Community forest organizations and adaptation to climate change in British Columbia

The effects of climate change in many regions are expected to be significant, and likely to have a detrimental effect on the health of forests and the communities that often depend on those forests. At the same time climate change presents a challenge as it requires changes in both forest management, and the institutions and policies developed that govern forest management. In this paper, we report on a study assessing how Community Forests Organizations (CFOs) in British Columbia (BC), which were developed to manage forests according to the needs and desires of local communities and First Nations, are approaching climate change and whether or not they are responding to, or preparing for, its impacts. There are practical steps that CFOs can take to improve their ability to cope with future conditions such as planting a wider variety of species, practising different silvicultural techniques and increasing monitoring and observation of the forest. This paper gives an overview of what current capabilities exist in CFOs and suggests potential areas for targeted development. </jats:p

Understanding the lived experience of connection to nature

There are multiple theoretical understandings of connection to nature. Often, scholars define a connection to nature as being the outcome of a process of awakening “biophilia.” They may also define it as the maturation or development of an “ecological self,” where one sees nature as part of oneself, or as an awareness of oneself as a member of a wider biotic community. Using evidence from longitudinal in-depth interviewing and participant observation, this article examines these differing conceptualizations of connection to nature in lived experience. We find that feeling connected to nature is about feeling an affinity for, and that one belongs within, a wider web of nonhuman relationships. This sense of feeling connected to nature is unstable; it may be felt and then recede according to the circumstances in which people live and their competing priorities. The difficulty of sustaining consistent close relationships with nature in everyday life presents some challenges to the hope that enabling people to feel connected to nature will induce reliable pro-environmental behavior. Relationships with nature fluctuate, and it is necessary to examine how a connection to nature can be nurtured at every stage of life

How participation in ecological restoration can foster a connection to nature

There have been strong claims made for ecological restoration’s potential as a practice which is conductive to rethinking relationships with nature. The involvement of lay people in ‘hands-on restoration’ is thought to hold potential for enabling re-examinations of human connection to nature. Restoration scholars suggest causal mechanisms present in restoration practice which may explain why it is so conductive to enabling connection to nature. This research used participatory observation and in-depth interviewing to examine these largely untested ideas and gives insight into the casual mechanisms they present. Focussing on one case of ecological restoration in the Highlands of Scotland, the study found that exertion and achievement gained through restoration work created positive affect which people associated with their experience of nature, that laboring in nature created belonging and ownership, and that physical immersion enabled intimacy with nature. It found that learning about the legacies of human agency on landscape reduced reification and that the wider narrative of restoration gave people both a sense of being part of the unfolding history of the landscape and part of a redemptive future. It also found that focussed attention created vivid memories and elevated the significance of the experience of being in nature and ritual created remarkable, memorable events. This study adds to previous work, finding that the emotional labor of leaders, the use of educational techniques, and the kinds of tasks in which participants engage are important in creating particular ideas of the relationship between humans and nature

Ecological restoration and connection to nature

There is concern that social and technological changes mean people are increasingly disconnected from nature. Initiatives that involve participants carrying out practical work in nature are hypothesised to remedy this disconnection. In particular ‘hands-on’ participation in ecological restoration is claimed as a way of enabling participants to develop a sense of connection with nature. This thesis examines the claim, investigating hands-on restoration as a practice and the kinds of relationships with nature that it produces among those who participate. Ethnographic methods were used to examine a case study of hands-on ecological restoration in the Scottish Highlands that specifically aims to enable groups to a feel a ‘connection to nature’. The research extends our existing knowledge in a number of key respects. A connection to nature among restoration participants is most commonly articulated as a sense of belonging to a wider community of nature, wherein ‘nature’ is understood as an all-encompassing abstract entity. This connection to ‘nature’ is enabled by entities that are representative of ‘nature’. These entities can be abiotic, degraded and humanised forms of nature, which suggests that a sense of connection to nature is not necessarily associated with living non-human nature. The physical ‘doing’ of restoration facilitates an embodied intimacy and positive affective experience of nature. The narrative of ‘restoration’ enables participants to feel their actions are making meaningful reparation to nature. This is felt most clearly when attached to symbolic tasks such as tree-planting, but less clearly to other more ambiguous tasks. In addition, the encouragement of curiosity and use of mindfulness, meditation and ritual helps participants observe nature and elevates the significance of the experience. A key paradox, however, is that feelings of connection to nature facilitated by such exceptional immersive experiences are unlikely to endure beyond that experience, into everyday life

Are human values and community participation key to climate adaptation? The case of community forest organisations in British Columbia

This study develops a multidisciplinary framework composed of a range of determinants of adaptive capacity to climate change found in economic, sociological, political, geographical and psychological literature. The framework is then used to carry out a survey of community managed forest organisations to measure their adaptive capacity and establish the characteristics that enable their adaptation. The research finds that adaptive organisations spend a substantial amount of time on community consultation and involvement, and prioritize environmental considerations over other aspects of their organisation. The effort invested in creating and maintaining links with the wider community by adaptive organisations may give them a legitimacy which enables adaptive changes to be made with community support. Reflecting calls for values based approaches to climate change, the article discusses the role that different values play in adaptation, and the ‘transcendent’ values that adaptive organisations tend to hold. The article concludes by suggesting that a deeper understanding of community adaptation to climate change could be derived from an exploration of the role of human values in adaptation across the disciplines

Community forestry in British Columbia: policy progression and public participation

It is 17 years since the British Columbia Ministry of Forests instituted the Jobs and Timber Accord of 1997, which established British Columbia's (BC) Community Forest Pilot Program and formally introduced Community Forest Agreements into the provincial forest policy framework. For this special issue we present the results of a census of all active members of the BC Community Forest Association, evaluating the program using the method demonstrated by Maryudi et al. (2012) where evaluation is guided by the original aims of the policy; in this case the Community Forestry Initiative of BC. We sought the Community Forest Organisations' views on the strengths and limitations of the initiative, whether they were equipped to achieve the aims expected of the policy, and the degree to which the policy aims were their priorities. We found that community forests in BC assess themselves as having been broadly successful in terms of policy aims of public participation and environmental stewardship of forests, but that the policy has not enabled economic diversification. Corroborating other studies we report that community forests found that encouraging participation requires sustained effort, that diversifying from conventional forestry is desired but not usually achievable and that motivations for involvement in community forests are diverse

Shaping more resilient and just food systems: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted weaknesses in global food systems, as well as opening windows of opportunity for innovation and transformation. While the nature and extent of this crisis is rare, extreme climatic events will increase in magnitude and frequency, threatening similar societal impacts. It is therefore critical to identify mechanisms for developing food systems that are resilient to such impacts. We examine impacts of the crisis on UK food systems and how these further entrenched social inequalities. We present data on the experiences and actions of producers, consumers, and community organisers. The data were collected by adapting ongoing research to include surveys, interviews and online workshops focused on the pandemic. Actors’ responses to the pandemic foreshadow how enduring change to food systems can be achieved. We identify support required to enable these transformations and argue that it is vital that these opportunities are em-bedded in food justice principles which promote people-centred approaches to avoid exacerbating injustices prevalent pre-crisis. Learning from these experiences therefore provides insights for how to make food systems elsewhere more resilient and just