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Co-production

This note describes research in which Indigenous people, fishers, anglers and community monitors take part in observing eels and other fish. It asks what images add to their knowledge, and what images cannot record. Gunditjmara eel aquaculture at Budj Bim forms the main case, followed by Māori tuna, Mi'kmaw Ka't and fishers' records in Europe and North America. The note develops principles 8, 13 and 14 of Photography.

Status: working draft of 10 November 2026.

Three Questions for Any Collaboration

Every observation made with knowledge holders raises three questions: who records, who keeps and controls the records, and who appears as an author. The answers differ widely. A review of Indigenous participation in environmental monitoring found that interviews were the main method in 45 per cent of the initiatives, and it examined how participation changed what was monitored and why.1 Research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia follows a national code of ethics built on Indigenous self-determination and leadership.2

Budj Bim: Gunditjmara Eel Aquaculture

The Gunditjmara built and maintained channels, weirs, traps and ponds on the lava flow from Budj Bim (Mount Eccles) to trap and hold short-finned eels. Research on the system shows how images, maps and remote sensing can work with Gunditjmara knowledge, and how Gunditjmara people direct that work.

  • Present practice beside older records. A history of the fishery, written by an archaeologist with a Gunditjmara co-author, set photographs of Gunditjmara fishers drying and setting nets in 2007 and 2008 beside drawings of weirs and eel baskets from 1841, archaeological plans and photographs of excavations. The partnership treated the present as the starting point for understanding the fishery's history.3
  • Gunditjmara planning in their own voice. A paper for the ICOMOS General Assembly described the management planning for Budj Bim and Lake Condah, partly in the Gunditjmara first person plural. It expected the return of water to Lake Condah to bring the traps back into use, with new decisions about who maintains and rebuilds them, and it encouraged Gunditjmara to document their own knowledge.4
  • A nineteenth-century map, checked on the ground. A study published the only known nineteenth-century map and commentary of a Gunditjmara eel-trap system and checked it in the field.5
  • Photographs with GIS. An archaeological survey of the lava flow combined field photographs of eel traps with GIS simulations of winter wetlands and a map of weirs and channels from a digital elevation model, describing an aquaculture system of about 100 square kilometres.6
  • Excavation and dating with the Traditional Owners. Excavations at the Muldoons Trap Complex, a channel first built at least 6,600 years ago, showed phases of rebuilding over the last 800 years; the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation is a co-author.7
  • Lidar. Elevation models from lidar, processed in several visualisations, picked out Gunditjmara channels, weirs and ponds across the lava flow; the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Corporation is among the authors.8
  • World Heritage. The case for listing Budj Bim used digital elevation mapping and three-dimensional models of the system at different water levels, and argued that Indigenous knowledge and management of natural resources deserve recognition as cultural values.9
  • Restoration. Artificial draining of Lake Condah left most of the traps inoperable; a paper with a Gunditjmara co-author describes the traditional eel fishery and the restoration of water and cultural practice.10
  • Comparison with other systems. A paper co-written by a Kamilaroi water scientist compared Budj Bim with Baiame's Ngunnhu, the Brewarrina fish traps, as Indigenous water engineering, illustrated with photographs from a tour with a local guide in 2024.11

Māori Tuna

  • At Rotoroa in Nelson Lakes National Park, families of Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō took part in the design, fieldwork and interpretation of a customary tuna harvest from 2022 to 2024, sharing knowledge in wānanga (workshops) and kōrero (discussions) beside the monitoring; the first author works for the iwi trust.12
  • About 3,500 versions of whakataukī (proverbs) served as records of ecological knowledge about marine and freshwater resources, and the study's abstract appears in te reo Māori as well as English.13
  • Iwi, hapū and community groups led monitoring of taonga (treasured) species and river health with eDNA along a 3.5 km reach, and oral history entered the fieldwork.14
  • A first-person essay traced tuna through Māori writing, art and pūrākau (ancestral narratives), including a video and sound installation about blocked migrations and an exhibition of hīnaki (eel traps).15

