Science, Irving K. Barber Faculty of (Okanagan)
Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences, Department of (Okanagan)
DSpace
UBCO
Friberg, Robert
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
University of British Columbia
Rural communities are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of environmental change. A recent mountain pine beetle outbreak in western Canada is a prime example of socio-economic impacts from regional-scale disturbance driven by climate change and forest management policy. Resilience thinking holds promise for advancing the sustainability of rural communities, but its usefulness is hindered by its conceptual complexity, disciplinary divides, and a lack of practical frameworks that respond to real-world contexts. The research in this dissertation advances the integration and practical application of resilience through a structured comparison of key concepts and the development of a resilience typology and framework adapted to rural communities. The framework and typology provide a conceptual grounding for case study research with three Alberta communities facing the impacts of pine beetle epidemic. The findings highlight significant variation in the exposure, stability, and adaptive capacity between communities. Resilience is supported by community attributes including strong social cohesion, natural capital, and resourcefulness. However, the cumulative impacts of pine beetle and other identified stressors have the potential to drive some communities beyond thresholds of social and economic viability, resulting in downward spirals of human, economic, and cultural capital. To advance resilience, municipal and higher levels of governance need to address weaknesses in rural infrastructure and financial capital, contingency resources, economic autonomy from global market cycles, and capacity for managing through rapid change. There was concern that local complacency, resistance to change, and declines in volunteerism might limit community adaptive capacity in some instances. Cumulative impacts of resource extraction in the region, and unresolved tensions over economic, biodiversity, and cultural values may further limit options for responding effectively to events like pine beetle outbreak. Further recommendations for improving resilience include fostering capacity for managing change, and capacity for collaborative and adaptive governance and action across jurisdictional scales.
TAKING RESILIENCE FROM CONCEPT TO PRACTICE: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ASSESSMENT OF RURAL COMMUNITIES FACING REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN CANADIAN BOREAL FORESTS by Robert Friberg, RPF Master of Arts in Environment and Management, Royal Roads University, 2010 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) April 2022 © Robert Friberg, 2022 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation entitled: TAKING RESILIENCE FROM CONCEPT TO PRACTICE: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ASSESSMENT OF RURAL COMMUNITIES FACING REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN CANADIAN BOREAL FORESTS submitted by Robert Friberg in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Kevin Hanna, University of British Columbia (Okanagan) Supervisor Lael Parrott, University of British Columbia (Okanagan) Co-supervisor Donna Senese, University of British Columbia (Okanagan) Supervisory Committee Member Gary Bull, University of British Columbia (Vancouver) Supervisory Committee Member Chris Gaston, University of British Columbia (Vancouver) University Examiner Sara Teitelbaum, Université de Montréal External Examiner iii Abstract Rural communities are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of environmental change. A recent mountain pine beetle outbreak in western Canada is a prime example of socio-economic impacts from regional-scale disturbance driven by climate change and forest management policy. Resilience thinking holds promise for advancing the sustainability of rural communities, but its usefulness is hindered by its conceptual complexity, disciplinary divides, and a lack of practical frameworks that respond to real-world contexts. The research in this dissertation advances the integration and practical application of resilience through a structured comparison of key concepts and the development of a resilience typology and framework adapted to rural communities. The framework and typology provide a conceptual grounding for case study research with three Alberta communities facing the impacts of pine beetle epidemic. The findings highlight significant variation in the exposure, stability, and adaptive capacity between communities. Resilience is supported by community attributes including strong social cohesion, natural capital, and resourcefulness. However, the cumulative impacts of pine beetle and other identified stressors have the potential to drive some communities beyond thresholds of social and economic viability, resulting in downward spirals of human, economic, and cultural capital. To advance resilience, municipal and higher levels of governance need to address weaknesses in rural infrastructure and financial capital, contingency resources, economic autonomy from global market cycles, and capacity for managing through rapid change. There was concern that local complacency, resistance to change, and declines in volunteerism might limit community adaptive capacity in some instances. Cumulative impacts of resource extraction in the region, and unresolved tensions over economic, biodiversity, and cultural values may further limit options for responding effectively to events like pine beetle outbreak. Further recommendations for improving resilience include fostering capacity for managing change, and capacity for collaborative and adaptive governance and action across jurisdictional scales. iv Lay Summary This study advances understanding about what makes rural communities resilient and identifies ways to improve resilience to pine beetle and other forms of environmental stress. Interviews were conducted with leaders and managers in the communities of Hinton, Jasper, and Grande Cache, Alberta; adjacent rural municipal districts (and counties); industry and NGOs; the provincial and federal government, and a First Nation community. Resilience characteristics differed between the communities. Common strengths include the resourceful character of rural people, strong community spirit, and extensive natural resources that support industry and tourism. Opportunities to improve community stability and ability to adapt to disturbance include fostering ecological and economic diversity, improving political and financial capital, emergency funds, and the efficacy of land-use planning. There are needs for greater capacity to manage change, collaborate across jurisdictions, and learn from stress events to adjust policies that negatively impacts resilience at the community level. v Preface There have been no publications or submissions to date arising from the work presented in this dissertation. Ethics approval was required for this research. The research for this dissertation was approved by the UBC Okanagan Behavioural Research Ethics Board, Certificate Number H16-02173. vi Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ........................................................................................................................... iv Preface ........................................................................................................................................v Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ........................................................................................................................... ix List of Figures ............................................................................................................................x Lists of Illustrations, Symbols, Abbreviations or Other (if applicable) ................................... xi Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. xii Dedication .............................................................................................................................. xiii Chapter 1: Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 1.1 Background and Objectives ............................................................................................ 1 1.2 Limitations of Social-Ecological Resilience Approaches and Community Resilience Application Generally ........................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Scope of the Research and Approach ............................................................................. 3 1.4 Methods ........................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2: Taking Community Resilience From Concept to Practice: An Assessment and Problem-Oriented Framework for Cross-Scale Response to Environmental Change .............12 2.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 12 2.1 Approach and Conceptualization .................................................................................. 13 2.2 Unpacking Opportunities for Integration and the Practical Application of Resilience 16 2.2.1 Prediction, Surprise, Stability, and Change ........................................................... 16 2.2.2 Structure, Agency, Scale, and Relationship to External Stressors ......................... 20 2.2.3 Analytical Integration and Bridging Concept to Practice ...................................... 23 2.3 An Integrative Framework for Response to Complex Environmental Change ............ 25 2.4 Operationalizing Resilience in a Context of Pine Beetle Outbreak .............................. 28 2.5 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 31 Chapter 3: Community Exposure and Stability in a Context of Pine Beetle Outbreak and Broader Environmental Change ...............................................................................................32 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 32 3.2 Conceptual Background ................................................................................................ 33 vii 3.2.1 Integrating Exposure and Stability for Resilience Assessment ............................. 33 3.2.2 Advancing Resilience Assessment in a Canadian Context .................................... 34 3.4 Results ........................................................................................................................... 35 3.4.1 Exposure of Social, Economic, Biophysical, and Cultural Values ........................ 35 3.4.2 Biophysical Stability and Impacts to Regulating and Cultural Ecosystem Services ......................................................................................................................................... 38 3.4.3 Impacts to the Forest and Tourism Sectors ............................................................ 40 3.4.4 Impacts to Community, Financial, Human, and Social Capital ............................. 42 3.4.5 Cumulative Stressors to Industry and Communities .............................................. 44 3.4.6. The Role of Economic Diversity and Contingencies in Community Stability ..... 45 3.4.7. Community Cohesion as an Attribute of Social Stability ..................................... 48 3.4.8 Vulnerable Groups and Proximity to Social and Economic Thresholds ............... 49 3.5 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 51 Chapter 4: Latent Adaptive Capacity for Response to Pine Beetle and Broader Forms of Regional Environmental Change .............................................................................................54 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 54 4.2 Theory, Indicator Selection, and Case Study Examples in a Canadian Context .......... 54 4.2.1 Resilience and Adaptive Capacity in a Canadian Context ..................................... 54 4.2.2 Adaptive and Transformational Capacity as Key Constituents of Resilience ....... 57 4.2.3 Components-Based Development and Human Health-Focused Indicators ........... 59 4.2.4 Institutional, Critical, and SES Attributes and Indicators ...................................... 60 4.3 Results ........................................................................................................................... 61 4.3.1 Natural, Financial Capital and Infrastructure as Assets for Adaptation and Transformation ................................................................................................................ 61 4.3.2 Collaborative Spirit, Resourcefulness, Entrepreneurialism, and Skills Transferability ................................................................................................................. 64 4.3.3 Legitimacy, Inclusion, and Resilient Landscapes in Local and Regional Planning ......................................................................................................................................... 70 4.3.4 Leadership, Learning, Autonomy, Political Capital, and Influence Across Scales 76 4.4 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 83 viii Chapter 5: Collective Action and Institutional Adaptive Capacity in a Context of Pine Beetle Outbreak and Broader Environmental Change ........................................................................87 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 87 5.2 Conceptual Approach for the Assessment .................................................................... 88 5.3 Results ........................................................................................................................... 90 5.3.1 Drivers, Dynamics and Outcomes Within the RC Network .................................. 90 5.3.2 Drivers, Dynamics, and Outcomes Within the PA Network ................................. 94 5.3.3 Mutual Incentives and Understanding Across RC and PA Networks ................... 97 5.3.4 Dynamics and Outcomes Across RC and PA Networks ..................................... 104 5.3.5 Improving Collective and Institutional Adaptive Capacity in a Context of Change ....................................................................................................................................... 106 5.4 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 111 Chapter 6: Summary and Conclusions ...................................................................................113 6.1 Recommendations for Decision-Making, Policy, and Cross-Scale Action ................ 113 6.2 Limitations .................................................................................................................. 119 6.3 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 119 References ..............................................................................................................................122 Appendix Guideline for Semi-Structured Interviews ............................................................132 ix List of Tables Table 2.1 Attributes and Indicators for Rural Community Resilience to Multiregional Impacts From Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak .................................................................................... 29 Table 4.1 Example Attributes of Community Resilience ......................................................... 58 Table 4.2 Natural and Financial Capital, and Infrastructure Strengths and Limiting Factors ................................................................................................................................................. 62 Table 4.3 Collaborative Spirit, Resourcefulness, Entrepreneurialism, and Skills Transferability ......................................................................................................................... 65 Table 4.4 Strengths and Limiting Factors: Planning, Inclusion and Resilient Landscapes ... 71 Table 4.5 Strengths and Limiting Factors: Leadership and Agency, Political Capital, and Influence .................................................................................................................................. 77 Table 6.1 Recommendations Based on Exposure and Stability Framework Dimensions .... 114 Table 6.2 Opportunities to Improve Latent Adaptive Capacity and General Resilience ..... 116 Table 6.3 Recommendations to Improve Collaborative Capacity and Cross-Scale Responsiveness ...................................................................................................................... 118 x List of Figures Figure 1 ..................................................................................................................................... 7 Figure 2.1 Hierarchy of Goals and Ideas Associated With Individual Resilience Analytical Orientations ............................................................................................................................ 15 Figure 2.2 Integrative Opportunities for Resilience Subdomains ........................................... 17 Figure 2.3 Resilience Analytical Orientations in Relation to Agency, Structure, and Scale .. 21 Figure 2.4 Analytical Integration and Bridging Concept to Practice .................................... 24 Figure 2.5 An Integrated Assessment and Problem-Oriented Framework for Community and Cross-Scale Response to Environmental Change ................................................................... 26 Figure 3.2 Relationships Between Forest Policy, Climate Change, and Pine Beetle Impacts to Ecosystems Services Important to Rural Community Resilience ............................................ 44 Figure 3.3 Cumulative Stressors, Risks, Limiting Factors, and Critical Thresholds Identified by Participants from Industry, Tourism, Aseniwuche Winewak Nation, and the Case Study Communities ........................................................................................................................... 51 Figure 5.1 Perceived Compatibility of Interests for Mitigating Pine Beetle Impacts ............. 97 Figure 5.2 Supporting Factors, Barriers, and Outcomes from Collaborative Dynamics Across Networks .................................................................................................................... 105 xi Lists of Illustrations, Symbols, Abbreviations or Other (if applicable) DR disaster resilience MPB mountain pine beetle (only in Appendix) PA network protected area network RC network resource-based community network RH risk-hazard SES social-ecological systems SER social-ecological resilience xii Acknowledgements I gratefully acknowledge the support, patience, and kindness of my supervisory committee: Kevin Hanna, Lael Parrot, Donna Senese, and Gary Bull, through this lengthy period of academic and life change. The very talented support of my friend and editor Karen Smith of Lakehill Editing was also crucial to the assembly and production of this work. In addition, I gratefully acknowledge funding from the fRI Research Mountain Pine Beetle Ecology Program based in Hinton, Alberta, which made this research possible. Additional support was provided by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada to the TRIA Network, with contributions from Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, fRI Research, Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship, Natural Resources Canada–Canadian Forest Service, Northwest Territories Environment and Natural Resources, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment, West Fraser, and Weyerhaeuser. I am also very thankful to fRI Research and West Fraser for logistical support with the initial engagement with community leaders and stakeholders. I respectfully acknowledge that the research took place on Treaty 6 Territory and Métis Nation Region No. 4. These are the traditional territories and ancestral lands of Indigenous Peoples including the Plains Cree First Nations, Aseniwuche Winewak Rocky Mountain First Nations, Stoney, Tsuu T’ina, Nakota, Denesuline, Saulteaux, Mountain Métis, Michif, and many other communities that continue to enrich the land on which this project occurred. Furthermore, I respectfully acknowledge that the UBC Okanagan campus is situated on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation. xiii Dedication To Karla and Megan; and to my mom and dad Irene & Bob for their undaunted moral support but regrettably were not able to see the completion of this project; and, to the lifelong, inquisitive pursuit of learning and knowledge for a better world. 1 Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Background and Objectives Rural communities in Canada and around the globe are increasingly affected by environmental change, and especially the impacts of climate change. The strong connection and reliance of rural communities on the ecosystem services provided by surrounding natural landscapes makes them particularly vulnerable to the social, economic, and cultural impacts of environmental change. The response to impacts from environmental change is particularly important at the community level, yet many aspects of the capacity to adapt and transform are limited in rural areas comparative to larger urban populations. An outbreak of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) across large parts of Western Canada, intensified by climate change, is a concerning example of impacts that can push rural communities toward thresholds of social and economic viability. These impacts have the potential to trigger downward spirals affecting families, vulnerable groups, community cohesion, and resilience. Despite the promise of resilience thinking for advancing the sustainability and well-being of rural communities, its usefulness as an integrated analytical and decision-making tool is hindered by unnecessarily narrow interpretations of the meaning of resilience, and a lack of assessment frameworks capable of operationalizing approaches from diverse disciplines in a way that supports practical decision-making. This dissertation responds to these concerns in three ways. First, with the objective of advancing an interdisciplinary understanding of resilience, the research undertakes a structured comparison of resilience concepts, highlighting important contrasts, trends, and synergies. Second, by developing an integrated assessment framework and typology adapted to rural communities, the research demonstrates how resilience can be operationalized for research and practical decision-making in response to a broad range of both rapid-onset and longer-term impacts of environmental disturbance and change. And third, the research evaluates the resilience of rural Alberta communities facing pine beetle outbreak and identifies opportunities for improving resilience based on the dimensions, attributes, and indicators in the framework and typology proposed in this dissertation. 2 1.2 Limitations of Social-Ecological Resilience Approaches and Community Resilience Application Generally Resilience perspectives that explicitly consider the two-way nature of the human–environment relationship are essential for this research due to their focus on community vulnerability and response to change on surrounding landscapes. It is important, therefore, to briefly review the emergence of social-ecological resilience (SER) thinking and introduce some of the associated challenges and critiques that are addressed Chapter 2. Present-day concepts of SER owe their origins in large extent to the ideas and thinking of C. S. Holling (1973), formed in response to concerns about unanticipated declines and collapse of managed commercial natural resources such as fisheries and forests. Holling critiqued population ecology models of the time as being too positivistic by overstating the stability, linearity, and predictability of natural systems. His ecological resilience ideas suggested the possibility that disturbance could drive natural systems toward alternate states with different functional dynamics, and that these changes could be unpredictable and nonlinear. Additional concepts emerged related to trajectories of change and the adaptive cycle (Holling, 1986), the relevance of temporal and spatial scale (e.g., Holling, 1992), and cross-scale resilience (Peterson et al., 1998). The complexity orientation of resilience thinking drew criticism from more positivistic disciplines (Gunderson, 2000), yet remained rooted in Holling’s early work, and over time extended to consider human–environment dynamics by integrating theory from the social sciences. Through the panarchy framework, Gunderson et al. (1995) and Gunderson and Holling (2002) extended concepts of ecological adaptive cycles and related dynamics across scales to institutional contexts. These ideas have since had long-standing impacts to frameworks for environmental governance and policy (Cumming et al., 2013; Ostrom, 2012). SER ideas also expanded to include adaptive and transformational capacity (Walker et al., 2004), which today is increasingly included in frameworks for social and community resilience, along with considerations of agency, learning, social networks, collective action, and adaptive multilevel governance (Folke, 2006), critical social science perspectives (Brown, 2014; Cote & Nightingale, 2012), and mental health (Berkes & Ross, 2013). The growing interdisciplinarity of resilience thinking has been applied to fields ranging across international development; disaster management; climate change adaptation (Quinlan et al., 3 2016); the management of multifunctional landscapes (Sayer et al., 2013); planning theory (Wilkinson, 2012); and forest and water resources management from local to global scales (Binder et al., 2013). Moreover, since the response to environmental change commonly takes place at the community level (Berkes & Ross, 2013, 2016; Folke et al., 2010; Kulig & Botey, 2016; Tyler & Moench, 2012), resilience at local scales is increasingly important to regional sustainability. Despite these interdisciplinary advancements of resilience, its successful application as an analytical and decision-making tool is underrealized. In a Canadian context, Teitelbaum et al. (2016) describe the application of SER as only emerging. There are also limitations with the application of resilience more broadly. Keck and Sakdapolrak (2013, p. 13), for example, characterize social resilience as “a concept in the making.” Others characterize the practical application of resilience as being hindered by several factors including the insufficient integration of social theory within SER approaches (Berkes & Ross, 2013; Brown, 2014; Cote & Nightingale, 2012; Lyon & Parkins, 2013; Wilkinson, 2012); a need for greater consideration of the role of human agency (Bristow & Healy, 2014; Berkes & Ross, 2013); a need for frameworks that are more responsive to local circumstances (Akamani, 2012; Goldstein, 2009; Quinlan et al., 2016); and for lacking sufficient consideration of resilience across scales of governance (Berkes & Ross, 2016). Conceptual complexity drives challenges to the operationalization of resilience for practical decision-making in real-world settings (Cumming et al., 2005; Kerner & Thomas, 2014; Quinlan et al., 2016), and to different understandings about the meaning of resilience (Meerow & Stults, 2016; Miller et al., 2010; Keck & Sakdapolrak, 2013). Differences in conceptual focus and limited operational application of resilience conceptual frameworks extends to the field of community resilience (Loerzel & Dillard, 2021; Tariq et al., 2021). These shortcomings are concerning since unnecessarily narrow interpretations of resilience may limit options for communities responding holistically to concerns such as pine beetle outbreak in rural Alberta (see Chapter 2). 