Linking Culture and the Environment

R.J. Payne et al. 85
traditional knowledge (i.e. knowledge of nature that is deeply embedded in
people’s ways of life) by the scientific community represents an opportunity to
bridge the gap between science and experience. Connecting science and customary
or traditional knowledge, by no means an easy task, holds benefits for
both scientists and local people. Furthermore, the gradual legitimation of customary
and traditional knowledge provides support for management regimes
in which local people have not only a voice but also a measure of control.
The second feature of this approach – sustainability issues in a bioregional
context – supports the important role of customary and traditional
knowledge. However, it also repudiates various sector-specific attempts (e.g.
forestry or tourism) to come to grips with sustainability by acknowledging
that both ecological relationships and people’s relationships with nature
operate over relatively large areas. Indeed, attempts by forest scientists (e.g.
Baskerville, 1996; Duinker, 1996) to develop sustainability indices for forestry
seem more concerned with accommodating environmental issues in forestry
practice rather than integrating sustainability as a goal. The case for bioregionalism
is put concisely by the World Resources Institute:
Within a bioregion lies a mosaic of land or aquatic uses. Each patch provides habitats in
which different species survive and flourish, and each has its own particular relationship
to the region’s human population. All the elements of the mosaic are interactive; the
management of a watershed affects riverine habitats, farms, estuaries, fisheries and coral
reefs. The components are also dynamic; each changes over time as rivers change course,
fallow fields regenerate, storms batter coasts and fires ravage forests.
(1992; emphasis in original)
People, in their social and economic diversity, clearly play a pivotal role in a
bioregion. Involving them in developing and monitoring sustainability indicators
would seem to be a rational course of action, with benefits to all.
Bioregional governance is another approach to sustainability that has a
long history in natural resource management. Ostrom (1990) describes the
foundation for collective action that brings individuals and organizations
together voluntarily to try to solve common pool resource problems, explaining
that this self-organization and self-governance of resource users relies on
operational guidelines, commitment and monitoring. A good example of this
approach in tourism is the regulation of tourism in the Antarctic region that
occurs through the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators
(IAATO), as part of the broad framework of tourism regulation that includes
the Antarctic Treaty System (Johnston and Hall, 1995). This organization of
tour operators began in 1991 with seven members ‘to advocate, promote,
and practice safe and environmentally responsible travel to Antarctica’ and
now includes 84 companies (Landau and Splettstoesser, 2007, p. 186). Its
framework for self-regulation includes a variety of operational guidelines,
specific procedures, accreditation and auditing, and reporting. The solution of
self-regulation arose at a particular time period in response to the needs of a
particular physical, economic and geopolitical environment, but this
approach continues to be relevant and useful, even as other elements are added
to the regulatory regime through the Antarctic Treaty System and national