power, science, and nature in the great bear rainforest: an actor-network analysis of an integrated

361 Pages·2012·24.33 MB·English

by  Justin Page

POWER, SCIENCE, AND NATURE IN THE GREAT BEAR RAINFOREST:
AN ACTOR-NETWORK ANALYSIS OF AN INTEGRATED NATURAL RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT PROJECT

by

JUSTIN LAWRENCE ROY PAGE

MES, York University, 2000
B.A., University of British Columbia, 1995

A THESIS SUBMITTED
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

(Sociology)

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

(Vancouver)

September 2010

© Justin Lawrence Roy Page, 2010
Abstract

This dissertation explores the potential contribution of actor-network theory to the
investigation of power and hierarchy, science and politics, and the relationship between
nature and society in integrated natural resource management (INRM) projects. INRM
consists of natural resource management approaches that seek to devolve power and
authority from governments and experts to stakeholders, take account of people as part of
ecosystems, and directly link conservation and development. While INRM projects
represent an important evolution in resource management, they come with particular sets
of problems. Specifically, (1) the devolution of decision-making authority to
communities provokes issues of power and hierarchy as groups vie to ensure that their
interests are adequately taken into account, (2) critiques of expert-led processes shift
responsibility for knowledge production to stakeholder groups, thus raising questions
about the relationship between science and politics, and (3) attempts to link ecology and
economy require a difficult re-conceptualization of the link between nature and society.
Actor-network theory (ANT) avoids presuppositions about power, science, nature, and
society in order to study how they are produced as effects of networks, thus offering
unique conceptual tools to study INRM as a complex, contingent, and innovative
network-building process. A qualitative case study of the “Great Bear Rainforest”
agreement on British Columbia’s west coast is undertaken to explore these issues in
INRM. Analysis of interviews with 34 individuals from environmental organizations,
forestry companies, First Nations, consultancies and local and provincial governments, as
well as analysis of textual material, reveals how environmentalists (1) generated power
by building a network of activists, bears, forest products customers and forestry
companies, (2) simultaneously deployed science and politics in their network-building
activities and (3) moved away from attempts to purify networks into “nature” and
“society,” working instead to directly link ecosystem integrity and human well-being in a
new, common “collective” of humans and nonhumans. The research provides significant
detail and analysis of a particular case of INRM that will be of use to INRM practitioners,
advocates and activists. Additionally, the research demonstrates the applicability of ANT
to the investigation of power, science, and nature in INRM projects.
ii
Table of Contents

Abstract...............................................................................................................................ii

Table of Contents...............................................................................................................iii

List of Figures.....................................................................................................................v

Acronyms...........................................................................................................................vi

Acknowledgements...........................................................................................................vii

Dedication........................................................................................................................viii

1 Introduction.....................................................................................................................1

1.1 Research Objectives.................................................................................................6

1.2 Overview of the Study...........................................................................................15

2 Integrated Natural Resource Management and Actor-Network Theory.......................20

2.1 Introduction............................................................................................................20

2.2 From “Fortress Conservation” to “Integrated Natural Resource Management”...21

2.3 Integrated Natural Resource Management in BC..................................................27

2.4 Key Controversies in Integrated Resource Management: Defining Research
Objectives.....................................................................................................................29

2.5 Researching Integrated Natural Resource Management........................................35

2.6 INRM as Network-Building: The Promise of Actor-Network Theory..................42

2.6.1 ANT, INRM and Power..................................................................................48

2.6.2 ANT, INRM and the Relationship Between Science and Politics..................57

2.6.3 ANT, INRM and the Relationship Between Humans and Nonhumans..........63

2.7 Summary................................................................................................................71

2.8 Outline of the Analysis..........................................................................................73

3 A Method and not a Theory..........................................................................................77

3.1 Methodological Strategies.....................................................................................77

3.2 Analytic Procedures...............................................................................................87

3.3 Validity..................................................................................................................91

4 Problematizing the Coast: Shifting the Terrain of BC’s Wilderness Conservation
Movement.........................................................................................................................94

