Arctic Borderlands Ecological Knowledge Co-op

Gather/seek information on:

• Herring (records of numbers or catches available) and jackfish
• Tornados and tornado warnings
• Lightning and lightning strikes (is the frequency changing?)
• Greenhouse gas emissions in our area; is there a way to measure in our area such as a cylinder count?
• Yukon/NWT per capita greenhouse gas emissions
• Investigate new oil and gas indicators that track development spatially (i.e. where are the camps? How large are they?)
• Investigate NWT Housing Subsidy as a possible socio-economic indicator
• Include ANWR Peregrine Falcon data as an indicator
• Ice thickness-Old Crow has been recording for years
• Cost of living- i.e. from Housing Authority rates.

Disseminating information:

• Get muskox information to Co-op participants.
• Distribute extra copies of Community Monitoring report to HTCs and RR's

Administrative tasks:

• Explore expanding the community-based monitoring to Tuktoyaktuk, Inuvik, Tsiigehtchic, Venetie Chalkytsik (with the understanding that additional funding would be needed)
• Develop list of organizations to contact, down to the local level
• Examine opportunities for funding through cumulative effects monitoring programs

Communication:

• Complete the communications strategy
• Find out who needs to know what (to make the results useful to agencies, councils and boards)
• Find out the best way for getting results to agencies, councils and boards (best formats, venues)
• Draft an information protocol for review at the next Annual Gathering

Interviews:

• Contact agencies/boards before interviewing to tailor questions where possible to fit into their programs
• Provide interpreters for interviews with elders
• Shorten the length of interviews
• Reach more of the knowledge of young people
• Ensure that on the survey people feel safe and comfortable (not giving up anything critical)
• Look into having a small pocket calendar or book for people to mark weather or animals that they see
• Look into having individuals keep year-round detailed observations in their own area on an ongoing basis

Other community interests:

• Look into opportunities for songbird identification training