1.3 Scope of the Research and Approach This research responds to these challenges with integrated resilience application through a multiphase approach. Chapter 2 confronts conceptual silos and tackles roadblocks to the application of resilience through a review of frameworks and conceptual syntheses in 4 the literature, contrasting key disconnects, synergies, and trends using a two-dimensional visual approach and the distinction of five analytical orientations. From this analysis, I advance a framework and typology for community resilience that is relevant to diverse forms of environmental change and explicitly considers local agency across scales of natural resource governance. In Chapters 3, 4, and 5, I report the results of case study research based on the assessment framework and focused on an outbreak of pine beetle in Western Canada, exacerbated by climate change and forest management policies (Taylor et al., 2006), and now expanding beyond its traditional range in British Columbia to the boreal forests of Alberta (Axelson et al., 2009; Carroll et al., 2006). The outbreak is an important example of the tremendous social and economic impacts to rural communities resulting from environmental disturbance change (Dhar et al., 2016). Chapter 3 builds on previous vulnerability and resilience research by exploring the exposure and stability of biophysical, economic, social, and cultural values of the case study communities in the context of pine beetle. Chapter 4 considers latent adaptive capacity supporting general resilience to environmental change, including attributes linked to social, natural, financial, human, political, and cultural capital. Also considered in Chapter 4 are structural considerations related to local planning processes; the role of local autonomy; critical perspectives on inclusive engagement; and social-ecological perspectives on the resilience of forest landscapes and community influence across governance scales. Chapter 5 explores influence and collective action across horizontal and vertical jurisdictional scales of governance, and related institutional considerations for adaptive governance. The scope and analytical approach for the research can be defined based on several factors. The assessment framework and case study analysis are rooted in a reciprocal view of the human–nature relationship (Binder et al., 2013; Ostrom, 2007, 2009) that considers external stress events to communities from a changing environment, and the role of community agency and social learning (Folke et al., 2003) across jurisdictional scales in response to stress. The research draws on five analytical orientations summarized in Chapter 2: predictive risk-hazard (RH); social-ecological systems (SES); components-health; components-development; and critical social sciences. While the assessment framework in Chapter 2 facilitates the use of both social and biophysical variables, the case study analysis 5 itself tends toward an anthropocentric orientation (Ostrom, 2007, 2009) by focusing on social dynamics including institutions and community capital (Emory & Flora, 2006). Ecological factors are considered primarily in regard to their impact to communities. Due to the focus on response to pine beetle outbreak, the case study considers dimensions and attributes that can be characterized as pertaining to specified resilience (Folke et al., 2010), yet the framework itself and several aspects of the case study analysis consider factors relevant to general resilience (Folke et al., 2010). The framework and case study design consider a balance between the need for simplification while maintaining a holistic approach that accounts for the complexity of resilience in real-world settings (Engle, 2011; Quinlan et al., 2016). A qualitative case study methodology was ultimately chosen due to its strengths in facilitating the complexity of variables involved in the final assessment framework and the complex, multi-actor case study setting (Turner, 2007; Yin, 2003). To further facilitate the ability to address the large number of potential variables associated with community resilience while keeping the scope manageable, the research maintains a focus on the characterization (Engle, 2011) or assessment (Cumming, 2014; Quinlan et al., 2016) of community resilience through a structured comparison of case study attributes with those identified in the literature. This approach contrasts with a more quantitative or theory-building objective more commonly associated with the direct measurement (Engle, 2011; Quinlan et al., 2016) of resilience. Finally, to respond to challenges with the practical application, I incorporate a process or problem orientation (Cumming, 2014) with the aim of further facilitating practical decision-making for rural communities and associated actors. Together, these focus areas seek to provide outcomes that are relevant not only for Alberta communities but rural and Indigenous communities globally facing social, environmental, cultural, and economic impacts from current and future environmental change. A key assertion emerging from the dissertation is that through an effective, integrated approach, it is possible to foster a holistic community resilience that extends commonly applied biophysical and stability-oriented resilience thinking to include considerations about community adaptive and transformational capacity, vulnerable groups, cultural values, complexity and surprise, organizational agility and responsiveness, and the capacity for collaborative action across jurisdictional scales. 6 1.4 Methods The research for this dissertation uses a qualitative case study approach (Yin, 2009) to address the complexity of variables associated with community resilience in a real-world setting. Case study methodologies are common in community resilience research (Ross and Berkes, 2014), due to strengths in exploring both environmental and social variables (Ross & Berkes, 2014; Cox, 2015; Quinlan et al., 2016). Potential case study communities in western Alberta were prioritized based in part on criteria from Parkins and MacKendrick’s (2007) vulnerability factors, including local forest susceptibility to pine beetle, potential impacts to local timber supply, and economic reliance on forests. Communities with significant vulnerability to pine beetle epidemic were prioritized based on these criteria. The selection process also sought to obtain a representation of municipal population sizes while avoiding larger urban centres or cities, which in Alberta are distinguished as having a population of 10,000 people or more. The selection also sought a representation of common but different forms of economic reliance on forested landscapes (for example, forestry versus tourism). The purpose of selecting such a range of community characteristics was to enable the exploration of resilience insights relevant to a broad spectrum of rural Alberta communities. While the research sought and incorporated local Indigenous perspectives on community resilience, and perspectives from provincial and federal levels of government, the scope and mandate of the project is focussed at the municipal scale. The inclusion of participants at the county-level (also known as municipal district in Alberta) contributes to insight about resilience at the regional scale, which includes some of the smallest rural communities. Among these, in Alberta, villages may be as small as 300 people, and hamlets, while potentially larger, do not have an elected council and are governed at the county or municipal district level. 7 Figure 1 The Case Study Area and Surrounding Region Note. Copyright 2022 Mathieu Bourbonnais. Used with permission. 8 Based on these criteria, the communities of Hinton, Jasper, and Grande Cache, Alberta (see Figure 1.1) were selected for the case study. The town of Hinton, with a population of approximately 9,600 people, is located just under 300 km west of the City of Edmonton and approximately 30 km east of Jasper National Park. The forest industry, with its large sawmill and pulp mill facilities inside the town limits, and its associated logging and spin-off activities, is the leading employer and economic driver for the community. This makes the town considerably vulnerable to pine beetle epidemic. Timber supply comes from a 1.3-million-hectare forest operating area that is highly susceptible to pine beetle and was experiencing early influx of beetle during the early stages of the case study research in 2017. Other important economic activities in Hinton include the oil and gas sector and mining. Tourism, though not a central economic driver, is significant due backcountry activities in the area and Hinton’s proximity to Jasper National Park. The town of Jasper (see Figure 1.1), with a population of approximately 4,400 people, is situated directly within Jasper National Park. Jasper National Park, managed by Parks Canada (an agency of the Canadian federal government), is world-renowned for its mountains and forested landscapes. International and regional tourists and outdoor enthusiasts arriving to see and recreate in Jasper National Park are the central economic drivers for the town. At the time of the research, forested landscapes in the park and immediately surrounding the town were already heavily impacted by pine beetle and turning reddish-brown in colour. Grande Cache, with its population of about 3,600 at the time of the case study research, is located approximately 150 km to the northwest of Hinton and immediately east of the Rocky Mountains and the provincially managed Willmore Wilderness Park. Connected to Hinton in the south by Highway 40 and situated about 200 km from the city of Grande Prairie to the north, Grande Cache is the most geographically isolated of the case study communities. A nearby coal mine has been the main economic driver for Grande Cache for decades, but it is subject to a devasting series of economic boom-and-bust cycles over the decades. More recently, the economy of Grande Cache has also been supported by a nearby sawmill, a federal prison, and by a modest level of tourism. At the start of the case study research, Grande Cache was a municipality incorporated in 1966. During the study implementation period, Grande Cache underwent a dissolution process due to financial 9 unviability and become part of the adjacent rural Municipal District of Greenwood (Daily Herald Tribune, 2019). Data for the case study were collected through 28 in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Interviews were conducted with participants individually except for one instance where in response to a participant request, the interview was conducted as a group interview. Despite that the group interview involved more than one participant it is treated as a single interview in the analysis and results discussion. Ethics procedures for the study comply with the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (2014). These procedures were reviewed and approved by the UBC Okanagan Behavioural Research Ethics Board. The interview data were supplemented by document review, where appropriate, to corroborate information on topics such as community economic diversity and public events. Purposive sampling (Cox, 2015) and a limited extent of snowball sampling (Cox, 2015; Henry, 2013) was used to recruit elected officials and administrative leaders, managers, and subject experts at the municipal, county (and municipal district), provincial, and federal levels. Leaders and managers with local NGOs, the forest industry, and the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation near Grande Cache were also recruited. Recruitment sought individuals in leadership positions due to in large measure to the role and influence of these people in decision-making and planning processes directly relevant to community resilience, and due to their in-depth understanding of community, industry, governance, and other factors. In addition, while the sampling of representative segments of the broader community through in-depth interviews (or an alternative method) would have undoubtedly produced additional insight, such an expanded approach did not fit within the capacity and resources available to the study. The interview questions (see Appendix) were designed to respond to the dimensions, attributes, and indicators associated with the resilience assessment framework developed in Chapter 2, and subsequent Table 2.1 typology. The process used for the development of the resilience assessment framework is detailed in Chapter 2. In some cases, subsets of questions within the interview guide (as indicated in the Appendix) were directed specifically to participants with relevant topic expertise. For example, questions about detailed ecosystem dynamics were directed toward forest and ecology experts, while questions related to municipal finance were directed to participants with roles directly connected to the case 10 study municipalities. Interviews typically lasted from one to one and half hours, with the shortest completed in approximately 35 minutes, and the longest lasting close to four hours. Interviews were recorded and transcribed manually into Microsoft Word and uploaded to NVivo. The transcribed recordings approach 2000 pages in length and stored, along with the recordings and other data according to the approved ethics certificate requirements. A qualitative content assessment was implemented in stages. Initially, a deductively based coding framework rooted in the typology of dimensions, attributes, and indicators in Table 2.1was entered in NVivo. The transcriptions for each interview were reviewed manually, and relevant sentences or sentence fragments deposited into the appropriately coded category. In order to track and attribute interview comments to the appropriate participant, and to ensure confidentiality, participant names were coded (this is distinct from codes used to reflect categories of data), and participant codes were designed to reflect respective case study communities and sectors. As the analysis progressed, subcodes for data categories were developed to reflect emerging themes. For example, as differences in the understanding of pine beetle dynamics on the landscape became apparent (see Chapter 5), subcodes were developed to reflect each distinct understanding. The analysis is not quantitative in nature and as such the results are not based on counts of perspectives expressed by participants in the interviews. However, during the analysis, both the extent and breadth of opinions expressed were noted and are referred to in the results discussion where appropriate. For example, if a particular perspective was expressed by only one participant, this is acknowledged, or if a perspective was expressed by multiple participants across a range of contexts from municipal to NGO, and industry, this is also noted in the discussion. In all cases participant perspectives were taken at face value, that is, there was no interpretation or assumption of other potential meanings or intentions. After the initial deductive category coding the development of subcodes, themes, and the emergence of connections between categories or themes took place inductively and, in some instances, iteratively (Berg, 2007), for example by revisiting the initial deductive based coding to determine if a new category was warranted. The iterative assembly of new data categories, themes, and connections took place both within NVivo through the modification of initial coded data categories, and on an extensive series of summary sheets in Microsoft Word. Key segments from the interview transcriptions were copied over to and grouped on 11 the summary sheets as a record to support the final themes and connections that form the basis of the study results. Each summary sheet corresponds to a specific dimension of the resilience assessment framework in Chapter 2, and as such these sheets were central to the exploration of connections within and between individual resilience dimensions, attributes, and indicators. Due to the large number of variables considered for this project the research does not attempt to quantitatively “measure” resilience or establish causal relationships about factors that contribute to it. Rather, the study is comparative in the sense of contrasting the perspectives of project participants with current knowledge about characteristics that support resilience. It is also not feasible to consider the large amount of literature already published that relates to perspectives expressed by participants, for example, on fire behaviour, or pine beetle dynamics. The science on these topics is left to the respective disciplines in order to remain focussed on the questions at hand. A key strength of the comparative and exploratory nature of this study, however, is its ability to generate a holistic range of considerations and insights on which communities may reflect on and explore further based on their individual resilience priorities. 12 Chapter 2: Taking Community Resilience From Concept to Practice: An Assessment and Problem-Oriented Framework for Cross-Scale Response to Environmental Change 2.0 Introduction The sustainability and well-being of rural communities around the world is subject to a growing array of disruptions to ecosystem services resulting from climate change and other environmental concerns (Adger, 2000; Dhar et al., 2016; Magis, 2010; Parkins & MacKendrick, 2007; Williamson et al., 2007). The nature and timing of these impacts varies considerably, for example from rapid onset, as in the case of extreme weather or wildfire hazards (Holling, 1986, 1992; Kulig & Botey, 2016), to slower-onset impacts such as in the case of resource scarcity (Keck & Sakdapolrak, 2013) and insect outbreaks (Dhar et al., 2016; Sinclair et al., 2017; Walker et al., 2004). Furthermore, environmental change can be driven by biophysical and social factors at larger scales (Berkes & Ross, 2016; Cumming et al., 2013). This has implications for the role of local agency and the need for collective and cross-scale response (Berkes & Ross, 2016; Cumming et al., 2013). An additional consideration for rural communities relates to potentially low levels of adaptive capacity (and associated vulnerabilities to disturbance) relative to larger urban centres (Burch, 2010; Krishnaswamy et al., 2012; Williamson et al., 2008). There is already a substantial body of literature seeking to clarify resilience thinking and related domains of vulnerability and adaptation (Davidson et al., 2016; Eakin & Luers, 2006; Meerow et al., 2016; Vaneeckhaute et al., 2017). Despite the wealth of literature on resilience thinking as an integrative decision-making tool for addressing environmental change, its application remains hindered by conceptual complexity that spans multiple academic disciplines, epistemologies, and fields of practice including natural disasters, climate change, community development, and political ecology (Davidson et al., 2016; Joaquim et al., 2015; Miller et al., 2010). Due in part to this complexity there are different understandings about the conceptual components of community resilience (Loerzel & Dillard, 2021; Tariq et al., 2021). The holistic application of resilience can be hindered by unnecessarily narrow or incomplete interpretations of resilience that may be disconnected from their conceptual foundations (Meerow & Stults, 2016; Miller et al., 2010), and that focus on addressing a subset of environmental change that does not fully encompass the range of disturbance potentially experienced by rural communities. The implications of 13 narrow or incomplete understandings of resilience are important, as it constrains awareness about the potential biases of a particular analytical approach (Sinclair et al., 2017), and may limit the range of potential policy responses to environmental change (Davidson et al., 2016; Tyler & Moench, 2012). Limited experience with the practical application of resilience thinking comparative to vulnerability and climate change adaptation is another challenge (Miller et al., 2010; Tyler & Moench, 2012). Operational resilience frameworks that facilitate both research and application in a diverse range of real-world contexts are, therefore, strongly needed (Binder et al., 2013; Miller et al., 2010; Quinlan et al., 2016; Sinclair et al., 2017). This chapter confronts these challenges in three steps. First, it contributes to the clarity of resilience thinking by contrasting diverse concepts and trends along two-dimensional continuums of predictability and surprise, stability and change, agency and structure, scale, critical and collective process, and concept versus application. Second, the chapter advances a framework and typology of indicators that go beyond existing constructions by incorporating a more holistic range of analytical orientations and process considerations. Third, a set of operational indicators, rooted in this framework, is developed for communities confronting pine beetle outbreak in Canadian forests. The discussion, framework, and typology are intended to support resilience inquiry and application in a range of diverse contexts and scales. 2.1 Approach and Conceptualization This chapter begins with a review of existing syntheses and typologies of resilience thinking in the literature, and related attributes associated vulnerability practice. The review included debates about the need for greater integrative operationalization of diverse perspectives, including the role of agency (Bristow & Healy, 2014; Berkes & Ross, 2013); scale (Berkes & Ross, 2016; Kulig & Botey, 2016); community capitals (Akamani, 2012); critical social science perspectives on culture, conflict, and power (Brown, 2014; Cote & Nightingale, 2012; Engle, 2011; Keck & Sapdapolrack, 2013; Lyon & Parkins, 2013; Wilkinson, 2012); deliberation (Goldstein, 2009); psychology (Berkes & Ross, 2013); and strengths from vulnerability practice domains (Joakim et al., 2015; Maru et al., 2014; Miller et al., 2010). Resilience concept and attributes encountered during the review were compared across existing frameworks for rural community resilience (Magis, 2010); urban climate resilience (Tyler & Moench, 2012); integrated social-ecological and mental health (Berkes & 14 Ross, 2013), social resilience (Maclean et al., 2014), and human-managed systems (Kerner & Thomas, 2014). The review also considered input received during the initial community engagement process for the case studies detailed in chapters three to five. To allow for the effective comparison of concepts and due to common differences in definitions in the literature this discussion in this chapter follows Adger (2006) in referring to resilience, vulnerability, and adaptation as distinct domains of research and practice. To acknowledge and provide consistency around several focus areas within these subdomains, I have adapted from Davidson et al.’s (2016) distinction of the subdomains disaster resilience (DR), social-ecological resilience (SER), urban resilience, and community resilience. As an additional organizing structure to help compare concepts this chapter (and dissertation) emphasizes five fundamentally distinct conceptual orientations or approaches that are common to, but do not fully overlap between, resilience, vulnerability, and adaptation domains of practice. These, described in further detail in the following sections, are: risk-hazard (RH) approaches rooted significantly in positivist epistemology of predictability and commonly applied in engineering-oriented applications (Eakin & Luers, 2006; Fussel, 2007); social-ecological systems (SES) analytical orientations of resilience focused on complexity and human–environment relationship (Berkes & Ross, 2013; Vaneeckhaute et al., 2017); components-development centred approaches focused on individual resilience attributes commonly rooted in community development and environmental hazards disciplines (Berkes and Ross, 2013; Brown and Westaway, 2011; Buikstra et al., 2010; Emory and Flora, 2006; Magis, 2010, Vaneeckhaute et al., 2017); components-health approaches rooted in psychology and mental health (Berkes & Ross, 2013; Vaneeckhaute et al., 2017); and critical social science approaches that include perspectives on culture, power and equity (Brown, 2014; Cote & Nightingale, 2012; Engle, 2011; Keck & Sakdapolrak, 2013; Lyon & Parkins, 2013; Wilkinson, 2012). This last category of approaches is commonly associated with political ecology and political economy (Eakin & Luers, 2006; Fussel, 2007). Discussion in the remainder of the chapter is structured around these fundamental, albeit simplified, representations of conceptual orientations to resilience thinking and related domains of vulnerability and climate change adaptation. To provide some further groundwork for discussion about conceptual integration and practical application of resilience, this chapter considers each of the above resilience 15 orientations or approaches as encompassing a distinct hierarchy of elements. This includes concepts, methodology, and practice, as advanced by Miller et al. (2010), and extends to include additional components. The top of Figure 2.1 depicts the broadest level of this hierarchy as pertaining to the fundamental inquiry goals of a particular resilience analytical orientation, defined as axiology by Brown and Dueñas (2020). Figure 2.1 Hierarchy of Goals and Ideas Associated With Individual Resilience Analytical Orientations Problem Framing; Inquiry GoalsDefine Research Method-ologyAssess Resilience Strengths and GapsImplement Actions to Foster ResilienceMonitor Resilience Process and OutcomesAdjust Process and StrategiesInquiry Goal (axiology) Ontology Epistemology Concept Theory Conceptual orientation or approach 16 Next, Figure 2.1 depicts a corresponding set of ontological philosophies and epistemologies involving assumptions including the legitimacy of different ways of knowledge production to meet inquiry goals (Blaikie, 2004; Brown and Dueñas, 2020). Axiology, ontology, and epistemology influence the lower order elements of concept and theory in Figure 2.1 and are therefore relevant to understanding why there are fundamental challenges in arriving at a common understanding and integration of resilience application. The lower region of Figure 2.1 depicting a common management cycle illustrates how higher-level ideas within a resilience approach impact the practical application of resilience by influencing the framing of problems and the chosen methodology. Later, this chapter looks at how advancements in the application of resilience thinking can be supported by the process-orientation of Figure 2.1. 2.2 Unpacking Opportunities for Integration and the Practical Application of Resilience This examination begins by using a two-dimensional technique useful for organizing and communicating diverse groupings of concepts (Arts & Leroy, 2006; Arts, 2012; Pahl-Wostl, 2009; Revell & Henderson, 2019). Using this technique, I positioned distinct resilience analytical approaches and concepts in juxtaposition to each other along vertical and horizontal continuums (axes) in Figures 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4. Choices about resilience approaches, concepts, and juxtapositions that could be most meaningfully illustrated together in each figure were made with the goal of highlighting key debate and disconnects identified in the literature, and underscoring opportunities for conceptual integration and practical application. Achieving these illustrative and heuristic goals required multiple iterations. These illustrations reflect a coarse (versus precise) articulation of concepts, with inevitable simplification, and do not represent all of the potential comparisons that may have been useful. To be mindful of space, the discussion does not review individual concepts in detail. 2.2.1 Prediction, Surprise, Stability, and Change Figure 2.2 explores contrasting conceptualizations of resilience and considers the extent to which DR, urban resilience, and community resilience draw from each. The comparison highlights trends and opportunities for the greater integration of complex systems thinking within community resilience and other resilience subdomains. At the top of 17 the vertical axis are predictive-oriented responses to environmental change rooted in positivistic epistemology and common to RH approaches used in vulnerability practice (Miller et al., 2010), climate change adaptation (Dasgupta et al., 2014) and resilience application (Davidson et al., 2016; Miller et al., 2010; Nelson et al., 2007; Tyler & Moench, 2012). Figure 2.2 Integrative Opportunities for Resilience Subdomains Note. DR = Disaster Resilience; UR = Urban Resilience; CR = Community Resilience; SER = Social-ecological Resilience (Davidson et al., 2016). Integrative Gap Emerging UR, CR. SER Change (re-organization, transformation) Stability (equilibrium, resistance) Predictability (reduction, linear causality) Complexity and Surprise (non-linear, unpredictable, and complex systems; emergent properties) DR [Risk-hazard] Iterative risk-hazard 18 This orientation focusses on the identification and prediction of threats to exposed values such as urban or coastal infrastructure, and decision-making to reduce risk such as through the implementation engineering adaptations for flood mitigation (Adger, 2006; Engle, 2011). At the bottom of the vertical axis, in direct contrast to predictive orientations, is the complex systems lens of nonlinearity, unpredictability, and change (e.g., Adger, 2006; Holling, 1973; Miller et al., 2010). The horizontal axis of Figure 2.2 represents a continuum of resilience viewpoints and associated pathways beginning with stability on the left. A stability perspective views resilience as resistance to change, or the quick return or bounce back to previous conditions following disturbance (Folke, 2016; Holling, 1973). Along intermediate points to the right of stability, is adaptation to environmental hazards and change (Adger, 2000; Carpenter et al., 2001; Folke, 2016; Nelson et al., 2007; Quinlan et al., 2016). Adaptation in social systems involves human action (Nelson at al., 2007) and can be viewed as incremental or more fundamental adjustment to change (Agard and Schipper, 2014) Transformation, on the far right of the horizontal axis, reflects change to a fundamentally different state with associated social and ecological dynamics (Berkes et al, 2013; Cumming et al., 2005; Engle, 2011; Folke, 2016; Gunderson, 2000; Holling, 1973; Walker et al., 2004). This may occur where the level of disturbance and vulnerability are such that it is no longer feasible to maintain a system in its current state (Folke, 2016). Despite continued debate about the relevance of stability versus transformation, the concept of transformation as a resilience trajectory in response to change is gaining importance and there is growing agreement about its relevance in cases of extreme stress (Davidson et al., 2016; Meerow et al., 2016). Being mindful of the illustrative versus precision-oriented goals of this discussion, I have approximated the locations of Davidson et al.’s (2016) resilience domains (adapted here as subdomains) based on the extent to which each draws from the concepts and epistemological orientations of the horizontal and vertical axes. DR, due to its predominant (though not exclusive) rooting in predictive RH approaches (Davidson et al., 2016; Miller et al., 2010), has been situated near the top of Figure 2.2 adjacent predictability (with RH noted in brackets). The predominant focus of RH approaches (and DR) on resistance and stability (Davidson et al., 2016) situates them toward the left of the horizontal stability-transformation continuum. The arrow pointing downward and to the right from DR reflects a limited but 19 noticeable trend within DR practice toward greater consideration of complexity, surprise, and transformational pathways (Davidson et al., 2016). This trend is further reflected by the overlap of the orange-coloured DR and RH region to the right, across the vertical axis, toward change-oriented resilience trajectories. A similar trend (depicted by the same arrow pointing downward to the right) is observable by the incorporation of more iterative processes within risk management frameworks for climate change adaptation (e.g., Jones et al., 2014). SER, rooted in ideas of complexity, unpredictability, and surprise, is located near the bottom of the vertical axis in Figure 2.2, and toward the right to reflect the inclusion (though somewhat controversial) of transformational pathways as potential resilience trajectories (Davidson et al., 2016). Due to their strong roots in RH approaches and stability (Davidson et al., 2016), the subdomains of community and urban resilience are situated in the top left quadrant of Figure 2.1 toward prediction and stability, and close to DR. The yellow shaded region for community and urban resilience is placed further to the right compared to DR due to a stronger trend in the incorporation of transformation-oriented thinking (Davidson et al., 2010). This is particularly the case for the community resilience subdomain. The region identified for community and urban resilience extends downward below the horizontal axis to reflect a greater integration of complex systems thinking, complexity and surprise. The area surrounded by the dashed line in Figure 2.2, labelled “integrative gap,” underscores opportunities for a broader integration of strengths across distinct analytical approaches for responding to environmental disturbance and change. Specifically, despite strengths in practical decision-making and implementation, RH approaches have been criticized as limited in their capacity to be precise in predicting and estimating risk (Dessai & Hulme, 2004; Tyler & Moench, 2012), and in responding to surprise (Nelson et al., 2007; Tyler & Moench, 2012). These weaknesses have negative implications for the effectiveness of community response to anticipated and surprise disturbance. Conversely, SER, with analytical strengths in complex system dynamics and surprise (Nelson et al., 2007; Tyler & Moench, 2012) suffers from abstractness of concept and related difficulties with putting it into operation (Cumming et al., 2005; Kerner & Thomas, 2014; Miller et al., 2010). Opportunities for synergy can be found, therefore, through incorporating the practical strengths of RH-oriented approaches (see Figure 2.2, top left) within the more abstract SES 20 rooted applications of vulnerability, adaptation (Miller et al., 2010), and community resilience. This opportunity is depicted by the region of the integrative gap extending downwards to the lower region of Figure 2.2. The horizontal axis in Figure 2.2 underscores an important disconnect about the meaning of resilience in research and application. Despite the growing relevance of transformative resilience pathways, there has been a tendency for resilience (and vulnerability) application to focus on stability and bounce back. This can lead to narrowly defined options for policy and action (Meerow & Stults, 2016; Miller et al., 2010). Opportunities to benefit from the strengths of both stability and transformation viewpoints are underscored by the region of the integrative gap extending to the right of Figure 2.2, adjacent change. The intent of highlighting this integrative gap is not that resilience should steer unidirectionally toward transformation, but rather in light of the broad range of challenges potentially experienced by rural communities, resilience frameworks should holistically support a broad range of analytical orientations. 