Conservation Biologists, Civic Science and the Preservation of BC Forests

Abstract

This essay assesses the role conservation biologists play inside and outside government in efforts to protect British Columbia’s ancient rain-forest ecosystems. An epistemic community of government-entrenched conservation biologists has largely been absent or ad hoc, playing a negligible role in conservation. The Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel is a partial exception, with the important advisory role it played to the BC government regarding sustainable forest management in the region. Instead, a mission-oriented, transnational “civic” scientific community has emerged around the Y2Y Conservation Initiative, Conservation Area Design plans for the BC’s coastal rain forests and efforts to promote a meaningful Species at Risk Act at the federal level. A transnational advocacy network of Canadian and American conservation biologists is using “civic science” in concert with environmental organizations to develop and implement a vision of ecosystem-based land-use planning and species protection, and this provides valuable lessons on the potential and limits of scientific power in civil society as well as government institutions.