Huna Tlingit traditional environmental knowledge, conservation, and the management of a "wilderness" park

A study of Huna Tlingit traditional gull-egg harvests in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, indicates that local traditional environmental knowledge includes a sophisticated appreciation of glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) nesting biology and behavior-in particular, an understanding of this gull as an indeterminate layer with a modal clutch size of three. The community has applied knowledge to the design of sustainable egg-harvesting strategies. The dominant strategy is to take eggs from nests with one or two eggs but leave nests with three or more; an alternative strategy advocates partial harvests from three-egg clutches. The case study is related to a critical review of work questioning the contributions of traditional environmental knowledge to sustainable resource management, past and present. In particular we argue against a new orthodoxy that discounts the capacity of indigenous communities to conserve the natural resources of their lands.