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Society & Natural Resources
ISSN: 0894-1920 (Print) 1521-0723 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/usnr20
Person, Place, and Knowledge in the Conservation
of the Saimaa Ringed Seal
Sandra Bell , Kate Hampshire & Mika Tonder
To cite this article: Sandra Bell , Kate Hampshire & Mika Tonder (2008) Person, Place, and
Knowledge in the Conservation of the Saimaa Ringed Seal, Society & Natural Resources, 21:4,
277-293, DOI: 10.1080/08941920701860516
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08941920701860516
Published online: 19 Mar 2008.
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Articles
Person, Place, and Knowledge in the Conservation
of the Saimaa Ringed Seal
SANDRA BELL AND KATE HAMPSHIRE
Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, Durham,
United Kingdom
MIKA TONDER
Department of Tourism, South Karelia University of Applied Science,
Lappeenranta, Finland
There is a strong connection between people’s knowledge of nature and their
relationship to place. Local environmental knowledge is multifaceted and
influenced by changing social and economic circumstances that affect the way people
come to know and relate to nature. A case study from Finland demonstrates how
locality, personhood, and environmental perceptions cohere to challenge conser-
vation practices. In this instance, local people fully uphold the conservationists’
desire to save a threatened endemic mammal, the Saimaa ringed seal (Phoca hispida
saimensis nordq), from extinction. However, local people are far less enthusiastic
about the conservationists’ chosen means for achieving conservation of the seal.
They fail to engage with many aspects of the conservation program because its
design and implementation fail to acknowledge local people’s collective and personal
experiences of place. The case study demonstrates the need for conservation pro-
grams to take seriously local people’s ‘‘place-based’’ observations and theories.
Keywords conservation, environmental knowledge, finland, indigenous
knowledge, local knowledge, natural resources, seals
Ethnographic research indicates that there is a strong connection between people’s
knowledge of nature and their relationship to place. Local environmental knowledge
can be multifaceted, combining scientific and experiential frames of reference. It is
also significantly influenced by changing social and economic circumstances that
affect the way people come to know and relate to nature. This article explores
these themes through an examination of local people’s orientation toward the
conservation of the Saimaa ringed seal (Phoca hispida saimensis nordq), in the Lake
Pihlajavesi archipelago, in southeastern Finland.
Received 13 July 2005; accepted 22 May 2007.
Research for this article was funded by the Research Directorate General of the European
Commission, contract EVK2-CT2000-22001.
Address correspondence to Sandra Bell, Department of Anthropology, 43 Old Elvet,
University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3HN, England, United Kingdom. E-mail: sandra.
bell@durham.ac.uk
Society and Natural Resources, 21:277–293
Copyright #2008 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0894-1920 print/1521-0723 online
DOI: 10.1080/08941920701860516
277
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Background
The habitat of the Saimaa ringed seal is restricted to the Lake Saimaa system
(Vuoksi watercourse) with the largest numbers living in lakes Pihlajavesi, Haukivesi,
and Kolovesi (Moissinen 1997). In 1966 the Saimaa ringed seal was officially
designated an endangered species by its inclusion in the Red Data Book published
by the Commission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
and Natural Resources (IUCN 1996). At this point, conservation efforts initiated
in the mid-1950s were expanded, but met with little success until the late 1990s, when
water quality improved and stricter regulations were introduced that governed the
use of certain fishing methods and tackle that threatened the survival of seal pups.
In the early years of this study, the official total ringed seal population was
250 individuals, with an average of 40 pups born each year (Kunnasranta 2001).
At the time of the study, the seal conservation project was aiming to reach a viable
breeding population of 400 individuals. Efforts at achieving this goal focus on limit-
ing human disturbance during the breeding season and the regulation of fishing with
gill nets. The latter is achieved through collaboration with local Statutory Fishing
Associations, which are dominated by permanent residents, as opposed to the
numerous summer cottage owners whose presence in the area varies from a few
weeks to most months of the year. The majority of inhabitants of the shores and
islands of the study area are classified in demographic statistics as ‘‘summer cottage’’
dwellers. There are approximately 2500 summer cottages around the lake (one
cottage per shore kilometer). (Ministry of the Environment 1995; Pihlajaveden
loma-asutuksen kehitta
¨misohjelma 2000).
Numbers of permanent residents of the 15 main islands that form the Pihlajavesi
archipelago have declined drastically over the past few decades to 200 inhabitants.
Most of the remaining permanent residents are from families with long-standing his-
torical ties to the land and waters. The diminishing number of permanent inhabitants
is due to the lack of employment and economic opportunities in the traditional
occupations of farming, forestry, and fishing; this has left local people worried about
the future viability of the archipelago communities.
1
While this important group of
inhabitants supports the basic objectives of the conservation program, these people
are suspicious of the declared endangered status of the seal and roundly condemn
the means adopted for achieving its conservation. One explanation of why local
people judge the conservation program so harshly is due to the strength of their
disagreements with the scientific assessments on which it is based. Their ideas and
observations regarding the seal are not permitted to inform conservation practice,
a situation that is interpreted by local people as a direct challenge to the unique
status bestowed upon them by time-honored links to the landscape and ensuing
ecological knowledge.
