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Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) are an important pathway and governance system for area-based conservation led by Indigenous Peoples. While IPCAs have been established across rural and northern regions of Canada, they have received little attention in urbanized landscapes, even though all of Canada's urban areas coincide with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis territory (and thereby underlying Indigenous jurisdiction) and the majority of Indigenous Peoples in the country live in urban centers. Canada's federal government is in the process of establishing six new urban national parks and has committed to working with local Indigenous governments and organizations in parks planning. This study examined the potential for strengthening Indigenous participation in urban parks planning, governance, and management, including the establishment of new urban Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (UIPCAs). The results of spatial analyses of urban Indigenous territory, a review of relevant domestic and international policy and interviews with local Indigenous conservation leaders illuminate the potential for new forms of urban conservation governance that are grounded in Indigenous rights and responsibilities and reflective of Indigenous knowledge systems and biocultural priorities. However, it remains to be seen how urban Indigenous-led conservation, such as UIPCAs, can fit and operate within proposed government urban conservation initiatives, such as Canada's Urban National Parks Program, which do not currently foreground Indigenous-led conservation in the governance of urban green space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crown governments, the conservation sector, academics, and some Indigenous governments, communities, and organizations are framing Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs)--a newly recognized form of Indigenous-led conservation in Canada--as advancing reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. Yet it is often unclear what is being, or could be, reconciled through IPCAs. While highly diverse, IPCAs are advanced by Indigenous Nations, governments, and communities who protect them, with or without partners, according to their Indigenous knowledge, legal, and governance systems. IPCAs may be expressions of "generative refusal," visions of Indigenous futures, and commitments to uphold responsibilities to the lands, waters, and past and future generations. IPCAs refuse settler colonial ontologies including the expectation of ongoing white settler privilege, which relies on the continued appropriation of lands and resources. By examining the practical, relational, and systemic challenges Indigenous Nations advancing IPCAs encounter, we discuss opportunities for Crown governments and the conservation sector to cultivate decolonial responses. Indigenous Nations advancing IPCAs may face challenges with resource extraction, laws and legislation, financing, relationships and capacity, and jurisdiction and governance. We contend that IPCAs could be pathways of reconciliation if Crown governments and the conservation sector support IPCAs in ways consistent with the recommendations of Indigenous leaders. This requires dismantling the roadblocks arising fromsettler ontologies and institutions that impede IPCA establishment and ongoing stewardship. Thus, not only could Indigenous futures be advanced, we might also cultivate decolonial futures in which all peoples and species can thrive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several Archstone Foundation funded projects developed and implemented training curricula on elder abuse for mandated reporters such as dentists, adult protective services workers, paramedics, and coroner investigators. Common education and training issues emerged, including the need to provide basic content on normal aging and the need for creating standardized trainings. Strategies include integrating elder abuse and neglect content into existing courses, building relationships with stakeholders, and customizing content and delivery to student needs and preferences. Projects developed relevant, practice-based content, decided on curriculum delivery methods, engaged learners, and provided feedback to them. A main outcome is the permanent institution of elder abuse content in training curricula. KEYWORDS adult learning, curriculum, education, elder abuse, mandated reporters, training DOI 10.1080/08946566.2010.490188

Conservation scientists increasingly recognise the value of Indigenous knowledge in conservation practice. However, studies of Indigenous knowledge and resource management systems have often tended to overlook the role and agency of more-than-human beings and ceremonial protocols in mediating human–environment relationships. This paper presents results from community-based research with Karen communities in the Salween Peace Park, an innovative Indigenous-led conservation initiative in the autonomous Karen territory of Kawthoolei, on the border between Thailand and Burma, or Myanmar. Our findings detail ways in which relations with more-than-human beings, including spirits, constitute environmental governance in Karen communities. These findings compel externally situated conservation biologists to take relational ontologies seriously, allowing local interlocutors' lived experience, knowledge, and theory to challenge culturally bound concepts such as resources, management, and conservation. In order to transform conservation biology through Indigenous perspectives, it is essential to pay attention to the relational world in which many Indigenous Peoples live. Doing so helps support a conservation practice attentive to the interdependence of all life in ways that uphold Indigenous Peoples' rights of self-determination, cultural identity, and social relations with their ancestral lands. We argue that attending to these relations is essential to building community-based conservation collaborations with Indigenous Peoples that are more effective, sustainable, and just. Conservation biologists increasingly recognise the value of Indigenous knowledge and resource management practices for conservation. Drawing on research with Karen communities, we argue that, in order for Indigenous perspectives to truly transform conservation biology, it is essential to pay attention to the relations between humans and more-than-human beings that shape Indigenous stewardship practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THAILAND AT THE MARGINS: Internationalization of the State and the Transformation of Labour. By JIM GLASSMAN. xvii and 241 pp.; maps, ills., bibliog., index. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. $95.00 [...]

