Although Canada has been applauded for its co-management arrangements in recently established national parks, it continues to struggle with its legacy of colonial dispossession of Indigenous peoples, especially in its older and more iconic parks. First Nations were evicted from the earliest parks such as Banff and Jasper in a process of colonial territorialization that facilitated a ''wilderness'' model of park management and made space for capitalist enterprises like sport hunting and tourism. In Jasper National Park today, private tourism development proposals trigger a duty to consult with nations whose Aboriginal or Treaty rights may be impacted by development. In the last few decades, Jasper has made strides toward ''reconciliation'' including forming the Jasper Aboriginal Forum in an attempt to improve consultation with First Nations. I argue that Jasper's approach to reconciliation and consultation reproduces and further entrenches unequal colonial-capitalist power dynamics, relying on antipolitical strategies to produce the appearance of inclusion and to naturalize the park's ultimate decision-making authority in First Nations' traditional territories. Park management attempts to incorporate First Nations' input and certain ''cultural'' rights into existing state-led science-based management structures while leaving the legitimacy and justness of those structures unquestioned. As a result, Jasper's approach to consultation obscures the ongoing neocolonial political and economic violence of alienating First Nations from their land bases and consequently reinforces existing inequalities. Ultimately, I argue that this antipolitical approach facilitates tourism development projects that benefit government and industry and not Indigenous communities.
Key Messages• Cronon's critique of the wilderness ethic has been foundational to critical literature on conservation in Canada. • The rescaling of conservation to include Indigenous communities, NGOs, and private interests in some ways represents a departure from wilderness-thinking in conservation. • Despite advances made, a problematic wilderness ethic remains deeply embedded within conservation discourse and practice.This paper questions whether the rescaling of conservation practice in Canada to include local and Indigenous communities, NGOs, and private market-based actors represents a move away from wilderness-thinking in conservation, and what implications this might have for the future of conservation in Canada. We explore the links between Cronon's "wilderness" ethic and coloniality, racism/sexism/classism, and political economy, and the extent to which recent trends in conservation practice, such as co-management arrangements, private tourism proposals, and a shift in programming to attract a diverse public to parks, help us to move beyond the limited vision for conservation and environmentalism that the wilderness ethic provides. We interrogate the ways in which the concept of wilderness is being employed, resisted, and transformed by a multitude of actors in three parks and conservation areas across Canada. We argue that although recent developments in conservation practice help to redress some of the worrisome aspects of wilderness-thinking in parks, they also reinforce and re-emphasize problematic lines of thinking and praxis. While the wilderness character of Canadian parks has shifted a great deal since the turn of the 20 th century, the wilderness ethic remains deeply embedded within conservation discourse and practice.
This research explores the centrality of multiple environmentalities at multiple scales in the post-politicization of conservation governance in Jasper National Park, Canada. Austerity politics in Canada contributed to the post-politicization of conservation as the interests of Parks Canada and private developers were brought into alignment in terms of increasing visitation and the revenue imperative. The Parks Canada Agency, under structural pressure, employed several post-political strategies to suture the space for dissensus and debate and orchestrate the appearance of consent for the private development and management of park services. Central to these strategies were multiple (sovereign, disciplinary, and neoliberal) environmentalities constructed at multiple scales by multiple actors (the federal government, the local parks department, and private sector interests) aimed at producing environmental subjects who understand and acquiesce to the idea that ‘there is no alternative’ to a privatized conservation practice. In response, opponents attempted to mobilize an alternative environmentality, combining a social democratic critique of neoliberalism with a Romantic vision of wilderness conservation. Although opponents enrolled a sizeable number of allies, they fell short of stabilizing a liberation environmentality as several underlying points of ‘agreement’ contributed to the stabilization of post-political discourse and practice, foreclosing alternative political economies of conservation.
Extractive capitalism has long been the driving force of settler colonialism in Canada, and continues to threaten the sovereignty, lands and waters of Indigenous nations across the country. While ostensibly counterposed to extractivism, state-led conservation has similarly served to alienate Indigenous peoples from their territories, often for capitalist gain. Recognizing the inadequacy of the colonial-capitalist conservation paradigm to redress the biodiversity crisis, scholars in political ecology increasingly call for radical, convivial alternatives rooted in equity and justice. Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) are one such alternative, representing a paradigm shift from colonial to Indigenous-led conservation that reinvigorates Indigenous knowledge and governance systems. Since the Indigenous Circle of Experts finalized a report in 2018 on how IPCAs could contribute to Canada's conservation targets and reconciliation efforts, an increasing number of Indigenous stewardship initiatives across the country have been declared as IPCAs. These initiatives are assertions of Indigenous sovereignty, inherent rights, and responsibilities to their territories, as well as movements to rejuvenate biocultural conservation. Although Canada is supporting IPCAs through certain initiatives, the country's extractivist development model along with jurisdictional inconsistencies are undermining the establishment and long-term viability of many IPCAs. This paper explores two instances where Indigenous governments have established, or are establishing, IPCAs as novel strategies for land and water protection within long histories of resistance to colonial-capitalist exploitation. We argue that there is a paradoxical tension in Canadian conservation whereby Indigenous-led conservation is promoted in theory, while being undermined in practice. IPCAs offer glimpses of productive, alternative sustainabilities that move away from the colonial-capitalist paradigm, but are being challenged by governments and industries that still fail to respect Indigenous jurisdiction.
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