Abstract
The Canadian boreal forest is primarily public land, owned and managed by provincial governments on behalf of the public interest. Boreal forest governance consists of a complex patchwork of federal and provincial legislation, policies, tenures, and delegated authorities designed to achieve multiple (and often conflicting) social, ecological, and economic objectives. We examine the implications of boreal governance arrangements for sustainable management of ecosystem services. The paper shows how current multi-level governance arrangements that evolved from Canada’s Constitution Act are not effective at managing the cross-scale and cross-sectoral challenges of ecosystem services and have created a crisis of legitimacy for forest decisions. We show how the rise of nonstate arrangements, marketization, and decentralization are partly a response to governance gaps for ecosystem services as well as a reflection of global trends in forest governance. Past trends related to governance themes (the role and scope of government, the level of integration and coordination, Indigenous empowerment, and geopolitical influences) are used to motivate future governance scenarios.
Highlights
Governance is an important driver of change in Canada’s boreal zone and has implications for the sustainability of provisioning ecosystem services (PrES) and nonprovisioning ecosystem services (NPrES).2 Drivers of change are major forces, or collections of forces that shape the social and ecological conditions of a system
As in the Northern Gateway decision, the pipeline approval was overturned by the Federal Court of Appeal based on inadequate Indigenous consultation, and because it erred in the scope of the environmental assessment by not considering the impacts of increased marine tanker traffic on marine species at risk causing Alberta’s Premier Rachel Notley to pull out of the Pan-Canadian Framework for Clean Growth and Climate Change
Effective governance and management of the boreal zone is important for continuing its vitality, in the face of climate change and associated uncertainty
Summary
Governance is an important driver of change in Canada’s boreal zone and has implications for the sustainability of provisioning ecosystem services (PrES) and nonprovisioning ecosystem services (NPrES). Drivers of change are major forces, or collections of forces that shape the social and ecological conditions of a system. Specific boreal governance issues explored in the literature include: general forest governance (Howlett 2001a; Hoberg 2008b), Indigenous governance (Morse et al 2005; Berkes and Davidson-Hunt 2006; Smith 2015), community-based governance (Teitelbaum et al 2006; Fortier et al 2012), social and economic dimensions (Bogdanski 2008), climate change (Rayner et al 2013), tenure (Haley and Nelson 2007), and conservation (Murray et al 2015; Nilsson 2015) Much of this literature is dated given changes in legislation since 2010. We show feedbacks between governance other drivers of change in the boreal zone such as technology and climate change and implications for cumulative risks to ecosystem services
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