Mapping landscape signatures for indigenous land management : a pilot project in QGIS and GRASS
(Book - Regular Print)

Thesis,MSES,Green Mountain College,2011

Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis describes a project completed in the Klamath Siskiyou bioregion. I collaborated with Frank Kanawha Lake (Karuk descendant and Ph.D.), a United States Forest Service (USFS) research ecologist who specializes in traditional ecological knowledge, ethno-biology, and fire ecology. Together we hypothesized that identifiers of biophysical diversity (dominant vegetation, fire histories) may be correlated to particular geological types (soil, parent rock) and spheres of indigenous human activity (tribal villages, historic trails). I analyzed commonality between sites to describe what attributes might most foster cultural use decisions at the local and landscape level. One objective was to enhance understanding of how biophysical and cultural interrelationships can inform resource management prioritization. Another objective presents project clientèle with a foundational GIS portfolio for geographies of five culturally significant areas. The results from this project indicate that most telling interrelationships are likely to be found in examining combinations of vegetation, historic trails and fire regime histories, or combinations of soils, slope, least cost path (LCP) and historic residence. Few North American GIS models or maps reflect traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) considerations in relationship to bio-physical conditions of local ecosystems within ancestral territory. Even fewer models or maps are attempted in an Open Source program. Consequently, this project is a unique investigation in the Klamath Siskiyou Bioregion.