Towards Adaptive Co-Management of Human-Caribou Systems?: Lessons from Regional Comparisons and International Cooperation

Monitoring, assessing status, and making policy to ensure the sustainability of caribou and human uses of this resource have always been challenging. During the past half century, there has been considerable controversy around perceived declines in abundance of caribou and policy responses by government agencies. Starting in the 1970s and 1980s 'co-management' arrangements and land claims agreements were established, in part, to facilitate cooperative decision making in the event of future declines. Recently, population estimates indicate that many of the large barren ground caribou herds are in decline, with some having declined dramatically. We compare local to regional caribou management responses to changes in caribou abundance and analyze a simulation role play completed with 60 caribou management experts at the December 2009 CARMA Network meeting. We use these observations to identify the challenges and facilitating conditions for effectively responding to changes in Human-Caribou Systems. We evaluate emergent conditions by asking if and how current institutions for management of wild Rangifer are responsive and adaptive to change.