knowledge Co-op) took place in Inuvik, NWT. Doug Urquhart facilitated this annual event. Doug welcomed all participants and invited Roy Moses to begin the meeting with a prayer. Following the prayer, the participants introduced themselves, and then Doug and Joan Eamer got the meeting going with a brief overview of the history of the Knowledge Co-op.

The Knowledge Co-op: a brief overview

A meeting in Dawson in 1995 brought together interested parties to start an ecological monitoring program for the Northern Yukon. This initiative was to be linked to the new national Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN). Participants identified the three main issues that should be the focus of ecological monitoring: climate change, contaminants and regional development. An important product of the meeting was a set of guidelines for development of the new program:

These guidelines have stood the test of time well and have been useful in implementing the monitoring program over the past three years.

At the first annual gathering in Whitehorse in 1996, participants worked together to come up with a list of potential indicators of change related to the issues of climate change, contaminants and development. These indicators range from basic environmental measurements (such as temperature and stream flow) to measurements of potential stresses (such as number of airplane flights) and effects on communities (such as time spent on the land).

Over the next year, information on many of these indicators was pulled together by the staff at Environment Canada. In addition, a pilot program of community-based monitoring was initiated in the communities of Aklavik, Fort McPherson and Old Crow.

At the second annual gathering of the Knowledge Co-op in 1997, information gathered on indicators was reviewed, with some indicators dropped and new ones added. Findings from the community-based monitoring project were reported, and revisions were suggested for the continuance of the project in 1998.

Currently, the Knowledge Co-op has a list of about 75 indicators that it is interested in monitoring. Developed data sets are in place for approximately 40 indicators, with about 10 waiting for data and the remainder needing further assessment. The status of these indicators is updated as data become available on the Knowledge Co-op web site. Information on the community-based monitoring project, as well as other Co-op projects and publications, can be found at this web site or through phoning Joan Eamer at (867) 667-3949.

The Arctic Borderlands Ecological Knowledge Co-op is a unique and special program within the EMAN system, because of its significant community participation and involvement, and the large geographic range that is covered (the range of the Porcupine Caribou Herd).

Understanding change within ecosystems

Doug Urquhart commented that one of the things we stand to gain from the Knowledge Co-op program is an increased ability to understand the changes that occur in our ecosystems. Long-term ecological monitoring allows us to assess changes and respond most appropriately.

Doug introduced two skits that illustrated how information being gathered by the Co-op now could help us deal with future changes. The skits were written by Jill Johnstone and performed by talented Knowledge Co-op participants.

Skit 1: performed by Jim Kurth and Don Russell.

Moral of skit as summarized by Doug: Having information with which to evaluate change allows us to respond to changes more effectively.

Skit 2: performed by Carol Arey and Joe Tetlichi

Moral of skit as summarized by Doug: Long-term information collected on indicators may allow us to pinpoint changes that are occurring as a result of factors like development, climate change, and contaminants. Information on past conditions can be important to show what and how changes are occurring. In cases where long-term information is not available, it may be impossible to demonstrate to others (e.g. decision-makers) that things are not the same as they always have been.

See Appendix 1 for the scripts of these skits.

A Web site tour and a look at the indicators

Joan Eamer provided a tour through the Knowledge Co-op's World Wide Web site. Joan noted that the Arctic Borderlands Co-op is leading the other EMAN sites in terms of Web communications and providing data to users on the Internet.

Several things have changed on the Co-op web site since the last meeting, including the site address, which is now www.taiga.net/coop. Pages on indicators can be accessed through the "indicator machine." Each indicator page usually provides a graph showing the data available on that indicator and answers these three questions:

1. What is happening?
2. Why is it happening?
3. Why is it important?

A note is also included on technical information, such as how the data are collected.

Joan demonstrated several indicator pages, including ringed seal pup numbers, global greenhouse gas levels and emissions, and community population sizes.

