Consensual AI? A Call for Indigenous-Led Caribou Conservation
This essay on caribou conservation, technological interventions, and Indigenous-led conservation is part of the Companion Species series, which investigates a complex, interconnected, and co-constituted web of beyond-human relating. Series editors: Tessa Archambault, Dylan Couch, Kuhelika Ghosh, Ellie Kincaid, and Bri Meyer.
Caribou migrations, shaped by millennia of adaptation, have been increasingly disrupted by anthropogenic forces. These forces are most prominent in the James Bay region of Canada, where the construction of hydroelectric reservoirs in the 1970s and 1980s altered watercourses, reshaped ecosystems, displaced migratory wildlife, and poisoned Indigenous communities. While the James Bay Project was once celebrated as a forward-thinking climate initiative designed to reduce fossil fuel dependence, it failed to anticipate the relational consequences of its vast infrastructural interventions.
Fifty years later, global temperatures continue to climb, and caribou populations are now in precipitous decline. Technological advancements, such as AI-powered monitoring and tracking systems, are increasingly proposed as solutions to better understand habitat loss and help direct precise conservation initiatives.
However, as the allure of AI solutions gains traction across industry and government, recalling this past Project can remind us that a purely technological approach risks repeating previous environmental governance problems —treating caribou and the lands they inhabit as separate from their entanglements with Indigenous people. Caribou are not just data to be managed; rather, they are part of a broader relational network that includes Indigenous knowledge and governance structures.
This datafication raises further questions: as Innu society is “modeled” after their relations with caribou, how can such intimate connections be included? What about the caribou is valued, and how might Indigenous knowledge value differently than Western governments? The James Bay Project’s resulting long-term impacts on caribou populations, Innu, Cree, and Naskapi communities, and the broader ecological balance of the region offer lessons in sustainable development which ought to be revisited now to remind us of the necessity of inclusive collaborations.
While Western conservationists are concerned about climate change and decreasing numbers of caribou, their conservation projects are less relationally concerned with caribou as companion species of Indigenous Peoples. However, decreasing caribou numbers have affected Indigenous communities, and their relationship should be highlighted. Blending emergent technologies and Indigenous knowledge in co-management initiatives may not only restore a more harmonious ecosystem—including increased number of caribou—but also may support work that values Indigenous knowledge and livelihood.
Caribou and Innu
The James Bay Project intended to power the Quebec region through hydroelectric energy. Not only would it drastically reduce carbon emissions, but it would also produce excess power—some of which would be sold throughout the Northeast United States, with New York as a major purchaser. The plentiful river systems and proximity to Quebec made the James Bay region a strong contender in what seemed like a forethinking and economically beneficial project.
Unfortunately, Indigenous Peoples of the region were neither consulted nor notified. One of these communities, the Innu, live on their ancestral homeland Nitassinan, the northeast peninsula of Quebec and interior Newfoundland and Labrador. Their lives are intimately entangled with the caribou. The Innu use caribou hair as an almanac of caribou movement, because it is hollow and floats, so can easily be found along the receding shorelines in late summer.
The Innu are also highly dependent on caribou for food and clothing—hides transformed into tents, coats, drums, and buckets, or stretched in strips to form the webbing of snowshoes, harnesses, or snares. Bones provide grease and are used as tools or for the ribs of kayaks, while their marrow provides broth. Cleaned caribou stomachs are used for storage.
This relationship with caribou has been ongoing since time immemorial, and so Innu should decide whether and how to use emergent technologies for caribou conservation. We must consider how emergent technologies could be integrated with consenting Indigenous Peoples who might steer conservation initiatives. While the Innu use information derived from caribou hair to decide when to set up camp and intercept a migrating herd, such material remnants could complement emergent technologies.
Kauitatikumat’s Story
Innu’s relationship with the caribou is not strictly one of subsistence. George Henriksen records the well-known story of Kauitatikumat, an Innu man who marries a caribou woman and lives with the caribou herd. The story opens with Kauitatikumat’s father, who has not been able to kill any caribou. Because he has been unsuccessful, his family is hungry. Then, in a dream, a young female caribou comes to Kauitatikumat and asks to marry him.
