♪ (Gentle and upbeat piano music)
(Female Narrator) It might be easy to think about science
and the Traditional Ecological Knowledge
of Indigenous people as very different things.
But on closer inspection, they have a lot in common.
Things like observation, inference, deduction,
and communicating findings.
For example, at Lake Clark National Park, scientists have just
recently begun studying the park’s inland bears,
but the Dena’ina have been watching
and living with bears in this area for generations.
Like scientists, the Dena’ina have learned a huge amount
about bears by observing their movements, behavior,
and how they live.
Their insights are recorded in their first-hand experiences,
cultural traditions, customs, beliefs, stories, and practices.
Collectively we refer to this vast body of knowledge
as Traditional Ecological Knowledge or T.E.K.
We talked with Dena’ina Elders and park scientists about
brown bears in Lake Clark and found that while
they might use different language,
they are often describing the same things.
Whether it’s how natural systems work,
or the behavior of a specific bear,
the observations of park scientists are echoing the
Traditional Ecological Knowledge of the Dena’ina.
(Lindsey Mangipane) So brown bears require a diversity of food resources.
It’s been found in previous studies that a mixed diet of both
meat and vegetation can allow brown bears to
have the highest level of fat gain.
Smaller-bodied bears are much more flexible.
They have lower total daily energy requirements.
So they’re able to more easily use the nutrients that are available to them.
If there were certain resources that might go away,
they can gain fat more efficiently on lower-quality resources,
Versus large-bodied bears need that really good
protein source in order to main their large body size.
We’re seeing this high diversity of bear behavior
and life-history strategies.
And one of the reasons that they are able to do this
is because our system is so rich in resources.
They are able to have a higher population density
because they are able to do different things
and fill different niches within the population.
Brown bears are very important ecologically for various reasons.
To start with, they are a keystone species, so they are very
valuable for judging the overall health of an ecosystem.
Also, they are considered an umbrella species,
so if you work to conserve the habitats for brown bears that are
important, that can also affect multiple other species
indirectly that fall under the same habitat requirements as brown bears.
(Female Narrator) While western science and Dena’ina
Traditional Ecological Knowledge both recognize the
interconnectedness of things, western science tends to
think about people and the environment as separate.
In the Dena’ina worldview, people are not separate.
That difference means that the interconnections observed
amongst plants and animals extends into the lives of people.
It also means that the Dena’ina extend the same kind of
consideration to plants and animals that they extend to people.
For this reason, the Dena’ina cultural traditions that
record Traditional Ecological Knowledge are also the
places where knowledge about customs, norms, ethics,
philosophy, and religion are recorded.
As a result, information about bear behavior
is connected to questions of ethics, customs,
and other cultural considerations that
western scientists tend to avoid.
So for the Dena’ina, any discussion of wildlife or nature is
also a conversation about respect and how to show it.
(Karen Evanoff) They don’t—they didn’t even use the word, "bear."
They would say “big animal.”
And they still do that, like say “big animal.”
Because of the respect for that animal.
(Pauline Hobson) A lot of respect for the brown bear
'cause it’s so powerful.
They knew all the animals.
They knew that the habitat they lived in.
What they did in the morning, what they did in
the afternoon, what they did in the evening.
(Butch Hobson) Had to because they know how to hunt them.
(Karen Evanoff) And in the treatment of the head.
How they took care of the head of the a- the bear.
'Cause the bear stills knows what is happening,
so they have to be very careful with what they are doing.
(Butch Hobson) I remember they take his eyes out
and bury it so the bear don’t see.
(Karen Evanoff) It’s like a respect too, to the animal.
So they used to have prayer over the animal, too.
(Pauline Hobson) Beads. They’ll put beads around his neck.
(Butch Hobson) Mhm. (Karen Evanoff ) Yeah.
(Pauline Hobson) And later a gun.
'Cause they, you know, their gun was like.
It was the thing, you know.
And I think they did that to all the animals that they got.
"Forgive me, brother, for taking your life,
but you’re giving me a life."
You’re not supposed to talk about them.
Say the name.
They say if you do, it could appear right by you.
(Karen Evanoff) It’s like calling them to you.
(Female Narrator) In the same way that they respect
and honor the land, the Dena'ina also listen to it.
After living with this land for generations,
the Dena’ina are intimately acquainted with it.
With generations of first-hand observations,
combined with traditional knowledge,
the land can be read or rather, listened to.
The Dena’ina word, "K’etniyi" means "it’s saying something."
Being familiar with and listening to the land can also mean
having intuitions about things, observing what is happening,
and knowing things about it,
without knowing exactly how you know.
(Female Narrator) T.E.K. gained over generations has helped
the Dena’ina come to know this area
in a way that few others ever will.
And while there’s overlap between the knowledge
of scientists and the Dena'ina,
for the Dena'ina, their traditional knowledge is not just
data interpreted to answer a question.
It’s part of a larger road map about how to live in this place.
It not only addresses a very practical question
of how to survive, but how to do that
in the proper way.
While Dena’ina Traditional Ecological Knowledge is not seen
or acknowledged as science in the way western science is,
it is nonetheless a rigorous scientific approach.
One that doesn’t just have one method or discipline,
but one that utilizes an invaluable holistic approach.
(Larry Hill)
(Female Narrator) Given this scientific approach,
it might be more accurate to call
Traditional Ecological Knowledge, "Native Science."
The Dena’ina’s Native Science draws on thousands of years
of observations.
It’s a body of knowledge that’s been tested time and again.
Its accuracy and replicability has enabled the Dena’ina
to build a rich cultural tradition in this remote
part of Alaska that continues today.