Review of Parks, Peace and Partnership: Global Initiatives in Transboundary Conservation edited by Michael S. Quinn, Len Broberg, and Wayne Freimund

Stewart, Fenn

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

The GooseVolume 13 | No. 1 Article 106-20-2014Parks, Peace and Partnership: Global Initiatives inTransboundary Conservation Edited by Michael S.Quinn, Len Broberg, and Wayne FreimundFenn StewartPart of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North AmericaCommons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment CommonsFollow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegooseThis article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrantede la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactezscholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended Citation / Citation recommandéeStewart, Fenn. "Parks, Peace and Partnership: Global Initiatives in Transboundary Conservation Edited by Michael S. Quinn, LenBroberg, and Wayne Freimund." The Goose, vol. 13 , no. 1 , article 10, 2014,https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol13/iss1/10. Parks, Peace and Partnership: Global Initiatives in Transboundary Conservation Edited by MICHAEL S. QUINN, LEN BROBERG, and WAYNE FREIMUND U of Calgary P, 2012 $39.95  Reviewed by FENN STEWART    The essays collected in this book emerged from a conference held, in September of 2007, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the creation of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the first park of its kind, located in Alberta, Canada and Montana, USA. Today, the peace park movement is associated with a “shift away from the idea of strictly protected national parks towards greater emphasis on multiple resource use by local communities” (Peace Parks Foundation). The international focus of the peace parks movement reflects the fact that, as editor Michael S. Quinn notes in the introduction, quoting Charles Chester, “purely domestic approaches to biodiversity conservation,” while crucial, are ultimately insufficient to “protec[t] life on Earth.” Peace parks, Quinn explains, attempt to further the wellbeing of local human communities at the same time as they work towards conservation goals. Transboundary conservation areas seek to support human and non-human members of ecosystems, foster “peace and cooperation” between nations, and sustain “cultural resources,” “social and economic development,” and biological diversity.   The nineteen essays that make up Parks, Peace and Partnership are divided into four sections. The first of these, “Lessons from the Field,” takes up questions of cooperative management, tourism, conservation, and peace-building in diverse geographical contexts including central and southern America, Australia, and Europe. The second section is dedicated to southern African “experiences,” and the third to international peace parks and education. The final section of the book includes proposals for five new parks in sites associated with longstanding conflicts, such as the Korean Demilitarized Zone, and in border communities that have long experienced peaceful coexistence, like the Niagara region in Canada and the U.S.   The peace parks movement attempts to combine attention to local and international social and political contexts with work directed towards conservation goals; as a result, the essays in the volume may interest a wide range of scholars and practitioners. That said, the essays in the book tend to prioritize practical questions pertaining to park administration, policy, and law enforcement, including the relocation of border control infrastructure to allow freer movements of humans and animals, and effective methods for international policing and coast guard patrols, and cooperative research endeavours. Analyses of how to establish “cross-jurisdictional management arrangements,” as in Jacob and Anderson’s chapter on the Australian Alps, may prove very useful to those who work in conservation and park administration. In general, however, wider social and political problems are given less attention in this book. It is worth asking what these 1Stewart: Parks, Peace and PartnershipPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2014 discussions might have gained from a more in-depth, sustained engagement with the social justice issues raised by the creation and maintenance of park lands—in particular, the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, and the constructions of particular racial and national identities (see for example Mawani 2004; Sandilands 2011).  Certain passages in the book do orient to political issues such as the problematic nature of borders. Quinn’s introduction notes that the 1818 drawing of the border between the countries now known as Canada and the U.S. had a profound impact on the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy). He writes that the boundary “sliced through” and “sever[ed] the once seamless lands” that have long been the Niitsitapi’s “physical and spiritual home.” While Quinn observes that “artificia[l] jurisdictionary boundaries” interrupt “the long history of indigenous dwelling in the landscape,” for me this discussion raises (rather than answers) a range of further questions about the Niitsitapi’s historical involvement in, and/or support for, the creation and maintenance of the local Waterton-Glacier park. Similarly, Chester and Sifford’s “Under the Penumbra of Waterton-Glacier