Theoretical Framework
Our research seeks to shed light on a situation where, for the time being, local people
are prepared to collaborate in conservation, but where strong disagreements
about seal ecology and behavior reveal potential conflicts and possible long-term
disruption of the program. Our theoretical framework is derived from narrative
and discourse analysis, which focuses on ‘‘the constructed and constructive nature
of language’’ (Shotter and Gergen 1989, 207) in relation to the social context in
278 S. Bell et al.
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which it is used. It can be used to investigate overt and disguised assumptions, agree-
ments, disagreements, judgments, and contentions that permeate people’s environ-
mental perceptions (Dryzek 1997, 8). The interpretation of personal narratives is a
particular element of discourse analysis we deploy to decode talk about the Saimaa
ringed seal and analyze attitudes toward its conservation (Riessman 2001).
In particular, we relate people’s talk about seals to their sense of place and
belonging. The concept of place has a long and ambiguous history within the disci-
pline of anthropology. It has recently resurfaced in applied and environmental
anthropology in connection with ‘‘local knowledge,’’ ‘‘indigenous knowledge,’’
and ‘‘traditional environmental knowledge’’ (Ellen et al. 2000; Pottier et al. 2003).
Much contemporary ethnography portrays indigenous knowledge in varying degrees
of opposition to the domain of national and international nature conservation pro-
grams and the universal scientific knowledge through which such programs function
(Knight 2000; Anderson and Berglund 2003).
However, place-based knowledge should not imply that it is static or bounded.
Dixon and Durrheim (2000, 27) criticize the view that places are ‘‘fixed, empty and
undialectical backgrounds to ...social action,’’ suggesting instead that, ‘‘Places are -
...dynamic arenas that are both socially constituted and constitutive of the social.’’
Likewise, Norton (1999) emphasizes the dynamic nature in the relationship between
place and knowledge. He uses the concept of ‘‘local dialects’’ in relation to environ-
mental values, which he describes as:
[T]he product of countless local dialects between experiencing members
of local cultures and the ecological community in which those communi-
ties are embedded. These local dialects are driven by a common striving
of all people to adapt, to choose appropriate activities and institutions,
and to live meaningful, fulfilling lives within their particular contexts.
Each local dialect is dynamic and changing, subject to new information
and evidence both from within the culture and—increasingly in the mod-
ern world—from other cultures, but it is place-based. (Norton 1999, 469)
A local dialect is, in this sense, a specific environmental discourse open to change,
but framed by experiences of place held in common by other interlocutors. It may
be refined in relation to others, especially those perceived as people that do not truly
‘‘belong’’ to the place in question.
In what follows, we explore the ‘‘local dialects’’ or environmental discourses of
local fishermen in relation to their sense of place and how this shapes the way in
which they think about, and react to, seals and seal conservation programs.
Research Methods
The material presented in this article comes from a research program that included
80 in-depth interviews with local inhabitants, summer cottage owners, and represen-
tatives of local conservation associations. We draw particularly on interviews with 11
local fishermen to explore how locality, personhood, and environmental perceptions
cohere to challenge many of the assumptions that inform the conservation program.
By focusing on a set of narratives from a relatively homogeneous group we are able
to undertake in-depth discourse analysis of this material. Although we are, in a
sense, ‘‘privileging’’ the voices of these eleven informants, the purpose is to explore
Person, Place, and Knowledge in Seal Conservation 279
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the contested nature of environmental values and discourses from the perspective
of one particular interest group—local fishermen. As Patton (2002, 231) says, quali-
tative research ‘‘typically focuses in depth on relatively small samples, even single
cases (N ¼1), selected purposefully.’’
The interviews, conducted between 1999 and 2002 in Finnish, vary in length
from forty minutes to several hours. In each case the entire conversation was
tape-recorded and transcribed in the original Finnish. Data were coded for topics,
line by line (Miles and Huberman 1994). Within this article we contextualize these
interviews within the wider set of 80 interviews which have been analyzed separately
elsewhere (Tonder and Salmi 2004; Tonder and Jurvelius 2004). In addition to the
interview material, we used secondary data such as written documents, official
records of meetings, memos, articles in local newspapers, and other relevant media
representations. Finally, one author (Tonder) carried out participant observation,
living and working in the study area and recording detailed observations in an
ethnographic diary (Sanjek 1990).
The 11 interviewees are men between the ages of 35 and 78. They were born,
raised, and spent their adult lives in the Pihlajavesi archipelago. It is a place they
regard exclusively as home, the place to which they belong and which, through
inverse logic, belongs to them as their symbolic birthright. They were also selected
because of their situation within the local fishing community, especially their active
membership of the Statutory Fishing Associations.
Clearly, these 11 interviewees do not agree with each other about all aspects of
life in and around Pihlajavesi. However, a surprising degree of consensus exists
between informants about the sense of place and belonging, fishing practice, and
views on seal conservation, both among the 11 key interviewees, and more widely
among the permanent local inhabitants interviewed. This derives, in part, from the
fact that these topics are very commonly discussed within local arenas, particularly
in relation to regulation and fears of further restrictions, giving rise to an emerging
consensus of opinion.