Keywords: wilderness; conservation; decolonization; Indigenous peoples; Parks Canada; milieu sauvage; décolonisation; Autochtones; Parcs Canada EN wilderness conservation decolonization Indigenous peoples Parks Canada FR milieu sauvage décolonisation Autochtones Parcs Canada 232 249 18 06/04/20 20200601 NES 200601 Introduction: Canada's "wilderness" ethic For better or worse, wilderness has long been emblematic of the Canadian national imaginary (Campbell [13]; Erickson [20]). Canada's assumed legitimacy and authority is based on the racist assumption that Indigenous peoples were too primitive to hold sovereign authority over their lands upon contact with European colonizers (Coulthard [17]). And so when Chief Justice Thomas Berger, the lawyer representing conservation groups and First Nations against the Yukon Government in the Supreme Court hearings, stated that the Peel Watershed "is a wilderness that is sacred to the First Nations" (Berger [4]), the comment is taken in stride, revealing the complex, contentious, and enduring place of the wilderness ethic in the Peel, in Yukon, and in Canadian conservation. Conclusion Although wilderness-thinking continues to structure conservation in Canada in certain problematic ways, the emerging Indigenous-led conservation movement gives us hope for a post-wilderness conservation practice. By critically analyzing the state of wilderness-thinking in present-day conservation in Canada, we are able to better outline the floor for a post-wilderness conservation practice, and hopefully inspire conservationists and critical scholars alike to continue pushing the height of the ceiling. [Extracted from the article]

How student journals were used in a college-level sex/gender sociology course to facilitate student learning through writing is described. Students are required to formulate journal entries based on an issue or question that they raise for themselves. Learning occurs as students make connections in developing answers to their own questions. (Author/RM)

Rooted networks provide a conceptual framework that embeds network thinking in nature-society geography in order to investigate socio-ecological relations, while emphasizing the place-specific materiality of these relations. This progress report examines how geographers have put the framework into scholarly practice. The conceptual approach has enabled researchers to: 1) articulate the territoriality and materiality of networks as assemblages, which may be simultaneously rooted and mobile; 2) discern diverse types of power that flow through network connections; and 3) conduct analyses that unearth multiply-situated knowledges within networks. Challenges emerge as we seek to integrate the approach more fully with disciplinary traditions, including organizing complex relationships into bounded scholarly formats; choosing which aspects of the network are most salient to analyze; and illustrating networks for effective communication. We describe the ways in which rooted networks can be used as a tool for action, as a pedagogical guide, and to strengthen collective capacity to imagine and negotiate alternative futures based on 'seeing multiple.' Finally, we call for geographers and other scholars, researchers and activists to build upon a rooted networks framework as a tool for design, analysis, understanding and communication in the search for more socially just and ecologically viable futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by spectacular growth over the last decade, the international cruise industry is constantly looking for new destinations to appeal to a different breed of traveler, one that seeks comfort alongside wilderness adventure. Meanwhile, national parks, long held up as icons of wilderness