On awakening, Kauitatikumat tells his father of the dream and then goes out to hunt the caribou. It is a sunny day, and as he climbs a hill and looks out over a lake, he spots a herd of caribou below. By the time he reaches the bottom, all but one have disappeared. This caribou speaks to him and asks him not to shoot his arrow—the female caribou who visited him in his dream. She shows herself to Kauitatikumat in human form, and he immediately falls in love, agreeing to marry her even though this decision means he will never see his family again.
When caribou thrive, the Indigenous Peoples whose cultures have been built alongside them also thrive.
Kauitatikumat’s father searches for him but finds only his arrows, snowshoes, and the caribou skin shawl that had covered him. As he grieves his loss, the herd stays close, making sure he has enough to eat. Over time, Kauitatikumat fathers a child with his caribou wife. He makes a spear with gifts from his caribou father-in-law, as he would if he were human. At the end of the story, Kauitatikumat stays with the caribou herd, maintaining an intimate connection between humans and caribou through marriage.
The story exemplifies the nuanced connections and importance of dreams, hunting, and the marriage between human and caribou. It is also, according to Henriksen, “the most central and cherished myth of the Mushauau Innu.” There is no room for separation between human and caribou.
Catherine Girard, settler and art historian, explains how the story’s dialectic blurrings are made material in the caribou skin coats, like the one Kauitatikumat left for his father to find. Such coats demonstrate the importance of caribou skin, and skin in general, as a means through which to identify and create identity. Shifting identity in Kauitatikumat’s story materializes in the caribou skin-coat—specifically in the way that the coats are painted. The dyes themselves are never static and the yellow reacts to temperature changes, imbuing the coat with a flickering that further blurs identities.
Girard explains the techniques used to paint the skin-coats, as well as the tools used–tools made from caribou parts. The skin-coat is an artifact made possible only because of the Innu’s needs and knowledge of caribou. The environment directly influences its appearance. Both the story and the artifact of the skin-coat center the Innu’s entangled relationship with the caribou.
Caribou, Cree, and Canadian Government
Migrations of people and caribou, along with the moving rivers they cross, further complicate these blurred boundaries. Although the Rivière-George caribou herd was once proliferate, their population has decreased 99 percent from its historical high. The James Bay Project’s hydroelectric infrastructures altered the already treacherous landscapes over which caribou traversed. It disregarded ecological complexity and those who understood it, unintentionally perpetuating binary assumptions in which individuals are divorced from their interactions.
Despite what seemed like an efficient solution to climate change, the Canadian government failed to predict its relational consequences. Caribou migration has always been difficult, but they had no means to prepare for the sudden and extensive anthropogenic environmental changes on their route. In 1984, migrating caribou attempted to cross the Caniapiscau River, but a hydro dam had changed the flow rate and quantity of water. Unaware of this change, they did not anticipate the River’s increased strength, and ten thousand caribou were swept downstream over Limestone Falls. Strong currents killed or severely injured caribou and their calves who collided with rocks and floating ice. The James Bay Project’s environmental modifications required that the heard to adapt to its migration route.
Many other herds across the continent face such shifting environments. Compounding expected difficulties such as disease, predation, insects, and harsh weather, caribou herds now face human-fueled challenges including increased wildfires, habitat degradation or loss, noise pollution, and migration disruptions in the form of highways and railroads.
Even the most routine difficulties such as harsh weather and predation have increased in severity as climate systems and other species contend with anthropogenic pressures. For example, less snowfall has resulted in increased wolf predation. Changes in temperatures and precipitation affect snow conditions as well as vegetation growth and parasite transmission through insect bites. The Innu, Cree, and Naskapi Nations do not solely rely on environmental monitoring infrastructures to track these changes—they also experience them firsthand in the land and atmosphere. While Western technology may measure effects, relations also deserve attention.
Additionally, “harm” and “restoration” are not universally defined. What is considered harmful and what is considered restoration vary across cultures. For example, Western scientists require data and documentation to guide conservation efforts, but Indigenous Peoples intimately understand intricate and complex ecological entanglements. Indigenous knowledge risks losing value with the implementation of AI, which may perpetuate binary assumptions. Equally troubling are the ways in which AI is subject to anthropocentric beliefs which might be deployed through “restorative” measures.
