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The first CBRN Special Session
on Biosphere Reserves at the 2007 meeting of the
Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG) was held at
the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, SK on June
1. A BIG thank you to our presenters for sharing their
research results, prompting some engaging discussions,
and helping to increase the profile of biosphere
reserves.
Here are the abstracts and power point presentations.
Subsistence hunting in the Rio Platano Biosphere
Reserve, Honduras
Yannick Cabassu, Department of
Geography, Carleton University
Hunting is one of the principal threats to many
wildlife species within
protected areas in the tropics but is also an
important activity for
indigenous peoples who depend on game as a key
element of their diet. The Río Plátano Biosphere
Reserve (RPBR) is one such area, and one which
protects one of the largest remaining tracks of
tropical broadleaf forest in
Central America. This paper presents an assessment
of the effects of
subsistence hunting on the wildlife population of
the RPBR through a
comparison of the relative abundance of game
populations over a period of 10 weeks in 2006. A
total of 180 km of transects were surveyed within
the cultural zone of the biosphere reserve around
the Miskitu village of Las Marías, where subsistence
hunting occurs, and another 132 km were surveyed in
the nucleus zone where hunting does not occur. The
results indicate that subsistence hunting can affect
the species composition of an ecosystem. The most
desired hunted species (white-lipped peccary, tapir,
white-tailed deer) were significantly less abundant
in hunted areas, and signs of the largest species
were rarely encountered near the village. This
study suggests that current hunting rates are
unsustainable in the cultural zone.
Keywords: Subsistence hunting, Biosphere Reserve,
Río Plátano, Indigenous
people, Wildlife
Elder residents and their cultural
landscapes
Lee Everts, Department of
Geography, University of Saskatchewan
This study explores the meanings
elder residents (age 60 and above) living in or around
the rural communities of Hafford and Val Marie,
Saskatchewan derive from their cultural landscapes.
Similar to other rural communities, Hafford and Val
Marie are undergoing social and economic changes,
including those related to agriculture, outmigration and
particularly, the ongoing development of parks and
protected areas with which they are each associated.
Hafford is part of the Redberry Lake Biosphere Reserve
while Val Marie is a gateway community for Grasslands
National Park. Ethics provides a framework by which I
explore the meanings of elder residents. The ideas and
perspectives of these individuals demonstrate how they
have considered the rightness or wrongness of the
changes in their communities. For some, such
considerations have acted as a catalyst, affecting
decisions that impact these areas, such as the nature of
agricultural practice and the development of the
protected area and park. By identifying some of the
meanings elder residents derive from their cultural
landscapes, this work sheds light on the existing and
potential role of elder residents in helping to shape
cultural landscapes of which the Biosphere Reserve and
the National Park are now a part.
Keywords: Cultural landscape;
seniors; Redberry Lake Biosphere Reserve; Grasslands
National Park; ethics
Ryan Bullock, Department of
Geography, University of Waterloo
While biosphere reserves are
increasingly seen as models of sustainability, they have
been more active in conservation and research than in
promoting development in surrounding communities. The
development role has been limited by the initial primary
focus on conservation, the less-defined nature of their
“transition zones”, and perhaps the vagueness of the
sustainability concept itself. Efforts are now being
made to embrace this tertiary role and achieve “fully
functioning” biosphere reserves toward a realization of
the sustainability ideal. This issue is of growing
concern for the Long Point Biosphere Reserve (LPBR),
located within an agricultural region experiencing
significant transition. This paper has three main
parts. 1) A review of rural transition, community
economic development, and biosphere reserve literatures
provides an overview of relevant themes. 2) A variety
of secondary data sources (policy statements, planning
documents, technical reports, stakeholder workshop
transcripts, economic and demographic statistics) are
drawn upon to present key issues and perspectives
regarding LPBR management in the context of change. The
decline of tobacco, a graying population, municipal
disbandment, provincial reforms, and pressure for
development in sensitive ecological areas represent
issues that provide challenges and opportunities for
LPBR activities within the transition zone. 3) The final
section discusses implications for the LPBR and lessons
for practice.
Keywords: biosphere reserve; rural
transition; development and conservation; Long Point
Maureen G. Reed, Department of
Geography, University of Saskatchewan,
Today, academics and practitioners
alike promote community-based approaches to
environmental management that are sensitive to local
circumstances, skills, and concerns. However, relying
on local capacity may heighten unevenness in management
practices. The purpose of this paper is to explore the
roots and effects of uneven environmental management in
two different regional contexts. I undertake this
exploration by pursuing a two-staged argument. First, I
develop a conceptual framework that identifies key
elements of regional environmental management regimes
and then use it to compare experiences in two Canadian
biosphere reserves designated in 2000 – Clayoquot Sound,
BC and Redberry Lake, SK. Analysis reveals that
differences in property arrangements and civic sectors
affect the institutional capacity of each locality.
Second, I illustrate how processes associated with
property exchange, re-territorialization, valuation, and
planning work together to produce a relatively robust
and public regime at Clayoquot Sound and a more private
form of stewardship at Redberry Lake. I conclude that
because these processes unfold differently in each
biosphere reserve, uneven environmental management
practices may take root and regional social inequities
may be reinforced.
Key words: environmental
management, rural communities, political ecology,
environmental non-governmental organizations,
conservation, regional geographies, neoliberalism,
biosphere reserves
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