ABSTRACT
This chapter chronicles how the Cree learned to deal with the variability in caribou numbers and the fact that caribou are depletable. Conservation ethics does not arrive ready-made, it evolves. How it develops is a question of great general interest (Berkes and Turner 2006; Turner and Berkes 2006). The chapter uses historical evidence and contemporary observations of cultural evolution in action to build a picture of social learning. Indigenous hunters have highly unique ways of observing and learning from the environment (Kendrick and Manseau 2008). They are constantly monitoring a number of signals in the environment. If the signs and signals are unusual or out of the ordinary, then they have to be interpreted by people who have suitable experience and wisdom-the elders. In most indigenous societies, the elders manage cross-generational information feedbacks, and make sense of unusual observations and resource intervention outcomes. Elders and stewards provide leadership, carry and transmit knowledge, and sometimes reinterpret new information to help redesign management systems.
