Community Based monitoring (CBM): How facilitators can help Dalit and Adivassi communities in rural villages to participate in government programs to improve their health, educate their children, receive social security benefits and pensions, access rural work programs, enroll in pre and post natal care programs, and buy from government sponsored discount shops for basic necessities. In many parts of rural India the Dalit (lower caste) and Adivassi (tribal) populations are unjustly discriminated against and denied access to many government sponsored programs that could greatly improve their lives. Unnati is a NGO based in Gujarat with a location in Rajasthan. From the Rajasthan office, Unnati and partner organizations worked through facilitators to help citizens in 50 different villages form citizen collectives. These collectives were trained in basic community based monitoring techniques. Through CBM (Community Based Monitoring), these citizens with help from their facilitators, Unnati, and partner NGOs begin taking a more active role in six government sponsored programs or schemes. The facilitator manual I helped create is being used to further train current facilitators in Rajasthan and Gujarat. The manual will also be shared with other NGOs so that this program can be replicated with ease. The manual consists of an introduction to CBMs, criteria for being an Unnati facilitator, the facilitator roles and responsibilities, facilitator and village collectives’ goals, and a case study of two villages. Unnati asked me to undertake this project so that documentation exists for best practices as the CBM project continues. The CBM project began in April 2011. Survey results were recorded beginning in May. In June, surveys were reformatted and the current format has remained in place till December of 2011. Additionally, a part of the manual includes survey results as a model of correct and incorrect ways to document information as well as to show the importance of each question and what it indicates in terms of overall community health.

An increasingly popular method of collecting scientific data is to use citizen scientists in community-based monitoring programs. Numerous formal and community-based monitoring programs use butterflies as indicator species to detect and understand changes in ecosystems. A butterfly monitoring program was established with the City of Kitchener in 2012, in order to measure the effectiveness of citizen science observations in identifying butterfly assemblages. Two monitoring sites were used: Lakeside Park contained relatively simple butterfly habitats, and Huron Natural Area which included complex butterfly habitats. The program consisted of training volunteers to collect data on the butterfly assemblages. Volunteers were given the choice to monitor an established trail at either natural area once every two weeks from the beginning of May to the end of August using the modified Pollard method. It was important to train volunteers how to monitor butterflies, so they were required to attend an instruction workshop to learn the methods to be employed, identification of butterflies, use of the recording form, and proper net and butterfly handling techniques. Quality control measures were another important component of the program, and included comparing volunteer observations at each natural area to those collected by an expert. Each species observation was reviewed to determine the likelihood of the species observation. The species and its habitat were compared to the information and status recorded in The Butterflies of Waterloo Region. The data collected by the participants was analyzed separately by study site and included the calculation of species richness, Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index (H), evenness value, Simpson Index (D), and Simpson Reciprocal (1/D) values. A two-tailed t-test was conducted to compare the data (as represented by Shannon indexes) collected by volunteers and the expert. The species richness for Lakeside Park was 29, which was slightly higher than the 26 species identified at Huron Natural Area. However, the Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index (H), evenness value (E), Simpson Diversity Index (D), and Simpson Reciprocal Index (1/D) all demonstrated that there was a more even and diverse butterfly population at Huron Natural Area than at Lakeside Park. A high level of validity of volunteer observations was found during this study, as 93% of submitted observations at Lakeside Park and 94% of submitted observations at Huron Natural Area passed the review process. Based on the high level of validity of observations it was determined that the volunteers were successful in characterizing butterfly assemblages, and establishing baseline conditions at each site. The City of Kitchener will be collecting long-term butterfly data, which they can compare over time to provide insight into the diversity at these natural areas. This research program has contributed to the field of science and to the literature by establishing a review process for citizen science, particularly for butterfly programs. It has also provided further validation of citizen science data.

The academic community and government agencies are increasingly recognizing how Indigenous knowledge can enrich environmental monitoring and inform adaptation in complex social-ecological systems. Indeed, Indigenous peoples have been monitoring, managing, and adapting to their environments for thousands of years. Despite the impacts of ongoing colonialism, many Indigenous peoples continue to monitor and exert their knowledge and governance systems through ongoing use and relationship with their traditional territories. This Master’s research grew from the Gitga’at First Nation’s Oceans and Lands Department desire to formally include the knowledge and observations of their land and sea users as part of contemporary stewardship initiatives. The primary objective of this research was to provide a framework for an ongoing monitoring system based in the observations and knowledge of Gitga’at harvesters. In order to meet this objective, I asked three main research questions: 1. How has Indigenous knowledge interacted with environmental monitoring initiatives, and what are characteristics of effective and self-sustaining monitoring initiatives that engage Indigenous knowledge?; 2. What methods of Indigenous knowledge documentation and communication are best suited to the needs and objectives of the Gitga’at First Nation?; and 3. How does ongoing use and occupancy of Gitga’at territory inform community-based monitoring? I first conducted a review of the literature on Indigenous knowledge and environmental monitoring to explore the ways in which Indigenous peoples and their knowledges have been engaged in other monitoring initiatives. I found that Indigenous knowledge has been engaged in a number of ways ranging from traditional land-based activities providing holistic social-ecological monitoring indicators, to the employment of Indigenous field technicians for externally-drive monitoring initiatives. Effective projects involved high degrees of community participation or direction; were built on partnerships based on trust and respect for various knowledge systems; used multiple methods to document and communicate Indigenous knowledge; and had institutional links between monitoring and management bodies. To answer my second research question, I followed a participatory case study approach in partnership with Gitga’at co-researchers. We began with informal interviews with 36 knowledge holders to gauge interest in the project and to establish monitoring objectives. These were followed by two community meetings and 12 workshops to design methods for documenting their observations. We then iteratively designed and tested these methods over the course of two traditional harvest seasons. We interviewed 23 participants following the spring 2017 harvest season and 27 after the fall/winter 2017 harvest season. We also conducted 4 semi-structured interviews with department leaders to ensure that the information gathered was meeting the needs of the Gitga’at Oceans and Lands Department, Treaty Negotiators, the Hartley Bay School and the Gitga’at Health Department. Key outcomes are a harvest logbook, and an interview guide to be administered by community researchers following each harvest season. To answer my third research question, I conducted a conceptual framework analysis on the notes and transcripts taken while designing and testing a monitoring program based in the observations and knowledge of Gitga’at land and sea users. An interconnected set of social-ecological concepts and indicators that are monitored by Gitga’at harvesters emerged. The framework I developed based on conversations about Gitga’at monitoring through harvesting activities highlights the importance of maintaining and revitalizing Indigenous knowledge and harvesting practices in order to continue social-ecological monitoring, as well as opportunities for scientific approaches to situate themselves within Indigenous frameworks and priorities. This research provides the Gitga’at First Nation with foundations from which to pursue ongoing documentation of observations and knowledge produced through harvesting activities as a form of social-ecological monitoring. It also serves as a guide for other Indigenous nations that wish to embark on similar initiatives. Amidst discussions of marine and coastal resource co-management in British-Columbia and Indigenous resurgence, this research adds to the literature that re-enforces the importance of Indigenous governance and access to their lands and waters, and the continuation of Indigenous relationships to the land and sea in order to inform social-ecological monitoring for the benefit of all. / Graduate

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