Conservation and the Pihlajavesi Fishery
Commercial fishing at Lake Pihlajavesi is nowadays a low-key enterprise and almost
exclusively confined to trawling and seining for vendace (a commercially prized
species of fish). These methods are not considered harmful to the seal population.
The traditional commercial gill net fishery has all but disappeared. However,
recreational fishing with gill nets continues to hold a central position in the local
cultural repertoire and is also pursued by numerous summer cottage owners (Salmi
et al. 2000; Bell et al. 2004). This form of fishing is considered to be the most serious
threat to seal populations.
About 20,000 people per year fish in Lake Pihlajavesi: summer cottage owners,
other tourists, and permanent inhabitants (Toivonen et al. 2002; Auvinen et al. 2003;
Sipila
¨2003). Fishing is regulated at the local level by statutory Fishery Associations
(Tiitinen 1995). One hundred and ninety Statutory Fishery Associations regulate
fishing in Lake Pihlajavesi (Muje et al. 2001, 5), but fewer than half of these associa-
tions are fully functioning (Salmi and Muje 2001). Active membership is normally
made up of permanent inhabitants, all=mostly men, as opposed to summer cottage
owners, for reasons explained later. The role of these associations is to contribute
to the restocking of fish, to administer fishing licenses and to monitor unauthorised
280 S. Bell et al.
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fishing. Fisheries are managed at a national level by the Ministry of Agriculture
and Forestry, but the seal conservation measures are regulated by local branches
of the Finnish Forest and Park Service, Metsa
¨hallitus (Ministry of Agriculture and
Forestry 1999).
Until the establishment of a Ministry of Environment in 1983, conservation
policy in Finland held a marginal position in the nation’s political agenda. However,
this changed in the wake of growing concern with global environmental issues and
their connection to local agendas after the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and from
the impact of Finland’s accession to the European Union (EU) in 1995. Most of
Lake Pihlajavesi and its shoreline are included in Finland’s Natura 2000 network
program due to its significance as a breeding site for the seal. The Saimaa ringed seal
is one of the endangered species included in the nature directive of the EU (92=43).
Like other inhabitants of rural Finland, those living around Lake Pihlajavesi
were solidly against their country’s membership in the EU. This opposition crystal-
lized around the introduction of Natura 2000 in 1997 (Tonder 1999). According to
O’Riordan et al. (2002, 131) the intensity and media coverage of the dispute over
Natura 2000 ‘‘reached unprecedented dimensions.’’ The strongest objections came
from the rural population and could be linked to a more generalized dissatisfaction
with Finland’s new geopolitical position. Antagonism toward Natura 2000 was evi-
dent in interviews with both permanent inhabitants and summer cottage owners.
Objections were aimed at the size of the scheme and the perceived transfer of power
from local groups to a distant bureaucracy: ‘‘Brysseli’’ (Brussels) (Tonder 1999).
The controversy over Natura 2000 at Lake Pihlajavesi is not unequivocally
explained by ideas about geographical distance and impenetrable hierarchies of
governance. It also refers to competing discourses surrounding meanings attached
to nature. According to Foucault’s notion of governmentality, these discourses
should be included in any explanation of how people understand themselves in
relation to others, especially the ways in which contesting discourses manipulate
and position protagonists (Danaher et al. 2000). The dominant discourse for the
conservation lobby, with its global reach and appeal, emerges around the concept
of biodiversity. This scientifically based, and hence privileged, discourse is often
deployed for ideological and moral purposes to support the hegemony of a rational,
scientific, and modern conservation paradigm. It operates at both global and local
levels, and in the instance of the latter—as exemplified at Lake Pihlajavesi—is
frequently only one of several competing discourses surrounding nature and the
treatment of natural resources.
In the case of the conservation of the Saimaa ringed seal, the discourse of
biodiversity has a central role in promoting the Natura 2000 network program.
Yet the 11 local fishermen focused on here and other local informants across the
study either failed to refer to Natura 2000 or described it as a position adopted by
ill-informed, external ‘‘experts.’’ The discourse of biodiversity holds no legitimacy
for local people, even in the light of a general level of acceptance toward a conser-
vation ethic and the aforementioned hybrid nature of local ecological knowledge
(Tonder 2005, 150–159).
In line with Natura 2000’s role in protecting the seal, the Finnish Ministry of
Agriculture and Forestry increased and strengthened the fisheries regulations in
1999. Despite their widespread unpopularity, enforcement of the regulations depends
on the actions of local Fishery Associations whose membership is dominated by per-
manent inhabitants. The regulations forbid the use of fish as bait, limit the strength
Person, Place, and Knowledge in Seal Conservation 281
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and mesh size of multifilament gill nets, and restrict long-line fishing in seals’
breeding areas.
At the beginning of the 1980s, scientists estimated that approximately 70%of
pups drowned each year after becoming entangled in gill nets. This realization led
to a ban on the use of gill nets in areas around known breeding sites from mid April
to the end of June, a period when the seal pup is considered most vulnerable. Since
its inception in 1999 the ban has been operated through individual contracts between
Metsa
¨hallitus conservation biologists and the local Fishery Associations, who receive
financial compensation in return for compliance and enforcement (Hyva
¨rinen
1994, 12).