adventure, are increasingly governed through the logic of austerity politics and seek new revenue. These two distinct processes have started to provide increased opportunities for collaboration, introducing complex dynamics and power struggles at destinations and beyond. However, few studies have addressed these issues so far. Drawing on the global political ecology of tourism and conservation literature, this article examines the various entanglements between Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve in Canada and the cruise industry, and the implications they have for the destination as a whole. To better understand the many challenges facing park authorities and their partners, we employed a slate of qualitative methods, including document analysis, participant observation, and 30 semistructured interviews with key stakeholders. Results show that although the expectations of regional actors have not been met and the future of cruise tourism in Mingan is uncertain, park authorities continue to invest time and money to engage with the industry and adapt their facilities to this clientele. This raises questions about the real motives of park authorities and the contribution of this form of tourism to the sustainable development of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypersaline environments pose major challenges to their microbial residents. Microorganisms have to cope with increased osmotic pressure and low water activity and therefore require specific adaptation mechanisms. Although mechanisms have already been thoroughly investigated in the green alga Dunaliella salina and some halophilic yeasts, strategies for osmoadaptation in other protistan groups (especially heterotrophs) are neither as well known nor as deeply investigated as for their prokaryotic counterpart. This is not only due to the recent awareness of the high protistan diversity and ecological relevance in hypersaline systems, but also due to methodological shortcomings. We provide the first experimental study on haloadaptation in heterotrophic microeukaryotes, using the halophilic ciliate Schmidingerothrix salinarum as a model organism. We established three approaches to investigate fundamental adaptation strategies known from prokaryotes. First, hydrogen-1 nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy was used for the detection, identification, and quantification of intracellular compatible solutes. Second, ion-imaging with cation-specific fluorescent dyes was employed to analyze changes in the relative ion concentrations in intact cells. Third, the effect of salt concentrations on the catalytic performance of S. salinarum malate dehydrogenase (MDH) and isocitrate dehydrogenase (ICDH) was determined. 1H-NMR spectroscopy identified glycine betaine (GB) and ectoine (Ect) as the main compatible solutes in S. salinarum. Moreover, a significant positive correlation of intracellular GB and Ect concentrations and external salinity was observed. The addition of exogenous GB, Ect, and choline (Ch) stimulated the cell growth notably, indicating that S. salinarum accumulates the solutes from the external medium. Addition of external 13C2-Ch resulted in conversion to 13C2-GB, indicating biosynthesis of GB from Ch. An increase of external salinity up to 21% did not result in an increase in cytoplasmic sodium concentration in S. salinarum. This, together with the decrease in the catalytic activities of MDH and ICDH at high salt concentration, demonstrates that S. salinarum employs the salt-out strategy for haloadaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction by Paul Robbins. Blackwell Publishers, Malden, MA, USA, and Oxford, UK, 2004, xxi + 242 pp., paper US$34.95 (ISBN 1405102667) Paul Robbins has written a [...]

