WESTERN SCIENCE AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM: A WORKING PROPOSAL FOR CROSS-CULTURAL AND MULTI DISCIPLINARY BERING SEA ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH
Kelux Exumax, Kelux Kusuthax. The morning tastes good-in the Aleut language. I would like to thank Dr. Loh, Debra Williams, and the conference steering committee for providing a forum for a presentation on traditional knowledge and wisdom, and for inviting me to make the presentation. And I am glad to have another opportunity to speak with you this morning. I would like to preface my remarks by telling you I do not ordinarily write my presentations since, as I was taught by a wise elder, speaking without the aid of a prepared document allows us to speak directly from the heart. However, I am making an exception in this case because it is my hope that some will distribute this presentation to all interested parties. I also wish to depart from my usual presentation messages in a forum such as this and speak of my own personal truths and insights I have gained from over twenty years of advocating for native peoples and the Bering Sea. We have all heard the same speeches too many times and I am sure that many of you feel as I do: I don't want another Groundhog Day! That script is getting old and tiresome.
We all know each other, have been traveling the same road for many years, and share, I believe, a profound concern over the health of one of the world's richest marine ecosystems-the Bering Sea. We have struggled to find substantive ways to address our varied concerns and interests over the obvious distress within this ecosystem: some of us approach it on the level of scientific inquiry and research, some on the level of adjusting and adapting wildlife management policies, and some on a level that speaks to the spiritual and traditional conservation ethics of the indigenous peoples whose history, culture, nutrition, spirit- uality, and basic economies are inseparably tied to the Bering Sea. All of these approaches are very important. Most significantly however, they are interdependent. One will not work without the other. And any success we have in understanding the complex nature of this ecosystem demands a vigorous effort on all our parts to work more cooperatively.
I have attended countless scientific and native forums on the issues of the Bering Sea as all of you have. I have discussed the issues with dozens and dozens of scientists, researchers, managers, and native leaders. I have studied as many of the research reports, studies, conference reports, and white papers as I could get my hands on over the past twenty years. I did so in hopes of gleaning some insight into what our challenges truly are underneath the diplomatic language we all have used, with the understanding that there are many truths, and that these truths need to be articulated and addressed if constructive change is to occur. I am pushing for change from status quo as one advocate for the Bering Sea residents because the scale and duration of the precipitous and sustained declines of at least sixteen higher trophic species is probably about to take another turn for the worse over the next two years or so. Even if it does not, the scale of ecosystem wide declines is threatening the very fabric of Bering Sea coastal cultures. Indeed, I would characterize this situation as dramatic enough that it is akin to that of the rainforest people of South America, except this rainforest is in our own backyard.