4.1 Finding British Columbia’s “Forgotten Coast”.....................................................94

4.2 Constructing the Object of Environmental Politics.............................................100

4.2 Translation 1: The Coastal Temperate Rainforest...............................................103

4.3 Translation 2: Unprotected Watersheds...............................................................111

4.4 Translation 3: Stories and Images........................................................................121

4.5 Assembling a Panorama of the Coastal Forests...................................................130

5 Generating Power: Spokespeople, Interessment and the Market Campaign..............142

5.1 The Canadian Rainforest Network.......................................................................146

5.2 Conservation Biology and Spokespersons for the Rainforest..............................153

5.3 Mobilizing Spokespersons for the Rainforest......................................................165

5.4 The Impossible Locus of Local Blockades..........................................................172

5.5 The Market Campaign.........................................................................................181

5.6 The Spectre of Consumer Boycott: Transforming Companies Into Activists....189

5.7 Conclusion...........................................................................................................202

iii
6 Enrolling Engos, Forestry Companies and First Nations in a Common Matter of
Concern...........................................................................................................................209

6.1 Negotiating With the Enemy...............................................................................212

6.2 Developing a Common Matter of Concern..........................................................223

6.3 Enrolling Others in the Matter of Concern..........................................................230

6.4 Conclusion...........................................................................................................245

7 Mobilizing Allies and Reconciling Interests...............................................................247

7.1 Reconciling Conservation, Development and Justice..........................................252

7.2 CIII: Rendering Economy Commensurable With Ecology.................................267

7. 3 Turning the Matter of Concern Into a Matter of Fact.........................................280

7.4 Conclusion...........................................................................................................293

8 Conclusion..................................................................................................................298

Bibliography...................................................................................................................312

Academic Works Cited...............................................................................................312

Research Materials......................................................................................................328

Appendix: Research Materials........................................................................................334

A.1 Letter of Introduction..........................................................................................334

A.2 Example Follow Up Letter..................................................................................336

A.3 Consent Form......................................................................................................337

A.4 Interview Guide...................................................................................................340

A.5 Example of Tailored Interview Guide – Turning Points (TP)............................349

A.6 UBC Research Ethics Board Certificate of Approval.........................................352

iv
List of Figures

Figure 1: Coast Land Use Zones........................................................................................3

Figure 2: Original Global Distribution of Coastal Temperate Rain Forests..................107

Figure 3: Coastal Watersheds, South Coast...................................................................116

Figure 4: Coastal Watersheds, Mid and North Coasts...................................................117

Figure 5: McAllister's "Great Bear"...............................................................................124

Figure 6: Canada's Rainforest – Worth Saving..............................................................132

Figure 7: Blockade at Roderick Island, May 1997.........................................................174

Figure 8: Chain of Custody............................................................................................184

Figure 9: New York Times Ad, Dec 1998, CRC...........................................................194

Figure 10: The Markets Campaign: Sample Letter to Business.....................................198

Figure 11: The Markets Campaign: Sample Letter From Business...............................199

Figure 12: EBM "Levels"...............................................................................................264

Figure 13: Risk at Different EBM Levels......................................................................266

Figure 14: Conservation Financing Equation.................................................................276

v
Acronyms

Acronym Full Name

AAC Annual Allowable Cut
ANT Actor-Network Theory
BC British Columbia
CAD Conservation Area Design
CBNRM Community-Based Natural Resource Management
CCLRMP Central Coast Land Resource Management Plan
CFCI Coast Forest Conservation Initiative
CIII Conservation Investments and Incentives Initiative
CIT Coast Information Team
CLUA Coast Land Use Agreement
CRC Clayoquot (later Coast) Rainforest Coalition
CRN Canadian Rainforest Network
EBM Ecosystem-Based Management
EBMH Ecosystem-Based Management Handbook
EBM WG Ecosystem-Based Management Working Group
EI Ecological Integrity
ENGO Environmental Non-Governmental Organization
FAN Forest Action Network
G2G Government-to-Government
GBR Great Bear Rainforest
HWB Human Well-Being
ICDP Integrated Conservation and Development Projects
INRM Integrated Natural Resource Management
Interfor International Forest Products
IWA Industrial Wood and Allied Workers of Canada
JSP Joint Solutions Project
Kit-Git-Pit Kitasoo-Gitga’at Protocol Implementation Team
LOI Letter of Intent
LRF Land and Resource Forum
LRMP Land and Resource Management Plan
LUP Land Use Plan
MOF Ministry of Forests
OPP Obligatory Point of Passage
PIMC Plan Implementation Committee
RAN Rainforest Action Network
RONV Range of Natural Variation
RSP Rainforest Solutions Project
WCWC Western Canada Wilderness Committee
WFP Western Forest Products