It has long been claimed that a better understanding of human or social dimensions of environmental issues will improve conservation. The social sciences are one important means through which researchers and practitioners can attain that better understanding. Yet, a lack of awareness of the scope and uncertainty about the purpose of the conservation social sciences impedes the conservation community's effective engagement with the human dimensions. This paper examines the scope and purpose of eighteen subfields of classic, interdisciplinary and applied conservation social sciences and articulates ten distinct contributions that the social sciences can make to understanding and improving conservation. In brief, the conservation social sciences can be valuable to conservation for descriptive, diagnostic, disruptive, reflexive, generative, innovative, or instrumental reasons. This review and supporting materials provides a succinct yet comprehensive reference for conservation scientists and practitioners. We contend that the social sciences can help facilitate conservation policies, actions and outcomes that are more legitimate, salient, robust and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Conservation actions most often occur in peopled seascapes and landscapes. As a result, conservation decisions cannot rely solely on evidence from the natural sciences, but must also be guided by the social sciences, the arts and the humanities. However, we are concerned that too much of the current attention is on research that serves an instrumental purpose, by which we mean that the social sciences are used to justify and promote status quo conservation practices. The reasons for engaging the social sciences, as well as the arts and the humanities, go well beyond making conservation more effective. In this editorial, we briefly reflect on how expanding the types of social science research and the contributions of the arts and the humanities can help to achieve the transformative potential of conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnic politics are an important, but under-examined, dynamic in the restructuring of agrarian labour. This paper examines how the discursive construction of ethnic identity has facilitated the particular form of agrarian intensification and labour restructuring under way in the uplands of Thailand. Agricultural intensification, followed by the promotion of 'safe' and then 'organic' production, has relied upon the construction of Hmong farmers as environmentally destructive and in need of development, while Shan labour arriving from Burma are simultaneously constructed as 'illegal migrants' (as opposed to refugees), a social nuisance and hard workers, helping to make them into an available, willing and preferred labour force. We argue that the construction of ethnic identity in these instances enables the agricultural changes under way and, thus, the particularities of agricultural change cannot be understood without careful attention to ethnic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The voluntary resettlement of people from national parks has emerged as a potential solution to long entrenched people-park conflicts. Yet critical examination of its associated policy and practice is rare. After identifying a trend toward voluntary resettlement in policy and practice, this article examines a resettlement project at Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam. An analysis of the agreement and negotiation processes with local communities reveals that genuine efforts and organizational commitments to voluntary resettlement can take on qualities associated with forced relocations. The Cat Tien National Park Conservation Project, supported by a major international conservation organization, operated on a principle of voluntary agreements while also applying international resettlement standards based on the World Bank's safeguard policies for involuntary resettlement. This apparent confusion in policy was further reflected in practice with the safeguard policies perversely reinforcing, rather than alleviating, involuntary aspects of the project. This article recognizes the potential of voluntary resettlement as an equitable conservation tool, but warns against applying it as an inconspicuous solution to the problems generally associated with involuntary resettlement. Distinctions between voluntary and involuntary resettlement are ambiguous at best; resettlement policy and guidelines need to reflect and clarify this ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest resource management in Thailand bears the mark of its historical position on the margins of colonial power and its present position in a biodiversity hotspot. During the colonial era, British forestry in Burma and India had a fundamental influence on the knowledge and techniques used in Thai forest management. More recently, international conservation agendas and organisations have influenced the ways in which the Thai government regulates the forest within its boundaries. The treatment of forests as a national and international resource, defined in interaction with colonial neighbours and global partners, has resulted in legal constructs, spatially simplistic conservation mechanisms and a conception of nature ill-suited to managing forests as a local resource. This paper investigates the manifestation of Thailand's historical legacy in local park-people conflicts by drawing on research conducted in a region where the government is establishing a national park. It finds that the continued use of laws, tools and concepts derived from colonial and global influences undermines the forestry department's ability to address the contemporary challenge of managing forests as a local, as well as a national/global, commons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecologists and conservation biologists conducting long-term research programs in the tropics must confront serious ethical challenges that revolve around economic inequalities, cultural differences, supporting the local communities as much as possible, and sharing the knowledge produced by the research. In this collective article, researchers share their experiences and perspectives in dealing with the ethical issues that arise during research activities and cannot be ignored. • Long-term research programs in the tropics confront ethical challenges revolving around economic inequalities and cultural differences. • In 9 short essays, experienced researchers offer perspectives on ethical questions that arise during research activities. • Three principal responsibilities of researchers working in another country and culture are • to understand cultural differences and adapt to them as much as possible, • to be sure the research project brings added value to the local community, • to share the resulting information and knowledge with local people, students, the scientific community, and government agencies. • Locations range across the global tropics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]