These regulations are a keystone of the seal conservation program, thus placing
the Fishing Associations in a central role for ensuring its success. It is a sign of
the generally law-abiding nature of rural Finnish society that the arrangements
work, for the present at least. As we shall see, it is the permanent inhabitants, the
mainstay of the associations, who most vehemently oppose the conservation pro-
gram. They criticize the knowledge on which the program is based and the behavior
of those who implement it.
However, despite the controversies, permanent inhabitants generally respect and
obey fishing regulations. They blame summer cottage owners, particularly those with
no previous family connections to the archipelago, for violating regulations and fail-
ing to pay licence fees. The density of summer cottage owners means that at certain
times of the year their fishing activities far outweigh those of permanent residents.
The environmental historian, Ari Aukusti Lehtinen explains the rise of summer cot-
tage ownership in Finland as a consequence of urbanization whereby ‘‘modern city
dwellers throng to summer cottages in the remote countryside to escape the repercus-
sions of modern urban life.’’ He argues that such ‘‘neonomadism’’ results in ‘‘land
speculation at lakeshores and the motorization of outdoor recreation’’ (2001, 39).
Permanent inhabitants broadly agree with this analysis, even though it fails to
capture the ambiguous feelings they actually display toward the nomadic incomers.
On the one hand, the permanent residents disapprove of the growth in the
number of summer cottages (Ministry of the Environment 1995). On the other hand,
many find themselves economically dependent on jobs that provide a range of
services for summer cottage owners. A further twist comes from restrictions that
planning authorities have placed on building summer cottages at sites identified
by conservation biologists as critical seal breeding areas. This policy places extra
economic constraints on permanent inhabitants who might otherwise sell land for
building or invest in building their own cottages to rent. During the 1990s the
Savonlinna local government tried to relax these restrictions but was thwarted by
Ministry of the Environment, which argued that the expansion of cottages, the grow-
ing tendency for year-round occupation of cottages, and the subsequent increase in
the recreational gill net fishery would have a negative impact on seal conservation
(Tonder 2005, 39).
The complexity of relations between locals and summer cottage owners is further
illustrated by the absence of summer cottage owners from the meetings and the work
of the Fishing Associations that bring members of neighboring properties and house-
holds together in the joint management of their legally apportioned fishing areas.
Permanent inhabitants can be held partly responsible for this state of affairs because
they deliberately organize meetings at times when summer cottage owners will be
absent. There is also a tendency for local people to characterize the summer cottage
282 S. Bell et al.
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owners as ecologically ignorant and insensitive. Perceived as intent on catching ‘‘big
fish,’’ and despite their vocalized support for the conservation program, they are
purported to use gill nets made up of a strong mesh material banned as part of seal
protection measures.
Social History of the Saimaa Ringed Seal
Throughout most of the 19th century, Saimaa ringed seals were shot and killed in a
casual, opportunistic fashion when they crossed the paths of fishermen. The resulting
seal meat, leather, and fats were traded and employed for household purposes; seal
skin was particularly prized for making gloves (Kilkki and Marttinen 1984, 98–102;
Ylimaunu 2000, 33–342). In the late 19th century, seal hunting increased with the
growing economic significance of commercial fishing in inland waters (Lappalainen
2001). The seal was viewed as a serious competitor for fish and a threat to the newly
developing fisheries. In 1894 the Finnish government introduced a bounty prize for
the seal. During the period of bounty payments the population of the Saimaa ringed
seal is estimated to have decreased from around 700 individuals to fewer than 200
(Ylimaunu 2000, 131). Conservation arguments against hunting the seals first
emerged at the beginning of the 20th century among natural scientists unconvinced
of its impact on inland fisheries (Ylimaunu 2000, 131). When the government
granted continuance of bounty payments for the Baltic ringed seal in 1924, the
Saimaa ringed seal was declared a special case because of its endangered status.
Nevertheless, hunting continued during and after the Second World War until finally
outlawed in 1955, but too late for the seal population, which continued to decline.
During the mid-1970s, Suomen Luonnonsuojelu Liitto, the Finnish Association of
Nature Conservation, adopted an image of the seal as its logo. This logo was created
when the association was reinventing itself from a hobbyist club to a radical,
national organization that represented Finland within a wider international conser-
vation movement. The seal’s status as an endemic subspecies, found nowhere outside
of Finland, rendered it a potent symbol of Finnish national identity. This metonymic
device cleverly linked the association’s national status to solidarity with the
international conservationist movement, for whom opposition to seal hunting in
the North Atlantic had become a cause ce
´le
`bre (Milton 2002, 118).
By the end of the decade, notions of the seal as a pest were as distant a memory
as the commercial fishing industry with which it had once been seen to interfere. New
meanings became attached to the seal as its new conservation status emerged along
with the opening of the breeding area to urban dwellers in the form of tourists and
ever larger numbers of summer cottage owners. The cultural categorization of the
seal moved closer to that of a domesticated pet than pest, despite the fact that visi-
tors rarely see the elusive creature. Tourist operators and tourist-based businesses
appropriate and domesticate the seal through countless representational strategies,
extending processes initiated by the conservation movement. Anthropomorphic
iconography of the seal is ubiquitous in shops, markets, restaurants, and hotels in
the form of posters, cuddly toys, ornaments, cartoons, T-shirts, and other inventive
products. Its face even appears on local authority rubbish bins as a symbol of
municipal pride.