2.2.2 Structure, Agency, Scale, and Relationship to External Stressors Figure 2.3 explores how the resilience orientations summarized earlier draw from epistemologies of structure versus agency (vertical axis), and the extent to which they focus on local versus broader scales (horizontal axis). The illustration underscores an important gap in conceptual integration for community resilience and other practice subdomains. SES, with analytical strengths across scales (Binder et al., 2013; Holling, 1992; Gunderson & Holling, 2002; Vaneeckhaute et al., 2017), is characterized, however, as placing less attention on to community and individual scales (Berkes & Ross, 2013; Sinclair et al., 2017). In Figure 2.3, the region depicting SES (as indicated by the green box) is therefore placed toward the right-hand side of the horizontal axis, close to cross-scale action. In addition, SES is placed in the lower area of Figure 2.3, close to structure. This is due to its deterministic epistemological orientation with a focus on institutional factors and only limited consideration of agency (Berkes & Ross, 2013; Bristow & Healy, 2014; Brown, 2014; Cote & Nightingale, 2012; Matarrita-Cascante et al., 2017; Sinclair et al., 2017; Vaneeckhaute et al., 2017). 21 Figure 2.3 Resilience Analytical Orientations in Relation to Agency, Structure, and Scale Note. CR = Community Resilience; SER = Social-ecological Resilience (Davidson et al., 2016). Figure 2.3 represents RH resilience approaches toward the top, close to agency, due to the strengths of this orientation in considering the importance of agency, decision-making, and action (Adger, 2003; Miller et al., 2010; Nelson et al., 2007). The overlap of the RH region downward across the horizontal axis toward structure signifies the incorporation of institutional considerations within this approach (through revisions to zoning bylaws in flood zones, for example). However, due to the limited attention paid by RH approaches to cross-scale interactions Figure 2.3 situates the RH region fully to the left of the vertical axis, next CR Integrative Gap Risk-Hazard SES Social Critical Approaches Cross-scale action (directed outward and upward) Focal (local) scale action (directed within) Agency (actors, influence) Structure (norms, institutions) Components-health Components-development 22 to focal or local scale action. This reflects a relatively passive or inward-focused view (Joakim et al., 2015) in response to external threats. This inward-leaning focus could limit the potential for communities to influence decisions at larger scales due to the strong roots of disaster, urban, and community resilience in RH analytical orientations. Figure 2.3 places components-centred psychology and mental health approaches (Berkes & Ross, 2013; Maclean et al., 2017; Vaneeckhaute et al., 2017) close to focal scale action on the left, due to their tendency to focus on the scale of individuals and groups. Examples of resilience attributes in this context include positive outlook and sense of purpose (Buikstra et al., 2010), and personality traits such as self-reliance and positive attitude (Kulig & Botey, 2016). Berkes and Ross (2013) characterize one broad category of components-focused resilience concepts as being rooted in health and psychology fields and extending to the community scale through resilience factors common to community development and environmental hazards fields. For this discussion, given the aim of unpacking nuances in how different resilience approaches focus on scale, I distinguish components-based development as a category on its own, focused at the community level and extending outward to larger scales. Examples of components-based development attributes commonly associated with community resilience include community capitals, resources, and networks (e.g., Brown & Westaway, 2011; Buikstra et al., 2010; Emery & Flora, 2006; Flora et al., 2016; Magis, 2010). Figure 2.3 orients components-health and development approaches toward the left near focal scale due to their limited consideration (in comparison to SER) of interactions with environmental and social processes at broader scales (Davidson et al., 2016). Finally, Figure 2.3 depicts critical orientations as encompassing both focal and larger scales, and both agency and structure, as indicated by significant overlap across the vertical and horizontal axes. This is due to their concern about factors associated with culture, power, and equity (Brown, 2014; Cote & Nightingale, 2012; Engle, 2011; Keck & Sakdapolrak, 2013; Lyon & Parkins, 2013; Wilkinson, 2012), with implications for actors, agency, and institutions at both local and larger scales. The location of resilience analytical orientations (and subdomains) relative to each other in Figure 2.3 emphasizes an integrative gap in the upper right quadrant, in the direction of agency and cross-scale action. Community resilience frameworks have tended to focus on components-centred approaches (Berkes & Ross, 2013; Vaneeckhaute et al., 2017), making 23 only limited use of SES analytical strengths around systems dynamics and interactions across scales. This gap, while currently being mitigated by an emerging trend toward greater incorporation of cross-scale interaction within urban and community resilience, and to some extent DR (Davidson et al., 2016), highlights an important opportunity to extend the resilience analysis and decision-making outward to the role of communities in influencing dynamics at broader scales, such as the sustainable management of adjacent landscapes and associated ecosystem services. While there are limitations to the influence communities have over processes happening at larger scales they need not be passive in response to environmental change (Berkes & Ross, 2016). An active or reciprocal versus passive or one-way view of the environment-community relationship (Binder et al., 2013) can be important to the rural community context in which environmental change and natural resource management frequently impacts the resilience of ecosystem services at landscape and regional scales (Adger, 2003). Such integration opens a broader spectrum of considerations such as cross-scale learning (Folke, 2006; Folke et al., 2010) collaborative governance (Emerson et al., 2012), and communicative planning (Goldstein, 2009). 2.2.3 Analytical Integration and Bridging Concept to Practice To advance the first and second dissertation objectives Figure 2.4 emphasizes the difference between conceptual dimensions of resilience (on the left) and their practical application for decision-making (on the right). The relevance of this distinction for bridging concept to practice lies in the purpose of individual concepts on the left as compared to the process considerations toward the middle and right of Figure 2.4. Concepts on the left, rooted in the five resilience analytical orientations discussed, are useful for assessing existing resilience conditions in a given community context prior to a stress event, or, following Ostrom (2007), a set of focal system conditions. This framing aligns with starting point vulnerability (Kelly & Adger, 2000) or contextual vulnerability (O’Brien et al., 2007). Conversely, the use of these variables to assess focal system conditions after a stress event or following the implementation of a resilience-building strategy has strong parallels with what O’Brien et al. (2007) refer to as outcome vulnerability. 24 Figure 2.4 Analytical Integration and Bridging Concept to Practice a risk-hazard; social-ecological resilience; components-health; components-development; and critical social science perspectives. The focal system condition region to the left of Figure 2.4 is comprised of three categories of concepts. Exposure draws mainly on concepts from predictive RH orientations to vulnerability and adaptation practice by characterizing values at risk or attributes of concern that may be exposed to a stress event (Eakin & Luers, 2007; Fussel, 2007). Including exposure within an organizational framework for resilience responds to the need for greater incorporation of agency in resilience application (Miller et al., 2010). The stability category of focal system conditions draws from SES concepts of complexity, surprise, transformation Resilience Practice (decision-making and application) Resilience Concepts (rooted in 5 analytical orientations a) Critical Process (equity, power) Collective Process (collaboration, learning, adaptive governance) Focal System Conditions: Exposure Stability Adaptive Capacity Activation Planning, Policy Outcomes Collective Action, Learning Equity, power 25 (see Figure 2.2), scale (see Figure 2.3), and responds to the integrative gap highlighted in Figure 2.2. The adaptive capacity dimension of focal system conditions consists of theory from components-centred analytical orientations in mental health and development fields (see Figure 2.3). Activation, at the centre of Figure 2.4, refers to the triggering of community or cross-scale response to a disturbance (Bennett et al., 2016; Burch, 2010), including the utilization of existing adaptive capacity to support that response. The activation of adaptive capacity for response to a disturbance may be triggered by factors including leadership, awareness, and concern about the potential impacts from a disturbance (Davidson at al., 2003; Parkins & MacKendrick, 2007; Westley et al., 2013). Adaptive capacity that was present in the focal system prior to a disturbance but not yet being utilized can be viewed as being latent, or unused capacity (Bennett et al., 2016). Activation then provides an important analytical separation between concepts grouped in focal system conditions on the left, and resilience response, that is, practical application on the right. The top and bottom of the vertical axis in Figure 2.4 contrast critical social science perspectives (top) with collective process (bottom). These are important elements of the transition between concept on the left and application on the right of Figure 2.4. This is because critical social science perspectives are also important to ensuring fair and inclusive decision-making during the actual process of implementing resilience. The dashed region extending from the top of Figure 2.4 down to collective process at the bottom, indicates conceptual synergies with deliberative processes and collaborative management and governance (Emerson at al., 2012; Folke, 2006; Goldstein, 2009) in supporting equitable decision-making in the face of external stress. As a whole, the arrangement of Figure 2.4 facilitates the consideration of a wide spectrum of resilience analytical orientations and suggests an organizational structure that is intentional about distinguishing concepts from the actual processes associated with building resilience. These ideas are developed further in Section 2.3. 2.3 An Integrative Framework for Response to Complex Environmental Change Figure 2.5 advances a framework to address gaps identified in the literature and illustrated in Figures 2.2 through 2.4. The concepts in Figure 2.5 are not new to resilience, but the nature of their integration in the Figure 2.5 framework, and the inclusion of practical 26 or process-oriented considerations is distinct. The framework extends beyond a focus on the assessment or characterization (Cumming, 2014; Quinlan et al. 2016) of resilience attributes by incorporating a problem-oriented focus (Cumming, 2014). Problem-oriented analysis of SES (Cumming, 2014) incorporates the process and application of theory for decision-making, planning, policy, and action. Figure 2.5 An Integrated Assessment and Problem-Oriented Framework for Community and Cross-Scale Response to Environmental Change Note. Blue shaded boxes denote focal system attributes that are directly assessable or measurable. Yellow and light orange regions denote problem-oriented assessment criteria. Green regions are transition points marked by response and intervention. The incorporation of contrasting conceptual viewpoints and the bridging of these with problem-oriented application can be seen in the progression from left to right at the top of Activation Adaptive Capacity Assets Institutions Critical Lens Surprise Disturbance Anticipated Stress or Hazard Resilience Assessment and Action Focal System Conditions Advance General Resilience StabilityExposure Intervention Points Focal and Cross-Scale Interventions Response to Short and Longer-term Threats Resist Adapt Transform Vulnerable Groups Identified Resilience Gaps, Opportunities Resilience Pathways Community well-being Adjust System conditions following disturbance and interventions Assess Outcomes Evaluate Process Collaborative Dynamics Adaptive Governance Inclusive Decision-Making 27 Figure 2.5, beginning with the distinction of anticipated stress or hazard, and surprise disturbance. An anticipated stress is shown as potentially activating (next region to the right) an assessment (e.g., a risk-hazard analysis) that might lead to the determination of intervention points at the far right. Heading back toward the left of Figure 2.5, interventions may be directed toward different resilience pathways, and help mitigate impacts to focal system (see centre, in blue). Conversely, a surprise (versus anticipated) disturbance at the far left of Figure 2.5 impacts system conditions directly with no or limited opportunity for mitigation. This difference underscores the importance of the role of stability and latent adaptive capacity (embedded in the focal system conditions region) in supporting general resilience to surprise, and it integrates the perspectives of RH and SES resilience thinking in one framework. Further conceptual integration in Figure 2.5 can be seen in the spectrum of considerations for planning and intervention at the top right. These involve latitude for response to disturbance, based on the anticipated timing of impacts; the targeting of resources and local agency at local versus broader scales; equity in decision-making; and measures to support vulnerable groups. Resilience pathways located at the centre-middle of Figure 2.5 encompass the full continuum illustrated in Figure 2.2, from resistance (stability or bounce back) to adaptation, and transformation. The Figure 2.5 framework includes additional problem-oriented analysis (process and application) from left to right at the bottom of the figure. Focal system conditions (in blue) following a disturbance (and any interventions mitigate impacts) would be assessed through the evaluation of outcomes. That is, did focal system conditions and resilience improve as result of the interventions? Further to the right in Figure 2.5 (in the bottom-right corner), the effectiveness of resilience application and process is evaluated. As indicated, this may include evaluating the efficacy of collaborative dynamics, equitable decision-making, and other aspects of practical application. Finally, and reflecting the management cycle shown in Figure 2.1, the results of outcome and process evaluation may lead to adjustments (upward from the bottom right, in green) to resilience interventions so that they can be more effective in the response to environmental change. The intent is that the Figure 2.5 framework, by integrating both theory and practice, can help foster holistic understanding of resilience concepts and their application for planning and policy. 28 2.4 Operationalizing Resilience in a Context of Pine Beetle Outbreak Based on the Figure 2.5 framework, Table 2.1 illustrates a set of resilience dimensions, attributes, and indicators for rural communities facing an unprecedented outbreak of mountain pine beetle in the Canadian boreal forest region. The epidemic, aggravated by climate change and past forest management practices (Taylor et al., 2006), has expanded beyond the insect’s traditional range (Axelson et al., 2009; Carroll et al., 2006), moving eastward from the montane ecozones of central British Columbia into the boreal forests of Alberta. The outbreak, killing pine trees across landscapes spanning thousands of hectares, has resulted in tremendous socioeconomic harm to forest-dependent communities (Dhar et al., 2016; Taylor et al., 2006), including impacts to traditional and cultural values (Dhar et al., 2016; Williamson et al., 2007). The dimensions of Table 2.1 reflect a separation between focal system conditions versus the community or cross-scale response to the impacts from pine beetle epidemic. The exposure and stability dimensions correspond to focal system conditions in Figure 2.5. Latent adaptive capacity, activation, and adaptive governance and collective action correspond to the cross-scale response to disturbance. These distinctions align with the discussion around Figure 2.4 by separating the assessment of concept-focused resilience attributes versus resilience application or processes. To the right in Table 2.1 are the groupings of resilience attributes discussed in Figure 2.4, presented as individual dimensions of exposure, stability, adaptive capacity, activation, and governance. These in turn are broken down into individual attributes and indicators for measurement. The result is a framework or typology structured on resilience dimensions, attributes, and indicators. 29 Table 2.1 Attributes and Indicators for Rural Community Resilience to Multiregional Impacts From Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak Dimension Attributes Example indicators Example references Exposure Natural capital and associated ecosystem services; economic, financial, cultural, and built capitals Area in hectares of susceptible pine; forest and tourism sector employment; municipal tax base; traditional values and activities; community identity; vital ecosystem services; risk to infrastructure and public safety Emery & Flora (2006); Parkins & MacKendrick (2007); Tyler & Moench (2012); Williamson et al. (2008) Stability Diversity, adaptive cycle, latitude and modularity; cumulative stressors, community resources, cohesion, contingencies, and thresholds; vulnerable groups Percent nonsusceptible species; forest age class; barriers to beetle spread; rate of onset and timeline for impacts; vulnerable groups, economic diversity; contingency funds, cumulative impacts; proximity to thresholds Kulig & Botey (2016); Parkins & MacKendrick (2007); Turner et al. (2003); Tyler & Moench (2012); Walker et al. (2004); Walker & Salt (2006); Wilson (2012) Latent adaptive capacity Components-development and health: natural, cultural, human, social, political, and financial capital. Extent and condition of natural capital; resources for diversification; resourcefulness and entrepreneurialism; volunteerism; skills transferability; leadership; resources to lead; experience with change (social memory); effective boundary organizations and networks Adger et al. (2007); Berkes & Ross (2013); Emery & Flora, (2006); Gupta et al. (2010); Kulig & Botey (2016); Magis (2010); Wall & Marzall (2006); Wilson (2012) Structural (institutional); SES; and critical factors): autonomy, local influence across scales; legitimacy; efficacy; planning Effective, inclusive, municipal, and regional land-use planning; economic and decision-making autonomy to innovate, adapt; community influence across scales; resilient landscapes and cumulative disturbance (room to adapt in a context of change) Activation Awareness; risk perception; leadership, engagement; strategic action Uncertainty and concern about the potential for pine beetle impacts; deliberation and strategic planning; directives, engagement of community resources Adger et al. (2007). Burch (2010); Hill & Engle (2013); Magis (2010); Parkins & MacKendrick (2007) 30 Dimension Attributes Example indicators Example references Adaptive governance and collective action Capacity for collaborative governance and collective action Based on Emerson et al.’s (2011) framework: extent of drivers of collaborative action; principled engagement; shared motivations; capacity for joint action; collaborative actions and outputs Adger et al. (2007); Cumming et al. (2013); Emerson et al. (2012); Folke (2006); Gupta et al. (2010); Hill & Engle (2013); Ostrom (2009; 2012) Tyler & Moench (2012); Walker et al. (2004); Williamson et al. (2007) Policy efficacy; government and policy responsiveness; cross-scale learning Efficacy and flexibility (adaptability) of relevant natural resource and cross-jurisdictional policy; organizational (e.g., government) decision-making agility responsiveness to changing ecological dynamics; evidence of cross-scale learning The exposure dimension of focal system conditions, as developed in Table 2.1, includes quantitative and qualitative attributes and indicators related to natural capital (forests), as well as social, cultural, economic, public safety, and other values identified as having been potentially impacted by the pine beetle outbreak. The stability dimension focusses on RH oriented evaluation of the biophysical susceptibility of forest landscapes, and the likely timing and rate of onset of impacts to the values identified in the exposure dimension. The stability dimension focusses on SES resilience concepts by using analytical lenses such as tree species diversity and age (as an indication of stage in the adaptive cycle), modularity (landscape-level barriers to beetle spread), and thresholds or tipping points. Latent adaptive capacity incorporates components-development, components-health, and institutional attributes, including local autonomy from global markets, the efficacy and inclusiveness of existing municipal planning, and regional land-use and forest planning. Exposure, stability, and adaptive capacity dimensions incorporate perspectives from critical social science approaches to resilience by including variables associated with vulnerable groups and cultural values. The activation dimension focusses on attributes and indicators pertaining to the triggering of local and cross-scale action to the pine beetle outbreak. This dimension includes indications that an active response is occurring such as a strategic planning process and its resulting actions. The governance dimension, or adaptive, collaborative governance and action, involves attributes and indicators of capacity for collective action across scales, and institutional factors focused on policy, cross-scale learning, and organizational responsiveness to change and uncertainty. 31 2.5 Discussion This chapter began by defining consistent terminology for exploring a diversity of resilience concepts, and undertook a structured comparison of key contrasts, trends, and opportunities for the integration of resilience analytical orientations. From the results of that discussion, I have proposed an integrative resilience framework and typology that facilitates a broad spectrum of response to diverse environmental change at different scales likely to be anticipated by rural communities. By illuminating important differences in resilience perspectives shown in Figures 2.2 through 2.5, the chapter fulfills the first dissertation objective of advancing an interdisciplinary understanding of resilience, and serves as an heuristic tool. The framework advanced in Figure 2.5 and the typology of dimensions, attributes, and indicators shown in Table 2.1 begin to address the second and third dissertation objectives: demonstrating how resilience can be operationalized for research and practical decision-making and assessing (as well as advancing) the resilience of rural Alberta communities facing pine beetle outbreak. By focusing on response to mountain pine beetle, many of the indicators in Table 2.1 support specified resilience. Other attributes and indicators, particularly within latent adaptive capacity, contribute to general resilience. By incorporating a larger number of variables associated with social-system dynamics, the Table 2.1 application of the resilience framework in Figure 2.5 is largely anthropocentric in orientation (Ostrom, 2007, 2009). The typology is also capable of facilitating a greater focus on quantitative biophysical factors associated with ecosystem resilience. A key strength of the Figure 5 framework is its ability to support a broad and holistic range of decision-making and policy responses to environmental hazards and change. In addition, it extends existing frameworks by facilitating contextual awareness of diverse analytical options, and, promotes greater awareness of where a given approach sits within the broader spectrum of analytical orientations and associated axiologies and epistemologies. These features amplify (versus restrict) how resilience is perceived and the pathways by which communities might aspire to achieve it. The practical utility of the framework and typology in providing relevant insights for improving community resilience is explored in Chapters 3, 4, and 5. 32 Chapter 3: Community Exposure and Stability in a Context of Pine Beetle Outbreak and Broader Environmental Change 3.1 Introduction Rural communities around the world are vulnerable to the impacts of environmental change due to their close relationships with natural landscapes and their reliance on associated ecosystem services. An epidemic of mountain pine beetle in Western Canada, aggravated by climate change and past forest management practices (Taylor et al., 2006) is an important example of regional-scale environmental change impacting ecosystem services, livelihoods, and the cultural values of rural communities (Dhar et al., 2016; Taylor et al., 2006; Williamson et al., 2007). Resilience frameworks that incorporate a wide range of conceptual perspectives are important to responding the diverse impacts from insect outbreaks and other forms of environmental change (Brown, 2014; Dinh & Pearson, 2015; Eakin and Luers (2006); Miller et al., 2010; Kerner & Thomas, 2014). It is equally important that such frameworks can be operationalized for practical decision-making and action (Binder et al., 2013; Miller et al., 2010; Quinlan et al., 2016; Sinclair et al., 2017). This chapter reports the results of case study research with three communities facing unprecedented change from the impacts of mountain pine beetle in Alberta, Canada. The chapter focusses on the exposure and stability (the first two of six resilience dimensions advanced in Chapter 2) as factors for determining community vulnerability to pine beetle and broader environmental change. The first objective of Chapter 3 is to identify community values exposed to impacts from pine beetle and highlight factors that affect community vulnerability and stability in this context. The second objective is to provide insight about strategies to improve community resilience to pine beetle and other forms of environmental change. The third objective is to demonstrate how the integrative aspects of exposure and stability can be operationalized to provide practical insights for planning and policy. Finally, Chapter 3 lays the groundwork for operationalizing the remaining framework dimensions in Chapters 4 and 5. 