In a ground-breaking program to bring traditional and scientific knowledge together, residents of several small northern communities are co-operating with scientists in keeping track of changes in the environment.

The information is co-ordinated by the Northern Yukon Ecological Knowledge Co-operative, a joint effort of government, First Nations agencies and communities, and co-management bodies.

As part of the Canadian government's national Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN), the Eco Knowledge Co-op is linked with co-ordinating organizations in other parts of Canada and around the world. The purpose of EMAN is to monitor and assess important environmental changes that are happening or that might be happening.

The geographic focus of the Northern Yukon Ecological Knowledge Co-operative's work is marine environments along the North Yukon coast and the range of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which includes parts of Alaska and the Northwest Territories, as well as the North Yukon.

When the Eco Knowledge Co-op was launched, just over a year ago, participants decided to concentrate on the issues of climate, development, and contaminants, says Joan Eamer, the Co-op's co-ordinator. Recently, the Co-op held its second annual Gathering and reviewed the activities of its first year.

One activity was a pilot project in community-based monitoring, in which field workers in the communities of Aklavik, Fort McPherson and Old Crow gathered information from elders and other people who spend time on the land. They asked about environmental conditions during the previous year, such as the size of the berry harvest, the body condition of fish and caribou, ice conditions, and animal migration patterns. They also asked how conditions compared with the past.

"Some of the most interesting things that came out of this were the relationships between things, like the relationship between berry crops and bear behaviour," says Eamer. "There was a strong feeling from the meeting that the communities want to continue this method of monitoring."

There was an equally strong feeling, she adds, that traditional knowledge must be treated with the same respect and seriousness accorded scientific knowledge.

The Co-op is taking a high-tech approach to its work. It has produced a database of northern research projects and developed a World Wide Web site on the Internet. The Internet site will be the Co-op's major vehicle for exchanging information among members as well as making information publicly available.

Although the web site is still under development, it already contains some results from the first year's work. At the Co-op's first annual Gathering, in 1996, participants compiled lists of indicators that might be monitored for each of the three major issues: contaminants, development and climate change. Over the following year, a team at the Canadian Wildlife Service in Whitehorse assessed the indicators. The team has produced summaries of information on variables, including climate, caribou, waterfowl and seal populations, community population sizes, and measures of human activity in the North Yukon. Some of that information is now on the Internet.

The Eco Knowledge Co-op is expanding its scope. The second annual Gathering drew people from Whitehorse, Old Crow, Aklavik, Fort McPherson, and Inuvik. A number of scientists from other areas, including Alaska, also attended.

"This year we're starting to draw in the research community," says Eamer.

The Co-op's goal, says Eamer, is to make existing knowledge about the northern Yukon easily available in one place, so that researchers can build on what is known instead of duplicating work that has already been done.

For more information about the Northern Yukon Ecological Knowledge Co-operative, contact the Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada, Whitehorse.