Institutional thickening and innovation: reflections on the remapping of the Great Bear Rainforest

Abstract

As a response to forest conflict, contemporary remapping refers to re‐evaluations of resource values, new and diverse forms of governance among stakeholders, and compromises within patterns of land use that give greater emphasis to environmental and cultural priorities. This paper elaborates the processes of remapping by examining the role of institutional innovation in conflict resolution, with particular reference to the iconic Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia. After years of conflict and protest, peace in the Great Bear Rainforest was heralded by an interim agreement in 2006, with final ratification likely in 2016. Conceptually, a four‐legged stakeholder model identifies the main institutional interests and their interactions through learning and bargaining. New forms of governance were created to bring the stakeholders together in constructive dialogue and then to reach and implement acceptable bargains. Analytically, the paper examines how this agreement has worked in practice by reflecting on the emergence of novel institutions that integrate the interests of key stakeholders. The discussion identifies six bilateral negotiations between: industrial and environmental interests; federal and provincial governments and aboriginal peoples; government and environmental interests; government and industry; industry and aboriginal peoples; and environmental groups and local communities. The remapping process has produced a thickening architecture of institutions that remain experimental even as they seek to promote sustainability, resilience and legitimacy.

A disturbance innovation hypothesis: perspectives from human and physical geography

“…Acts of protest, for example, can alternatively encourage innovative collaborations or increase opposition from entrenched interests (Clapp et al . ). These examples help to illustrate the role that disturbance can play in promoting innovation, but also how the removal of disturbance from systems, or the persistence of intermediate levels of disturbance may undermine desirable outcomes.…”

Wrestling with the complexity of evaluation for organizations at the boundary of science, policy, and practice

“…; Clapp et al. ). There is a rich literature on boundary organizations inside and outside of conservation.…”

The Remapping of Forest Governance: From Shareholder to Stakeholder

“…Reference to paradigmatic change helps illuminate the role of crisis and conflict as catalysts, and the broader evolutionary forces shaping and challenging contemporary remapping. Drawing on North American experience, three broad forestry remappings can be identified in relation to paradigm changes since the nineteenth century (Clapp et al, 2016;Franklin, Berg, Thornburgh, & Tappeiner, 1997;Hayes & Glendenning, 2005). First, nineteenth century industrialization and the rise of largely unfettered market forces heralded an era of deforestation , driven by colonization, dispossession, and speculation, in which old-growth forests, once the common property of indigenous peoples, were remapped as state-or privately-owned resources to facilitate business investment.…”

“…Yet Roche and McCarthy are highly critical of neoliberal policies and, as implied by Tsing's (2005) friction metaphor in resource peripheries, these policies have been resisted. Indeed, limits to the implementation of neoliberalism have been recognized in large part because of opposition from newly empowered stakeholders and the development of an alternative stakeholder model of governance towards the remapping of forest peripheries (Clapp et al, 2016;Hayter & Barnes, 2012). In this approach, formerly marginalized actors, such as environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs), indigenous peoples, and other local community actors, become formal stakeholders who gain access to and influence in decision-making processes hitherto dominated by the vested interests of big business and governments.…”

“…Utilizers of the stakeholder model of remapping capture important trends in forest use in rich export-driven peripheries and are closely aligned to the development of what Ostrom (2010, p. 641) labels "polyvalent governance" within common property models derived from experiences in many poor countries (Moran & Ostrom, 2005). As an ideal type, stakeholders engaged in successful remapping can identify the need for new institutional arrangements and innovations, both to facilitate dialogue among parties in conflict, and to establish durable rules and organizations that enact cooperative forms of sustainable development (Affolderbach et al, 2012;Clapp et al, 2016). In this virtuous cycle, sustainable development generates localized external economies and incorporates public goods and ecosystem services as well as the material values of forests.…”