Participants had several questions about the web site:

Question: Is the information gathered by the Knowledge Co-op getting back to the communities? Do people in the communities have access to the web site?
Comment: One participant noted that they were unable to find the Co-op site when they searched on the Internet.
Response: There is a need for us to promote and offer some basic instruction on the web site to those in communities. We do need to make the web site easier to find; registering the site with more search engines will help. We have also added a search engine on the Taiga Net site itself that will allow you to search for information once you get to the site. The issue of getting information back to the communities is a big one, and we should discuss more on this topic during the rest of the meeting.

Question: How often is information updated?
Response: Indicators are generally updated as new data become available, and a complete update for the indicators should happen once a year, provided there are new data to add.

Question: Is there a place where you can send input or observations?
Response: Yes. A bulletin board has been added to the Taiga Net web site, where people can post messages or questions that can be read by anyone interested.

Question: People in the communities have concerns about the security and access of information. How do we deal with that with this web site?
Response: It is possible to set up passwords that are required to access certain information, and you could have two bulletin boards, for example, one that is public and one that is Co-op only. Another solution is to refrain from putting sensitive information on the web site at all.

Scott Gilbert provided an update on the status of some of the indicators. A few new indicators were added at last year's gathering:

• Fur prices: data provided by Yukon Territorial Government
• Human-bear encounters: data provided by John Nagy
• Ultraviolet (UV) radiation-monitoring: data will be available from the monitoring station at Ivvavik Park
• Lake ice thickness

Vegetation monitoring project in Old Crow

Jill Johnstone presented an outline of the long-term vegetation and soil temperature monitoring project that was initiated in Old Crow last year. The project involved Jill Johnstone and Joan Eamer from Environment Canada in Whitehorse, and Rae Moses, Roy Moses, and Joe Tetlichi from Old Crow. The start-up costs for the project came from a $3000 grant from the Northern Research Institute at Yukon College, with contributions in terms of labour and equipment from Environment Canada and the Vuntut Gwitchin Renewable Resource Board.

This project's goal is to monitor long-term changes in plant communities and soil temperatures around Old Crow. There were three main components to the project: 1) map the plants in several small (one metre by one metre) permanent plots; 2) install equipment to measure soil temperatures near the vegetation plots; and, 3) establish a plant collection for Old Crow. Plots were set up in July of 1997 in three different community types (boreal spruce forest, sub-alpine forest, and alpine tundra) near Old Crow. In addition, plant samples were collected from around the Old Crow area. Setting up the vegetation plots and collecting plants took about one week. The vegetation plots will need to be re-measured about once every five years.

This project is an example of the type of long-term monitoring work the Knowledge Co-op may want to get involved in further in the future. The Old Crow vegetation project ties in well with the rest of the Co-op program. For example, berries being counted in the plots can be compared with the results of the community-based monitoring program. The long-term monitoring of forage vegetation utilized by caribou will help in understanding any long-term changes in where the caribou feed or how well the herd is doing.

It is possible that other projects in the Co-op could obtain research money from organizations like the Northern Research Institute. Other long-term monitoring projects worth exploring are plant phenology (timing of plant growth, flowering, etc.) and bird-monitoring programs that are already in place in other parts of Canada. These monitoring programs are useful for evaluating the impacts of climate change, and possibly also developments and contaminants.

Day 2 - March 24, 1998

1998 Community-based monitoring report

Gary Kofinas, who has helped co-ordinate the community-based monitoring program, covered two topics by way of introduction: 1) What people observed and why they think it is the way it appears to be (observations and theories); and, 2) How the work for the 1998 community-based monitoring was done. Gary pointed out that no person has a complete understanding of a thing, just a perspective, and there are as many different perspectives as there are people.