33 3.2 Conceptual Background 3.2.1 Integrating Exposure and Stability for Resilience Assessment The analytical lens of exposure is a common component of vulnerability and adaptation practice as applied in fields of climate change, natural hazards, food security, development, and sustainability (e.g., Adger, 2006; Brown & Westaway, 2011; Engle, 2011; Turner et al., 2003; Williamson et al., 2007). Exposure is defined by Agard and Schipper (2014, p. 1765) as “the presence of people, livelihoods, species or ecosystems, environmental functions, services, and resources, infrastructure, or economic, social, or cultural assets in places and settings that could be adversely affected.” The application of exposure is rooted extensively, though not entirely, in RH analytical approaches (Miller et al., 2010). By characterizing values at risk to environmental stress and hazards (Eakin & Luers, 2006; Fussel, 2007; Turner et al., 2003), exposure, in conjunction with sensitivity and adaptive capacity, is an important determinant of the vulnerability of SES (Adger, 2006; Agard & Schipper, 2014; Miller et al, 2010; Williamson et al. 2007). Exposure, in conjunction with the assessment of perceived hazards and vulnerability, contributes to the broader assessment of risk (Agard & Schipper, 2014). The relevance of stability as a resilience pathway has been understood differently. Resilience can be viewed as the ability of a system to remain stable by persisting in an existing state or as including the possibility of transformation to an alternate state in response to disturbance (Davidson et al., 2016; Folke, 2016; Gunderson & Holling, 2002; Meerow & Stults, 2016; Walker et al., 2004). Perspectives that incorporate the potential, and in some cases the necessity, for transformative pathways in instances of extreme stress are growing (Davidson et al., 2016; Meerow et al., 2016). For resource-based communities, a history of boom-and-bust economic cycles and declining confidence in the long-term reliability of projected yields of renewable resources have led to a shift away from stability as a realistic goal for rural sustainability (Engle, 2011; Folke, 2016; MacKendrick and Parkins, 2004; Magis, 2010). Integrating exposure and stability dimensions for the Chapter 3 case study (and in the Figure 2.5 resilience framework) allows the analysis to benefit from both the practical decision-making strengths of exposure, and the complex systems strengths of SES resilience, which is criticized as being too abstract for practical application (Miller et .al, 2010). In 34 addition, the exposure lens provides a platform from which to anchor a broad range of resilience inquiry including critical social science perspectives focused on equity, and social groups that may be particularly vulnerable to environmental change. Mindful of the debate about resilience pathways, a key benefit from incorporating stability is not to exclude the possibility of transformative pathways, but rather for its usefulness as an analytical lens to help with assessing the sensitivity (Agard & Schipper, 2014; Turner et al., 2004) of communities to an identified set of exposures. For example, Walker et al. (2004) discuss stability factors (and potential intervention points) associated with functional diversity; the adaptive cycle; modularity; thresholds; and tipping points. The use of related concepts such as the role of social or ecological thresholds has also been emerging in vulnerability practice (Eakin & Luers, 2006; Joakim et al., 2015. 3.2.2 Advancing Resilience Assessment in a Canadian Context Research on community resilience from an SES perspective is only beginning to emerge in Canada (Teitelbaum et al., 2016). From a vulnerability perspective, Parkins and MacKendrick (2007) and Williamson et al. (2007) assessed sensitivity, political and economic dimensions, and community adaptive capacity for communities facing pine beetle epidemic. Case studies in British Columbia and Alberta (Parkins and MacKendrick, 2007) found a high level of variation in exposure between forest-dependent communities due to differences in local forest susceptibility to pine beetle; stability-related factors including tree species diversity and composition; and economic diversity. Other examples of research in a Canadian context include Hurlbert and Gupta (2017), with a focus on institutional adaptive capacity to rural drought; Gonzales and Parrott (2019), using a social network analysis to assess capacity for collaborative response to pine beetle; Plummer et al. (2018) on the role of community capitals in responding to floods; Fletcher et al. (2020) on the relevance of social capital to climate change adaptation on the Canadian prairies; and Picketts (2015), who explored the practical relevance of climate change adaptation options for community stakeholders. The research in Chapter 4 most directly extends the work on community vulnerability to pine beetle outbreak (Parkins & MacKendrick, 2007; Williamson et al., 2007) through the integration of exposure and stability within a larger resilience-based framework. 35 3.4 Results 3.4.1 Exposure of Social, Economic, Biophysical, and Cultural Values The results indicate the presence of significant differences in the nature of community economic reliance on forests. For Hinton, the forest sector was a key driver of the community’s incorporation as a town and it has contributed reliably to local employment, community identity, and municipal income for more than 50 years. Approximately 600 people were directly employed in the West Fraser sawmill and pulp mill at the time of the interviews, in addition to a contractor workforce and indirect employment opportunities. A key economic factor for the community of Hinton was the location of West Fraser processing facilities directly within the town limits, resulting in a direct and significant flow of municipal revenue from associated corporate taxes. In contrast, Grande Cache began as a coal mining town in the 1960s, with the forest sector only more recently contributing to the stability of local employment, yet interview participants still estimated the nearby Foothills Forest Products sawmill as among the top two or three employers in the community. An additional factor different from Hinton is location of the nearby sawmill facility (Foothills Forest Products) outside the town limits, versus inside. This has resulted in associated tax revenue going to the rural Municipal District of Greenwood, as discussed in more detail later. Participants from adjacent rural counties and municipal districts also viewed the forest sector as making an important contribution to employment, municipal revenue, and the regional economy, particularly in the more heavily timbered westward regions adjacent the Rocky Mountains, Jasper National Park, and Wilmore Wilderness Park. However, at the county and municipal district level, forest-sector revenues were proportionally less significant compared to oil and gas. This is in significant measure due to the tax revenues associated with wells and linear pipelines across the rural landscape. Indigenous participants from the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation adjacent Grande Cache underscored the value of the forest sector as a primary source of employment for their community members. Furthermore, these participants felt that the stability of forest-sector employment relative to other natural resource sectors were valued highly by Aseniwuche Winewak Nation members: “It’s good employment, it’s year-round employment … it’s got good benefits, so it’s seen as a very desirable job in the community.” Additional factors that added value to forest-sector employment were the clean work environment relative to coal mining; a perception of the 36 forest industry as producing less environmental contamination relative to the mining and oil and gas sectors; and a feeling of greater affinity between the longer-term perspectives of forest-sector activities such as reforestation, and Indigenous values of land stewardship: “It’s just seen as much more green and environmentally sustainable.” The nature of tourism and the role of forest landscapes in supporting it varied significantly between case study communities. For Jasper, the visual appeal of the Rocky Mountains and interwoven forested landscapes, and an array of recreational opportunities makes tourism the primary economic driver. This tourism focussed economy includes international tourists seeking the quintessential Canadian experience. Participants in Hinton and Grande Cache characterized tourism as more regionally driven with a greater focus on activities that cannot be undertaken in Jasper National Park and Willmore Wilderness Park, such as all-terrain vehicle use, snowmobiling, and hunting. Forest landscapes within and near Hinton are also an important local and regional draw for mountain biking, horseback riding, and camping, and there is a regionally important Nordic ski facility nearby that was utilized for the Olympic games. Hinton participants emphasized the significance of the location of their town as the last stop before Jasper National Park, resulting in demand for overnight accommodation and supplies. Participants in Grande Cache noted the strong scenic draw of the adjacent Rocky Mountains, the backcountry recreation in Willmore Wilderness Park, hunting, and an internationally attended foot race though local terrain, known as the Death Race. For resource-based communities like Hinton and Grande Cache, the extent to which the forest sector supports the municipal tax base varies considerably based on the location of timber processing facilities inside versus outside municipal limits. For example, due to its location outside the former municipal limits of Grande Cache, the adjacent Foothills Forest Products sawmill generated tax revenue only for rural Municipal District of Greenview. Conversely, for Hinton, the location of the West Fraser sawmill and pulp mill inside municipal boundaries resulted in the generation of corporate taxes that equate to about 30% of the municipal operating budget. This amount is not counting other local employment and spin-off considerations. Irrespective of the location of the manufacturing facilities inside or beyond municipal limits, participants in forest-sector communities commonly noted the 37 importance of forest industry corporate philanthropy in supporting the local social fabric and community well-being through the support of teams, organizations, and infrastructure. Participants in all case study communities commonly underscored the importance of surrounding forested landscapes to the activities, lifestyle, and identity of residents. Interviewees in Hinton and Jasper, for example, emphasized the importance and the integral nature of pine trees to the character of trails, parks, golf courses, and residential areas within town limits, and to the camping and recreation sites, trails, and vistas in the region and the park. During the implementation of the research, a significant component of trees along and within municipal parks and trials and in the immediate proximity of roads and structures were observed as having already been killed by pine beetle, particularly in Jasper due to its location at the earlier front line of the outbreak. Concerns about impacts from pine beetle were less a factor within the municipal boundaries of Grande Cache due to limited presence of pine. The potential for impacts to the surrounding landscapes, trails, campsites, golf course, vistas, and, notably, for the adjacent communities of the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation were much more significant due to the greater extent of pine. Participants in all case study communities were concerned about the potential impacts of pine beetle to lifestyle and community identity. The forest landscapes surrounding Hinton and Grande Cache, for example, were described as important to a strong recreational culture ranging in activities from backcountry ATV use to RV camping, hunting, mountain biking, and cross-country skiing. These activities occur to a large extent on pine-dominated landscapes and trails. One Hinton participant noted the contribution of trees to the ambience and feel of the town itself, referring to “that real sort of comfort the trees bring.” For Hinton, this sense of identity extended to the strong history and connection with the forest industry and associated employment: “Forestry is, it is our community.” Participants in Jasper emphasized the strong local outdoor culture of hiking, mountain biking, and skiing. There was also mention of the cross-regional nature of outdoor activities, including Jasper residents commuting outside the park to the Hinton and Grande Cache area to hunt, and regional travel to recreate in the park. The critically important connection to the land expressed by Indigenous participants included essential cultural sites, and traditional uses such as trapping, hunting, and the collection of firewood for heat and to smoke hides 38 and meat. The gathering of medicinal plants and cultural importance of the woodland caribou were underscored as vitally important to that connection with the land. 3.4.2 Biophysical Stability and Impacts to Regulating and Cultural Ecosystem Services Subject experts and community leaders across the region were aware of and knowledgeable about the impacts to ecological dynamics from decades of wildfire suppression policies. The exclusion of fire was described as resulting in extensive landscapes of older pine highly susceptible to pine beetle outbreak and large-scale fire events (see adaptive cycle in Table 2.1). Several participants reflected on a series of photographs taken approximately 100 years (Mountain Legacy Project) from prominent viewpoints in the region, revealing a landscape with considerably less mature forest compared to the present day. For example, components of Jasper National Park, now covered in mature pine forest, had at the time of the photographs been non-forested. Despite the vulnerability of regional forests to pine beetle outbreak, several participants noted that the Rocky Mountains had at one time been perceived as a barrier to eastward spread of the beetle (see modularity in Table 2.1). These participants reflected on how this did not hold true in the end due to what was highlighted by some as a gradual incursion of beetle through the Robson Valley in British Columbia (including Robson Provincial Park) into the Jasper area, and by others as the rapid incursion of pine beetle in the early 2000s due to wind: I was told by the leading science experts working with the pine beetle in BC that they would never cross the Rocky Mountains – the terrain was too high. ... And less than six months later they were in my back door … my front yard … to the shock of everybody. With the reality of pine beetle crossing the Rocky Mountains, subject experts were concerned about the high susceptibility of extensive, older age class pine stands immediately to the east. The Hinton Forest Management Agreement, for example, had been starting to experience the incursion of pine beetle at the time if the research, but with estimates that ranged from 65%–90% forest cover of pine stands 100–120 years of age, the forest management area was considered to be highly vulnerable. Some stands were described as having up to 90% of trees attacked by pine beetle already. Conversely, pine beetle had not yet arrived in significant numbers in the Grande Cache area, which was characterized as having a moderately lower risk due to somewhat higher elevation, cooler temperatures, and 39 smaller tree size. Yet, with pine estimated at 75% of the timber land base, the risk was described as very significant. Landscapes surrounding the town of Jasper had already experienced a high degree of pine beetle attack at the time of the interviews. This level of attack had resulted in a dramatic visual transformation of pine tree foliage from green to red, particularly at lower elevations where the pine component was greatest. Several participants from the NGO sector, government, industry, and the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation expressed concern about the impacts of pine beetle to ecosystem services. This concern focused on wildlife habitat, soil stability, and hydrological cycles. Woodland caribou range, occurring primarily in the Grande Cache study area, was a particular concern due to the species’ reliance on older age class forests that are vulnerable to pine beetle-driven tree mortality. Concern among Indigenous participants about loss of caribou habitat, traditional gathering, and associated cultural values was intensified by a provincial policy of accelerating the harvest of older pine stands to reduce the rate of pine beetle spread and capture timber value prior to mortality from pine beetle. The most common concern among participants in all case study communities was about the rapid onset of increased risk to public safety and infrastructure from wildfire. A secondary concern related to the short- and medium-onset hazards from falling dead pine trees in the vicinity of trails, recreation sites, and residential areas. Such trees were directly observable along trails in the Hinton and Jasper areas at the time of interviews. The perceived risk of increased wildfire severity was associated with dead and dry pine trees on the landscape. One Hinton participant, for example, was anxious about the combined effect of a southeast wind and large quantities of dead and dry timber adjacent to and within municipal limits. This sentiment was echoed in the town of Jasper where one participant described the sentiment of the broader community: “Hey, we’re going to burn down if we don’t do something.” Others from outside the park said, “we think there’s going to be a catastrophic fire,” and, “it makes people extremely nervous.” Several participants among the case study communities referred to recent, devasting wildfires in British Columbia that were driven in part by an earlier pine beetle epidemic. Others referred to recent wildfires that impacted people and infrastructure in the Alberta communities of Slave Lake and Fort McMurray, though these fires were not viewed as being pine beetle driven. Subject experts and some community participants expressed awareness about potential nuances in the extent and timing 40 of increased wildfire risk as dead tree foliage and woody biomass decay and fall to the ground. 3.4.3 Impacts to the Forest and Tourism Sectors Participants from industry, the NGO sector, and community leadership gave their perspectives on the potential nature, severity, and timing of impacts to the forestry and tourism sectors. While pine mortality was estimated as likely to range 35%–65% in individual stands, timber supply was not a concern to industry in the short- to medium-term (roughly 5–10 years). In fact, harvest levels had increased in the short- to medium-term due the provincial policy of accelerated pine harvest. Other factors, however, were perceived as threats to industry viability in the short- to medium-term. These factors included concerns about the potential loss of timber due to a beetle-driven increase in wildfire; decline in quality of salvaged beetle-killed pine and associated manufactured products; a potential inability of markets to absorb large magnitudes of related timber products; increased harvesting costs due to inefficiencies in harvest sequence and the expanded road networks needed to access green and salvage timber; and increased infrastructure in timber processing facilities to control dust levels from dead, dry timber. Forestry experts with government and industry identified a different nature of concern for the medium to longer term. This includes impacts to long-term timber supply due to potential delays in the regeneration of beetle-impacted forests; and, similar to the earlier pine beetle epidemic in BC, an anticipated drop in annual harvest levels subsequent to the current accelerated harvest levels. An additional long-term concern identified by one industry participant related to greater seasonal limitations for forest harvesting in future. In more normal operating conditions, prior to pine beetle epidemic, industry harvest profiles incorporated a mix of both pine- and spruce-dominated stands. This is because spruce-dominated stands, which tend to grow on wetter sites with soils that are sensitive to compaction by heavy machinery, can only be harvested during the winter, late fall, and early spring when soils are frozen and blanketed with snow. Pine-dominated stands, however, grow on drier sites that can be harvested in both summer and winter. The concern then was that beetle-driven acceleration of pine harvest will necessitate that future harvest profiles post-beetle epidemic will be focused to a much greater extent on spruce-dominated stands, therefore constraining the ability to maintain harvest operations throughout the year. This 41 contributed to participant concerns with the stability of timber flow to processing facilities, and reduced ability to offer reliable, year-round employment. This would be particularly challenging in remote locations where the recruitment of skilled equipment operators and other workers is already a challenge, with implications for community cohesion. Perspectives about the extent and timing of impacts to the tourism industry varied significantly among participants within and between communities based on several factors. The rapid onset of visual impacts as foliage turned from green to red following beetle attack was viewed by some participants as a potential disincentive for tourism, particularly international tourists looking for the classic mountain and forest vistas. Other participants were less concerned about visual impact, with one participant having recalled a relatively rapid visual recovery following the beetle epidemic in BC forests. More concerning to Jasper participants were the visual impacts to tourism that would result from aggressive logging as a beetle mitigation measure in the park. Some Jasper participants were supportive, however, of some level of forest harvesting for beetle control and/or fire hazard mitigation adjacent the town. Participants in the Hinton and Grande Cache areas did not express a high degree of concern about visual impacts to local tourism from pine beetle or related mitigation activities, most likely due to the industrial activities already taking place in those areas, and a lesser concern among local recreationalists for pristine forest landscapes. In the town of Jasper there was a high degree of concern about the effect of smoke, risks to safety, and tourist perceptions of safety risks from wildfires in the park due to pine beetle. Considerable smoke had been experienced in Jasper due to severe wildfire seasons in neighbouring BC. Further concerns were expressed about the impact of increased campfire bans and campsite closures due to wildfire risk and the potential for recurring highway closures due to increased wildfire frequency and severity. A participant in Hinton recounted recent, first-hand experience with tourists deciding not to continue along the highway beyond Hinton toward Jasper National Park as they could not see the Rocky Mountains due to smoke. One Jasper participant recalled tourists having recently called ahead to check on smoke levels before coming to the park. Regional and seasonal differences in the nature and timing of tourism and associated pine beetle impacts were noted by several participants. For example, it was felt that both regional and international tourism markets would likely be affected by how public safety and 42 visual impact are portrayed in local and international news media, and also by the availability of other destinations not impacted by beetle or fire. Two participants noted that the tendency for international tourists to book vacations to the park well in advance might provide a buffer of a year or so before declines in international tourism would be experienced. Winter tourism in Jasper National Park was viewed as being less impacted if ski hill and other infrastructure was unaffected by pine beetle or fire. Additional regional factors include the large number of “weekend warriors” commuting from urban centres like Edmonton and Calgary to camp and recreate in the forested Foothills area just east of the Rocky Mountains. One participant in a neighbouring county observed that multiple thousands of campers had been documented transiting to the foothills area on long weekends, many stopping to purchase supplies. Concern was therefore expressed about the safety of these large numbers of recreationists in a context of wildfire and falling, dead trees. 3.4.4 Impacts to Community, Financial, Human, and Social Capital Municipal and NGO leaders and managers expressed concern about the nature and extent of pine beetle impacts to community well-being, and implications related to the cumulative impacts of pine beetle in conjunction with other stressors. Short-term concerns centred on impacts to built capital, public safety, and the substantial financial costs and resources associated with mitigating the spread of pine beetle and the removal of hazardous dead standing trees. These concerns were particularly the case for Hinton and Jasper, given the extensive integration of pine trees throughout municipal green space, parks, trails, playgrounds, golf courses, and residential areas. One Hinton resident estimated 75% of trees in the municipal limits to be pine. The cost of removing dead trees within and adjacent parks, buildings, and sensitive infrastructure such as powerlines was a significant drain on municipal budgets even at the early stage of beetle outbreak: We have to remove them because they fall across trails, they’re fall hazards … so that is a safety issue and then of course has [caused] demand on our financial and human resources … we could have an entire crew just falling trees, all summer. Three participants noted the severity of disturbance to the locally and regionally important Hinton mountain bike trails. Impacts ranged from trail blockages due to falling snags; a preponderance of dead and dry falling branches known as “spoke breakers” that pose risks to rider equipment and safety; ground and vegetation disturbance from machinery 43 contracted to mitigate beetle impact; a substantial burden on local volunteers for cleanup operations; and changes to the character of the trail network due to factors that include the opening of the forest canopy. One participant viewed pine beetle impact as having a “very good potential of changing the whole trail network.” At a regional level, impacts from hazardous and fallen trees to provincial recreation sites, hiking trails, and ATV trail networks dispersed across the landscape were less immediately concerning due to the lower intensity of human presence. Nevertheless, there was concern about potential longer-term abandonment of some trails, and the long-term costs to maintain trails and other infrastructure assets in Jasper National Park. Figure 3.1 illustrates relationships between factors discussed in Section 3.4.2, and implications to regulating, provisional, and cultural ecosystem services. Climate change and fire exclusion policies on the top left of Figure 3.1 are indicated by the red arrows from left to right as contributing the vulnerability of forest landscapes to the unprecedented, multiregional pine beetle epidemic. The epidemic has local and cross-scale impacts to a range of ecosystem services indicated on the far right of the figure. Accelerated forest harvest policies, in blue at the lower centre of Figure 3.1, are intended to mitigate the extent of the epidemic, as indicated by the blue arrow, and mitigate impacts to ecosystem services, as shown by the blue arrow to the right. The potential for mitigative or adaptive policies to negatively impact traditional and cultural values is illustrated by the lower red arrows extending from accelerated forest harvest policies to provisional and cultural ecosystem services. 44 Figure 3.1 Relationships Between Forest Policy, Climate Change, and Pine Beetle Impacts to Ecosystems Services Important to Rural Community Resilience Note. Red arrows signify net negative impacts. Blue arrows indicate net positive impacts. 