In the prevailing continuum of the human-animal divide, which Philo (1998, 66)
suggests can be thought of in terms of degrees of inclusion and exclusion, the seal
now occupies a position much closer to the human sphere. However, in occupying
Person, Place, and Knowledge in Seal Conservation 283
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this new position the seal has become a focus for tensions within human society
between groups who claim it as their own, but who operate overlapping, yet compet-
ing, knowledge systems with regard to its best interests.
The change is very striking in light of the fact that only 50 years or so previously
the seal was excluded from the human sphere to the point of near extermination.
Current cultural representations of the seal include books and films by Juha
Taskinen (or Ringed Seal Taskinen as he likes to be known). These works together
with a popular song composed by Juha Vaino appeal to prevalent nostalgia about
rural life in the face of urbanization and rural decline. Vaino’s melancholy song
about an idealized friendship between a seal and a fisherman ‘‘pierced many Finnish
hearts,’’ even among town dwellers, but particularly those of the remaining inhabi-
tants on the shores of Pihlajavesi (Tonder 2005, 90) who have come to identify so
forcefully with the seal and its fate.
Seal Conservation and Contestation
Unlike many other wildlife conflicts in Scandinavia where conservation of large
carnivores elicits mixed local reactions (e.g,. Linnell et al. 2000, Kleiven et al.
2004), the permanent inhabitants at Lake Pihlajavesi are unequivocal in their
positive views toward seals. But this does not prevent them from opposing the seal
conservation program. Our 11 key interviewees, in common with the wider local
population, see themselves as sharing their highly valued seasonal water=ice environ-
ment with the Saimaa ringed seal on a fairly equal basis. They reject out of hand the
suggestion that their fishing practices might constitute a threat to its survival.
Tero
2
told us: ‘‘The Saimaa ringed seal belongs here the same as we do. Nobody
has anything against it.’’ Like human neighbors, the seal can elicit affection. ‘‘The
seal is a darling for the people here. Not only for the conservationists,’’ protested
Pekka. These remarks assert a strong identification with the seal in relation to place.
The ‘‘darling’’ seal ‘‘belongs’’ to the landscape as do ‘‘we,’’ that is, those humans who
can trace a genealogical connection to the landscape. These remarks employ a
rhetorical device that correlates the seal population to that of the permanent inhabi-
tants. Its function is to naturalize the permanent inhabitants and, by extension,
reinforce claims for the validity of their ecological knowledge.
In a similar vein, inhabitants regard the seal as sharing with humans various attri-
butes such as intelligence, intentionality, and social bonding that add to its potential
for survival. Nestori spoke of the seal that nests opposite his landing pier with evident
respect: ‘‘The mother taught her son and gave him guidance as to what he needed.’’
Pekka tells a story about long-line fishing that expresses his favorable view of the seal
combined with his frustration about the way he believes conservationists fail to
include local people’s experiences in building an understanding of the creature:
‘‘I should have filmed it, when the seal made a visit to my long-line. It cut the
fish nicely both sides of the hook. I think the whole population of the Saimaa
ringed seal would not exist if it was a stupid animal. I mean if you manage to
catch a seal with the long-line I would compare it with winning the lotto.’’
Pekka thinks that film would have been hard evidence and difficult for conservation-
ists to dispute, unlike a personal account. Yet the photographic evidence produced
by conservationists is suspected as being fake.
284 S. Bell et al.
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Pekka’s reference to long-line fishing as a misperceived threat to the welfare of
the seal is connected to a story and photograph in the local newspaper, Savonmaa,in
January 1999 that featured a seal pup killed through entanglement in a long line.
Aimo believes the photograph was rigged:
‘‘It was a prepared photograph. The arm of the trap hook was facing in
the wrong direction. It cannot go off if you catch it from that way. I am
sure it was a seal pup that was caught by a gill net and the hook was
put into its mouth. But it was in the wrong direction. I am sure it was
a prepared picture.’’
Such beliefs are linked to consistent stereotyping of conservationists as outsiders
who are manipulated by edicts from ‘‘Brussels’’ and that treat seals as though they
are more important than people. ‘‘They don’t give a shit about ordinary people,’’
declared Tero.
In terms of relationships with nature, the permanent inhabitants conceive of
themselves as situated closer to the seal than to intrusive ‘‘seal men,’’
3
, as biologists
and decision makers are collectively dubbed. Their proximity to the seal appears to
be particularized, subjective, and placed-based, contingent on coexistence. These
perspectives establish opposition to the universalizing and objective project charac-
terised by scientists and planners (Entrikin 1991, 26). Tero narrates a local story that
illustrates the point. The story tells of a fisherman who trawled with a seine net and
was followed by a seal eating fish from the seine.
