![]() Our survey and excavations of clam gardens in four locations in British Columbia provides insights into the ecological and social context, morphology, construction, and the first reported ages of these features. We focus on “clam gardens”, walled intertidal terraces constructed to increase bivalve habitat and productivity. In this paper, we bring together Indigenous ecological knowledge, coastal geomorphological observations, and archaeological data to document how Northwest Coast First Nations cultivated clams to maintain and increase productivity. While there is increasing recognition among archaeologists of the extent to which non-agricultural societies have managed their terrestrial ecosystems, the traditional management of marine ecosystems has been largely ignored. Today, efforts are underway in many cases to recognize and restore these critically important Indigenous production systems and associated practices as a means of ethnoecological restoration, habitat enhancement, and food system revitalization. These different production systems do not function alone but are components of an entire system of land and resource management extending across the marine and terrestrial landscapes, “from ocean bottom to mountaintop.” These traditional management systems have been seriously disrupted since the arrival of European newcomers and the resulting impacts on key habitats from settlement, and land encroachment, to industrial scale exploitation. Here we provide an overview of marine and coastal resource management systems that have been documented to date, and then cite three case examples in more detail: clam gardens, salmon production, and estuarine root gardens. These are based on long-term observation and experience, and are embedded in belief systems, ceremonies, dances, art, and in narratives. Over thousands of years of residence along the coast, these peoples have developed diverse approaches and protocols that have not only sustained, but enhanced, resource species both in quantity and in quality. Increasingly, it is recognized by ethnoecologists, anthropologists and conservation biologists that Indigenous Peoples of the Northwest Coast and neighbouring regions have been astute stewards and managers-not just harvesters and consumers-of the resources and ecosystems on which they have relied. This article presents the only account of these activities, their motivations, and their outcomes, based on the first-hand knowledge of a traditional practitioner, Kwakwaka'wakw Clan Chief Kwaxistalla Adam Dick, trained in these techniques by elders raised in the nineteenth century when clam Bgardening^ was still widely practiced. In some cases, harvesters also removed stones or even created stone revetments that served to laterally expand sediments suitable for clam production into previously unusable portions of the tidal zone. Among those practices that have escaped the attention of anthropologists until recently is the traditional management of intertidal clam beds, which Northwest Coast peoples have enhanced through techniques such as selective harvests, the removal of shells and other debris, and the mechanical aeration of the soil matrix. The indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast of North America actively managed natural resources in diverse ways to enhance their productivity and proximity.
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