3.4.5 Cumulative Stressors to Industry and Communities The potential short- and long-term consequences of pine beetle in combination with additional economic stressors was a significant concern for the forest industry and the community of Hinton. Several participants were troubled, for example, that even if increased forest harvesting costs, manufacturing costs, and lower product quality associated with pine beetle damage could be absorbed by industry, additional impacts from lumber tariffs or a drop in international market prices could push industry beyond viable financial operating thresholds. In this context, one participant characterized pine beetle as potentially being “the feather that broke the camel’s back.” In the Grande Cache area, there was substantial unease about direct impacts to long-term timber supply from pine beetle mortality, combined with additional harvesting restrictions to maintain dwindling older age class stands also threatened Mitigative Accelerated Forest Harvesting Policies Fire Exclusion Policies Climate Change Vulnerable Forest Landscapes Local and Cross-Scale Impacts Cultural Ecosystem Services ➢ Visual ambient ➢ Recreation ➢ Community identity ➢ Traditional values Regulating & Supporting Ecosystem Services ➢ Regional scale ecological transition ➢ Biodiversity ➢ Hydrology Provisional Ecosystem Services ➢ Public safety & infrastructure ➢ Tourism jobs & economy ➢ Forest sector jobs & economy ➢ Traditional use Multi-Regional Pine Beetle Epidemic 45 by beetle but vital to the regionally important woodland caribou range. This operational stress is be aggravated further by the increased seasonal constraints and related challenges with skilled workforce retention, as discussed already. In the tourism sector there were concerns about impacts to local small businesses. Industry and NGO participants in Jasper, for example, observed that small-scale tourism and service sector businesses operate closer to financial thresholds relative to larger, more established businesses with greater financial reserves. One small business owner, while not anticipating a long-term tourism decline due to pine beetle visual impacts, was anxious about their ability to hang on through a two- to three-year decline in client base following a significant beetle-related wildfire event: You cancel all your bookings … maybe it takes three years before you’re back to actually making money? …things all sort of rebalance out eventually, it’s just whether you survive that drop or not? … if you’re a new business or if you have a lot of debt then that’s going to make a big difference. Further considerations emerged about the effect of pine beetle impacts in conjunction with existing social and economic stressors. In this context, a reduction in community support services due to the loss of forestry or tourism-based municipal tax revenue could add to the stress on families already impacted by loss of employment, and potentially affected by associated increased risks of substance abuse and mental health issues. Others expressed concern about the extra stress on volunteers involved in pine beetle mitigation and cleanup activities, combined with the loss of volunteers as former employees and families depart the community to find work elsewhere. In a somewhat-related theme, Indigenous participants underscored how changes to forest harvesting harvest plans due to the accelerated harvest rates and the need to salvage pine beetle-affected timber had increased the demand on their human resources for decision-making related to culturally important caribou habitat. 3.4.6. The Role of Economic Diversity and Contingencies in Community Stability Case study interviews explored economic diversity and the role of local autonomy in contributing to community stability. Economic diversity for the town of Hinton, for example, was characterized by one participant as a “four-legged stool” of forestry, oil and gas, mining, and as a regional service sector hub involving retail, health care, and tourism. But from an autonomy perspective, the health of these sectors is strongly linked to global economic 46 market factors outside the control of rural communities. Moreover, interviewees recalled the historically cyclical nature of the resource sector. For Hinton, this instability was seen as having been moderated by the comparative stability of forest-sector employment versus mining and oil and gas. There was also optimism about the recent opening of a coal mine in the vicinity; the additional manufacturing of materials for the fracking of natural gas; a water-based energy storage project; and a feasibility study for large-scale geothermal energy. For the town of Jasper, the key economic driver has been tourism associated with the park, and municipal revenues come largely through corporate taxes associated with hotels and tourism spending in the local service sector. Participants identified important seasonal and geographical diversity in the nature of tourism for Jasper, based on the somewhat more regionally driven ski industry, and the importance of year-round local visitors from communities like Hinton and Edson to recreate and visit restaurants and the local theatre. The economic influence from roughly 100 Canadian National Railway employees in the community was also noted, as well as workers associated with a pipeline running through the park, and the community’s role as a service hub for nearby rural communities. In Grande Cache, the very cyclical nature of the coal industry, traditionally the largest employer, led to government-supported efforts to diversify the local economy. It was from these efforts and strong local advocacy that the nearby Foothills Forest Products sawmill came into being with its associated forest timber tenure. A federal prison was established in the 1980s, and the Grande Cache economy was further supported by the oil and gas sector. Participants described the oil and gas workforce as less permanent compared to larger centres, such as Grande Prairie and Hinton, that act as established regional hubs with a greater presence of supporting infrastructure and corporate offices. Partly for this reason and due to a lack of professional, corporate, and other management positions in the community economy more broadly, Grande Cache was depicted as lacking white-collar job opportunities. Grande Cache has been also supported by tourism activities that include guiding, a white-water rafting company, and limited agricultural activities in the broader region. Enthusiasm about an anticipated restart of the local coal mine and an associated power plant adjacent to Grande Cache was described as somewhat tempered due to the recent hardships experienced by community members. The most recent coal shutdown that resulted 47 in the departure of many community members, a crash in housing values, mortgage foreclosures, and additional cascading impacts. In contrast, Grande Cache respondents commonly emphasized the strongly valued contribution to the local economy and employment from a diverse array of activities undertaken by the adjacent Aseniwuche Winewak Nation. These contributions had included contracting, construction, and related activities. The interviews explored the extent of contingency resources as buffers for communities in a context of pine beetle and other forms of environmental or economic change. Reserve funds to cover expenditures, such as the removal and cleanup of hazard trees, adjacent infrastructure, and trails, are very limited among the case study communities. Emergency funds, where they do exist, are designated for other types of crises, such as water pump or other types of infrastructure failure, and communities are heavily reliant on the availability of provincial support. Moreover, it was felt that existing financial margins and constraints leave communities with a limited ability to cope with a decline in municipal tax revenues due to forest or tourism sector decline. Such decline would therefore quickly lead to constraints on the ability to deliver important community services. Participants in Jasper, for example, commented on the town’s need to support infrastructure for a tourist population of up to 40,000 during summer months, based on a year-round resident taxpayer base of only 4,000 and no share of park revenues. Opportunities to access provincial funding in some instances had helped mitigate these concerns, but nevertheless, municipal operations were characterized as having tight margins with limited buffers against economic decline. For Grande Cache, the 2018 municipal dissolution resulting from a financial viability review underscores the extent of rural community vulnerability to resource sector cycles and other factors: “There’s no money… no contingency … Grande Cache is broke.” Adding to existing financial stress, leaders at both the town and rural municipal level in the case study area voiced frustration about what they saw as the downloading of financial responsibilities from the province. At the county or rural municipal district level, however, access to financial reserves did not seem as concerning due in large measure to the magnitude and diversity of the tax base associated with industrial activity across the landscape, particularly the oil and gas sector. One participant noted, for example, that a gradual slowdown in the forest sector due to pine beetle “probably wouldn’t hurt that bad.” Another participant 48 pointed out, however, that county-level resources, while significant, are offset by the need to support infrastructure over a much larger land base. 3.4.7. Community Cohesion as an Attribute of Social Stability Community cohesion (see Table 2.1) as an attribute of social capital and stability in the context of a disturbance like pine beetle was assessed using a lens of attachment to place. Participants were asked, for example, to what extent community members see themselves as staying long-term in the community. Community cohesion was as a key strength in all the case study communities, aided by the affinity of most residents to a rural, outdoor lifestyle. Also, participants saw cohesion in their communities as being particularly strong in comparison to other rural locations. Several noted examples of children returning to raise their families after having left to attain advanced education elsewhere. One participant in Grande Cache, in regard to the extensive history of mining sector booms and busts, noted: The people that want to stay want to stay. They’ll do whatever it takes … they changed direction and then the mine kicked back in and then people went back to mining … everyone’s kind of done a shuffle of here and there and whatever skills that you can use to stay here. There were differences, though, in the degree of connectivity and longevity for individuals and groups within the case study communities. In Grande Cache, for example, one participant commented that “it’s the people who like the remoteness that thrive here … but also makes it hard to recruit.” The forest sector was viewed as being more conducive to the longevity of residents as compared to other sectors. For Grande Cache, as discussed already, a lack oil and gas industry presence at the corporate level was viewed as contributing to the more transient nature of work in that sector. For people of the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation, connectivity and relationship to the land was highlighted by respondents as a key factor supporting longevity and cohesion. Participants in Jasper remarked that while affinity to the rural, outdoor lifestyle is a strong contributor to cohesion for the community, the overall longevity of residents is reduced by the significant presence of seasonal tourism workers. This impact was perceived as diminishing, however, due to the increasingly longer tourism shoulder seasons. Also, the remoteness of Jasper was viewed as an asset to cohesiveness compared to communities situated close to large urban centres. In this context, the city of Canmore—further to the 49 south along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains and close to the city of Calgary—was noted as an example of where a greater proportion of residents commute or live only part-time in the community. In contrast, Jasper was seen as having a larger proportion of full-time residents involved in and committed to the community. 3.4.8 Vulnerable Groups and Proximity to Social and Economic Thresholds Interviewees across the case study area, including the county and municipal district level, identified concerns that underscore the fragile nature of rural community cohesion, rural vulnerability to disturbances like pine beetle, and the potential for a cascading loss of social and human capital. One aspect of this relates to the capacity of rural communities to attract and retain long-term residents. There was anxiety that a severe pine beetle event could damage the forested ambient and outdoor lifestyle, resulting in the loss of comparative advantage over other rural communities in terms of the ability to attract long-term residents. In this context, one observer in Hinton saw pine beetle as impacting “the feel of our community, the attraction of individuals and talent … the dynamic of our community.” Further to this, however, were concerns about the direct impact that a pine beetle-driven mill closure would have in forcing some families to leave their community to find work elsewhere, and the precariousness of small business owners in the tourism and service sector. Additional concerns that contribute to the fragility of rural community cohesion include the implications related to limited contingency resources, tight financial margins, and the resulting potential for rapid decline in municipal service provision. One observer at the county level noted that existing per capita-based funding formulas could lead to further loss of local services, facilities, and a downward cycle in community cohesion: If I lose population then I lose funding … services will go down … that downward spiral … take say 20% of the services away because we lost 10% of our population, or even … 10% of the services away, … if that community doesn’t have A, B, C and D, you know, a movie theatre, a Wal-Mart, a swimming pool, and ice-rink … then the family says, “When are we getting transferred to Red Deer?” … “I want to get out.” Further to this, participants in Hinton and Jasper highlighted a high degree of economic interdependency that would result in cumulative impacts to the broader local economy: An interviewee in Hinton described this concern: “It will affect every single individual … it’s not going to be one of those, “Well, I don’t know anybody that was affected by that … That 50 won’t happen with forestry.” One participant described the impacts of a mill shutdown as “crippling” and “paralyzing,” and requiring the reconfiguration of the entire community model: “It would affect every single citizen in this community.” When asked to identify social groups that would be particularly vulnerable to impacts of pine beetle outbreak, two participants from Jasper and Grande Cache viewed young families as less resilient due factors such as to family income needs, proximity to financial thresholds, and the need for minimum viable networks of young people for schools and local teams. Additional groups identified as being potentially more vulnerable to pine beetle related loss of employment include forest-sector workers and their families due to a potential rise in mental health concerns, family conflict, and substance abuse; small business owners with narrow operation thresholds; senior citizens and others that rely on municipal services such health centres; women’s shelters and social foundations; and groups that rely on corporate philanthropy. Owing to their reliance on forest-sector employment, some members of Indigenous communities would also be in a potentially vulnerable position to the impacts of mountain pine beetle and other forms of landscape-level environmental change. This vulnerability extends to safety concerns due to location of Indigenous communities directly in the forest interface, and exposure to the loss of cultural and traditional values as discussed already. The left column of Figure 3.2 illustrates and distinguishes short- versus longer-term cumulative stressors to the forest and tourism sectors, Indigenous values, and rural communities. The risks and limiting factors discussed for each are synthesized in the centre column of Figure 3.2. These include, for example, increased production costs and decline in long-term timber supply for the forest sector; short- to medium-term declines in tourism; cumulative impacts on the landscape impacting Indigenous values; and narrow operating margins for rural communities. Corresponding critical thresholds on the far right of Figure 3.2 include the potential for reduced viability of the forest sector, and related mill shutdowns; the loss of locally owned tourism and service sector businesses; permanent loss of important cultural values; and downward spirals in community social cohesion. 51 Figure 3.2 Cumulative Stressors, Risks, Limiting Factors, and Critical Thresholds 3.5 Discussion This chapter highlights notable differences in the nature of community reliance on forests. For example, the extent and the way in which municipal revenues are linked to forest landscapes varies considerably based on the physical location of timber processing facilities in relation to municipal boundaries; the degree to which surrounding landscapes are a draw for international tourism; and the seasonality of international versus regional tourism. The results also highlight the importance of forest landscapes to rural livelihoods, lifestyles, community identity, and cultural values. The nature and rate of onset of impacts from pine Cumulative Stressors Short-term Long-term Forest Industry Operating costs, harvest configuration Infrastructure Capital Costs Market Fluctuations, Tariffs Timber Supply, Seasonal Constraints Risks; Limiting Factors Critical Thresholds Tourism Landscape Aesthetics (parks) Public Safety, Park Infrastructure Protection Regional & International Perception Costs to Restore Ecosystem Dynamics Indigenous Values Communities Needs for Engagement & Decision-Making Loss of Mature Forest, Traditional Values Loss of Valued Employment Cumulative Landscape Impacts Public Safety & Infrastructure Protection Municipal Revenue; Local employment Cyclical Vulnerability in all Resource Sectors Loss of Lifestyle; Volunteer Fatigue ➢ Greater production costs ➢ Market decline and/or increased trade barriers ➢ Long-term timber supply ➢ Seasonal operating constraints ➢ Human and financial resource limitations ➢ Cumulative impacts on the landscape ➢ Limited influence on land-use decision making ➢ Decline/loss of services and infrastructure ➢ Non-viable population levels for schools, groups ➢ Downward spirals in social cohesion, resident longevity ➢ Long-term viability ➢ Production declines or shutdowns ➢ Long-term decline in the retention/recruitment of skilled operators ➢ Loss of small and locally owned tourism and service sector businesses ➢ Temporary or permanent loss or closure of infrastructure, trails, backcountry areas ➢ Permanent loss of cultural values ➢ Loss of ability to conduct traditional activities ➢ Loss of valued forest sector employment ➢ Tight operating margins ➢ Limited contingency resources ➢ Precarious social cohesion ➢ Vulnerable groups, families ➢ Declines due to real or perceived risk to safety, quality of experience ➢ Limited contingency resources for small business ➢ Increased operating costs 52 beetle epidemic vary considerably from short- to medium-term public safety, infrastructure, and tourism concerns, to longer-term decline in long-term timber supply and forest sector viability. Yet despite these distinctions, each of the case study communities are deeply impacted by the repercussions of altered ecological dynamics as result of climate change and decades of fire exclusion policies. The stability and resilience of the case study communities is supported by strengths that include strong rural identity and cohesion. However, the ability to attract and retain residents and skilled workers can be a challenge, especially in the isolated communities. Variability in the onset of impacts from pine beetle leaves a range of latitude for the timing of community response, but the impacts themselves are potentially far reaching and present challenges for rural communities to overcome. The cumulative effects of pine beetle and other cumulative stressors in a context of limited contingency resources and tight municipal budgets has the potential to drive communities beyond important thresholds of social and economic viability. This may result in downward spirals affecting families, vulnerable groups, community cohesion, and ultimately community resilience. The first to be affected may be vulnerable groups, including young families and small business owners reliant on the forest and tourism sectors, and Indigenous communities, due to threats to their livelihoods and cultural values. The results suggest considerations for local and broader scales of governance to better support rural community resilience in a context of landscape-level environmental change. Decision-making and action need to be responsive to impacts that can occur very rapidly and over periods of decades. Approaches to ensuring financial contingencies should be evaluated to ensure their relevance to a broader range of disturbance and stress. Community planning should consider measures to foster rural community cohesion and supports for vulnerable groups. Adaptive and mitigative policies at larger scales, such as accelerated timber harvest levels, should carefully consider potential negative implications to vulnerable groups and traditional values. In a context of altered ecological dynamics and climate change, forest management policy at the provincial level can support resilience at the rural community scale by prioritizing the need for resilient forest landscapes. Further exploration of these topics or the investigation of additional questions can be supported by the analytical structure of the resilience framework in Figure 2.5, and the 53 typology of attributes and indicators in Table 2.1. A more quantitative RH orientation, for example, might focus in more depth on the biophysical exposure of rural communities to pine beetle outbreak, and different scenarios of economic impact. A more critical social sciences orientation might focus on impacts to vulnerable groups and cultural values. An SES approach might focus on questions of how forest landscapes can be more resilient in providing vital ecosystem services to rural communities. Chapter 4 expands on the application of the Table 2.1 typology by exploring the role of adaptive capacity in advancing the resilience of the case study communities to pine beetle and other forms of environmental change. 54 Chapter 4: Latent Adaptive Capacity for Response to Pine Beetle and Broader Forms of Regional Environmental Change 4.1 Introduction Impacts from environmental change and the effective response to those impacts are particularly important at the community scale (Adger, 2000; Berkes & Ross, 2013; Williamson et al., 2007). In a context of climate change, rural communities are therefore increasingly in need of practical, holistic tools that enable effective adaptation to the impacts of environmental change at local and global scales. The resilience attributes assessed in this chapter are relevant to a Canadian context and other settings where natural resources and ecosystem services critical to rural communities are governed at higher jurisdictional levels. This chapter extends the exposure and stability focus of Chapter 3 by exploring latent adaptive capacity (see Table 2.1) of the three case study communities. The focus on latent aspects of adaptive capacity, through indicators of social, financial, and human capitals; institutional factors; critical social science perspectives; and complex systems considerations, supports general resilience to mountain pine beetle and other forms of regional environmental change. The qualitative methodology and broad range of indicators set this study apart from RH approaches to climate change by facilitating community and cross-scale response to a broad range of disturbance, including rapid and slower-onset threats (Keck & Sakdapolrak, 2013), and unanticipated events. The results of this study highlight notable differences in adaptive capacity within the case study region and identify opportunities to increase the adaptive capacity of each case study community. 4.2 Theory, Indicator Selection, and Case Study Examples in a Canadian Context 4.2.1 Resilience and Adaptive Capacity in a Canadian Context Research about the resilience of rural, forest-reliant communities in Western Canada is limited. MacKendrick and Parkins (2004) note how early work by authors on community sustainability focusses on concerns with the cyclical nature of timber markets. An early manual for resilience in the context of pine beetle epidemic in British Columbia centers on community economic development (Rowcliffe et al., 2000). Later studies and practical guidance focus on a vulnerability perspective (Lyon & Parkins, 2013); components-health attributes at the individual and community scale (Kulig & Botey, 2016); and DR, often with 55 RH or engineering based responses (Black & Bruce, 2010; Climate Resilience Express, 2016; Natural Resources Canada, 2011). From a vulnerability perspective, Parkins and MacKendrick (2007) observed high variability among BC communities facing mountain pine beetle epidemic, based on biophysical dimensions of forest susceptibility, risk awareness, leadership, economic diversity, and adaptive capacity. Using a similar framework, MacKendrick and Parkins (2005) found a high level of forest dependence for the town of Hinton compared to Jasper, and a slightly higher perception of economic resilience to events like pine beetle in Jasper versus Hinton. Both communities had moderate levels of community confidence in government leadership of the beetle response, and both communities scored relatively well on socioeconomic well-being based on indicators of economic hardship, education, and vulnerable groups. In a study focused on institutional adaptive capacity, Isaac (2010) found human capital, networks, engagement, and collaborative governance to be higher overall for an urban Alberta centre verses a rural community and Indigenous community context. Financial capital was viewed as a limiting factor, particularly for small and rural communities. Both urban and rural locations had weak vertical networks with higher governance levels. Williamson et al. (2008) found income, unemployment, and population-related attributes of adaptive capacity to be lower on the boreal plains versus urban centres. Similarly, while Burch (2010) characterizes an abundance of adaptive capacity within urban centres of the British Columbia Lower Mainland, Krishnaswamy et al. (2012) highlight a contrasting shortage of financial, human, and other resources in forest-dependent communities of rural BC, particularly for remote Indigenous communities. These conditions, combined with high degree of reliance among rural communities on the local ecosystem services, leave them particularly vulnerable to environmental change. The studies also confirm assertions that factors affecting community resilience vary significantly by context (Goldstein, 2009; Quinlan et al., 2016) and reinforce the need for resilience approaches that are responsive to local circumstances (Binder et al., 2013). Parkins (2008) explores how institutional adaptation through the advent of beetle action coalitions strengthened horizontal and vertical networks, (e.g. with other communities and the provincial government) and increased community involvement in the response to 56 pine epidemic in British Columbia. He acknowledges the potential for such initiatives to improve collaboration and governance legitimacy, yet cautions against initiatives that serve primarily to extend government influence. In more recent work, boundary organizations were found to be effective in facilitating collaboration, coproduction of knowledge, engagement, and decision-making for climate change adaptation measures in urban municipalities of the British Columbia Lower Mainland (Graham & Mitchell, 2016). Kulig and Botey (2016), focusing on psychology and social capital perspectives, highlight links between individual attributes such as self-reliance, financial resources, attachment to place, and sense of community in fostering community resilience. Hurlbert and Gupta (2017) found that strengths in economic and human resources, legitimacy of governance, and collaborative and entrepreneurial leadership supported adaptive capacity for the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in response to floods and droughts. Adaptive capacity in this context was constrained, however, by limited double and triple loop learning. Plummer et al. (2018) underscore a trend away from a traditionally narrow focus on physical and financial capital in response to flood risk (e.g., through engineered structures), and toward greater consideration of social and human capitals. Fletcher et al., (2020) stress the importance of the informal social capital attributes of bonding, bridging, and linking in supporting adaptive capacity for communities on the Canadian prairies, particularly due to the limited presence of formal community supports in rural areas. The application of resilience and related practical guidance in Western Canada has tended to focus somewhat narrowly on RH analytical approaches identified in Chapter 2 (Black & Bruce, 2010; Bowron & Davidson, 2011; Climate Resilience Express, 2016; ICLEI, n.d.). This despite the broad range of exposure and impacts from climate change and an event like pine beetle epidemic as identified in Chapter 2. For example, action research in Prince George, BC (Picketts et al., 2013), identified the removal of pine beetle-killed trees (to reduce wildfire severity), flood risk mitigation, and emergency response to extreme weather events as among the top priority action areas for community resilience. Other local and regional initiatives in British Columbia and Alberta prioritized dike elevations and set-back requirements from floodplains to protect structures (Natural Resources Canada, 2011); extreme weather and floods, emergency preparedness, water supply, and wildfire (Columbia Basin Trust, 2015; Climate Resilience Express, 2016). Actions identified in response to these 57 threats include changes to stormwater drainage and sewage infrastructure; and updates to disaster services policies, water planning and bylaws, housing development standards, and wildfire protection works. As important as these applications are for fostering community resilience, this chapter endeavors to extend resilience assessment and action to include a more holistic adaptation toolbox for community leaders that goes beyond a RH and engineering focus. 