‘‘When the fisherman hauled the net to the boat, the seal looked around a
little and returned to the lake. I mean if there are big conflicts between the
seal and the fishermen that would not happen. This happened almost
every evening. The seal knew it could get food from there. And the fisher-
man did not mind. If he had he would have hit the seal with the blunt end
of his axe (Finnish—hamara) so as to knock it away without harming it.
It was such a joy, in a way. An exciting thing that the seal makes visits
inside the seine sometimes.’’
The story, like the one told by Pekka earlier, points the conflict away from the
seal, which is pictured as a much anticipated visitor. Conflict lies in the direction of
unnamed ‘‘others’’ who seem to want to argue that local fishermen are heedless of
the fate of the seal. The story is intended to dispute this slur and impute willful ignor-
ance to ‘‘seal men.’’ At the same time the story conveys fraternity with the seal, it
derogates the institutions responsible for the creature’s protection and their represen-
tatives ‘‘the seal men.’’
Among the permanent inhabitants of the Pihlajavesi archipelago it is common-
place to hear people dispute the scientific assessment of seal numbers. Official
numbers are calculated by conservation biologists who assemble a team to count
the lairs each spring once they have been abandoned by mother and pup. Local
people tend to think that there are more seals—‘‘many more,’’ as Aimo stressed. These
views are not restricted to people who have no contact with scientific conservation.
Pekka, who works as a warden for Metsa
¨hallitus and helps with the annual seal
count, thinks there may be up to double the numbers estimated by the conservation
biologists. Kari, who works for the environmental organization Keep the Archipelago
Person, Place, and Knowledge in Seal Conservation 285
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Clean, maintains that numbers are much higher across the Saimaa system than are
officially calculated. Markku, a fisheries manager, says: ‘‘Of course it causes conflict
if they are building up restrictions, which are based in fewer numbers than reality.
And local people know that.’’ One interviewee remarked that researchers are reluc-
tant to admit what so many local people believe because ‘‘then they would be out of
a job.’’ He argues that if the seal population were as small as researchers maintain,
then far fewer seals would be caught in nets. The accusation that conservationists
deliberately falsify their data to preserve their jobs illustrates the extent of the social
dilemma between locals and ‘‘seal men.’’
Our informants dispute the official scientific figures by drawing upon their own
observations made while out on the water fishing or traveling. The interviewees are
certainly more inclined to believe evidence derived from their personal observations
than that of the annual census by ‘‘seal men,’’ which is based on counting empty
lairs. Each empty lair is reckoned as the mark of a new pup since grown into a
juvenile. But ‘‘everyone knows’’ that lairs go unreported for fear of increased restric-
tions. We were shown lairs that our informants do not report in order to avoid
further restrictions.
There are also major disagreements about the character and behavior of the seal.
Scientists maintain that the seal is a shy and nervous creature, easily disturbed by
noise and the proximity of human activities, especially during the breeding season.
But inhabitants say the seal is playful and curious. Pertti spoke of a seal that lives
by the ferry, which is probably one of the noisiest places on his small island. Pertti
placed the seal at the centre of human events.
‘‘Every person who lives here has noticed that the seal is always
there when something happens. I have seen them all the time and I
continuously do. A couple of days ago there was one next to the landing
place of the ferry. There was also a motorboat on the right side and it
only looked and listened what would happen. It is extremely curious
and it always comes to see what happens. Once we were drinking at
my brother’s house and just when our talk was at its liveliest, the seal
emerged to the surface next to us and listened to us. It is so curious. It
is not scared about disturbance or humans.’’
Fishing, Fellowship, and Landscape
Such vastly different understandings of the seal held by inhabitants and conservation
biologists cannot be explained by a simplistic and outright rejection of a scientific
worldview by the inhabitants, because as we have seen, they do absorb scientific
concepts and information. So what is it about the local people’s orientation to other
people and the landscape that makes them react so vehemently to exclusion of their
ecological knowledge from the conservation program?
It seems that conflict over knowledge about the seal is grounded in complex and
emotive factors that relate to unique ‘‘place-based’’ aspects of knowledge about nat-
ure in the archipelago. Here we are prompted by Conradson’s argument that in order
to understand the ecology of place it is necessary to analyze a ‘‘rich constellation of
human, non-human and material entities’’ (Conradson 2005, 113). Local ecological
knowledge is derived from and contributes to people’s emplacement within their
surroundings and contributes to their knowledge and awareness of self-identity.
286 S. Bell et al.
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In this view the self is relational and emerges through a person’s interaction with
people, events, and landscape.
Our informants portrayed themselves as having formative, emotional transac-
tions with the landscape. Despite their economic insecurity, the rhetoric they
deployed to describe their world emphasizes great good fortune in inhabiting in such
a place—‘‘Tell people,’’ said one, ‘‘that Pertti has the best of lives in the best of
places.’’ Nestori refers to ‘‘this lovely realm’’ and eulogizes the topography and
weather:
‘‘Everything you see with your eyes about these straits, hills and
waterways. Even the snowstorms in winter, it is great to see those pipes
of snow going around on the ice fields and above treetops. In autumn
the fogs too, unless you have to go into the fog.’’
