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Title: | Voices from a Disappearing Forest: Government, Corporate and Cree Participatory Forestry Management Practices. |
Authors: | Feit, Harvey A. |
Department: | Anthropology |
Keywords: | Participatory Resource Management;Forestry Industry Canada;Public Protest Movements;Forestry and Moose;Indigenous Knowledge;Science Verus Public Knowledge;Community-based Forestry;Co-management;Co-optation and Pacification;James Bay Cree |
Publication Date: | 2001 |
Publisher: | University of British Columbia Press |
Citation: | Feit, Harvey A. and Robert Beaulieu. 2001. “Voices from a Disappearing Forest: Government, Corporate and Cree Participatory Forestry Management Practices.” In Aboriginal Autonomy and Development in Northern Quebec and Labrador. Colin H. Scott, ed. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Pp. 119-148. |
Abstract: | Participation has become a cornerstone of the new solutions to problems of the management of resources and the legitimation of their exploitation. But the opportunities to participate, and the means and conditions of participation, are being offered on the terms set by government authorities and the corporate sector. Nevertheless, compliance cannot be taken for granted, for these new arenas of participatory discourse and action are sites of new contestation that may also serve as a renewable resource for autonomous demands for change. This chapter explores the significance of participation in the new forestry management regimes that have emerged in Canada and, especially, in northern Quebec on the lands of the James Bay Cree covered by the James Bay and Northern Quèbec Agreement (1975). The chapter shows that when the government declares that there will be no decisions without consultations, it also initiates means of excluding groups from, or of diminishing the legitimacy of their participation in, the process. These perspectives are echoed in various forms by other groups at the core of the process, including some natural scientists. The chapter documents Cree knowledge of the impacts of forestry, especially on moose. We, an anthropologist and a forestry engineer with the Cree Regional Authority, demonstrate a quantitative and statistical relationship between the expansion of the areas of logging and the decline of moose harvests. We convey what Cree hunters told us of their visions of how some careful forestry could co-exist with healthy lands, animals and Cree hunting society. The final section notes how efforts to turn participation into pacification have not succeeded, but neither have the efforts to adequately regulate forestry activities. |
Description: | Robert Beaulieu, ingenieur forestier with the Cree Regional Authority, is the co-author of the section of this chapter entitled "A Quantitative Exploration," including "Social Data Methodology," "Forest Disturbance Data Methodology" (for which Beaulieu is the primary author), and "Findings." Other portions of the paper were written by and are the responsibility of Harvey Feit. The authors wish to acknowledge the support for this project given by people of the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi and by the Cree Regional Authority. Harvey Feit wants to thank the following commentators: Fatima Amarshi, Mario Blaser, Diane Cooper, Brian Craik, Abraham Dixon, Paul Dixon, Stewart Gilby, Peter Gull, Sam C. Gull, Suzanne Hilton, Glenn McRae, Monica Mulrennan, Derek Neeposh, Alan Penn, Evelyn Pinkerton, Geoff Quaile, Alan Saganash, Colin Scott, and Wendy Russell. We prepared this chapter in our capacity as researchers, and it does not purport to speak for anyone other than ourselves as authors of the sections for which we are individually or jointly responsible. We do not intend this chapter as a commentary on the issues presently before the courts in cases involving James Bay Cree versus the governments of Quebec, Canada, and over two dozen forestry companies. This chapter is included in the MacSphere Repository with the permission of UBC Press, March 6, 2019. |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/11375/24041 |
ISBN: | 0-7748-0844-6 |
Appears in Collections: | Anthropology Publications |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
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FEIT-BEAULIEU_Voices_from_a_Disappearing_Forest-Scott_ed_2001.pdf | 1.01 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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