Mi'kmaw Ka't (American Eel)

  • A household survey and interviews at Paq'tnkek First Nation, with two co-authors from the Paq'tnkek Fish and Wildlife Society, recorded who fishes eels, how families share them and how eels enter ceremony and medicine, with a map of fishing sites.16
  • At Eskasoni First Nation, recorded and coded interviews documented knowledge of eels passed on by oral tradition and observation, for use in fisheries policy.17
  • A conceptual study linked Mi'kmaw relations with eels to community science and the governance of water.18

Other Indigenous Monitoring with Images

  • Inuvialuit participants took about 150 georeferenced photographs of environmental change, explained them in interviews and placed them in a web map.19
  • Two Indigenous ranger groups in Arnhem Land and ecologists used "two-way" methods, including photographs in species profiles, to report their monitoring to funders and communities.20
  • The Heiltsuk Nation revived a cedar fish weir to count salmon, and the study includes a video of the weir in use.21
  • Group and one-to-one interviews recorded Indigenous knowledge of freshwater fishes for environmental flow assessments in northern Australia, with a Wagiman Traditional Owner and the Wardaman Association among the authors.22
  • Observational filmmaking with Yolngu communities in Arnhem Land showed one animal as many through ceremony and everyday encounters.23
  • A Gumbaynggirr and non-Gumbaynggirr research collective set out what ethical research means on unceded land when places and nonhuman beings also act.24

Fishers, Anglers and Community Monitors

Fishers and anglers watch the same waters for decades, and their logbooks, reports and answers extend observation in time and space.

  • On the River Minho, fishers' daily records of glass-eel catches from 1990 to 2022, some handed over after the fishers retired, were modelled with experimental catches to describe trends in recruitment.25
  • In Nova Scotia, fishermen and fisheries officers reported autumn and spring runs of eels; one officer, a lifelong eel fisherman, mapped nine weir sites.26
  • In the Santo André lagoon in Portugal, five fishermen's logbooks and questionnaires of 35 and 40 fishermen, with town-hall meetings from 2011, informed the management of the eel fishery.27
  • A telephone survey of 56 commercial eel fishermen on the St Lawrence recorded lesions and die-offs, checked against a survey at a processing plant.28
  • Interviews with St Lawrence eel fishers fed a travelling photography exhibition on the fishery, shown in two museums in 2012 and 2013.29
  • Interviews with fishers, restaurant owners and officials recorded the history and decline of eel fishing in the Neretva estuary in Croatia.30
  • Surveys in KwaZulu-Natal and on Sumbawa recorded how local communities catch, use and know eels.31, 32
  • German anglers recorded eel catches with three hook types as citizen scientists, beside a catch-and-release experiment.33 Interviews with anglers on the Ottawa River recorded their encounters with American eels and what they know of them.34
  • Trained volunteers count juvenile eels entering tributaries of the Hudson River,35 and citizen scientists monitor eel passes in the Thames basin.36

What Images Do in These Collaborations

  • They document present practice beside older records, which ties a living fishery to its history.3
  • Participants' own photographs, explained in their words, bring their knowledge into maps and reports.19, 37
  • Lidar and elevation models reveal structures that Gunditjmara knowledge explains.8
  • Exhibitions return images and stories to the communities they came from.29
  • Proverbs, stories and art record knowledge that photographs cannot.13, 15

Practice for the Lab

  • Ask the Traditional Owners whose Country the work concerns, before fieldwork, how eels, places, practices and people may be recorded, and follow their decisions.
  • Agree before recording who keeps the images, who may use them and where they may appear, and write the agreement into the images' metadata (Templates).
  • Credit knowledge holders by name where they wish, and offer co-authorship where they contribute to findings.
  • Return images and results in forms that the community can use.
  • Leave out of this published vault any image that the knowledge holders have not cleared for publication.