All of the 11 interviewees express this kind of deeply felt and intimate iden-
tification with the landscape of the archipelago, which emerges as an implicit compo-
nent of their total life-world (Relph 1976, 12) including in its scope social relations
between neighbors, kin, and friends. This sense of a felt continuity between people
and natural forces has a powerful role in forging identity linked to attachment to
place (Milton 2002, 105–109) and the knowledge of nature that is essential to living
an active life there.
In the Finnish language, this conjunction of personal identity, cognition, and the
ability to act within and upon nature can be articulated by the word kokonaisuus.
Kokonaisuus is a portmanteau term that when applied to the environment refers to
the integration of nature’s separate elements, including people. Two of the infor-
mants featured here deployed the term, as in the example ‘‘the kokonaisuus of the
area ensures you feel happy there.’’ The word is used to denote the ‘‘spirit’’ of the
archipelago and hence contains a complex of references. Kokonaisuus can also be
defined as the labor men and women carry out to secure a livelihood, together with
the necessary skills and knowledge relating to natural resources and landscape.
In discourses around nature the conceptual category expressed by kokonaisuus is
connected to the notion of era
¨maa. The latter is frequently, but imprecisely, trans-
lated by the English word ‘‘wilderness.’’ Era
¨maa actually refers to territory where
people go to hunt and to fish. Era
¨is a common word for activities such as hunting,
fishing, or gathering mushrooms and berries. As such, it is linked to the fiercely
defended ‘‘everyman’s’’ right to camp, to light fires, to gather wild foods, and to fish
with a rod and line in all places except from land immediately surrounding people’s
houses. Era
¨maa is the place where such activities are conducted and where those
rights in which Finnish people express great pride are claimed and exercised. Hietala
characterizes ‘‘everyman’s’’ right as an important self-ascribed marker that appears
in various discourses relating to Finnish identity (2005, 194–5)
At Lake Pihlajavesi, concepts of kokonaisuus and era
¨maa evoke a highly
animated interaction with the environment, versions of which come across clearly
in the interviews. ‘‘Here there is always something to do ...it is natural to move
around.’’ ‘‘When you have moved around here since you were a little kid, it would
be difficult to settle down anywhere else.’’ But these terms also carry references
concerning access to natural resources and collective identities that make them the
subject of cultural politics (Bell et al. 2007) and potential areas for contestation,
as in the case of the Lake Pihlajavesi fishery.
Person, Place, and Knowledge in Seal Conservation 287
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Fishing is an occupation most obviously associated with era
¨maa, but also with
kokonaisuus. Fishing is a lifelong activity for all of the men represented here. One
man is a commercial fisherman and four are retired from the commercial fishery.
They have fished since childhood, employing skills learnt from fathers and grand-
fathers. Only one interviewee, a farmer turned tourist entrepreneur, says his fishing
activity is nowadays more sporadic. When it is not being done for commercial pur-
poses, fishing is undertaken for combinations of reasons.
Most people eat a lot of the fish they catch, and modern freezers are a con-
venient way to store it. But consumption is not the only motive that drives local
men to fish. Fishing is considered to be enjoyable in its own right. Significantly, it
also facilitates social solidarity among permanent inhabitants by enabling people to
grow closer to one another through being together as ‘‘fishing friends’’ (Finnish—-
kalakaverit). Fishing friends are people who regularly fish together. They may or
may not be kin and there are no age restrictions on who can be fishing friends.
One interviewee says he goes fishing with his children ‘‘to keep up tradition.’’
Another, Tero, told us:
‘‘My father and Urpo’s father used to catch white fish with gill nets
during autumn and summer. And now we are doing it. So we are carrying
on the tradition in the second generation. It is more like a tradition and a
way to be together. These are the things we emphasise. The prey is not
important any more.’’
For permanent inhabitants, fishing and knowledge of the waters that it entails
provide a means for shaping identity and memorializing the chronology of past,
present, and future generations within the local landscape. In this way local inhabi-
tants distinguish themselves from summer cottage owners, most of whom lack family
ties to the area and are more inclined to talk of the joys of ‘‘being alone in nature.’’
They are generally stereotyped by permanent residents as aloof in their celebration of
isolation.
The institution of fishing friends is one way local people can act together to
maintain ‘‘the spirit’’ (kokonaisuus) of the archipelago, which is threatened by un-
employment, depopulation, and fishing restrictions. These cultural formations,
kalakaverit,kokonaisuus, and era
¨maa, as deployed in the discourse of local fisher-
men, illustrate distinctive sociocultural patterns where nature relations, identity,
and social change intertwine. They are separate but integrated strands, through
which local people create distinctive environmental values. Although these values
appeal to timeless traditions, they are shaped by recent events, including altered
economic circumstances, the increase in summer cottage owners, and the unwelcome
penetration of EU environmental regulation.
Conclusion
It is clear that our informants are not opposed to seal conservation in principle, even
though they are opposed to the current conservation program. The decline in
commercial gill net fishing among male inhabitants has facilitated a shift in local
perceptions of the animal. The dominant cultural representation of the seal has
changed from pesky predator, against which the fishery must be protected, to a
valued creature that must be protected from the depredations of the fishery.
288 S. Bell et al.
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Current notions about the seal among our 11 key informants are framed by
ideas about the struggles for survival that both human and seal populations face.
