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2015| January-March | Volume 13 | Issue 1
Online since
July 20, 2015
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SPECIAL SECTION: PROTECTED AREAS AND SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT IN CANADA
Balancing the Relationship Between Protection and Sustainable Management in Canada's Boreal Forest
Matthew Carlson, Jeff Wells, and Mathew Jacobson
January-March 2015, 13(1):13-22
DOI
:10.4103/0972-4923.161209
Protection and sustainable forest management are related but unique, with protection focusing on minimising risk to ecosystems and sustainable management emphasising economic development. Given these distinct roles, a defining characteristic of the relationship between the two approaches is their relative abundance and distribution. The relationship is currently imbalanced, with only 12% of Canada allocated to protection, indicating that ecological values have historically been traded off in favour of resource production. The intactness of Canada's boreal forest provides an opportunity for a more holistic approach that conserves its globally significant environmental attributes while also supporting resource production. The Boreal Forest Conservation Framework proposes a balanced relationship that allocates land approximately equally between protection and sustainable management. It is a framework that has been endorsed by industry, Aboriginal, and conservation organisations, and is supported by conservation science. Recent commitments to comprehensive land-use planning at regional scales are consistent with the collaborative approach promoted by the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, and suggest that conservation objectives are likely to receive increased attention in Canada's boreal region relative to recent history. Ensuring that land-use planning is proactive and balanced will be essential to forging a cooperative relationship between sustainable management and protection in the region.
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Conservancies in Coastal British Columbia: A New Approach to Protected Areas in the Traditional Territories of First Nations
Jessica Stronghill, Murray B Rutherford, Wolfgang Haider
January-March 2015, 13(1):39-50
DOI
:10.4103/0972-4923.161219
In British Columbia (BC), Canada, the provincial government and First Nations have recently created an innovative new form of collaboratively managed protected area. Designated as 'Conservancies' under the BC Park Act or the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act, these protected areas are intended to provide a variety of sustainable uses, while maintaining biodiversity and recreational values and prohibiting large-scale commercial or industrial development. Conservancies evolved out of a desire to increase the protected area land base in the province, but also to accommodate traditional Aboriginal land uses and low-impact economic development. The Conservancy designation was created in 2006, and since then 156 Conservancies have been established in BC, covering a total of approximately 2,999,000 ha managed in collaboration with more than 30 First Nations. In this article, we describe the history and management framework of Conservancies, and compare the Conservancy model with international principles for governance of protected areas involving Indigenous people. Despite potential challenges involving integrated management, capacity, allocation of permits among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal users, and treaty negotiations, Conservancies appear to align well with international norms and offer a promising model for flexible protected areas.
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ARTICLES
Making and Unmaking the Endangered in India (1880-Present): Understanding Animal-Criminal Processes
Varun Sharma, Neera Agnimitra
January-March 2015, 13(1):105-118
DOI
:10.4103/0972-4923.161229
The concerns of the present paper emerge from the single basic question of whether the available histories of the tiger are comprehensive enough to enable an understanding of how this nodular species comprises/contests the power dynamics of the present. Starting with this basic premise, this paper retells a series of events which go to clarify that a nuanced understanding of the manner in which a species serves certain political purposes is not possible by tracking the animal alone. A discourse on endangerment has beginnings in the body and being of species that are remarkably cut off from the tiger-the elephant, birds, and the rhino (and man if we might add)-and develops with serious implications for power, resource appropriation, and criminality, over a period of time, before more directly recruiting the tiger itself. If we can refer to this as the intermittent making and unmaking of the endangered, it is by turning to the enunciations of Michel Foucault that we try to canvas a series of events that can be described as animal-criminal processes. The role of such processes in the construction of endangerment, the structuring of space, and shared ideas of man-animal relations is further discussed in this paper.