vi
Acknowledgements

I first began to develop a proposal for this research project in the spring of 2006. From
that time forward, I received valuable feedback and suggestions from my dissertation
supervisor, Dr. Ralph Matthews, and committee members Dr. Thomas Kemple and Dr.
Teresa Satterfield. I benefited from presenting early drafts and ideas at conferences,
including the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Sociological Association in 2008 and the
Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in 2009. In the Fall of 2009, I
had the opportunity to discuss Bruno Latour’s ideas in Dr. Stephen Petrina’s seminar on
the influential anthropologist and sociologist. Discussions with seminar participants
helped me sharpen my understanding of Latour’s work. Maryam Nabavi provided
amazing encouragement, sympathetic audience, and constructive feedback, for which I
am most grateful. The best guidance that I received in developing this dissertation was
from the actors themselves. I would like to acknowledge and thank all thirty-four
individuals who agreed to give their time, materials, knowledge, thoughts and passion to
help me understand how the Great Bear Rainforest agreement was put together, as well as
others I talked to more informally. Others who contributed in some way to this work
include Rebecca Page and Dr. Renisa Mawani. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the
support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for their financial
support and thank all copyright holders for permission to reproduce their materials in my
dissertation.

vii
Dedication

For my parents, Robyn and Larry Page, whose love and support provided this
dissertation’s condition of possibility
and
for Maryam Nabavi, my ongoing inspiration

viii
1 Introduction

It is February 7th, 2006. You sit down in front of the television or spread out a
newspaper, maybe you’re listening to the radio in your car. You might be in Vancouver,
or Montreal, or New York. Maybe you’re in England, or Austria, perhaps Japan. You
learn that an agreement has been reached to protect the world’s “largest remaining
temperate coastal rainforest.” Maybe you haven’t heard of this place. You’re told that it
is called the “Great Bear Rainforest” by environmentalists and that it stretches along
British Columbia, Canada’s central and north coasts. The size of new protected areas is
translated into local terms: depending on where you are, they are almost the size of New
Jersey, twice the size of Yellowstone, or three times the size of Prince Edward Island.
The entire area is twice the size of Belgium, they say. The agreement involves an
“unprecedented collaboration between First Nations, industry, environmentalists, local
governments, and many other stakeholders” (Government of British Columbia, 2006). It
protects, reporters note, the habitat of species like grizzly bears, wolves, salmon and the
“elusive spirit bear.” It is “British Columbia’s gift to the planet,” says one
environmentalist (Smith, 2006). “Spirit bear,” you think, “that sounds pretty interesting.”

A wilderness of close to five million acres, almost the size of New Jersey, in what is
commonly called the Great Bear Rain Forest or the Amazon of the North will be kept off
limits to loggers in an agreement that the disparate parties describe as a crossroads in
their relations. – New York Times (Krauss, 2006a)
1
Ending a decade-long environmental battle once dubbed the "War of the Woods," British
Columbia is set to announce Tuesday the creation of a park twice the size of Yellowstone
along a vast coastal swath where grizzly bears and wolves now prowl under thousand-
year-old cedar trees. – Washington Post (Struck, 2006)

An improbable assemblage of officials from the provincial government, coastal Native
Canadian nations, logging companies and environmental groups will announce an
agreement to preserve the home of the Spirit bear, which is also the largest remaining
temperate coastal rain forest. – Herald Tribune (Krauss, 2006b)

Reading on, you learn that environmentalists, First Nations, logging companies,
and the Government of British Columbia (BC) have agreed to protect 1.8 million hectares
while putting in place strict, lighter touch forestry practices for 4.6 million hectares,
bringing the total area of the agreement to 6.4 million hectares. This is a little difficult to
visualize, so they provide a map (see Figure 1). Reporters note that the 100 protected
valleys represent about one-third of the area, while around two-thirds remains open to
logging. However, logging and other activities on this land will be guided by something
called ecosystem-based management (EBM).
2