331
Thus, its documentation can be a two-edge sword since it makes traditional
knowledge available to be stolen through biopiracy
5
but it can also serve as a mechanism for indigenous communities to legitimize and establish traditional knowledge
(and concomitant practices) as their own.
6
In this chapter we conceptualize Comcaac environmental knowledge as a complex corpus of socio-ecological relations in constant refinement and transformation;
a synchronic installment of known principles and facts to the new changing contexts
of the everyday. We also recognize the ways in which the colonial encounter and the
eventual incorporation of this indigenous society into a market economy in the
twentieth century drastically re-organized the ways knowledge and power flux
locally—an acknowledgement that consequently challenges scholarly understandings of traditional knowledge as extemporal, characterizing it instead as a diachronic
process. Thus, this dynamic understanding of (ecological) knowledge recognizes
the emergence of indigenous research. For instance, Humberto Romero-Morales a
plant expert collaborated in the project on the Gulf of California islands flora (Felger
et al. 2012; Wilder et al. 2007, 2008a, b). Young members have had their own monitoring organizations (the most enduring one being Grupo Tortuguero Comcaac,
originally funded by the NGO Ocean Revolution
7
) and have had projects financed
by the CONANP (the Federal Commission for the Natural Protected Areas) to
establish bird diversity and migration patterns, sea turtle behavior and egg protection, bighorn sheep and sea mammals population estimates, plus trash collection,
among others. These conservation efforts in some cases have been translated into
bachelor’s degrees earned by Comcaac youth in environmental law, biology and
ecological engineering. This weaving of academic knowledge with traditional ecological knowledge in resource management and decision-making is key for environmental stewardship (Berkes and Seixas 2005).
On the Emergence of Comcaac Environmentality
The last two decades have characterized the Comcaac’s subsistence mode as focused
on small-scale fisheries and wildlife conservation and management. In 1998, the
first wave of “Comcaac para-ecologists” was formalized as part of a multiinstitutional effort to train Comcaac youth as stewards of their natural resources
(Nabhan 2003). Some youth were trained to conduct basic monitoring with
5 Biopiracy refers to the use of traditional knowledge without permission and the appropriation of
genetic resources by individuals that seek monopoly control in the search for new bioresources
(http://www.etcgroup.org/issues/patents-biopiracy).
6 Both the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Nagoya Protocol that is part of the
Convention on Biological Diversity employ published data as a source to verify the ownership of
this knowledge by the different indigenous groups: https://www.wipo.int/tk/en/; https://www.cbd.
int/abs/doc/protocol/nagoya-protocol-en.pdf.
7 http://www.oceanrevolution.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=35:OR%
20Revolutionaries%20Entries&id=18.
18 Social Cohesion and Environmental Governance Among the Comcaac of Northern…
Thus, its documentation can be a two-edge sword since it makes traditional
knowledge available to be stolen through biopiracy
5
but it can also serve as a mechanism for indigenous communities to legitimize and establish traditional knowledge
(and concomitant practices) as their own.
6
In this chapter we conceptualize Comcaac environmental knowledge as a complex corpus of socio-ecological relations in constant refinement and transformation;
a synchronic installment of known principles and facts to the new changing contexts
of the everyday. We also recognize the ways in which the colonial encounter and the
eventual incorporation of this indigenous society into a market economy in the
twentieth century drastically re-organized the ways knowledge and power flux
locally—an acknowledgement that consequently challenges scholarly understandings of traditional knowledge as extemporal, characterizing it instead as a diachronic
process. Thus, this dynamic understanding of (ecological) knowledge recognizes
the emergence of indigenous research. For instance, Humberto Romero-Morales a
plant expert collaborated in the project on the Gulf of California islands flora (Felger
et al. 2012; Wilder et al. 2007, 2008a, b). Young members have had their own monitoring organizations (the most enduring one being Grupo Tortuguero Comcaac,
originally funded by the NGO Ocean Revolution
7
) and have had projects financed
by the CONANP (the Federal Commission for the Natural Protected Areas) to
establish bird diversity and migration patterns, sea turtle behavior and egg protection, bighorn sheep and sea mammals population estimates, plus trash collection,
among others. These conservation efforts in some cases have been translated into
bachelor’s degrees earned by Comcaac youth in environmental law, biology and
ecological engineering. This weaving of academic knowledge with traditional ecological knowledge in resource management and decision-making is key for environmental stewardship (Berkes and Seixas 2005).
On the Emergence of Comcaac Environmentality
The last two decades have characterized the Comcaac’s subsistence mode as focused
on small-scale fisheries and wildlife conservation and management. In 1998, the
first wave of “Comcaac para-ecologists” was formalized as part of a multiinstitutional effort to train Comcaac youth as stewards of their natural resources
(Nabhan 2003). Some youth were trained to conduct basic monitoring with
5 Biopiracy refers to the use of traditional knowledge without permission and the appropriation of
genetic resources by individuals that seek monopoly control in the search for new bioresources
(http://www.etcgroup.org/issues/patents-biopiracy).
6 Both the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Nagoya Protocol that is part of the
Convention on Biological Diversity employ published data as a source to verify the ownership of
this knowledge by the different indigenous groups: https://www.wipo.int/tk/en/; https://www.cbd.
int/abs/doc/protocol/nagoya-protocol-en.pdf.
7 http://www.oceanrevolution.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=35:OR%
20Revolutionaries%20Entries&id=18.
18 Social Cohesion and Environmental Governance Among the Comcaac of Northern…