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A Theory of Flagship Species Action
Paul Jepson, Maan Barua
January-March 2015, 13(1):95-104
DOI
:10.4103/0972-4923.161228
The flagship species approach is an enduring strategy in conservation. Academic discussion on flagship species has focussed on two dimensions: on what basis should they be selected and how have they been put to use. Here we consider a third dimension, namely the manner in which flagship species act and have the capacity to galvanise and influence conservation outcomes. Drawing on concepts from the social sciences,
viz
. affordance, framing, and actor-networks; we discuss examples of flagship species to propose a theory of flagship species action. In brief, our theory posits that a flagship species is one with traits that afford the assembly of relatively coherent networks of associations with ideational elements located in pre-existing cultural framings. These associations give rise to opportunities to align with deep cultural frames, contemporary cultural phenomena and political economy such that when a conservation action is introduced, forms of agency cause the species and human publics to change. The species becomes re-framed (or reinvigorated) as a cultural asset speaking for a wider nature, publics and political agendas. Further our theory posits that species with traits that enrol in idea networks incorporating human fears, will have limited flagship capacity. This is because the ability of the representations produced to align with frames incorporating collective aspirations is constrained. In terms of applied conservation practice, our theory suggests that: a key criteria for selecting potential flagship species is presence in existing cultural frames, that effective deployment of flagship species requires an understanding of the species' cultural associations, and a species ability to galvanise action may be limited to certain times and places. Furthermore, once deployed conservation interests will never have full control over the flagship species: it may act in uncertain and unexpected ways.
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SPECIAL SECTION: PROTECTED AREAS AND SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT IN CANADA
Introduction: Relationships Between Protected Areas and Sustainable Forest Management: Where are We Heading?
Yolanda F Wiersma, Peter N Duinker, Wolfgang Haider, Glen T Hvenegaard, Fiona K. A. Schmiegelow
January-March 2015, 13(1):1-12
DOI
:10.4103/0972-4923.161206
The relationship between protected areas and forest management has been one that has often been fraught with conflict. New practices in the forest sector and new ecological insights have led more recently to better co-operation in some regions, although it is debatable to what extent cooperative approaches are desirable. In this introduction to the special section on the relationships between protected areas and sustainable forest management, we outline the history of the forestry and protected areas sectors in Canada, and the evolution of the relationships between them. We define key terms for the debate and offer a novel framework for understanding the relationship between the two sectors as management regimes that occur along parallel continua of sustainability. This framework is contrasted against real-world findings from across Canada, and with examples from elsewhere in the world.
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A Reflection on First Nations in their Boreal Homelands in Ontario: Between a Rock and a Caribou
MA Smith
January-March 2015, 13(1):23-38
DOI
:10.4103/0972-4923.161214
This article provides some thoughts on the impacts of the conservation vs development paradigm on First Nations, as it has played out in the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement and the Far North Act in northern Ontario, Canada. The author contends that the dichotomy between conservation and development does not fit the First Nations' worldview in which First Nations assume responsibility for land stewardship. The author points to the need for non-governmental organisations (especially environmental non-governmental organisations) and the private sector to respect, and learn from, First Nations by ensuring they play a key role in decision making about land and resource use in their territories-one based on free, prior, and informed consent.
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Promoting Sustainable Forest Management Among Stakeholders in the Prince Albert Model Forest, Canada
Glen T Hvenegaard, Susan Carr, Kim Clark, Pat Dunn, Todd Olexson
January-March 2015, 13(1):51-61
DOI
:10.4103/0972-4923.161222
Model Forests are partnerships for shared decision-making to support social, environmental, and economic sustainability in forest management. Relationships among sustainable forest management partners are often strained, but the Prince Albert Model Forest (PAMF) represents a process of effective stakeholder involvement, cooperative relationships, visionary planning, and regional landscape management. This article seeks to critically examine the history, drivers, accomplishments, and challenges associated with the PAMF. Four key phases are discussed, representing different funding levels, planning processes, research projects, and partners. Key drivers in the PAMF were funding, urgent issues, provincial responsibility, core of committed people, evolving governance, desire for a neutral organisation, role of protected areas, and potential for mutual benefits. The stakeholders involved in the Model Forest, including the forest industry and associated groups, protected areas, Aboriginal groups, local communities, governments, and research groups, were committed to the project, cooperated on many joint activities, provided significant staffing and financial resources, and gained many benefits to their own organisations. Challenges included declining funding, changing administrative structures, multiple partners, and rotating representatives. The PAMF process promoted consultative and integrated land resource management in the region, and demonstrated the positive results of cooperation between stakeholders interested in sustainable forest management.