4.2.2 Adaptive and Transformational Capacity as Key Constituents of Resilience Adaptation takes place in both ecological and social systems. Social systems, however, have a greater capacity to adapt due to the human ability to learn and adjust (Adger, 2003; Matthews, 2014). Adaptive capacity in social systems involves intentionality of action (Walker et al., 2004; Magis 2010), which may be reactive to a stress event, or proactive (Engle, 2011), and serves to mitigate vulnerability (Engle, 2011; Williamson et al., 2007). Adaptive capacity is therefore a key constituent of resilience (Engle, 2011). The idea of transformative action (Adger, 2000; Folke et al., 2010) in response to change is also gaining importance in both resilience and sustainability science (Folke, 2016). From a SES perspective, adaptive responses can be viewed as being directed toward maintaining systems within existing thresholds, that is, the idea of persistence (Folke et al.; 2010; Folke, 2016). Conversely, transformative capacity involves the ability to change to a new state or condition with new dynamics in response to insurmountable degrees of change (Folke, 2016; Walker et al., 2004). As with adaptive capacity, human actions may influence transformative processes (Folke et al., 2010), and many of the attributes of capacity to adapt and transform are similar, such as the availability of resources, capitals, collaborative capacity, and the presence of institutional characteristics discussed in this chapter. As important constituents of resilience, dimensions of adaptive capacity are common to community resilience frameworks. Examples from five such frameworks (see Table 4.1) illustrate that while some factors are relatively common among resilience frameworks, others are not, and the overall character and objectives of adaptive capacity dimensions relate to the analytical orientation (see Chapter 2) on which the framework is premised. Magis (2010, p. 402), for example, in a context of forest-based communities and focusing on community assets and agency, defines resilience as “the existence, development, and engagement of community resources by community members to thrive in an environment characterized by 58 change, uncertainty, unpredictability, and surprise.” Aligning with this definition, Magis is explicit in defining a range of community resources or capitals (see Table 4.1), and the role of local agency in utilizing community resources through collective and strategic action. Table 4.1 Example Attributes of Community Resilience Forest-based communities a Urban climate resilience b Livelihoods and Ecosystem Services c Individuals and communities d SES resilience e Community resources: Natural Human Cultural Social Financial/built Political Development of resources (action) Engagement of resources Collective action Strategic action Equity Impact Systems-infrastructure: Flexibility and diversity Redundancy Safe failure Agents: Responsive-ness Resourcefulness Capacity to learn Institutions: Rights and entitlements Decision-making Information Assets: social, economic, political, cultural, and natural capital. Agent-based internal and external drivers: social, political, cultural, and natural Livelihood strategies and implications for ecosystem services Livelihood outcomes Personality (e.g., self-reliance) Physical environment (contributing to personality attributes such as toughness) Economy (individual wealth, employment) Attachment to place Social interactions (e.g., leadership, sense of community) Stability: Single points of failure Resistance and balance Adaptive Capacity: Response diversity Collaborative capacity Connectivity Abundance, reserves Learning capacity Readiness Situational awareness Preparedness Enabling Traits Leadership, initiative a Magis (2010). b Tyler and Moench (2012). c Stotten et al., 2021 d Kulig and Botey (2016). e Kerner and Thomas (2014). 59 Tyler and Moench (2012), and Kerner and Thomas (2014) incorporate related traits of resourcefulness, collaborative capacity, and agency while from an SES perspective maintain a focus on systems-oriented attributes of stability, flexibility, diversity, and redundancy. Learning and networks, or connectivity, are explicit in most frameworks or fall within broader asset categories like social resources (e.g., Magis, 2010). From a psychology and mental health perspective (see Table 4.1), Kulig and Botey (2016) underscore individual and community-scale factors. Critical social science and institutional perspectives appear through dimensions of rights and entitlements (Tyler & Moench, 2012). Stotten et al., (2021) integrate a resilient livelihood framework with agency and SES perspectives involving ecosystem services considerations, external drivers, and human-environment interactions. 4.2.3 Components-Based Development and Human Health-Focused Indicators Components-based development attributes and indicators (see Table 2.1) for the case study research focus on the role of capitals or resources in facilitating adaptive action in response to change (Adger, 2003). Attributes include natural and financial capital (Dinh & Pearson, 2015; Emory & Flora, 2006), also referred to as resources (Magis, 2010) or adaptive assets (Tyler & Moench, 2012), that are helpful, for example, in providing options for diversifying the local economy. Additional attributes and indicators reflecting both development and mental health approaches, and often characterized as components of social capital (Emery & Flora, 2006), include the roles of community connectedness and cohesion (Emery & Flora, 2006; Wall & Marzall, 2006; Kulig & Botey, 2016; Wilson, 2012); resourcefulness and attitude (Berkes & Ross, 2013; Kulig & Botey, 2016); communal responsibility and related factors about volunteerism (Adger et al., 2007); entrepreneurialism (Gupta et al., 2010); and the development of community resources (Magis, 2010). Further attributes of human and social capital include the transferability and adaptability of skillsets (Walker 7 Salt, 2006) in contexts of economic transition; leadership (Burch, 2010; Emerson et al., 2012; Magis, 2010; Wilson, 2012), vision, and resources to lead (Gupta et al., 2010; Wilson, 2012); and the role of political capital (Emery & Flora, 2006; Flora et al., 2004; Magis, 2010) in supporting local influence and ability to secure resources. Aspects of cultural capital are discussed in Section 4.2.4 due to its overlap with SES analytical orientations. 60 4.2.4 Institutional, Critical, and SES Attributes and Indicators Structural considerations (see Chapter 2) for adaptive and transformational capacity and resilience have emerged within efforts to integrate and extend ecological resilience ideas to social systems (Gunderson et al., 1995; Gunderson & Holling, 2002; Walker et al., 2004). Both formal and informal institutions play a role in fostering adaptive capacity (Adger, 2003), leading to a wide range of related theory. As the focus of this chapter is on latent adaptive capacity and general resilience, institutional considerations focus on local planning processes and concepts linked to local autonomy to undertake adaptive and transformative activities (Gupta et al., 2010; Turner et al., 2003; Wilson, 2012), and institutional responsiveness to operational level concerns. This body of theory includes ideas about macroeconomic lock-in (Wilson, 2012), or the degree to which local dependence on global market factors limits capacity to innovate and transform (Robards and Greenburg, 2007; Berkes & Ross, 2016; Wilson, 2012). Macrostructural lock-in (Wilson, 2012), considers the adequacy of local infrastructure in supporting adaptive innovation. Theory around institutional or government responsiveness to concerns like pine beetle relates to activation (Bennett et al., 2016; Burch, 2010; Parkins & MacKendrick, 2007; Pelling & High, 2005), capacity for learning (Gupta et al., 2010; Wilson, 2012), and transformational capacity and adaptive governance (Folke, 2006; Walker et al., 2004). The research in this chapter also explores formal structural considerations about the legitimacy (Emerson et al., 2012; Hurlbert & Gupta, 2017; Parkins, 2008) of municipal and broader scale land-use planning. These attributes can be viewed as the degree of support for and commitment to planning processes and their outcomes, and the inclusion of diverse voices and knowledge sources. Such factors have been considered in other forest-based community resilience contexts (Magis, 2010). This chapter explores legitimacy as an indication of the likely efficacy of decision-making in a context of pine beetle impacts across regional forested landscapes. Institutional considerations explored in this chapter extend to the critical analysis of social difference and marginalization, conflict, power (Brown, 2014; Wilkinson, 2012), and culture (Lyon & Parkins, 2013), which have been underutilized in resilience application (Cote & Nightingale, 2012; Wilkinson, 2012) and not typically a focus of SES resilience application (Folke, 2016). 61 From an SES perspective, adaptive capacity (Folke 2016, para 20) is “the capacity of people in a social-ecological system to learn, combine experience and knowledge, innovate, and adjust responses and institutions to changing external drivers and internal processes.” A wide array of related indicators associated with SES resilience thinking have emerged in the literature, including aspects of social capital, collaborative capacity, and networks. In an SES context, these are viewed as facilitating the capacity for information flow, collective learning, adaptation, transformation, and emergence (Adger, 2003; Folke et al., 2003; Carpenter et al., 2001). Chapter 4 considers two aspects of SES analytical approach. First is the role of resilient landscapes in fostering resilient communities (Adger, 2000), which reflects a two-way or reciprocal view of the human–environment relationship (Binder et al., 2013). From this perspective, community resilience can be strengthened by fostering resilient landscapes that are characterized by diversity and strong natural capital that support options for response to an event like pine beetle epidemic (Armitage & Plummer, 2010). A reciprocal view of the human–environment relationship may consider local capacity to influence the management of ecological systems governed at larger scales, such as the pine beetle epidemic in Western Canada. This capacity can be enabled through political capital as discussed for components-development in Section 4.2.3. A second aspect of SES analytical approach, with strong links to cultural capital, relates to the role of collective social memory in fostering adaptive capacity and resilience (Folke et al., 2003). In this respect, Folke et al. (2003), drawing on research from other disciplines (e.g., Lee, 1993), emphasize how prior experience with past disturbance and change can help facilitate effective decision-making and reorganization in response to current and future events. Further SES, institutional, and critical perspectives related to cross-scale interactions, collaborative governance, triple-loop learning, policy efficacy, and responsiveness are addressed in Chapter 5. 4.3 Results 4.3.1 Natural, Financial Capital and Infrastructure as Assets for Adaptation and Transformation Strengths and limiting factors identified in the study as they relate to the contribution of natural and financial capital, and infrastructure, to adaptive capacity are summarized in 62 Table 4.2. Participants viewed natural capital in the case study region as being very strong (see Table 4.2, top) due to the extensive forested and mountainous landscapes and [the] associated array of ecosystem services, including both renewable and non-renewable resources. The landscapes and vistas of Jasper National Park support the mainly tourism-driven economy of the municipality of Jasper. Participants in Jasper described the character of the town and the tourists it relies on as distinctly different from other mountain tourism communities due to the remoteness of Jasper from regional travel hubs. Tourists who take the trouble to get to Jasper were characterized as more deliberate in their travel intentions and their pursuit of backcountry adventure. The town’s relative isolation was also viewed by respondents as contributing to its adaptive capacity through the fostering of resourcefulness and community connectedness, as discussed in greater detail further on. Table 4.2 Natural and Financial Capital, and Infrastructure Strengths and Limiting Factors Attributes Indications of Adaptive Capacity Natural and financial capital, infrastructure  Extensive forested landscapes, ecosystem services, natural resources.  Tourism (Jasper) and potential for greater tourism (Hinton; Grande Cache).  Proximity to the Rocky Mountains, Jasper National Park, and Willmore Wilderness Park.  Backcountry recreational opportunities outside park boundaries (Hinton; Grande Cache).  Shortfalls in financial capital limit economic adaptation, transformation.  Lack of infrastructure limits tourism & small business (Grande Cache).  Fire exclusion, cumulative development impacts and climate change limit room for adaptive actions. Note: Parentheses indicate primary origin of perspectives but do not exclude the potential presence of these trends in other communities. Upward arrows indicate strengths; downward arrows indicate limiting factors. 63 Participants in Hinton and Grande Cache observed while their communities were not as tourism centred as the town of Jasper, their proximity to the Rocky Mountains, including Jasper National Park (west of Hinton) and Willmore Wilderness Park (west of Grande Cache), drives an important tourism-linked component of the local economy (see Table 4.2, top). One participant characterized Hinton as being the “gateway to the Rockies.” This status had resulted in the capture of significant business from tourists heading to and away from Jasper National Park. A further asset for Hinton and Grande Cache was described as their ability to promote backcountry recreational activities not possible in the parks, including hunting and the use of all-terrain vehicles. Participants also noted that fewer restrictions (comparative to within Jasper National Park) associated with developing and expanding trail networks was a strength for local recreation and tourism. Motorized and nonmotorized recreation activities in the Hinton and Grande Cache areas are enabled to a significant extent by the existing backcountry road infrastructure associated with forestry and oil and gas activities. Participants in Hinton also viewed the large extent of developable land as a factor in supporting local resilience and felt that many residents would like to see the community grow: “They’re tired of being 10,000 people.” Participants in Hinton and adjacent rural municipalities commonly observed a degree of local optimism about new economic activities emerging outside of conventional forestry, oil and gas, and mining sectors. In this regard, an ongoing feasibility assessment for a large-scale geothermal installation that would provide renewable energy for the town of Hinton was frequently mentioned. One participant in Yellowhead County mentioned an innovative pump and reservoir-based energy storage project. There was also interest on the part of some participants in adaptive and transformative action in response to the pine beetle epidemic. This interest focussed on a desire to develop innovative products to utilize timber killed by pine beetle, and the development of biomass-based energy production as an alternative to focusing solely on the mitigation of pine beetle and its impacts: “You take something that is going to be a net negative to our community, but you leverage that into creating new energy projects that, potentially, could really help West Fraser … really help our community … try to build something, not just strictly look at how can we mitigate what’s going to happen,” and “I think there’s some really cool opportunities and I think long-term for our community … if mountain pine beetle can be the catalyst for something good.” 64 Yet despite broad agreement about the strength of natural assets in the area, one participant felt that challenges with accessing financial capital had limited the ability to engage in innovative adaptive and transformative activities (see Table 4.2). In Grande Cache, the smallest and most isolated of the case study communities, there was also concern that isolation and inadequate infrastructure (see Table 4.2) limits capacity for innovative adaptive and transformative activities. For example, despite its location adjacent the stunning scenery of the Rocky Mountains, Grande Cache participants were concerned that tourism potential associated with Willmore Wilderness Park is underrealized due to the remoteness of the area, lack of facilities, and inadequate promotion: “You have all the same attributes that Jasper has, but you don’t have the infrastructure,” and, “it’s just not very well-known because people go to Jasper first.” Also of concern was a decline in municipal infrastructure important to community well-being, and internet-related challenges with running home-based businesses: “The town turns 50 next year so we’ve got old waterworks, old sewage systems – power systems. We’ve got some of the oldest, crappiest internet infrastructure around.” During the research timeframe, signs of ongoing improvement to infrastructure were observable in the form of a substantial widening and improvement to the highway leading south from Grande Cache toward Hinton and Jasper. 4.3.2 Collaborative Spirit, Resourcefulness, Entrepreneurialism, and Skills Transferability Strengths and limiting factors related to collaborative spirit, resourcefulness, entrepreneurialism, and skills transferability are summarized in Table 4.3. With parallels to cohesion in Chapter 3, community connectedness linked to small town, rural character, was viewed as facilitating strong collaborative problem solving and volunteerism in all case study communities. In Jasper, for example, one participant observed: “We have a really tight community … sense of community and the sense of belonging.” The factors underlying these strengths are very similar between communities in some respects and different in others due to the distinct histories and socioeconomic contexts of each location. For example, participants in both Hinton and Jasper identified the geographically isolated nature of their communities as contributing to a sense of connectedness. 65 Table 4.3 Collaborative Spirit, Resourcefulness, Entrepreneurialism, and Skills Transferability Attributes Indications of Adaptive Capacity Collaborative spirit  Rural small-town character fosters cooperation and volunteerism.  Sense of isolation (all), and forestry identity foster connection.  Aseniwuche Winewak Nation connection to the land drives commitment, longevity, cohesion.  Downward trend in and shift in the character of volunteerism.  Depopulation (Grande Cache) impacts social capital including volunteers. Resourcefulness; entrepreneurialism  Geographic remoteness fosters individual self-reliance, resourcefulness.  Innovative spirit and desire to engage in transformational economic activities (Hinton).  Commitment to persist through cyclical downswings (Grande Cache).  Priority on outdoor lifestyle, location, drives career flexibility (Jasper; Grande Cache).  Aseniwuche Winewak Nation economic innovation supports broader local economy and employment.  Complacency encouraged by history of long-term stability (Hinton).  Resistance to change among some residents (Hinton; Grande Cache).  Recovery of traditional economies displaces transformative thinking (Grande Cache). Skills transferability  Strong among generalized professions across resource sectors.  Priorities to lifestyle, location promote skills adaptability, resourcefulness as above.  Strong existing (Jasper) and potential tourism across all communities.  Limited transferability from resource-based to other sectors. Note: Parentheses indicate primary origin of perspectives but do not exclude the potential presence of these trends in other communities. Upward arrows indicate strengths; downward arrows indicate limiting factors. 66 A contributing factor identified in this regard related to the full-time nature of residents as compared to communities located near large urban centres, where some community members are present only for vacation or commute elsewhere for work. Hinton respondents identified longevity of the forest industry as another factor supporting community connectedness: … forestry, that’s—that is what started this town and that’s what anchored this town … since it started … everyone has an immediate relative that works in that industry … I think that would pull more people together than if it was a major, you know, downturn of oil and gas or even the mine to a point. Because forestry is, it is our community and so I think it would cause people to rally. Interviewees in Grande Cache, the most isolated of the case study communities, also highlighted the role of isolation in fostering connectedness. They focused to a greater extent, however, on collaboration as a critical imperative for maintaining basic community function and values: “We feel relatively isolated, I think there’s a pretty strong desire within the community of Grade Cache to maintain what we have and keep things going.” A strong, collaborative approach was also viewed as central to the relationship with the adjacent Aseniwuche Winewak Nation. The strong sense of connection within the case study communities was viewed by participants as helping to drive a high level of volunteerism seen as vital supporting to an array of activities including sports programs and events, recreational trail maintenance, and music events. Several participants viewed this collaborative spirit as extending to times of crisis, such as through supporting evacuees from a recent wildfire that impacted the Alberta town of Fort McMurray. Yet despite these strengths, participants in all communities and adjacent rural municipalities were concerned about a change in the culture and extent of volunteering. One participant characterized this as a “generational shift.” Several participants observed that volunteerism had been increasingly confined to smaller numbers of people, and to commitments that were limited to one-time events versus involvement with boards and committees. Grande Cache participants additionally described a decline in volunteers directly because of the loss of people from the community due to a recent economic downswing. Perspectives on resourcefulness and entrepreneurialism were mixed. Participants in the Hinton area, for example, characterized residents as being self-reliant due to the community’s remoteness; resourceful, as illustrated by the community’s response to crises 67 such as tragic train derailment in the 1980s; and entrepreneurial, in regard to innovative activities like the geothermal project, the abundance of local shop keepers, and the many contracting companies that had emerged to support the natural resource sector. One participant was concerned, however, about what they perceived as “old-school” or “formal” types of engagement and decision-making. In a somewhat similar theme, another participant was troubled by what they viewed as resistance to initiatives that move beyond the status quo: “Change is hard sometimes … You can have an impact, but you need that political will.” Two participants felt that the long history of stable, well compensated employment in Hinton had not been conducive to fostering innovation and entrepreneurialism more broadly in the community, and, contributed to a resistance to risk taking and change. Three Hinton participants felt that the economic stability provided by the forest industry over several decades may have fostered a degree of complacency: “The town’s just been kind of running well for a long, long time and all of the natural resources have been functioning … a mill that’s been in operation for 60 years.” This translated to concerns about the community’s ability to respond to events like pine beetle: “I don’t think people are ready. Whether it’s a decline in forestry … a forest fire … I feel like people are comfortable.” One participant made a connection between these concerns and related theory around the role of social memory (see Table 2.1) in supporting capacity for response to crisis: “We haven’t had something that we’ve had to rebound from.” In sharp contrast to the experience of relative stability in Hinton, participants in Grande Cache referred to the very cyclical economic conditions community members had endured: “We’re probably some of the most resilient people ever … We have been through the economic wringer for the last 20 years and we’ve held on.” While the economic downswings had been mainly associated with mine closures, a recent “perfect storm” in the early 2000s sat strongly in the recollection of participants. This was when a long-term mine closure had been accompanied by a sawmill closure (of shorter duration), an oil and gas sector slowdown, and uncertainty over the continuation of a federal prison immediately adjacent the town, which had also been important to local employment. Collectively these stressors were viewed as resulting in a population decline from approximately 5,000 people to between 2,000 and 3,000 people. Despite this difficult period Grande Cache participants 68 spoke very positively about what they observed as a strong capacity and willingness of community members to persist and adapt: They’ll do whatever it takes, and they’ve gone into businesses … they switched over … got their oil and gas ticket … different skill sets … They didn’t want to leave Grande Cache. So, they changed direction … everyone’s kind of done a shuffle of here and there and whatever skills that you can use to stay here … Still others found ways to remain in the community by commuting long distances for work. One participant observed the commitment and persistence of community members even in light of a recent financial viability review that led to the dissolution of the town into the surrounding rural municipal district: “We’re going to be a hamlet, but we’ve held on. The community is holding on. The town might not, but the community is.” Despite these clear strengths in adaptive and transformation capacity in Grande Cache, one interviewee, reflecting similar concerns expressed in Hinton, was concerned that the community had been held back by what was characterized as an “old-school approach” to entrepreneurialism and economic growth reflected by resistance to change. Another observed a lack of follow-through on ideas as a limiting factor: “Every time a major industry in Grande Cache takes a hit, people want to get into tourism, then as soon as that resource industry picks up, it’s like, ‘Nah. We were just kidding.” However, Grande Cache participants commonly and strongly emphasized the strong benefits to the broader Grande Cache community from the entrepreneurialism and innovation of the neighbouring Aseniwuche Winewak Nation: “I probably can’t say enough … they’ve added a lot to the economy … They’re one of the best success stories of our community.” Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participants themselves added details about the significant business ventures and related development of local training initiatives to advance the skills of local workers: “Self-reliance is one of our strategic goals … we’ve tried to take any profit and reinvest it back into our companies for continued growth.” While Jasper had not been subject to the resource industry boom and busts of Grande Cache one participant there recalled at least one significant tourism decline in recent decades: “We have had times where when people were not travelling … it was pretty devastating to the community.” With parallels to views expressed in Hinton and Grande Cache, participants in Jasper observed how the rural nature and isolation of their community supports 69 resourcefulness, entrepreneurialism, and social cohesion. Different from the other case study communities, however, was the degree of emphasis placed on affinity for the outdoor lifestyle. This characteristic was described as fostering resourcefulness through a willingness of many residents to sacrifice career opportunities by accepting employment outside their training and qualifications to remain in the community: “Most people would be accepting of whatever they had to do,” and “Most people in Jasper don’t take their careers as … seriously … it’s the lifestyle…it doesn’t matter what you do for a job … people will do anything and everything to find a way to live here.” Resourcefulness and entrepreneurialism were also viewed contributing to the abundance of locally owned businesses. Further to concepts of resourcefulness and entrepreneurialism, we explored skill transferability as a factor supporting resilience in a context of changing economies. Participants in the resource-based towns of Hinton and Grande Cache perceived a good potential for skill transferability between forestry, mining, and oil and gas industries, particularly for skillsets such as welding, truck driving, engineering, administration, and management, but potentially less so for specialized trades like saw filing. Underground mining skills were viewed in Grande Cache as among the most challenging to transfer across sectors. One participant in Hinton, however, was concerned about skills transferability outside the resource sector to industries such as high tech. Another respondent felt that the long duration of many workers in the forest sector may detract from their ability to adapt to different activities, and some workers, it was noted, would have to leave the community in the event of a serious decline in any of the main resource sectors. The importance of responsive and locally available training and retraining programs was underscored by a wide range of participants. One industry participant in Grande Cache, for example, highlighted the challenge of recruiting qualified equipment operators and mechanics due to the location’s isolation. Skills development in the Grande Cache area had been supported through government funded retraining programs during past economic downturns, and through Aseniwuche Winewak Nation training programs as noted earlier. One participant in Hinton highlighted the strong relevance of existing local training programs including those at the high school level, a satellite facility of the regional community college, and the Hinton Training Centre, and emphasized the importance that these programs continue 70 to be “purposeful” in that sense that training be revised, updated and linked to changing industry-identified needs. 