and Homeland Security,” which proposes a peace park be created in the Mexican-U.S. border area, raises a number of issues that, in my view, require further analysis. As the authors explain, this region is home to the Indigenous Tohono O’odham Nation, whose reserve of 1,122,815 hectares (the second-largest in the U.S.) is located along the border. Chester and Sifford note that the O’odham were, in 1988, included for the first time in a “transborder forum” on ecological issues; at the time, O’odham representatives “raised strong concerns” about the impact a potential “international biosphere reserve” designation would have on their rights. These concerns received “a cool reception among many—if not most—of the Symposium’s participants.” Chester and Sifford explain that a later meeting, which included the participation of “indigenous groups,” resulted in the creation of two biosphere regions.  Further information regarding the O’odham representatives’ concerns—whether and how they were taken into account, what compromises were reached, and the degree to which these have been considered satisfactory by the Nation—is not provided, which I found curious.  The same chapter lists “drug smuggling and illegal immigration” as impediments to the creation of the proposed Sonoran Desert Peace Park (while the Homeland Security Department’s penchant for “steel border fences and 100-foot-high towers with radar, high definition cameras, and virtual fences” is also noted as a problem, the important social and political differences between these “obstacles” to the creation of a peace park are not discussed). In their essay on border parks in Mexico, Sammet and Quinn also list “illegal immigra[tion]” as a form of “crime [that takes place] inside protected areas,” along with drug smuggling, and “illegal” hunting and harvesting practices. Terms like “illegal immigration” and “crime” must be critically unpacked; otherwise, their use can obscure the complex realities of racism, colonialism, and poverty that 2The Goose, Vol. 13, No. 1 [2014], Art. 10https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol13/iss1/10 lead people to undertake dangerous and often fatal journeys across spaces like the Sonoran Desert, as well as a diverse range of economic activities that may be criminalized. The U.S.-Mexican border is a particularly contested space (as a slogan popular with migrants’ rights advocates insists, “we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us”). Other contributors to the volume, including Schoon and Zunckel, note “illegal” migration and practices like the cultivation of marijuana as problematic for conservation areas in other contexts. While Zunckel does acknowledge that such activities “contribut[e] to the livelihoods of people,” I found myself looking for further discussion of the material conditions that lead to these “illegal” activities.   Ultimately, the ambitious mandate of the peace parks framework seems to require a sustained critical engagement with such social, and political realities, in addition to addressing questions of cross-border jurisdiction, policy, and park administration. As Quinn notes in his introduction, the very concept of peace parks is associated with “an interest and commitment to collaborate across jurisdictional boundaries or frontiers” in terms that are “meaningful in the context of the socio-political realities of [a given] region.” As it reaches beyond particular moments of international collaboration towards the resolution of broader social and political problems, scholarship on transboundary conservation can only be strengthened by a thorough engagement with the work of scholars and activists who focus on social justice issues around migration, land use, and land rights.   Works Cited  Mawani, Renisa. “From Colonialism to Multiculturalism? Totem Poles, Tourism and National Identity in Vancouver’s Stanley Park.” ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 35.1-2 (2004): 31-57. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. Peace Parks Foundation. Peace Parks Foundation: The Global Solution. 2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. Sandilands, Catriona. “Cap Rouge  Remembered? Whiteness, Scenery, and Memory in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.” Eds. Andrew Baldwin, Laura Cameron, and Audrey Kobayashi. Rethinking the Great White North: Race, Nature, and the Historical Geographies of Whiteness in Canada. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2011. 62-84. Print.  FENN STEWART is an interdisciplinary researcher and writer. She has reviewed scholarship on race, culture, and environmental racism for journals including Social Forces and Reviews in Cultural Theory. An excerpt from her own ongoing study of “wilderness,” de/colonization, and Canadian culture is forthcoming in ARIEL. She is the author of two chapbooks—An OK Organ Man (above/ground, 2012), which was shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, and Vegetable Inventory (Ferno House, 2013). Other poems have appeared in literary journals including Open Letter and The Capilano Review, and in The Arcadia Project, a North American anthology of “postmodern 3Stewart: Parks, Peace and PartnershipPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2014 pastoral” work. She holds a PhD in Social and Political Thought. 4The Goose, Vol. 13, No. 1 [2014], Art. 10https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol13/iss1/10