Open Questions

  • Which Traditional Owner groups hold authority over the eel project's sites, and how do they want eels and Country recorded?
  • How can fishers' and anglers' records, interviews and images join one archive without losing who made them and on what terms?
  • Can the lab's image records follow Indigenous data governance while staying open to other researchers?

References

Footnotes

  1. Thompson, Kim-Ly, Trevor C. Lantz, and Natalie C. Ban. “A Review of Indigenous Knowledge and Participation in Environmental Monitoring.” Ecology and Society 25, no. 2 (2020): 10. https://doi.org/10.5751/es-11503-250210.˄

  2. AIATSIS. AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2020.˄

  3. McNiven, Ian J., and Damein Bell. “Fishers and Farmers: Historicising the Gunditjmara Freshwater Fishery, Western Victoria.” La Trobe Journal, no. 85 (2010): 83–105.˄

  4. Bell, Damein, and Chris Johnston. “Budj Bim: Caring for the Spirit and the People.” 16th ICOMOS General Assembly and International Symposium: ‘Finding the Spirit of Place – between the Tangible and the Intangible’ (Paris), 2008.˄

  5. Richards, Thomas. “A Late Nineteenth-Century Map of an Australian Aboriginal Fishery at Lake Condah.” Australian Aboriginal Studies, no. 2 (2011): 64–87. https://doi.org/10.3316/informit.822883204634111.˄

  6. Builth, Heather. “Mt Eccles Lava Flow and the Gunditjmara Connection: A Landform for All Seasons.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 116, no. 1 (2004): 163–82.˄

  7. McNiven, Ian J., Joe Crouch, Thomas Richards, Kale Sniderman, Nic Dolby, and Gunditj Mirring. “Phased Redevelopment of an Ancient Gunditjmara Fish Trap over the Past 800 Years: Muldoons Trap Complex, Lake Condah, Southwestern Victoria.” Australian Archaeology 81, no. 1 (2015): 44–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2015.11682064.˄

  8. Armstrong, Brian J., Zexian Huang, Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Corporation, Bill Bell, Micko Bell, Tyson Lovett-Murray, Evelyn Nicholson, Adam Black, and Martin Tomko. “LiDAR-Derived High-Resolution Geomorphological Analysis for Archaeology: Case Study of the Gunditjmara Aquaculture Engineering Systems at Budj Bim, Australia.” Australian Archaeology 92, no. 1 (2026): 57–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2026.2655731.˄

  9. Smith, Anita, Ian J. McNiven, Denis Rose, Steve Brown, Chris Johnston, and Simon Crocker. “Indigenous Knowledge and Resource Management as World Heritage Values: Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, Australia.” Archaeologies 15, no. 2 (2019): 285–313. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-019-09368-5.˄

  10. Rose, Denis, Damein Bell, and David A. Crook. “Restoring Habitat and Cultural Practice in Australia’s Oldest and Largest Traditional Aquaculture System.” Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 26, no. 3 (2016): 589–600. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-016-9426-1.˄

  11. Daniell, Katherine A., and Bradley Moggridge. “Indigenous Water Engineering and Aquaculture Systems in Australia: The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape and Baiame’s Ngunnhu (the Brewarrina Aboriginal Fish Traps).” Blue Papers 3, no. 1 (2024): 18–29. https://doi.org/10.58981/bluepapers.2024.1.01.˄

  12. Skilton, Jennifer E., Simon D. Stewart, Tim Harwood, and Catriona Sinclair. “Understanding Population Sustainability and Safe Consumption Limits to Inform Cultural Harvest of Tuna within Nelson Lakes National Park.” New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 60, no. 1 (2026): e70029. https://doi.org/10.1002/nzm2.70029.˄

  13. Whaanga, Hēmi, Priscilla Wehi, Murray Cox, Tom Roa, and Ian Kusabs. “Māori Oral Traditions Record and Convey Indigenous Knowledge of Marine and Freshwater Resources.” New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 52, no. 4 (2018): 487–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/00288330.2018.1488749.˄