The first task of the community-based monitoring project was to address the question: "How do local people who are spending time on the land see it?" The approach taken by the Knowledge Co-op is to document local knowledge of specific aspects of the environment, such as the health and movement patterns of different mammals, birds and fish. This is done by interviewing individuals in the community and using the same questions for each person, and repeating it each year. Gary demonstrated to the gathering how hard it is to remember things from one year to the next, when he asked people to recall some of the observations reported from the previous year's monitoring project.

The method used for community monitoring was reviewed at last year's Knowledge Co-op gathering, and, from the comments made at that meeting, some changes were made in the interview questions and the structure of the project. The methods used this year were:

• one local interviewer per community
• one standard interview questionnaire containing both 'open' and 'closed' questions
• local experts to interview were chosen by local leadership using common criteria
• work towards a goal of 15 interviews for each topic area (not all people interviewed were able to cover all topic areas)
• tie-in with the Northern Contaminants program: using the interview responses to pinpoint health problems in animals that can then be investigated by the Contaminants program
• honoraria to be to the local experts interviewed in the form of a gas coupon

Results from the 1998 Community-based Monitoring Program, along with summaries of the discussions and the evaluation of this year's program, are documented in two ways: 1) in a separate booklet, "Arctic Borderlands Ecological Knowledge Co-op, 1998 Community-based Monitoring Program"; and, 2) a community-by-community report including all findings. These will be distributed this autumn, 1998.

Linking indicators with the Porcupine Caribou Herd

Don Russell began by stating that the purpose of the presentation was to provide an example of how information collected on indicators like that of the Knowledge Co-op can be used to help us learn more about our ecosystems. More specifically, how can information collected at the Knowledge Co-op level be used to address major management decisions? In the example of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, Don showed how the stresses of climate change and oil development could affect the growth and harvest of the herd.

Looking at the period from 1987 to 1992, we have several different types of information about the caribou. There were three population censuses done during this period, which gives us some idea about herd population levels, but doesn't tell us much about how the herd responds to annual variability in the environment (such as how deep the snow is, or how early the spring is).

We can slowly build a picture of what is going on in the herd by adding more caribou indicators:

• birth rate;
• survival of one-month old calves;
• estimated annual harvest; and,
• fall fat reserves.

To look at the relationship between caribou and their environment, and how this affects the population of the herd, we also need environmental indicators:

• Factors like winter snow depth affect winter movements and forage availability.
• Spring snow depth can affect migration and range quality.
• It is also useful to have a measure of the amount of plant growth occurring near calving time, which we can get from satellite images of green-up.
• Insects are important because of caribou harassment in the summer.

Question: How do these environmental variables, which are all related to weather, affect the birth rate for the caribou? (Birth rate has a strong impact on herd size.)

Answer: If you compare the graphs of environmental variables for each year with the graph of annual birth rate, there does not seem to be much of a relationship. However, one-month-old calf survival seems to be predicted well by plant growth in June. In fact, almost 90% of the variability in calf survival can be predicted by June plant growth. Fall fat in a given year seems to be a pretty good predictor of the birth rate in the following spring. Although fall fat does not seem to be strongly related to any one environmental indicator, if we combine the indicators for winter and spring snow, plant growth and insects, then we are able to get a pretty good prediction.

Using these relationships, we can start to model how changes in climate could affect the Porcupine Herd.

When we address the issue of development, we can look back at our indicators, which show that calf survival is related to early summer plant growth. Caribou move to find the best areas of plant growth. Displacement from these areas of good plant growth (which could result from oil development) may reduce calf survival because the herd will have less access to plant resources. Displacement from insect relief areas would also affect the herd.

At this point in the discussion, Dorothy Cooley described the information Yukon Renewable Resources is gathering on caribou body condition. Three times per year (September, November and March) Dorothy and local hunters conduct field collections which are part of a body condition study. When a hunter gets an animal, they take samples from the caribou and the hunter gets the meat.

It is a goal of the program that the fieldwork be conducted entirely by local hunters. Right now Dorothy and other biologists involved in the project are trying to determine the minimum number of samples needed to get good measures of caribou body condition. In the past there have been some problems getting enough samples. The need for a good number of samples needs to be balanced with how much is asked of hunters.