4.3.3 Legitimacy, Inclusion, and Resilient Landscapes in Local and Regional Planning At the time of the research, action at the municipal level in response to pine beetle impacts focused on the abatement of fire hazards from dead standing and fallen trees, the reduction of safety hazards through removal of dead standing trees at risk of falling over, and actions to mitigate the spread of beetle though pheromone baiting and the disposal of infected trees. These activities received financial support from the provincial government. The town of Jasper was additionally working with Jasper National Park to plan the construction of a fireguard immediately adjacent the community. Hinton and Jasper were also actively assessing and updating formal evacuation routes in response to a perceived increase in the risk and severity of wildfire. Strengths and limiting factors related to legitimacy, inclusion, and resilient landscapes in local and regional planning are summarized in Table 4.4. Interview questions explored municipal planning capacity as an indicator of community capacity to adapt and transform in response to the short- and longer-term impacts of pine beetle and other forms of disturbance. There were notable differences between communities. As the largest community, Hinton had the most extensive range of active plans and processes, ranging from the collection of baseline information to community visioning and sustainability documents, infrastructure and municipal development plans, a social development strategy, and council strategic plan. On the other hand, participants in Grande Cache underscored the difficulties with planning due to resource limitations associated with the mine closure and economic slowdown, and uncertainty about the continuation of their municipal status versus dissolution into the neighbouring municipal district: “There’s a lot of unknown. … And because of the unknown there’s just a resistance to planning.” Another Grande Cache interviewee expressed a similar perspective: “How do you plan for a community that loses 25% of its population in six months?” 71 Table 4.4 Strengths and Limiting Factors: Planning, Inclusion and Resilient Landscapes Attributes Exploratory Indications of Adaptive Capacity Municipal planning  Strong and multifaceted planning frameworks where resources permit.  Recognized needs for inclusive, equitable engagement.  Voluntary and provincially mandated intermunicipal and cross-sector collaboration.  Depopulation and a context of uncertainty and resource limitations may push small towns below thresholds in capability to respond to disturbance (Grande Cache).   Limits to municipal autonomy (Jasper) in a federal park narrow capacity for decision-making and action, but enable partnerships and access to resources. Forest, land-use and park planning  Flexibility to adapt timber harvest plans to accommodate pine beetle dynamics.  Cooperation among the forest sector, municipalities, and Indigenous communities.   Inclusive engagement yet concern about subsequent yielding to industry interests.  Tensions between resource-based economy versus biodiversity and cultural values.  Siloed decision-making for ecological dynamics that cross jurisdictions.  Growing pressure on Aseniwuche Winewak Nation engagement and decision-making capacity.  Efficacy and scope of Indigenous involvement in national park planning.  Climate change constrains seasonal forestry and beetle management activities. Resilient landscapes  Broad recognition of the need to address historic impacts of fire exclusion.  Cumulative resource extraction reduces buffers, options to respond to economic, cultural and conservation needs in a context of ecological disturbance and surprise.  Homogenous landscape of older age class forests limits adaptive policy options. Note. Parentheses indicate primary origin of perspectives but do not exclude the potential presence of these trends in other communities. Upward arrows indicate strengths; downward arrows indicate limiting factors. 72 Different again was the planning context for Jasper, which was described by respondents from the town as being unique from Hinton and Grande Cache due to the municipality’s location within a federally managed national park. In such a context, community strategic planning and related process remain in the municipal jurisdiction, but land-use plans and development planning fall under the authority of Parks Canada. Implications from this framework are discussed under the topic of local autonomy further on. Participants in all communities viewed local-level planning as participatory and inclusive, with a good level of engagement of community members. One Hinton participant commented on what they perceived as a strength tied to municipal openness to a diversity of contributors and viewpoints in local decision-making: I am constantly amazed at what a community will come up with for their own solutions when we just create that environment for them to do that. That safe place to challenge things … just ask them. Just invite them … I think that’s a huge part of what makes our community great. Respondents in Grande Cache emphasized the importance of municipal collaboration with the adjacent Aseniwuche Winewak Nation on programs including water source protection plans: “They’re in our thoughts on the way we do a lot of things because they are, as much as they’re not our community, they are a major part of our community … we are basically one community.” Participants in Jasper commonly referred to the Jasper Partnership Initiative as important to facilitating cross-sector and cross-scale collaboration and engagement through a local roundtable involving the municipality, the park, NGOs, and diverse industry representatives. Several interviewees at both the town and rural municipal levels mentioned a recent, provincially mandated intermunicipal collaboration framework as relevant to encouraging collaborative planning among adjacent communities on designated topics. Interview questions also explored legitimacy (see Table 4.2) of land and forest planning as an indicator of latent adaptive capacity to effectively respond to regional and interprovincial disturbances like pine beetle outbreak. For the case study region, forest and regional land-use planning occur at two jurisdictional levels. Forests surrounding the town of Jasper are managed federally due to their location in Jasper National Park. Willmore Wilderness Park, immediately north of Jasper National Park and 4,600 square kilometres in size, is managed by the provincial Ministry of Environment and Parks, along with other 73 smaller provincial parks within and adjacent to the case study area. Commercial forests surrounding the communities of Hinton and Grande Cache are managed by the provincial Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Economic Development, with timber rights and some forest management obligations conveyed to industry through forest management tenures. Community and forest-sector participants felt that the provincial government had been responsive to changing industry needs by allowing a degree of flexibility to adapt to pine beetle dynamics. For example, there was a degree of flexibility to change harvest and road building plans to salvage pine beetle-killed timber and pre-emptively harvest undamaged but vulnerable stands. Despite this adaptive strength, tensions around the management of diverse values at regional scales were concerning in regard to the capacity of existing land-use planning processes to respond effectively to the additional stress from an event like pine beetle epidemic. The most identified conflict was about how to balance protection of threatened woodland caribou, Indigenous rights and associated cultural values with economic activities associated with forest harvesting the and oil and gas sector. This tension was occurring primarily in the Grande Cache region of the case study area (and other regions outside the case study area) due to the presence of an important caribou herd. The concern is particularly relevant to the pine beetle outbreak, however, due to the caribou’s reliance on large areas of intact, older-aged pine forest susceptible to loss from pine beetle attack. A significant related tension pertained to a provincial policy response focused on the accelerated harvest of mature pine forests with the goal of mitigating pine beetle spread by removing susceptible timber in its path, and pre-emptively utilizing vulnerable timber. Despite a provincially led caribou planning framework, interviewees from diverse backgrounds conveyed strong dissatisfaction the resulting decisions made about balancing economic, biodiversity, and cultural values. For example, one participant felt that caribou protection measures were unnecessarily restrictive to the forestry and oil and gas sectors: “If we have no timber supply, we have no timber industry … it’ll shut down drilling … are you willing to lose 500 jobs for a herd of 100 caribou?” There was considerable support among interview participants for achieving a balance that included conservation, cultural, and economic values, yet one participant saw an inherent conflict between caribou range protection, pine beetle, forest harvesting, and the Healthy Pine Strategy. This respondent was 74 concerned that despite the strong need for caribou conservation, it may not be possible to maintain many of the existing protected older-aged pine leading stands in the future due to their inevitable loss to pine beetle and wildfire: If the pine beetle comes through … then it’s not going to work … pine beetle doesn’t care about a caribou range … it’s not logic … you get a wildfire … both your economic potential, is gone ... as well as your caribou habitat. Perspectives on land-use planning from Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participants were multifaceted. The cumulative effects of extractive activities on the landscape were viewed as constraining options to conserve biodiversity, cultural values, and long-term economic potential. Further to the apprehension about declining caribou populations, there was alarm about a declining ability to practice traditional activities such as burning, due to the extent of forestry and fossil fuel extraction on the landscape: “A forest company might not want to burn up their merchantable timber” and “there’s not that many areas where you can control burn that isn’t going to go over an existing well anymore.” These concerns extended to traditional gathering: “A company that wants to spend $10-million drilling a well might not be overly concerned that our elders go there to pick a certain plant for medicine.” Despite these concerns, Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participants were empathetic to the goals for a secure timber supply for the local Foothills Forest Products sawmill, which was described (see Chapter 3) as a valued source of stable employment, and, rooted to a greater extent in land stewardship principles comparative to the mining and oil and gas sectors. Timber supply for the mill was viewed as tenuous, though, due to what participants described as the ineffective planning of timber supply: “The mill is reacting to all these other external pressures … but the government’s lack of decision-making pushed them there.” These challenges with timber supply had put additional pressure on the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation to make last-minute decisions about activities affecting their traditional territories: “At the end of the day it got put on our community, yay or nay to this harvesting. And that’s really unfair because people shouldn’t have to pick between their traditional livelihood and their employment.” From an SES perspective, the cumulative impacts of industrial activity on the landscape were not the only factors constraining adaptive options for responding to a disturbance like pine beetle epidemic. Wildfire exclusion policies (see Chapter 3) had 75 contributed to generating large-scale forest conditions highly vulnerability to insect outbreaks and wildfire. Moreover, some respondents observed new operating constraints imposed by climate change. Extended fires seasons, for example, were limiting the seasonal time frame over which equipment could be used to destroy beetle-attacked trees, and shorter periods of frozen ground conditions had shortened the time over which road building and harvesting equipment could be operated in areas of sensitive soil. A positive indication from the interviews (see Chapter 3) is widespread acknowledgement of the need to address issues of forest ecological transformation (as a result of wildfire exclusion) through revisions to forest management policies to foster more resilient forest landscapes. Several participants described examples of cooperation, partnerships, and agreements among and between forest-sector stakeholders, municipalities and Indigenous communities related to caribou management and other topics. This is an indicator of effective and inclusive planning (see Table 2.1). These types of approaches were observed as being particularly evident when encouraged by the presence of collaborative drivers (e.g., mutual incentives) as addressed in detail in Chapter 5. One Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participant noted that there was a significant diversity of people and perspectives involved in the early stages of consultation and land-use planning. The recent Berland Smoky Regional Access Development Plan, for example, was regarded as having engaged people broadly and integrated diverse values. Despite these positive indications, however, the decision process itself was seen as compartmentalized and needing better integration of diverse concerns including caribou, pine beetle, and timber supply. This viewpoint extended to a need for more interprovincial collaboration given the cross-provincial nature, for example, of pine beetle dynamics and caribou life-cycle stages. Despite its strong engagement process the Berland Smoky Regional Access Development Plan was seen as having been subsequently weakened or “sanitized” at the cabinet level in favour of industry interests: “I’m not always confident that the diversity of feedback is always represented in …the final policy document.” Concerns from Aseniwuche Winewak Nation interviewees about inclusiveness and efficacy of landscape-scale planning extended to an Aboriginal roundtable associated with the management of Jasper National Park. These concerns included what was viewed as limitations to the scope of topics on which Aseniwuche Winewak Nation members felt they 76 were engaged: “The most we consulted with Jasper on in terms of forest-type stuff was the FireSmart and weird things like the Icefields Walkway ... because that’s what’s important to Jasper.” This frustration extended to a sense that engagement with First Nation peoples on larger-scale questions like managing beetle on the landscape were less a priority: “You’d probably be wanting to talk to them [Indigenous peoples] about what is the Park’s response to pine beetle?” 4.3.4 Leadership, Learning, Autonomy, Political Capital, and Influence Across Scales Strengths and limiting factors related to leadership, learning, autonomy, political capital, and influence across scales are summarized in Table 4.5. With some exceptions, participants in Hinton predominantly felt a sense of proactive optimism about their ability to influence community resilience at local and larger scales. One interviewee, for example, observed a broad presence of “champions” and people “passionate about the community.” These leaders were characterized as present in a variety of roles from industry to local business and the volunteer sector. The presence of strong community plans, community vision, and innovative initiatives such as the geothermal project were also viewed as an indication of leadership and agency: “We can influence stuff and understand stuff, things like that and pine beetle … you’re just not afraid.” Leadership from current and recent councils was well regarded for its intentionality in breaking out of what was characterized as a previously “insular” approach to external relationships. This was being accomplished through support to council and municipal staff for building relationships and networks beyond the community. Other participants felt that a pine beetle committee based in Hinton and the collective efforts of local municipalities had succeeded in advancing dialogue, information sharing, and support from the provincial government, an indication of political capital. One provincial official concurred that municipal pressure had been successful in influencing pine beetle mitigation budget allocation: “We are in the hot seat … There’s a lot of pressure.” 77 Table 4.5 Strengths and Limiting Factors: Leadership and Agency, Political Capital, and Influence Attributes Exploratory Indications of Adaptive Capacity Leadership and sense of agency  Proactive optimism about influence at municipal and larger scales (Hinton).  Broad presence of committed champions, advocates in different roles (Hinton).  Strong vision, advocacy, and innovation (Hinton; Aseniwuche Winewak Nation).  High regard for key leaders;  complacency among some residents (Jasper).  Collaborative networks within park;  limited networking outside the park (Jasper).  Inadequate learning and information exchange on community best practices (Hinton).  Inadequate resources for managing rapid pace of decisions and change (Hinton).  Inadequate resources for leading or responding to change (Grande Cache). Political capital  Intentional fostering of networks, political capital (Hinton).  Lobbying success (grants, retraining) during economic downturns (Grande Cache).  Effective provincial to municipal information sharing, collaboration (Hinton).  Confusion, frustration over communication channels and responsiveness from the federal government (Hinton). Influence; autonomy  Sense of helplessness due to scale of the epidemic (Hinton).  Sense of helplessness due to perceived complacency at federal level and Jasper National Park (Hinton).  Limited influence on land-use and forest planning (Aseniwuche Winewak Nation).  Limited municipal autonomy comparative to other communities (Jasper).  Transformative actions limited by international markets (Hinton; Grande Cache).  Decision-making limited by distance and higher-level organizational processes (Jasper National Park).  Insufficient expertise to contribute to forest-related decisions (rural municipalities). 78 Note. Parentheses indicate primary origin of perspectives but do not exclude the potential presence of these trends in other communities. Upward arrows indicate strengths; downward arrows indicate limiting factors. Despite having a sense of success in advancing Hinton’s political capital, some participants still felt helpless in responding to pine beetle due to the extensive scale and cross-jurisdictional nature of the epidemic: “It will have gone through all of the provincial parks, the national parks, the County land, the Crown land, by the time it gets on to our town land, you know, we’re kind of a victim of all that.” This concern was attributed in part to a perceived lack of action in mitigating the spread of pine beetle in the neighbouring jurisdiction of Jasper National Park (see Chapter 5). Another common concern in Hinton and adjacent rural municipal districts centred on communication and responsiveness from higher levels of government. In this regard, while participants generally identified an effective and “direct line-of-sight” to the provincial Ministry of Forests and Agriculture, there was a sense of confusion, disconnect, and inefficacy around the communication with and response from the federal government: “There was too many levels to get through before that voice could be heard.” Several participants in different roles and case study locations felt that the political affiliation of locally elected provincial and federal representatives had impacted the responsiveness of government to requests for beetle-related types of support. Moreover, despite observations from one participant about the cross-provincial scale of large timber companies like West Fraser, another felt that issues affecting the timber industry were not given the same priority by the federal government as other sectors like automobile manufacturing. Another participant felt that federal government responsiveness to pine beetle had been less than hoped for due the small population size of rural communities relative to large urban centres: “If the pine beetle were to go through downtown Toronto, or through Montreal, there would be money thrown at it to try to combat it, but it’s going through our Northern forests.” Strengths in leadership, agency, and political capital in Grande Cache were defined by participants in terms of successful community programs and lobbying for grants, training programs, municipal interests regarding woodland caribou conservation planning, timber allocation to enable operation of the local sawmill, and strong relationships with and support 79 from the adjacent rural Municipal District of Greenview. One respondent was concerned by what they felt was a pattern in the community of not always following through on connections that had been established and nurtured, resulting in their eventual loss. There was also recognition by participants that a forthcoming dissolution of the municipality into the rural Municipal District of Greenview would result in a further loss of community influence and agency. Participants from the adjacent Aseniwuche Winewak Nation were passionate in describing the high value of leadership and political capital within their community: “We’re pretty connected to people outside the community … we’ve learned hard—we’ve learned along the way how important it is to be an advocate for your own community.” Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participants articulated a strong vision for their community: “We want to be a modern, contemporary community, generate our own wealth … influence how policy gets developed so that we’re not always on the receiving end.” Despite these efforts, respondents were troubled about what they viewed as insufficient influence on land-use and forest planning due, in part, to successful lobbying by the oil and gas industry: As traditional people that live off the land, we’re sort of buffeted around in the middle … We can give our opinions … They’re doing really good at listening to us and understanding our concerns … but when it comes to, “Yeah, we’ve got a site here and it’s surrounded by three, four wells and we’d really not want a well in that area,” well then we’re S.O.L. Despite these sentiments, there was some optimism around recent provincial policy initiatives focused on recognition of traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous rights, caribou conservation, and the capacity for Indigenous communities to influence policy and land management much earlier in project development phases. There was equal concern, however, that these initiatives could be reversed with a change in government: “We’ve made a lot of headway. How much of that is going to come crashing down?” The town of Jasper’s location within the national park sets it apart from other municipalities in the context of autonomy and influence. While many aspects typical of municipal governance do fall within community-level responsibility, others such as land-use zoning and development within city limits are controlled by the park, and the community sustainability plan is developed jointly with Parks Canada. Similar to the other case study 80 communities, some participants in Jasper felt well networked, particularly at the provincial level, and referred to successful efforts in obtaining grants for municipal projects. There were no comments as had been the case in Hinton, however, about an intentional priority toward networking and political capital, and one participant felt that while local connections were good, those across scale were not: I think we could improve on our connection with resources outside of the community … we’re really well connected to the resources within our community but on a provincial level … maybe the administrative staff even might be more connected to resources outside of Jasper. This observation is supported by the results of a social network analysis (Gonzales & Parrott, 2019). In a separate observation, one participant from outside the community felt that Jasper’s limited autonomy comparative to other municipalities might hinder its ability to reach across scales and influence policy at provincial and federal scales: “Jasper can only deal with the certain aspects of town and then are overruled by Parks Canada rules and regulations, same as Banff, which makes it very difficult for the town council to be as active, as forceful.” While not conclusive, these comments suggest that limits to autonomy might be a potential factor contributing to a somewhat more passive approach to networking and political capital in Jasper compared to Hinton. Another indicator of potential differences in leadership and political capital between communities, relates to the responses from Jasper participants about leadership. Whereas in Hinton there were participant accounts about the relatively broad presence of champions in the community, participants in Jasper primarily referred to leadership in a context of the high level of regard and trust in the fire chief and mayor in responding to crisis events like pine beetle and wildfire. In a potentially related observation, one participant observed that a notable component of Jasper residents had a tendency to be complacent in some instances about concerns affecting individuals and the community more broadly: “A lot of people live in Jasper to have a relaxed lifestyle … and they let other people look after it. So the town looks after it … Parks [Canada], they’ll look after me.” With no intention of negating the vital importance of municipal services and key leaders in departments like emergency services, these results suggest the potential relevance of asking whether there may be 81 opportunities for the town of Jasper to be more intentional in facilitating the emergence of champions more broadly in the community. Distinct but somewhat parallel ideas emerged related to autonomy of the forest industry, resource-based communities, and the national park to act quickly in response to landscape-scale events like pine beetle. For the forest sector, participants from both municipal and industry backgrounds noted that local ability to adapt to pine beetle through the development of new timber products, for example, was limited by the overwhelming influence of international markets and trade agreements. For Jasper National Park, there was some perception that pressure from international environment and tourism sectors may have hampered the park from being more aggressive in removing trees to mitigate beetle spread. One viewpoint expressed from outside the park pertained to the large physical distance and bureaucratic processes separating Jasper National Park managers from the Parks Canada headquarters in Ottawa: “Locally the [Jasper National Park] office would like to do lots and more, but there’s – ... the systems they work with are slower and it’s not as fast to deal with the hazards.” A respondent from the town of Jasper itself felt similarly: You’ve got a bigger part of the machine that’s in Ottawa. ... So you’re dealing with an organization that’s—the head is not here … And they may not totally understand because they’re not living it everyday … you are just one national park out of X number in the country ... you’re not that big of cog in the wheel. These comments highlight that from a rural and resource-based community perspective, there were autonomy-related frustrations about the capacity to respond and adapt at a range of jurisdictional scales. When asked about the sufficiency of capable personnel to plan and implement responses to issues like pine beetle, participants across all communities referred to local emergency response departments and expressed a high degree of local confidence in the associated systems and people. A small component of respondents had different perspectives on community capacity to respond to events like pine beetle outbreak, and these perspectives relate to the dissertation goal of advancing interdisciplinary perspectives on community resilience. These perspectives included concern about the quick learning curve associated with responding to the fast pace and broad socioeconomic implications of pine beetle. For example, despite Hinton being the largest and best resourced of the three communities, two 82 participants connected with the town were anxious about the limited presence of people with experience leading through such a major event: “If you’re used to going at a slow pace and all of a sudden you need to be making really quick decisions on the fly … We haven’t had to deal with something that requires quick change.” These observations extended to a perceived need for learning from the experience of other communities: “I don’t know if we have the horses that know how to run this race … And if we don’t … how do we, how do we connect them with people that have been through these things before.” Similar sentiment was expressed by a participant involved in the operation of Jasper National Park: It was the pace that really made it difficult for us to plan to the extent that we would have liked to … we kind of had to go back to the drawing board and say, “Ok, how are we going to manage this?” One participant at the rural municipal (county) level identified that despite being relatively well resourced and staffed, a shortage of municipal expertise in forest management had limiting local capacity to effectively understand and provide input to the management of forests and pine beetle concerns on surrounding landscapes: “We don’t have the expertise to really start questioning whether or not, or how we should be continuing to manage some of these forests.” In the smaller and financially troubled community of Grande Cache, resources to lead were unquestionably limited due to the shortage of key personnel, resulting in a heavy reliance on the province and the adjacent rural municipality to lead on issues like pine beetle. Aseniwuche Winewak Nation respondents extended this observation to the challenges they had been encountering in providing input on resource development proposals in a context of rapid change exacerbated by the spread of beetle: “We try, but there’s only so many of us to go around.” Throughout the course of the research, several participants talked about government agencies, NGOs, collaborative initiatives, boundary organizations, and private industry as having formed a key component of social capital by supporting rural capacity to adapt or transform in a context of environmental change. The provincial Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and the Canadian Forest Service (an extension of Natural Resources Canada) had supported local knowledge about pine beetle dynamics by sharing field data and information about pine beetle mitigation strategies. The provincially supported Hinton Training Centre was commonly highlighted as an important resource through the hosting of training programs 83 in forest and wildfire management, hosting related events, and through its designation as a disaster reception and operations centre. Local NGOs, including chambers of commerce in all three case study communities and Tourism Jasper, focused on advocacy and promotion activities for local industry, with the Hinton & District Chamber of Commerce particularly involved in pine beetle concerns. The Jasper Partnership Initiative was frequently mentioned for its strengths in bringing stakeholders in the park together for discussion and decision-making, and the Rural Municipalities of Alberta was noted for its role in strengthening rural agency through collective lobbying on issues like pine beetle. Hinton-based fRI Research was mentioned by wide spectrum of participants as regionally important due to its role in facilitating research and knowledge extension on pine beetle and other landscape-level concerns including caribou and resilience. Despite the considerable extent of organizations supporting rural communities, some participants at both the town and rural municipal levels identified unmet needs in responding to the rapid pace of change emerging from the pine beetle epidemic. These needs included a strong desire to learn from communities in BC with previous experience of pine beetle, and from communities in Alberta, such as the town of Slave Lake, regarding its experience enduring a significant wildfire event. One participant in Hinton articulated specific questions and learning objectives that would be part of such an exchange. These goals focussed on the acquisition of knowledge about strategies that had been implemented; the effectiveness of these strategies and what was learned; what worked, and resulting recommendations for best practices; and, how communities managed to rebuild. These types of interactions and learning between communities were viewed as helpful to overcoming the steep learning curve associated with pine beetle response and overcoming a lack of local experience in similar contexts. Other participants contributed ideas about helpful learning outcomes. These suggestions were focused on achieving greater capacity to making fast decisions by being ready to “flip the switch” when needed; being ready and knowing how to recover; and how to “keep these communities vibrant” in a context of “long, drawn out” and slower-onset impacts. 