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Harnessing Compass to Gyroscope in Protected Areas Planning in Nova Scotia, Canada: The Colin Stewart Forest Forum
Peter N Duinker, G Kermit deGooyer, Christopher A Miller
January-March 2015, 13(1):62-71
DOI
:10.4103/0972-4923.161224
To address the integration of science and politics for environmental conservation, Kai Lee wrote a powerful book in 1993 entitled
Compass and gyroscope
. The
compass
represents the science of adaptive management and the
gyroscope
represents the politics of principled or bounded negotiation. As the twenty-first century dawned, environmental groups and forest-products companies in Nova Scotia intuitively knew that they needed a process combining these two elements to develop joint recommendations to the government on new protected areas in the province while mitigating impacts on the provincial wood supply. They initiated the Colin Stewart Forest Forum for this purpose and engaged in intensive analyses and negotiations from 2004 to 2009. The Forum delivered a report to the Government of Nova Scotia in which some 269,000 ha of land were identified as high priority for conservation, including an initial first slate of proposed protected areas totalling 58,000 ha of land with high conservation value but low impacts on wood supply. To demonstrate the power of linking competent technical analysis with principled negotiations, we describe the Forum process and reflect on several themes important in biasing such a process for success. Our analysis confirms the utility of strong attention to both the compass and the gyroscope in environmental conservation.
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Indigenous-based Approaches to Territorial Conservation: A Case Study of the Algonquin Nation of Wolf Lake
Rosanne Van Schie, Wolfgang Haider
January-March 2015, 13(1):72-83
DOI
:10.4103/0972-4923.161225
Wolf Lake First Nation (WLFN), a community within the Algonquin Nation of Canada, has struggled with issues of self-determination and economic development that all First Nations across Canada have experienced. WLFN, with other First Nations in Canada, is advocating for the United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as a framework for advancing their rights, dignity, survival, security, and well-being. In keeping with this, WLFN is motivated to create economic opportunities for its community that also protect their values for forest ecosystems. The surrounding region has had a long history of industrial forestry; the community has recently explored alternative economic projects, including eco-tourism and ecosystem service benefits from improved forest management. This paper outlines the history of WLFN's relationship to the land. It highlights more recent interactions with Canadian federal and provincial governments to expand working definitions and parameters of sustainable forest management to include Indigenous approaches to territorial biodiversity conservation. The process involves competing actors and has encountered many challenges. The paper also explores the tension between grounded efforts in social, environmental, and economic change by a single First Nation, and the imperfect institutional conditions to meaningfully accommodate their work in conservation and improved forest management.
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A Framework for Integrating Transboundary Values, Landscape Connectivity, and 'Protected Areas' Values Within a Forest Management Area in Northern Alberta
Jim Witiw, Yolanda F Wiersma
January-March 2015, 13(1):84-94
DOI
:10.4103/0972-4923.161226
Daishowa-Marubeni International (DMI) is an integrated forest products company with operations in northern Alberta, Canada. As part of its sustainable forestry practices, it has embarked on a comprehensive plan to maintain biodiversity and landscape connectivity values within its area of operation. In addition to identification of High Conservation Value Forests (HCVF) as part of an internal forest planning system and to assist forest certification interests, DMI has developed a plan for a Continuous Reserve Network (CRN). This paper describes the rationale behind DMI's decision to identify a framework for both HCVF and the CRN. The company believes this CRN is a novel approach to ensuring visibility of connected landscape processes. DMI has introduced the concept to government, local sawmill stakeholders, and its public advisory committee, with a goal towards implementing the CRN within the area of its forest tenure as part of its forest management plan. The CRN represents nearly 44% of DMI's tenure area, and thus makes a significant contribution to landscape connectivity and forest biodiversity. The case study represents an example where values and goals of legislated protected areas are also captured by management prescriptions within non-harvestable areas and timber-producing forests associated with an ecosystem-based approach to sustainable forest management.
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