This point led into a discussion on what might be the best single sample type for body condition that hunters could bring back. It was suggested that measuring the percentage of marrow fat in the metatarsal (leg) bone might be a good enough indicator of body fat. Hunters could just bring back that bone, along with information on the sex of the animal, and note whether a female had milk in her udder. Dorothy added that she would continue to develop the program and welcomes people's input.

What factors affect harvest levels for the Porcupine Caribou Herd?

Gary Kofinas noted that ecosystem monitoring leads to ecosystem assessment. Having information allows us to ask the "why?" and "what if?" questions. The caribou model is good because there is a richness of data. When looking at the harvest question, however, there are not as many sources of data available.

Trying to answer questions about harvest needs local experts.

What types of things affect harvest levels?

• how much people need
• different communities take different amounts
• the frequency of sharing with others, and with other communities
• the number of weeks spent on the land
• the seasonal migration patterns of the herd

Information is needed from local people to understand variability in harvest levels, and thus ask how future changes may affect access to caribou. Gary has been working on a mapping project in the communities to get information about herd movement. Things like participation in the wage economy may also affect harvest levels. Currently, Gary's aim is to develop a set of rules that can be used to address "what if?" questions.

Report from the Alaskan Gwich'in on community involvement

Davie James, Council of Athabascan Tribal Government (CATG) Director of Natural Resource Management, addressed the gathering on the subject of how you get Alaskan communities involved in monitoring.

Gwich'in communities of Alaska are working through CATG's new Department of Natural Resources and soliciting funds to do their own environmental monitoring and research. CATG has hired a grant writer and received funding from the US Environmental Protection Agency to study what is affecting the food chain and the people's health. CATG found that education in the villages was necessary to keep the project and the communities at the same stage. It has developed a newsletter that is sent out every two weeks and several projects have been initiated that hire local people and fund community-level research. CATG has also been working to compile existing information gathered by different agencies. Using funding from another program, CATG is also trying to build a comprehensive land use plan, and will have conservation officers hired from each tribal group. The major issues for these groups include harvest surveys, caribou migration routes, sport hunters and climate change. Decisions on what to study come from the local people and elders.

Developing charity status for the Knowledge Co-op

Doug Urquhart introduced this topic by discussing the Porcupine Caribou Management Board and the importance that charity status has made to that organization, the main being access to funding sources that are otherwise unavailable.

Debbie van de Wetering followed with a presentation on what is involved with developing charity status and what are the advantages and disadvantages. Charities in Canada currently fit into four main divisions: 1) prevention of poverty; 2) promotion of religious objectives; 3) educational purposes; and, 4) development of positive benefits for communities. The Knowledge Co-op would fit in with the last two categories. Educational purposes can include training, research, and the advancement of science. Positive benefits for communities may include improving the welfare of youth and building capacity in communities. A charity cannot have a political purpose or use money to personally benefit an individual (but can pay salaries).

The benefit to the Knowledge Co-op of charity status is that it allows us to apply to funding sources that exclusively support projects of non-profit organizations. Another advantage is that it would allow the Co-op to issue tax receipts for donations.

The obligations of charity status are relatively simple: a financial statement must be filed each year, and the organization must continue to meet the requirements of charity status. These requirements are: money must go to charitable purposes, must pass a public benefit test (no problem for this organization), and there needs to be a legal governing document for the organization (such as the operating procedures for the PCMB). Time requirements would involve a meeting of board members once per year, and an annual filing of a financial statement, which could be done by a chair or secretary.

What needs to be done to gain charity status?

• designate a permanent name
• determine the structure of the organization, how members are appointed and replaced
• develop a constitution
• draw up a statement of activities and a financial statement
• determine the fiscal year end date for the organization
• designate a location to keep records.

