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Hatching Knowledge: A Case Study on the Hybridization of Local Ecological Knowledge and Scientific Knowledge in Small-Scale Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) Cultivation in Norway

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Abstract

We investigate drivers of hybridization of local ecological knowledge (LEK) and scientific knowledge (SK) in small-scale Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) fisheries in western Norway through a case study from the Ørsta River. We find three primary drivers of knowledge hybridization in local fishing groups as part of wild Atlantic salmon cultivation activities: facilitating intergenerational knowledge exchange, coping with regulatory change, and improving the perceived validity of local knowledge sets. We also identify three challenges to knowledge hybridization, and discuss how both drivers and challenges relate to once complementary SK and LEK sets that have diverged as SK has become more technical and complex. We examine the processes by which LEK and SK develop, evolve, and are used to facilitate wild salmon conservation in these fisheries and discuss the role hatcheries can play adapting and utilizing large-scale SK and salmon policy to the local environment through hybridization processes. We conclude with recommendations as to how reframing managerial views on hatcheries as facilitators of knowledge production and transfer may improve both the accessibility of SK to local communities and the integration of LEK into Norwegian wild salmon management.

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Notes

  1. All names attributed to quotes have been fictionalized to preserve anonymity of research participants.

  2. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Online: https://www.nina.no/

  3. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Online: https://www.ntnu.edu/

  4. In Norway, hydropower installations that impede or otherwise damage migratory routes or spawning and rearing habitat for fish are, in most cases, legally obligated to perform compensatory stocking to the affected waters.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Sophia Kochalski for her participation in fieldwork and data collection, and Suzanne Haines for proofreading services and corrections to the manuscript. Thanks also to N.O. Brekke for his translation services and proofreading, and to NINA staff for their transcription and translation help. The authors also thank the Norwegian Environmental Agency, the County Governor’s office, and the fishers of Sunnmøre who made this study possible.

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie project IMPRESS (GA No 642893) and from the Norwegian Miljødirektoratet (Reference No 16S2D396).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), P.O. Box 5003, NO-1432, Ås, Norway

    Hannah L. Harrison & Øystein Aas

  2. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Vormstuguvegen 40, NO-2624, Lillehammer, Norway

    Stine Rybråten & Øystein Aas

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  1. Hannah L. Harrison
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  2. Stine Rybråten
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  3. Øystein Aas
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Correspondence to Hannah L. Harrison.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors beyond that which is described in the text. All data collected and used in this study was collected in accordance with the Norwegian Centre for Research Data Authority standard via project #47203.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Harrison, H.L., Rybråten, S. & Aas, Ø. Hatching Knowledge: A Case Study on the Hybridization of Local Ecological Knowledge and Scientific Knowledge in Small-Scale Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) Cultivation in Norway. Hum Ecol 46, 449–459 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-018-0001-3

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