Like the permanent inhabitants, the Saimaa ringed seal is bound to this particular
habitat. It is named after the region where it lives, and it has nowhere else to go.
The logic of the argument is for our informants to ask why there is no ‘‘conservation
program,’’ in the form of economic regeneration, aimed at protecting the fragile,
permanent human population of the archipelago. The kokonaisuus of place would
surely change beyond recognition, they argue, without permanent inhabitants as well
as without the seals.
Summer cottage owners are also important as a vital ingredient in the struggling
local economy. They spend locally and sustain jobs through their demands for ser-
vices and income from rented cottages. Yet the building of new cottages is currently
restricted through the Natura 2000 program, thus limiting the potential for economic
opportunities. However, summer cottage owners have a reputation for wanting to
catch large fish as trophies, and defying the regulations against strong mesh sizes
in the process. Permanent inhabitants believe they have sufficient affinity with the
seal and knowledge of its habits so as not to place it in danger.
On the face of it, local inhabitants do abide by the rules. They contribute to the con-
servation program through their activities within the Fishing Associations and by
reporting the existence of lairs. But lairs do go unreported for fear of extra restrictions.
A serious problem looms regarding the running of the Statutory Fishing Associations,
vital to the management of the fishery and the monitoring of regulations that protect the
seal. Some are already inactive because of a lack of participants.
For the Fishing Associations to thrive, they require new members and the sum-
mer cottage owners need to be drawn in. Some cottage owners, such as those who are
retired, are beginning to equip their homes for year-round occupation or spending
extended periods at their cottages. There is a need for local inhabitants to share
their extensive knowledge and experience of managing the fishery with at least
this element of the summer cottage owners. However, before these things can occur,
obstacles must be overcome, particularly those presented by the defensive and
defiant form of localism asserted by permanent inhabitants in response to their
shrinking communities, and by environmental regulations perceived as stemming
from remote bureaucratic systems. Versions of this reaction have been found within
vulnerable rural communities in other wetland locations within Europe, as exempli-
fied by our recent research program
4
in southern Romania (Danube Delta), Lithuania
(Nemanus Delta), and northern Greece (Lake Kerkini) (Bell et al. 2004; Hampshire
et al. 2004; Bell et al. 2007).
All of these examples point to the importance of site-specific understandings
based on a unique assemblage of relations between humans, nonhumans, and other
features of the landscape that contribute to the ecology of place in any given setting
(Conradson 2005). However, in contrast to the conventional view, we have shown
that ‘‘local knowledge’’ should not be portrayed as being in opposition to ‘‘scientific
knowledge’’ and, by implication, to the objective of nature conservation. Indeed, it is
clear from the fishermen’s narratives that they share the view of the conservation
programs that seals are an important local asset and that the continued existence
of a viable seal population is of great importance.
We concur with the view that place-based knowledge is neither static nor
bounded (Norton 1999; Dixon and Durrheim 2000). In the case of Lake Pihlajavesi,
local people’s knowledge of the seal can be described as multifaceted and hybrid.
Person, Place, and Knowledge in Seal Conservation 289
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As is common in an ‘‘information society’’ such as Finland, ‘‘local’’ knowledge
becomes ‘‘a mix of scientific and practical knowledge, being site specific and often
involving a belief component’’ (Olsson and Folke 2001, 87). At Lake Pihlajavesi, per-
manent residents draw upon elements of scientific knowledge concerning the fishery
and assimilate it with existing local ecological knowledge. Such scientifically derived
knowledge may be partial, but is frequently applied in remarks about water quality
and fluctuations in stocks of certain fish species such as vendace and bream. Inter-
views are replete with discussions on these topics. We were told about ‘‘environmen-
tal toxins’’ entering the ‘‘food chain,’’ agreements with scientific theories about
variations in the lake’s vendace population, and challenges in the form of alternative
scientific theories on the same topic, as well as neo-Darwinian theories about the sur-
vival of species. Our informants are not averse to scientific understanding or trying
to apply what they know of it through formal education and mass media, adapting,
as Norton suggests, to new information generated within and without place-based
knowledge (Tonder 2005, 175).
However, local people’s efforts in this direction appear to stand in contrast to
conservation biologists and environmental decision makers, whom local people per-
ceive as failing to reciprocate the exchange. Instead, ‘‘the seal men’’ are deemed to
deny validity to local ecological knowledge. This denial has serious consequences
because local ecological knowledge is crucially connected to a place-based sense of
self that is shared among native inhabitants (Tilley 1994, 26). The social, cultural,
and economic insecurity of the numerically reduced population of permanent
inhabitants thus find expression in a defiant localism. While, at the moment, the
local fishermen are adhering largely, albeit reluctantly, to the seal conservation
regulations, there is a danger of increasing conflict if local place-based knowledge
continues to be undervalued by policymakers.
Notes
1. These economic trends are in line with national demographic patterns in Finland whereby
urban expansion is taking place at the expense of rural decline.
2. All informants’ names have been altered.
3. Hyle-mies in the local Savo dialect.
4. EU Fifth Framework-funded research program, Integrated Management of European
Wetlands.
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