Voices from a Disappearing Forest: Government, Corporate and Cree Participatory Forestry Management Practices.

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.