The James Bay and Northern Quebec Harvesting Research Project: The Basis for Establishing Guaranteed Levels of Harvesting by the Native People of Northern Quebec

• Main Author: Feit, Harvey
• Other Authors: Anthropology
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 1980
• Subjects: Declining Game Populations; Wildlife Conservation; Guaranteed Harvest Allocations; Wildlife Harvest Research; Harvesting Surveys; Hunting Diaries; James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement; James Bay Cree; Canada; inuit; James Bay
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/23947

The James Bay and Northern Quebec Native Harvesting Research used survey questionnaires and diary-based research on wildlife harvesting by James Bay Cree in eight communities from 1972-1979. The Committee reported to the Hunting, Fishing and Trapping Coordinating Committee for James Bay and Northern Quebec (HFTCC), where its official archives are deposited. The techniques developed in this research have been used elsewhere in Canada, and in the United States, Australia and southern Africa. At the time of the negotiation of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, 1974-75, one of the problems Cree and Inuit hunters spoke of was the declines in the animal populations on which they depended. Maintaining game populations required regulating their own hunting activities, which they were doing for key species populations. It also required regulating the impacts of development projects and regulating the harvests taken by sports hunters and fishermen. Some variations in animal populations were widely known, but some were or would decline in new ways as the area was opened up to outsiders. Part of the response was to develop means of regulating allocations of the harvests possible at any one time among Native users and sports users. The guiding principle is the priority of Native use. It was to be operationalized in several ways, including through guaranteed allocations of harvests. Several different kinds of guarantees were discussed during negotiations, a per capita guarantee, a percentage of the harvest guarantee, and a guaranteed level based on present harvest levels, which is described in this report. The latter was adopted. The principle of a guaranteed allocation of permissible harvests which respects "present levels" of wildlife harvests by Native people requires a determination of the present levels. The Native Harvesting Research Committee and study were set up to meet this need. This report sets out how this research, lasting 7 years in the case of the 8 communities, and involving 2 Native governments, ...