Parks, Peace and Partnership: Global Initiatives in Transboundary Conservation Edited by Michael S. Quinn, Len Broberg, and Wayne Freimund

Scholars Commons

The Goose
Volume 13 | No. 1 Article 10
6-20-2014
Parks, Peace and Partnership: Global Initiatives in
Transboundary Conservation Edited by Michael S.
Quinn, Len Broberg, and Wayne Freimund
Fenn Stewart
Part of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America
Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment Commons
Follow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose
This article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by an
authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrante
de la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactez
scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation / Citation recommandée
Stewart, Fenn. "Parks, Peace and Partnership: Global Initiatives in Transboundary Conservation Edited by Michael S. Quinn, Len
Broberg, and Wayne Freimund." The Goose, vol. 13 , no. 1 , article 10, 2014,
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol13/iss1/10.
 Parks, Peace and Partnership: Global 
Initiatives in Transboundary 
Conservation Edited by MICHAEL S. 
QUINN, LEN BROBERG, and WAYNE 
FREIMUND 
U of Calgary P, 2012 $39.95 
 
Reviewed by FENN STEWART  
 
 The essays collected in this book 
emerged from a conference held, in 
September of 2007, to celebrate the 
75th anniversary of the creation of 
Waterton-Glacier International Peace 
Park, the first park of its kind, located in 
Alberta, Canada and Montana, USA. 
Today, the peace park movement is 
associated with a “shift away from the 
idea of strictly protected national parks 
towards greater emphasis on multiple 
resource use by local communities” 
(Peace Parks Foundation). The 
international focus of the peace parks 
movement reflects the fact that, as 
editor Michael S. Quinn notes in the 
introduction, quoting Charles Chester, 
“purely domestic approaches to 
biodiversity conservation,” while crucial, 
are ultimately insufficient to “protec[t] 
life on Earth.” Peace parks, Quinn 
explains, attempt to further the 
wellbeing of local human communities 
at the same time as they work towards 
conservation goals. Transboundary 
conservation areas seek to support 
human and non-human members of 
ecosystems, foster “peace and 
cooperation” between nations, and 
sustain “cultural resources,” “social and 
economic development,” and biological 
diversity.  
 The nineteen essays that make 
up Parks, Peace and Partnership are 
divided into four sections. The first of 
these, “Lessons from the Field,” takes 
up questions of cooperative 
management, tourism, conservation, 
and peace-building in diverse 
geographical contexts including central 
and southern America, Australia, and 
Europe. The second section is dedicated 
to southern African “experiences,” and 
the third to international peace parks 
and education. The final section of the 
book includes proposals for five new 
parks in sites associated with 
longstanding conflicts, such as the 
Korean Demilitarized Zone, and in 
border communities that have long 
experienced peaceful coexistence, like 
the Niagara region in Canada and the 
U.S.  
 The peace parks movement 
attempts to combine attention to local 
and international social and political 
contexts with work directed towards 
conservation goals; as a result, the 
essays in the volume may interest a 
wide range of scholars and practitioners. 
That said, the essays in the book tend to 
prioritize practical questions pertaining 
to park administration, policy, and law 
enforcement, including the relocation of 
border control infrastructure to allow 
freer movements of humans and 
animals, and effective methods for 
international policing and coast guard 
patrols, and cooperative research 
endeavours. Analyses of how to 
establish “cross-jurisdictional 
management arrangements,” as in 
Jacob and Anderson’s chapter on the 
Australian Alps, may prove very useful 
to those who work in conservation and 
park administration. In general, 
however, wider social and political 
problems are given less attention in this 
book. It is worth asking what these 
1
Stewart: Parks, Peace and Partnership
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2014
 discussions might have gained from a 
more in-depth, sustained engagement 
with the social justice issues raised by 
the creation and maintenance of park 
lands—in particular, the dispossession 
of Indigenous peoples, and the 
constructions of particular racial and 
national identities (see for example 
Mawani 2004; Sandilands 2011). 
 Certain passages in the book do 
orient to political issues such as the 
problematic nature of borders. Quinn’s 
introduction notes that the 1818 
drawing of the border between the 
countries now known as Canada and the 
U.S. had a profound impact on the 
Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy). He 
writes that the boundary “sliced 
through” and “sever[ed] the once 
seamless lands” that have long been the 
Niitsitapi’s “physical and spiritual home.” 
While Quinn observes that “artificia[l] 
jurisdictionary boundaries” interrupt 
“the long history of indigenous dwelling 
in the landscape,” for me this discussion 
raises (rather than answers) a range of 
further questions about the Niitsitapi’s 
historical involvement in, and/or 
support for, the creation and 
maintenance of the local Waterton-
Glacier park. Similarly, Chester and 
Sifford’s “Under the Penumbra of 
Waterton-Glacier and Homeland 
Security,” which proposes a peace park 
be created in the Mexican-U.S. border 
area, raises a number of issues that, in 
my view, require further analysis. As the 
authors explain, this region is home to 
the Indigenous Tohono O’odham Nation, 
whose reserve of 1,122,815 hectares 
(the second-largest in the U.S.) is 
located along the border. Chester and 
Sifford note that the O’odham were, in 
1988, included for the first time in a 
“transborder forum” on ecological 
issues; at the time, O’odham 
representatives “raised strong concerns” 
about the impact a potential 
“international biosphere reserve” 
designation would have on their rights. 
These concerns received “a cool 
reception among many—if not most—of 
the Symposium’s participants.” Chester 
and Sifford explain that a later meeting, 
which included the participation of 
“indigenous groups,” resulted in the 
creation of two biosphere regions.  
Further information regarding the 
O’odham representatives’ concerns—
whether and how they were taken into 
account, what compromises were 
reached, and the degree to which these 
have been considered satisfactory by 
the Nation—is not provided, which I 
found curious. 
 The same chapter lists “drug 
smuggling and illegal immigration” as 
impediments to the creation of the 
proposed Sonoran Desert Peace Park 
(while the Homeland Security 
Department’s penchant for “steel 
border fences and 100-foot-high towers 
with radar, high definition cameras, and 
virtual fences” is also noted as a 
problem, the important social and 
political differences between these 
“obstacles” to the creation of a peace 
park are not discussed). In their essay 
on border parks in Mexico, Sammet and 
Quinn also list “illegal immigra[tion]” as 
a form of “crime [that takes place] 
inside protected areas,” along with drug 
smuggling, and “illegal” hunting and 
harvesting practices. Terms like “illegal 
immigration” and “crime” must be 
critically unpacked; otherwise, their use 
can obscure the complex realities of 
racism, colonialism, and poverty that 
2
The Goose, Vol. 13, No. 1 [2014], Art. 10
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol13/iss1/10
 lead people to undertake dangerous 
and often fatal journeys across spaces 
like the Sonoran Desert, as well as a 
diverse range of economic activities that 
may be criminalized. The U.S.-Mexican 
border is a particularly contested space 
(as a slogan popular with migrants’ 
rights advocates insists, “we didn’t cross 
the border, the border crossed us”). 
Other contributors to the volume, 
including Schoon and Zunckel, note 
“illegal” migration and practices like the 
cultivation of marijuana as problematic 
for conservation areas in other contexts. 
While Zunckel does acknowledge that 
such activities “contribut[e] to the 
livelihoods of people,” I found myself 
looking for further discussion of the 
material conditions that lead to these 
“illegal” activities.  
 Ultimately, the ambitious 
mandate of the peace parks framework 
seems to require a sustained critical 
engagement with such social, and 
political realities, in addition to 
addressing questions of cross-border 
jurisdiction, policy, and park 
administration. As Quinn notes in his 
introduction, the very concept of peace 
parks is associated with “an interest and 
commitment to collaborate across 
jurisdictional boundaries or frontiers” in 
terms that are “meaningful in the 
context of the socio-political realities of 
[a given] region.” As it reaches beyond 
particular moments of international 
collaboration towards the resolution of 
broader social and political problems, 
scholarship on transboundary 
conservation can only be strengthened 
by a thorough engagement with the 
work of scholars and activists who focus 
on social justice issues around migration, 
land use, and land rights.  
 