Joan Eamer at this point presented a financial statement for the April 1, 1997 - March 30, 1998 Fiscal Year for the Co-op (currently run out of Environment Canada). Total money spent was $64,870, with Environment Canada contributing $37,000. Other contributions were made by the Yukon Government, WMAC(NS), the Northern Contaminants Program, and the Government of the Northwest Territories. One of the strongest motivations for obtaining charity status is to gain access to other funding sources, as it is anticipated that Environment Canada will no longer be able to contribute large sources of money after this coming year. See Appendix 2 for more details.

A discussion period followed the presentations on charity status. Discussions were continued in a well-attended session during dinner held at the hotel.

Comments:

• It is likely that the Knowledge Co-op (with charitable status) would keep close ties with Environment Canada.
   
  
• Charity status could help make the Co-op more of a community organization. Currently the Knowledge Co-op has no governing body, and decisions are made informally. More formal structure might allow for more feeling of community participation in decision management.
   
  
• The Knowledge Co-op has broad objectives. With non-profit status, communities can use the Knowledge Co-op to drive projects they want, using the charity status to seek funding.
   
  
• Some more fundamental questions: Is the Knowledge Co-op worth doing? Is it worth continuing the way we've been doing it over the past three years? Changing to charity status will change the style of the organization. The communities can get more 'ownership', but also must accept greater responsibility.
   
  
• Would be good to set this up so that there was a technician that stayed in the community, to keep the program going.
   
  
• Keep it simple, go slowly. We do need to have a vision, however. That vision would not be reached only through Environment Canada.
   
  
• Don't want to lose the informal structure, where everyone has a voice. Also recognize the danger of relying on Environment Canada for funding. Need partnerships among organizations. Hard to find a balance.
   
  
• Do not want to add to the weight of the community burden.
   
  
• We need to build a stronger sense of partnership into the organization. A possible scenario: have representatives of organizations come one day early to the Annual Gathering to discuss priorities or ideas to be presented.
   
  
• The success so far has been because of flexibility and innovation, we don't want to lose this. Hopefully the communities see it more as a benefit than a burden. There are benefits of charity status, in training, and participation with schools.
   
  
• A refreshing aspect of this organization is that everyone is on par, and decisions are made as a collective. We could make an executive that is only responsible for organizing money and only dealing with money.
   
  
• Keep the organization flat - officers do what the group says and are implementers, not decision-makers.

Day 3 - March 25, 1998

Wrap-up and decision time

Doug opened the meeting with a summary of the charity discussion and decisions made the day and evening before. He pointed out that some mistakes were made yesterday in the initial presentation of the charity status idea that led to some confusion and misunderstanding.

• In the presentation, the impression was given that the program could be sustained as it is, without new funding sources. The reality is that the program is in need of a more solid financial status - Environment Canada cannot continue to provide financial support at the level it has been providing.
• We miscalculated the number of people who would show up for the evening session - the restaurant was too small!
• We did not book enough time for this workshop, and are feeling like we are forced to rush through things.

What was decided:

• There is a direct link between Environment Canada and the Knowledge Co-op, and creating charity status should not dissolve this link.
• Several conditions in the Knowledge Co-op structure are to be maintained:
  • the current mode of operation, where everyone has a voice; and
  • the current decision-making structure, where decisions are made by group consensus.

How we will set up charity status, without going too fast:

• Identify three names to go on the application. The role of these people is to govern money matters only, not decision-making.
• There have been questions about liability for people whose names are on the application. The liability for the Knowledge Co-op is probably negligible, because it is simply an information-gathering and dispersing organization. However, before proceeding, we will determine what liability does exist, and if it is okay, will continue with the application.
• Communities will be informed of the process, through the proceedings and a community tour. If there are any questions in the communities about the whole issue, someone from the Knowledge Co-op can come in to discuss the issue.

Question: What happens if an organization doesn't want to be involved?
Answer: Membership is not formal; organizations do not need to be 'in' or 'out'.