  14. Gault, Amy A., Susan A. Welsh, Arapera Paewai, Penelope Drysdale, Shaun P. Wilkinson, Hone Morris, Erana Mōtū, Hineatatu Dorset, Rose Collis, and Adrian Cookson. “Promoting Community-Led Monitoring of Taonga (Treasured) Species and Freshwater Health through eDNA Metabarcoding.” Environmental DNA 7, no. 3 (2025): e70098. https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70098.˄

  15. Dunn, Kirsty. “‘By Eel’s Verve’: Toward Tuna.” The Minnesota Review, no. 103 (2024): 76–88. https://doi.org/10.1215/00265667-11369510.˄

  16. Davis, Anthony, John Wagner, Kerry Prosper, and Mary Jane Paulette. “The Paq’tnkek Mi’kmaq and Ka’t (American Eel): A Case Study of Cultural Relations, Meanings, and Prospects.” Canadian Journal of Native Studies 24, no. 2 (2004): 357–88.˄

  17. Giles, Amber, Lucia Fanning, Shelley Denny, and Tyson Paul. “Improving the American Eel Fishery through the Incorporation of Indigenous Knowledge into Policy Level Decision Making in Canada.” Human Ecology 44, no. 2 (2016): 167–83. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-016-9814-0.˄

  18. Gansworth, Miskwadaynz Kristi Leora, and Christopher H. Bowser. “An Anguillid Lens: How Eels Reconnect People and Waterways.” Frontiers in Human Dynamics 5 (2024): 1270644. https://doi.org/10.3389/fhumd.2023.1270644.˄

  19. Bennett, Trevor Dixon, and Trevor C. Lantz. “Participatory Photomapping: A Method for Documenting, Contextualizing, and Sharing Indigenous Observations of Environmental Conditions.” Polar Geography 37, no. 1 (2014): 28–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/1088937x.2013.873089.˄

  20. Ens, Emilie J., Gillian M. Towler, Cherry Daniels, the Yugul Mangi Rangers, and the Manwurrk Rangers. “Looking Back to Move Forward: Collaborative Ecological Monitoring in Remote Arnhem Land.” Ecological Management & Restoration 13, no. 1 (2012): 26–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-8903.2011.00627.x.˄

  21. Atlas, William I., William G. Housty, Audrey Béliveau, Bryant DeRoy, Grant Callegari, Mike Reid, and Jonathan W. Moore. “Ancient Fish Weir Technology for Modern Stewardship: Lessons from Community-Based Salmon Monitoring.” Ecosystem Health and Sustainability 3, no. 6 (2017): 1341284. https://doi.org/10.1080/20964129.2017.1341284.˄

  22. Jackson, Sue E., Michael M. Douglas, Mark J. Kennard, Brad J. Pusey, Jabal Huddleston, Bill Harney, Lenny Liddy, et al. “‘We like to Listen to Stories about Fish’: Integrating Indigenous Ecological and Scientific Knowledge to Inform Environmental Flow Assessments.” Ecology and Society 19, no. 1 (2014): 43. https://doi.org/10.5751/es-05874-190143.˄

  23. Fijn, Natasha. “The Multiple Being: Multispecies Ethnographic Filmmaking in Arnhem Land, Australia.” Visual Anthropology 32, no. 5 (2019): 383–403. https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2019.1671747.˄

  24. Yandaarra with Gumbaynggirr Country, Aunty Shaa Smith, Uncle Bud Marshall, Neeyan Smith, Sarah Wright, Lara Daley, and Paul Hodge. “Ethics and Consent in More-than-Human Research: Some Considerations from/with/as Gumbaynggirr Country, Australia.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 47, no. 3 (2022): 709–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12520.˄

  25. Stratoudakis, Yorgos, Isabel Domingos, and Carlos Antunes. “Glass Eels at the Continental Edge of Europe: Revisiting Catchment Recruitment at the International River Minho/Miño.” Hydrobiologia 851, no. 11 (2024): 2591–607. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05459-1.˄