Works Cited 
 
Mawani, Renisa. “From Colonialism to 
Multiculturalism? Totem Poles, 
Tourism and National Identity in 
Vancouver’s Stanley Park.” 
ARIEL: A Review of International 
English Literature 35.1-2 (2004): 
31-57. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. 
Peace Parks Foundation. Peace Parks 
Foundation: The Global Solution. 
2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. 
Sandilands, Catriona. “Cap Rouge 
 Remembered? Whiteness, 
Scenery, and Memory in 
Cape Breton Highlands National 
Park.” Eds. Andrew Baldwin, 
Laura Cameron, and Audrey 
Kobayashi. Rethinking the Great 
White North: Race, Nature, and 
the Historical Geographies of 
Whiteness in Canada. Vancouver, 
BC: UBC Press, 2011. 62-84. Print. 
 
FENN STEWART is an interdisciplinary 
researcher and writer. She has reviewed 
scholarship on race, culture, and 
environmental racism for journals 
including Social Forces and Reviews in 
Cultural Theory. An excerpt from her 
own ongoing study of “wilderness,” 
de/colonization, and Canadian culture is 
forthcoming in ARIEL. She is the author 
of two chapbooks—An OK Organ Man 
(above/ground, 2012), which was 
shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook 
Award, and Vegetable Inventory (Ferno 
House, 2013). Other poems have 
appeared in literary journals including 
Open Letter and The Capilano Review, 
and in The Arcadia Project, a North 
American anthology of “postmodern 
3
Stewart: Parks, Peace and Partnership
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2014
 pastoral” work. She holds a PhD in 
Social and Political Thought. 
4
The Goose, Vol. 13, No. 1 [2014], Art. 10
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol13/iss1/10


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Parks, Peace and Partnership: Global Initiatives in Transboundary Conservation Edited by Michael S. Quinn, Len Broberg, and Wayne Freimund

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