Question: Is there a problem with government employees working on a charity?
Answer: No.

Names to go on the application:

• Joan Eamer (Environment Canada)
• Joe Tetlichi (Old Crow)
• Billy Archie (Aklavik)

Getting Alaska involved

Jim Kurth, Manager of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, shared his impressions of the project and ideas on US involvement.

The ecological zone of the Knowledge Co-op is the range of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, a sizable chunk of which is in Alaska. There have been huge amounts of research done in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It makes sense to find ways where that information can be disseminated.

An organization like the Knowledge Co-op is of interest to the Arctic Refuge, which would like to see some community monitoring take hold in Alaska. This needs to come from the community level, however. Organizations like the one Davie James discussed (CATG) are important for getting community monitoring going in Alaska. There are also opportunities for partnerships between Alaskan organizations like the Arctic Refuge with the Knowledge Co-op, if the Knowledge Co-op is interested and thinks it would be valuable.

Question: Is there information from ANWR the Co-op could use?
Answer: ANWR has long-term monitoring information on permafrost, glaciers, and vegetation. The Refuge is also currently developing a long-term monitoring plan.

There followed a discussion on whether it is appropriate for this group to decide if the Knowledge Co-op should be expanded to become an international organization at this point. Jim noted that there would be no legal problems, and that the US term is a "friends group".

Points made in the discussion:

• This internationalization is happening anyway, it is just a question of whether it stays informal or gets formalized.
• One advantage to shifting to a more formal arrangement is the possibility of the US hosting meetings of the organization at some point.
• From the community level, we have always had interest in sharing knowledge across the border.
• One model is the Inuvialuit/Inupiat Polar Bear Commission, which has been very useful for building bridges across borders.
• Chiefs of the CATG may also have an interest - their interest may be key to Alaskan participation.

Summing up the discussion (Doug):

• Sets of indicators can be generated from the ANWR monitoring effort. There is a need to find out what is available and what can be contributed.
• Start inviting Alaskan communities to be involved on an informal basis. For example, invite Alaskan communities to come to the next gathering.
• The idea of a charitable organization is too complicated to deal with a formal international status right now. For the moment, keep it Canadian-based.

Deciding on a permanent name

After some discussion, it was decided to change the name from Northern Yukon Ecological Knowledge Co-op to Arctic Borderlands Ecological Knowledge Co-op (short form: Arctic Borderlands Co-op), in order to acknowledge the participation of organizations and communities located across several borders (national, territorial, and tribal/First Nation).

Closure

Doug thanked everyone for participating. Joe Tetlichi closed the meeting with a prayer.

Action items arising from the Third Annual Gathering

(lead agency in brackets: EC=Environment Canada, VGRRC=Vuntut Gwitchin Renewable Resource Council, VGFN=Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, ANWR=Alaska National Wildlife Refuge)

Co-op Business

• Promote website use in communities (apply for money for training once we have charity status) (EC)
• Register the website with more search engines (EC)
• Improve dissemination of information from the Co-op (EC)
• Produce booklets of gathering proceedings and community monitoring report similar to those produced last year (EC)
• Make presentations at large gatherings and annual general meetings for local organizations (EC)
• Get information into newsletters of various organizations (EC)
• Advise government organizations about what we are doing (EC and other government representatives)
• Produce permanent posters with a blank spot for updates (EC)
• Report results of this meeting back to organizations (each organization representative)

Monitoring Priorities

• Continue with community-based monitoring, moving to the fall for interviews
• Lake ice melt indicator (EC)
• Water levels (EC)
• Berry count (VGRRC)
• Soil temperatures (VGRRC and EC)
• Build on pilot project in Old Crow (VGRRC and VGFN and EC)

Charity Status (EC)

• Determine liability issue
• Provide information to communities on charity status
• If all goes well, proceed with application for charity status

International (EC and ANWR)

• Investigate use of information gathered in ANWR to develop additional indicators
• Invite Alaskan participants to the next gathering on an informal basis

Appendix 1 A: Skit 1

Scene: A Government Wildlife Office, year 2024

Wildlife Biologist #1: Look at this! More sightings of bears hanging around fish camps in the North Yukon - what in the heck has got into these animals?

