one biological and two spiritual

By Phil Shapley (White Wolf) Owen Sound, Ontario

Background

An earlier paper discussed the advantages of applying two spiritual approaches to resource management, advantages over the traditional combined biological, economic and political approach. The traditional approach has mostly failed to protect resources. However, the earlier paper did not deal with the difficulties of applying the spiritual approaches. This paper searches for practical ways of applying these approaches to manage fish stocks so that we can realize greater and more sustainable yields.

Fishery resources are mostly common property resources-- a resource that can be harvested by many people without anyone having effective control of individual catches.  This includes most government regulated fish stocks.  This lack of control is due to the incentive for individuals to take as much as they can regardless of their impact on the fish population-- other people are not limiting their catch so grab what you can before the stock runs out.  Also, there is pressure on government to not limit harvest because fishermen need a large catch now to pay bills.  These economic and other pressures lead to the failure to control the long term impact of today's catch on future populations.

When resources that are under the control of one person, such as a farmer who owns land, protection can be realized--  the person can benefit from a long term supply of the resource. Nno one else is doing anything that interferes with the farmer implementing a long term management plan.  Thus, the farmer has incentive to protect his resource (his land's crop producing capability) over time.

The traditional approach-- applying biological, economic and political considerations

This approach almost universally is failing to protect fish stocks. Even if we can remove economic and political pressures to over fish, biological criteria for managing harvests have their short-comings:

1)  They fail to deal with negative energy (greed, society ignoring Gods laws, etc.) which depress fish stocks.

2)  Often we don't have adequate information to determine how much can be harvested without threatening stocks unless there are severe restrictions on harvest.

The two spiritual approaches have the potential of generating greater harvests and of better protecting populations. The practical problems of implementing them are considered.

The basic spiritual approach-- increasing positive energy

When positive energy is increased, fish which can perceive positive and negative energy, do much better, they are buoyed up. They grow faster and reproduce more. Populations are more stable.

The factors that can increase positive energy, include;

1)   Seek out people who can communicate with fish or with the Creator, to obtain 

     needed knowledge.

2)   Perform Native ceremonies for the benefit of a resource and ecosystem.

3)   Offer sincere prayers for the welfare of resources and ecosystems.

4)   Harvest fish in a respectful manner and on the basis of need instead of greed.

5)   Learn of and respect the needs and welfare of fish and their ecosystems.

6)   Obtain approval from the Creator or directly from fish (by working through spiritualists) when major changes are planned, such as introducing a new species 

    into a lake, changing the means of harvest, etc .

7) Live the laws of the Creator, forgive, love, etc. to greatly reduce negative energy.

8)  Learn to love and appreciate fish and their ecosystems.

Factors 1-3 can readily be applied. Factors 4-8 require more initiative and for people to change. But where these can be accomplished, positive results will be seen. If there can be a major improvement within a community, fish populations near that community will likely increase.

To be specific, when Factors 1-8 are improved upon, the following should be accomplished:

1) With the acceptance of Native and Christian understandings in regard to resources, respect for resources will increase which may improve cooperation between governments, fishermen, managers, etc.

2) With an improved attitude toward fish and ecosystems, and with the new 

    knowledge obtained directly from the Creator or from fish on the needs of fish, a greater sustainable catch can be realized and ecosystems will be more stable.

3) Harvest and management will require less energy and expenditures.

4) Man, himself, will function on a higher spiritual level.

The barriers to implementation of these changes are mainly whether individual people are willing to change. The more people change, the greater the benefit. Hopefully, there would be little resistance within a community to individuals changing for the better. And perhaps, a community as a whole, could agree to change.

Total harvest though now higher, would still be limited to what is thought to be sustainable-- biological evidence could be important here.

The great faith spiritual approach

This approach includes everything of the basic spiritual approach and adds the dimension of individual great faith in the Creator and His ways. When there is great faith, not only are your prayers for the benefit of fish and their ecosystems likely to be answered, but the Creator can create (provide) fish to your nets-- fish in addition to those already in the ecosystem. Your harvest (catch) can be greatly increased without harming the existing fish population. What a benefit!

Problems can arise with the people of little faith which includes most people, but particularly other Native fishermen, government, sportsmen, etc. When the catch of little faith fishermen must be limited to protect fish stocks, these fishermen and the public are likely to feel that the restrictions must to be applied to all fishermen-- it is a matter of fairness and they don't understand that the Creator is making fish for the great faith fishermen. And there is the possibility of jealousy.

If a whole community develops great faith, conflicts within the community can be avoided. But unless it is an isolated community which has sole control over its harvest, conflicts with government and others will occur.

It is unlikely that a whole community will develop the great faith necessary to function in unison. So initially, we will focus on the situation where a few fishermen have great faith and the others don't. In the case of the lower faith fishermen, it is assumed that their catch must be limited to protect fish stocks.

Such circumstances can create conflict within the community and with regulatory authorities, government and the public. The first problem to be solved is who are the faithful, how do you identify them? Assuming this problem is solved, the less faithful will likely have problems accepting restriction on their catch, restrictions necessary to protect fish stocks. And there will be major conflicts with government and public they will not understand and accept faithful Natives making catches that exceed supposedly needed restrictions. And they will also be upset with less faithful Natives rebelling against the necessary limitation on their catch.

Though these are difficult problems, here are some suggestions for possibly reducing conflicts:

1)  If fishermen of great faith shared their catch or income from it with less faithful fishermen, this would tend to reduce conflict within the Native community.

2) There are possible ways of identifying fishermen of great faith. A gifted spiritual leader, perhaps a medicine man, may be able to do it. Or if a fisherman is unusually successful, is not greedy, is humble and is spiritual, perhaps he is a man of great faith. If a fisherman can be accepted as one of great faith, he can be allowed all of the catch he seeks while quota restrictions would still apply to other fishermen.*  Since the high faith fisherman would not be competing for quota, fewer fishermen would now be competing for available quota-- everyone benefits.

 4) With the higher catches, perhaps there could be a reevaluation of     sustainable catch with it being raised-- thus all benefit.

 5) Put a fishery under the control of one individual in a way that                 permits him to realize long term benefits from the  fish  stock.  This     individual would then allocate catch to individual fishermen.  The         controlling individual has an incentive to protect stocks over lthe long     run because this maximizes the value of the fish stocks that he             regulates.

 6) We need more innovative ideas than these on how high faith                 fishermen can make big catches without causing problems.

Do these problems associated with great faith fishermen making large catches and the difficulty of solving them, imply that it is not worth the effort of developing such faith?  Absolutely not!  Having such individuals in a community produces the following Blessings:

 1) The prayers of great faith people for the benefit of fish stocks and ecosystems, qualify to be answered and thus, everyone benefits.

 2) They set a good example for positive change.

 3) These individuals are happy and the Creator provides for their needs, either through fish or other means, and thus, they are not a burden on the community.

 4) True high faith people are sensitive to the situation in the community and will adjust their lives and fishing to avoid conflict.

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* This assumes that the high faith fisherman's needs are provided for by the Creator thru producing (creating) fish for him versus providing for his needs in another way.