  26. Medcof, J. Carl. “Fishermen’s Reports of Freshwater and Saltwater Migrations of Nova Scotia Eels (Anguilla rostrata).” Canadian Field-Naturalist 83, no. 2 (1969): 132–38. https://doi.org/10.5962/p.364092.˄

  27. Correia, Maria João, Isabel Domingos, Joana Santos, Vera Lopes, Giulio De Leo, and José Lino Costa. “Challenges to Reconcile Conservation and Exploitation of the Threatened Anguilla anguilla (Linnaeus, 1758) in Santo André Lagoon (Portugal).” Ocean & Coastal Management 181 (2019): 104892. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2019.104892.˄

  28. Dutil, Lucie, Denise Bélanger, and Catherine M. Couillard. “A Telephone Survey of Eel Fishermen Regarding External Lesions and Mortalities of American Eels (Anguilla rostrata) from Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River Basin, Canada.” Preventive Veterinary Medicine 31, nos. 1–2 (1997): 33–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0167-5877(96)01133-6.˄

  29. Doyon, Sabrina. “Losing Ground: The Marginalization of the St. Lawrence Eel Fisheries in Québec, Canada.” Marine Policy 61 (2015): 331–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2014.11.011.˄

  30. Glamuzina, Branko. “Historical Trends and Current Status of the European Eel, Anguilla anguilla (Linnaeus, 1758) Fishery in the Neretva Estuary (Eastern Adriatic, Croatia).” Naše More 71, no. 3 (2024): 139–48. https://doi.org/10.17818/NM/2024/3.7.˄

  31. Nkomo, Mxolisi, Matthew Burnett, Celine Hanzen, and Colleen Downs. “The Importance of Eels (Anguilla Spp.) for Inland Small-Scale Fisheries in Local Communities of the uMngeni and uThukela Catchments, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.” Ecology and Society 31, no. 2 (2026): 22. https://doi.org/10.5751/es-17211-310222.˄

  32. Kautsari, Neri, Husain Latuconsina, and Ilham Zulfahmi. “Preliminary Study of Eels (Anguilla) in Sumbawa Island According to the Knowledge of Local Communities: Distributions, Pattern of Fishing, and Utilizations.” Jurnal Ilmiah Perikanan Dan Kelautan 15, no. 1 (2023): 212–23. https://doi.org/10.20473/jipk.v15i1.34905.˄

  33. Weltersbach, Marc Simon, Harry Vincent Strehlow, Keno Ferter, Thomas Klefoth, Martin De Graaf, and Malte Dorow. “Estimating and Mitigating Post-Release Mortality of European Eel by Combining Citizen Science with a Catch-and-Release Angling Experiment.” Fisheries Research 201 (2018): 98–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2018.01.010.˄

  34. Litt, M. Aline, Nathan Young, Nicolas W. R. Lapointe, and Steven J. Cooke. “Angler Interactions with American Eel (Anguilla rostrata): Exploring Perspectives and Behaviors toward an Imperiled Fish.” Fisheries Research 234 (2021): 105781. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2020.105781.˄

  35. Bowser, Christopher H., Sarah J. Mount, Kenji Doering, Jessica E. Best, Amanda Simmonds, and Brian G. Rahm. “The Hudson River Eel Project: A Community Science Framework for Management and Education.” Fisheries 50, no. 6 (2025): 242–54. https://doi.org/10.1093/fshmag/vuae029.˄

  36. Pecorelli, Joe P., Kirsty H. Macphie, Charlotte Hebditch, Darry R. J. Clifton-Dey, Ian Thornhill, and Alison J. Debney. “Using Citizen Science to Improve the Conservation of the European Eel (Anguilla anguilla) in the Thames River Basin District.” Freshwater Science 38, no. 2 (2019): 281–91. https://doi.org/10.1086/703398.˄

  37. Maclean, Kirsten, and Emma Woodward. “Photovoice Evaluated: An Appropriate Visual Methodology for Aboriginal Water Resource Research.” Geographical Research 51, no. 1 (2013): 94–105. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-5871.2012.00782.x.˄

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