Community-based environmental monitoring in the Canadian arctic using participatory photo mapping

Increasing environmental changes in the western Northwest Territories are already impacting the land, water, and communities in the Gwich'in Settlement Region. In my presentation, I will discuss the collaborative community-based approach to monitoring environmental changes that I will use for my MSc research. Through a partnership with the Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute, I will train Tetlit Gwich’in youth and elder pairs in digital photography and GPS, and we will make trips on the land to document environmental conditions and changes. These will be uploaded onto a web-based community map. My presentation will address the strengths of this methodological approach, including its contribution to relationship and capacity building within the community, as well as its challenges. I will describe the collaborative development of my project and how it complements my own and others’ scientific research on environmental change in the Peel Plateau, NWT.