Wildlife Biologist #2: Yeah, that's not normal. Although I seem to remember people up there having a lot of trouble with bears back in my first year working here, what would that be, eight years ago?

WB1: Yup, 2020. And occasionally there seem to be other years with lots of bear sightings and the odd bear attack. Hard to explain, since it doesn't seem to be related to population levels very much.

WB2: Well I know some folks up in Old Crow seem to think the bears come around for food, during bad berry years.

WB1: I suppose it's possible, but there's no way we'll find out since we don't know when it's a good berry year or a bad one.

WB2: Hmm, that reminds me, there may actually be some data kicking around. Let me just send off a quick email to the North Yukon Eco Knowledge Co-op office in Inuvik...

Later in the day...

WB2: Hey, Jim, I took a look at that bear sighting data and compared it to some of the records I got from the North Yukon Co-op. The results are pretty interesting.

WB1: Oh, yeah? Tell me about it...

WB2: For one thing, by comparing numbers bear sightings to descriptions of berry crops we got from the Co-op, it looks like bears encounter humans more often in years where the blueberry crop is poor.

WB1: Interesting - but can we use that to help us to know ahead of time when these increases in sightings are likely to happen?

WB2: Well, maybe not directly, but here's another interesting thing. Weather records from Old Crow show that poor berry years are most likely to occur during summers that are either especially dry or cold. Weather in June seems to be especially important.

WB1: So you are suggesting we may be able to predict bear activity in the fall based on summer weather records because the weather affects the berry crops?

WB2: Yes, although probably not perfectly. But at least it gives us a start, and maybe can be used to let people who are going to be out in the bush know to take extra care about bears during those years.

WB1: Hmm... Let's take another look at those berry records from the Co-op. How do cranberries fit into this, don't bears eat those? And what about ground squirrel numbers?...

Appendix 1 B: Skit 2

Scene: In the Co-op headquarters at Inuvik, 2028...

Carol (at the computer): Hey, Joe, you're back! How was the visit to Old Crow?

Joe (taking off jacket): Oh, not too bad. Went out fishing upstream on the Porcupine with my Dad. Good to be out on the river again, but I don't know, things aren't so good out there with the fish these days.

Carol: Oh, yeah? What do you mean?

Joe: Well, seems as though the fish just aren't as good as they used to be a while ago. You know, in those interviews we've been doing for the community monitoring program over the past few years, lots of people say that the fish don't seem to be as healthy - problems with the livers, not such good eating. I think I agree that something might be changing. Not that all the fish are dying, but it just seems like a quarter of the whitefish we pulled in bad livers or spotty flesh - never used to be that much.

Carol: It's funny that you should bring that up - I got a call yesterday from the Gwitchin people out at Fort Yukon and it looks like they are launching a legal suit against the mining operation that's been operating near Porcupine River up by the border. They think the mine is hurting the fish, but don't have a lot of supporting evidence, just what the mining company calls "hearsay".

Joe: Oh, so they were interested in what data we may have for the Porcupine?

Carol: Right. I told them we have info from our annual survey that documents local knowledge of fish quality going back to 1996. It looks like people started noticing changes in fish health starting around 2020, about a year after the mine started up.

Joe: Wow, so that could really help their case, to have that data.

Carol: Absolutely. I am going to send them our indicator summaries for their lawyers to look through today. Maybe if Old Crow is also having problems, the VGFN will want to get involved. I'll call Ellie Tetlichi and let her know what's going on.

Joe: Sounds good...

Appendix 2

Sources of Funding (does not include salaries):

Estimated Expenditures:

Appendix 3: List of Participants