A Demand for Collaboration
Further unexpected consequences of the James Bay Project materialized when redirected rivers flooded regions nearly the size of Connecticut. The severity magnified as vegetation rotted, releasing stored mercury into the floodwaters. Contaminated water traveled downstream and into reservoirs, poisoning a nearby Cree population and the more-than-human lives on which they depend for food and employment. The La Grande estuary was converted from saltwater to freshwater. Riverbanks eroded, and water temperatures changed while vegetation decomposition produced greenhouse gasses. This resulted in dead zones which destroyed shorelines and shoreline habitats.
Seasonal flow patterns reversed, causing more caribou deaths. This strained relationships between the Cree and caribou, who both struggled from the onslaught of problems the James Bay Project created. With the destruction of these habitats came the destruction of survivance for humans and other-than-humans.
Yet the James Bay Project was not the only factor that altered the lives of Indigenous Peoples. Rising industrial development consistently impacts Indigenous ways of living. Forestry, mining, road and railway construction, and chemical spraying had already disrupted these lands—along with the livelihoods of both Indigenous Peoples and caribou. The James Bay Project, intended to ease the effects of climate change, was part of the broader picture of industrial development.
When the James Bay Project was first announced in 1971, Cree people still adhered to a traditional governance structure which made swift and exacting action difficult. In response to the James Bay Project, the Grand Council of the Crees (of Quebec) was formed in 1974 and now represents around 20,000 people. The Council advocated for Cree rights at the negotiations between the Cree Nation and the Quebecois and Canadian governments.
As effects of the James Bay Project became more visible, New York and other major buyers retracted their agreements, which the Cree used to put pressure on the Canadian government to address the damages to their communities and lands. In November 1975, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was signed—considered the first modern land-claim settlement in Canada.
The agreement sketched an early blueprint for further collaboration between the Canadian government and Indigenous nations, highlighting the Crees’ strategic response. While power imbalances in co-management meant the resolution was imperfect, it was an important step which exemplified the possibility of a more just future.
Climate change is now scaling up the necessity for local and international collaborations to steward environmental protections. Both caribou and humans are at risk, and the James Bay Crees’ actions offer a sophisticated model highlighting the power of negotiation and collaboration.
Indigenous-Led Conservation
The future of the Rivière-George caribou herd will not be easy—climate change will continue to drive habitat destruction and increased ice melt. And yet projects like James Bay that aim to reduce carbon emissions will further disturb their lands. To mitigate losses and assess solutions, conservation initiatives increasingly turn to AI-driven conservation tools such as satellite telemetry tracking, GPS collars, GPS video collars, mathematical modeling, and remotely sensed metrics of vegetation quality and quantity to better predict and measure consequences.
Caribou are not just data to be managed; rather, they are part of a broader relational network that includes Indigenous knowledge and governance structures.
These technologies provide critical data, but data should not be valued over material relationships. Inclusive alliances should be foregrounded, guiding governance structures and land use. The future of AI in conservation should be used in service of Indigenous-led efforts that already exist, and only if Indigenous Peoples believe it will be beneficial. While AI’s capabilities are alluring, prioritizing the co-production of knowledge could supplement rather than replace Indigenous-led management.
The James Bay Project was a technological intervention that failed to acknowledge entanglements or anticipate relational consequences. We are at a crossroads again as emergent technologies are positioned as solutions to habitat loss and climate change, but AI is not a pure solution. Its immense capabilities are one of many tools at our disposal, and only those who have been stewards of the land since time immemorial may understand how to effectively wield those tools—and when they may not provide acceptable outcomes.
Environmental data collection must be governed by the communities whose lands and livelihoods are most affected. When caribou thrive, the Indigenous Peoples whose cultures have been built alongside them also thrive. Technological advancements must be deployed ethically and collaboratively, prioritizing Indigenous consent and leadership in this more-than-human world.
Featured image: A herd of caribou walking through a snowy wooded area. Photo by Peupleloup, November 2009.
Genevieve is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Science, Studies, and Policy at the University of Oregon, where her work bridges environmental humanities, feminist science and technology studies, and data ethics. Her research explores how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping conservation practices, particularly through the development of passive environmental monitoring systems intended to detect more-than-human communication. Her most recently published poem can be found in Scientific America.
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