4.4 Discussion This chapter considered strengths and weaknesses in community adaptive capacity and resilience to environmental change. Based on these results, resilience attributes identified 84 in Table 2.1 can help provide insight about strategies for advancing resilience. For example, despite the presence of substantial natural capital in the case study region and a strong resource-based economy, community resilience could be advanced by fostering greater local autonomy from global market factors. This would reduce economic vulnerability to global economic cycles. In a related theme, while there are examples of innovative economic activity in the case study region, including geothermal and bioenergy projects, the capacity to innovate, adapt, and transform is hindered by limited access to financial capital. An additional limiting factor relates to a degree of complacency around the need for innovation and adaptation, and a related resistance to change among some community members. This is discussed in more detail further on. A need for better infrastructure to support the development of tourism and small business was identified, particularly for Grande Cache. Economic activities of the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation highlight the potential contribution of Indigenous peoples to their own well-being and to broader regional sustainability when conditions are such that First Nations peoples can innovate, adapt, and transform. Despite strengths of rural connectedness, resourcefulness, and collaborative problem solving in each community, declining volunteerism across the region may be signalling a need to foster connectedness and engagement around a broad range of community strengths and identities. In addition, while the assessment identified some notable strengths in innovation and entrepreneurialism among the case study communities, there are indications that locations with a history of stable economies and employment might benefit from exploring opportunities to minimize complacency by fostering a culture of innovation and change. This is especially important in a context of climate and environmental change where adaptive and potentially transformative action may be needed. Conversely, while cyclically hard-hit communities like Grande Cache have had little opportunity to become complacent, they face climate and broader environmental change in a condition already strained in regard to community cohesiveness (see Chapter 3), volunteerism, resources, and infrastructure. As observed by one participant, a related opportunity may be in ensuring that adaptive actions initiated during economic downturns are followed through on during subsequent upturns when the resources to do so are more readily available, and to consider conserving financial capital during upturns as an asset for adaptive capacity during periods of economic decline. 85 Robust and inclusive municipal planning is a strength for some communities, yet the study results illustrate that for other communities, limited resources and circumstances characterized by uncertainty and change can deeply impact their ability to respond to new sources of stress. It follows that in a context of climate change, support to small, rural municipalities becomes even more important. At broader scales, response to concerns like pine beetle can be further complicated by existing tensions on a land base already heavily affected by the cumulative impacts of natural resource extraction. In this regard, insights from SES resilience thinking suggest the need to nurture resilient landscapes in a way that maintains sufficient options to adapt to surprise through attributes including diversity, buffers, and natural ecological function. From critical and institutional perspectives and considering the cross-jurisdictional nature of concerns like pine beetle and biodiversity conservation, landscape-level planning should prioritize inclusive, collaborative approaches that adequately recognize multiple values, Indigenous perspectives and traditional knowledge, minimizing conflict and increasing capacity to respond effectively to change. This is particularly important given the expectation of even greater disturbance and surprise in future. Optimism about community capacity to influence local well-being through agency, influence, and action at municipal and larger scales was a clear resilience strength, particularly for the town of Hinton. However, there were indications that fostering a broader culture of leadership, agency, and action could strengthen resilience to events like pine beetle epidemic. This was particularly the case for Jasper. Connectivity and responsiveness between municipal and provincial government appears, for the most part, to be strong in the context of pine beetle response, and intermunicipal organizations and initiatives had been supportive in fostering collective action to promote community interests. There were concerns, however, about connectivity with, and response from, the federal government. Given the likelihood of large-scale climate-driven environmental change in future, a key consideration for rural communities is the improvement of connectivity and political capital with the federal government, including the clarification of communication and lobbying mechanisms. This topic is addressed in more detail in Chapter 5. Interview participants pointed toward a need for their communities to learn from other communities having experienced events like pine beetle epidemic and wildfire to 86 support decision-making and capacity to respond to similar types of stress. In this context, while recognizing the key role of emergency response, there is a need for capacity to cope with the rapid learning curve associated with a large range of both short- and longer-term impacts from disturbances such as insect epidemic. A parallel observation related to the challenges faced by Jasper National Park in managing the rapid pace of change at landscape and regional scales. Opportunities to build resilience in these contexts might entail support, training, and tools for leaders in managing change; support (as identified by the study participants) for learning from communities that have experienced similar events; and fostering resources and capacity for agile decision-making. A further challenge was related to the recruitment of skilled workers in isolated communities and where boom-and-bust cycles threaten employment stability. This challenge underscores the importance of locally based training opportunities in supporting skill transferability and related capacity to adapt to change. These initiatives might consider fostering skillsets that can support transformation to innovative economic activities such as the renewable energy initiatives mentioned by several respondents. Additional support might focus on providing communities with the knowledge to engage more meaningfully in what will likely be an increasing array of forest and environment-related concerns on adjacent landscapes. Boundary organizations in the region, such as the Hinton Training Centre and fRI Research, might play a role in meeting these needs, including the facilitation of cross-scale learning. Finally, policies at municipal, provincial, and federal scales should consider the diversity, unique circumstances, and pronounced differences in adaptive capacity between rural communities, even across relatively small geographies. These considerations should include the concerns, vulnerabilities and strong potential of Indigenous peoples in contributing to the adaptive capacity and resilience of rural regions. The relevance of these opportunities is even greater given the prospect of a future characterized by greater climate and environmental change. 87 Chapter 5: Collective Action and Institutional Adaptive Capacity in a Context of Pine Beetle Outbreak and Broader Environmental Change 5.1 Introduction The assessment of resilience often overlooks the reciprocal nature of the human–environment relationship, focusing instead on communities as passive recipients of the impacts from external disturbance. Chapter 5 provides a unique look at how rural Alberta communities facing pine beetle epidemic attempted to improve their social and economic resilience through influence and collective action across horizontal and vertical jurisdictional scales of governance. The research explores driving factors, collaborative dynamics, and the outcomes from those efforts with the aim of identifying considerations for improving community and cross-jurisdictional resilience through effective collective action and adaptive governance. The context involves a jurisdictional separation with two case study communities, Hinton and Grande Cache, that are economically reliant on timber from provincially controlled forest management areas, and a third community, the town of Jasper, [which is economically] reliant on tourism and located in the adjacent federally controlled Jasper National Park. Two distinct actor networks were defined for the study based on jurisdictional differences, the dissimilar character of social networks for Hinton versus Jasper (Gonzales and Parrott, 2018), and differences in collaborative drivers and dynamics. A resource-based community or RC network was defined, consisting of the town of Hinton, village of Grande Cache, adjacent rural municipalities (counties and rural districts), the forest industry, local NGOs, and the province. A second, protected area or PA network was defined, consisting of the town of Jasper, the local tourism industry and NGOs, and Jasper National Park. Due to the noted differences between these jurisdictional contexts, or actor networks, collaborative drivers and dynamics are initially evaluated separately for each. Collaborative drivers and dynamics are then evaluated across the two networks. Indigenous participants from the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation adjacent Grande Cache (with historical roots extending to Jasper National Park) are not characterized in the study as being associated with either network. However, Traditional Knowledge and values reflected in these perspectives are presented separately to compare and contrast with actor views in the RC and PA networks. Perspectives from the locally elected federal member of parliament, the riding for which 88 encompasses both networks, are incorporated as they align with either network on a topic-specific basis. Finally, the analysis aims to maintain a neutral perspective regarding several topics for which different understandings of pine beetle biological dynamics emerged between networks. These topics are left to the substantial biophysical studies that have been emerging prior and subsequent to the research for this dissertation. The scope of the chapter is focused on exploration of insights from the collaborative dynamics that took place within and across the networks. 5.2 Conceptual Approach for the Assessment To explore the efficacy of community influence and collaborative action in response to the pine beetle outbreak this chapter relies primarily on an integrative synthesis and related framework of concepts from multiple authors (Emerson et al., 2011). The framework developed by these authors is designed to facilitate analysis of collaborative dynamics across multiple jurisdictions and levels of governance, including regional and community levels, and covers a broad spectrum of program and policy initiatives that include the environment and natural resources. This makes the framework especially relevant to this research and approach. The authors also define collaborative governance from a broad perspective as: The processes and structures of public policy decision making and management that engage people constructively across the boundaries of public agencies, levels of government, and/or the public, private and civic spheres in order to carry out a public purpose that could not otherwise be accomplished (page 2). This quality is also germane to the study. While significant collaborative dynamics occurred within each of the two jurisdictional networks in the case study, there was limited evidence of the use of a formal collaborative or collective process with, on, or across actor networks in response to pine beetle. Therefore, while some elements of Emerson et al.’s framework were assessed directly through interview questions (see Table 2.1), other attributes have been explored using proxy indicators focused on intermediate collaborative outcomes. This reflects what Emerson et al. (2011) recommend as a nonlinear approach, or iterative approach, to evaluating collaborative dynamics. The analysis begins with what Emerson et al., (2011) synthesize as four drivers of collaborative dynamics (see Table 2.1). The presence of at least one driver is necessary for collaborative dynamics to progress. For the present assessment, I explored the first driver, 89 consequential incentives, by asking participants about the presence of mutual and consequential incentives linked to the pine beetle epidemic and its impacts. Next, interdependence explored the degree to which participants viewed collective effort as essential to achieving goals for community resilience. Aspects of the third of the four elements, leadership, were explored in Chapter 4 in relation to latent adaptive capacity. The focus in Chapter 5 is on the presence of impartial leaders, as summarized by Emerson et al. (2011), that is, leaders of collaborative dynamics that are not also advocating for specific policies or actions. Finally, uncertainty drives collaborative dynamics through the need for cooperation from other stakeholders or potential collaborative partners through the seeking and sharing of information to support decision-making. Chapter 5 considers the role of uncertainty only briefly. Following an exploration of the drivers of collaborative dynamics, the discussion addresses four elements of shared motivation (see Table 2.1), which, as summarized by Emerson et al. (2011), are also viewed as key constituents of social capital. Due to their additional role as intermediate outcomes of principled engagement, elements of shared motivation serve as associated proxy indicators for principled engagement in the study. The first element, mutual trust among actors, fosters shared motivation and mutual understanding, (see also Hill & Engle, 2013; Adger et al., 2007), or the “the ability to understand and respect others positions and interests” (Emerson et al., 2011). Next, legitimacy, enabled through mutual understanding, involves a perception of credibility and compatibility between stakeholders, therefore facilitating emergence of a fourth element, shared commitment, across jurisdictional or other boundaries to taking collective action. Following the exploration of shared motivation, the discussion takes a step back to consider principled engagement, framed by Emerson et al. (2011, page 12) as including four elements. The first is discovery, or “the revealing of individual and shared interests, concerns, and values.” The Chapter 5 analysis views mutual understanding as a proxy indicator for discovery. Next in Emerson et al.’s principled engagement elements are processes of definition, or the articulation of “common purpose and objectives” (p. 12). This is followed by deliberation, characterized as “candid and reasoned communication” (p. 12), and requiring safety for stakeholders engaging in constructive dialogue. Last is joint 90 determination, which for the case study could take the form, for example, of decisions about a course of action in response to beetle, or the allocation of resources. Capacity for joint action, the remaining component of collaborative dynamics in the Emerson framework, is viewed as both an intermediate outcome and enabler of the previous components of principled engagement and shared motivation. For this analysis I focus on the presence of formal and informal procedural and institutional arrangements, including multijurisdictional decision-making mechanisms, and platforms for constructive dialogue. Leadership is explored as the presence of people or organizations fulfilling roles related to advocacy, facilitation or mediation, and knowledge extension or research. Resources are considered to a greater extent under latent adaptive capacity in Chapter 4. Finally, I consider the presence of more formal collaborative actions, which in the context of pine beetle epidemic could pertain, for example, to the implementation of new forest management or beetle mitigation practices, or the collective pooling of knowledge and resources for the reduction of wildfire risk to communities. To help with this part of the analysis, I reviewed action items from the Hinton Pine Beetle Committee work plan minutes. Adding to the collaborative dynamics of Emerson et al., (2011) the discussion considers implications from theory on social learning (Paul-Wostl, 2009; Gupta et al., 2010; Wilson, 2012) and related institutional adaptation considerations introduced in Chapter 2. For the analysis, statements and perspectives of participants were taken at face value. That is, I did not speculate, for example, that the motivations of participants for adhering to any given understanding or position related to the epidemic was any different than stated. 5.3 Results 5.3.1 Drivers, Dynamics and Outcomes Within the RC Network Participants from Hinton, Grande Cache, and the broader RC network, as noted above, identified strong mutual and consequential incentives for collective action to address impacts from pine beetle. Concern about heightened risk to public safety from wildfires associated with dead and dry pine beetle-killed trees was a top priority identified during interviews, and by the Hinton Mountain Pine Beetle Advisory Committee (Hinton Advisory Committee). Of similar importance to participants was the protection of regional economy, employment, and municipal tax revenue associated with the forest sector, and to lesser 91 extent, tourism. The relevance of forest-sector employment extended to participants from the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation, as described in Chapter 3. A small number of participants highlighted concerns about impacts to watershed hydrology and soil stability, and the Hinton Advisory Committee identified disruption to natural ecosystems broadly. In addition to this sense of consequential incentives RC network participants felt a strong sense of interdependence, that is, the need for collective action among municipal, forest sector, NGO, and provincial actors for a successful response to pine beetle. At a local scale, for example, there was a very strong sense of economic interdependence between the town of Hinton and the adjacent West Fraser sawmill and pulp mill facilities. This sense extended to a regional scale, as one participant noted, where production chains of raw material, chips, pulp, and paper are tightly linked across production facilities tied to numerous rural communities. Consequential incentives and interdependence appear to have functioned as strong drivers of collaborative dynamics in the RC network, galvanizing what Emerson et al. (2011) summarize as important elements of shared motivation and principled engagement (see Table 2.1). One respondent commented: “We need to be invested in this together.” Another participant’s characterization of these dynamics appears to reflect the mutual arrival at a “shared theory of action” (Emerson et al., 2011, p. 16), in this case linked to reducing the spread of pine beetle: We might not have the same rationale for why we want to see the beetle control. Some might see it as an economic impact, some may see it as a concern for their community around fire and others might see the recreational opportunities, but we all share that vision … Everybody wants to fight it. Several examples of collective action within the RC network further support a sense that collaborative dynamics had been strong. These include the collective efforts among regional mayors and chambers of commerce in lobbying at the provincial and federal level for financial resources and policy change to support pine beetle mitigation efforts. The newly formed Hinton advisory committee facilitated the joint determination of priorities ranging from intermunicipal collaboration on wildfire evacuation planning, to union–industry collaboration, information sharing, and the identification of available resources. Moreover, the committee was viewed as having improved dialogue and trust among actors, an important 92 component of shared motivation. A widespread perception among respondents that the provincial pine beetle mitigation program had been well managed with “good experts focussed on it” is evidence of internal legitimacy within the RC network. One industry participant, for example, commented “we’re really pleased with the aggressive nature that the government’s taken about really getting after it,” and another characterized the program as “scientific and well thought out.” Collective action across provincial, municipal and NGO sectors was evident in FireSmart and trail rehabilitation activities within and adjacent to municipal boundaries. Collaborative adaptive action was present, for example, through a provincial–industry trial focused on pine beetle mitigation efficacy at higher elevations, and extensive research and extension efforts by Hinton-based fRI Research and the University of Alberta. It was not all smooth sailing though. For example, not all consequential incentives within the RC network were mutual. While municipal and industry actors were primarily concerned about the resource-driven economy based primarily on forestry as well as oil and gas activity, there was tension (see Chapter 4) about how to achieve a balance between economic interests versus cultural and conservation values linked to caribou and traditional activities in the Grande Cache area. This tension negatively impacted the potential for a common theory of action that would fully incorporate Indigenous perspectives, given that a provincial strategy of accelerating the harvest of mature pine forest as a beetle mitigation strategy would potentially impact these cultural and conservation values. Another concern related to internal legitimacy as an element of collaborative dynamics (see Table 2.1). Here, one participant was troubled that despite what they viewed as proactive participation by the forest industry in the Hinton area, industry as a whole was viewed as not always willing to contribute to beetle control efforts beyond the harvesting of vulnerable or affected pine stands. The concerns expressed about the completeness and transparency of information sharing have potential implications on the efficacy of discovery and deliberation elements of principled engagement, and trust as an element in collaborative dynamics. Two participants felt that provincial experts had been unable to fully disclose information about why particular beetle mitigation approaches were being taken. This led to distrust about whether political influence had been a factor in pine beetle mitigation strategy and related allocation of 93 resources: “Now some people might say it’s because they weren’t doing everything they could to stop pine beetle.” Several participants within and beyond the immediate Hinton area felt that the level of provincial resources and efforts applied to the current epidemic didn’t match what had been done during an earlier pine beetle incursion to the north, in the Grande Prairie area, and that political connections in Grande Prairie had played a role. Concerns about information sharing were felt to have been alleviated, however, through face-to-face interactions facilitated by the Hinton advisory committee, signifying an important collaborative outcome. A similar collaborative red flag emerged linked to uncertainty (one of the four drivers of collaborative dynamics in Table 2.1) and a need for information for planning and decision-making. Notwithstanding a high degree of trust and interdependency between the town of Hinton and adjacent West Fraser operations, two participants questioned whether there had been a full disclosure of information related to the net impacts of pine beetle to industry—impacts that would be relevant to municipal planning: “I don’t know that you always get the whole story.” Similar sentiments were expressed by a participant in the Grande Cache area: You kind of get it from their perspective and how bad it is … and I know there’s always a good handful of people around that table wondering, “Really? Is it as bad as you say you are, or do you just want those trees?” There was also some uncertainty and hesitancy in the town of Hinton (and perhaps more broadly) about the types of information that could be asked of industry: Sometimes it’s hard to ask the questions … I want to know how this is affecting industry but can I ask industry that, or is that maybe that something you shouldn’t ask … if you ask industry are you concerned about the pine beetle, oh yes they are, but are you concerned financially? Are you concerned that it’s going to cut jobs? Are you? A further joint action item arising from the Hinton advisory committee pertains directly to information sharing to better understand pine beetle impacts to industry. This joint action item reflects an additional collaborative outcome among the resource-based community network. Overall, collaborative dynamics within the RC network were quite strong, as noted above. One rural municipal participant characterized these collective efforts using a war 94 analogy, conveying the sense of “a band of brothers” taking on the pine beetle epidemic. Collaborative dynamics included partnerships between the forest industry and the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation linked to caribou range planning and support for research on caribou and traditional use, and Aseniwuche Winewak Nation support for beetle mitigation measures and timber procurement where traditional values were not jeopardized: We’ve got very strong connections with the different companies that operate around here. So at the same time, we’re trying to advocate for the caribou and the land, we’re also trying to work and preserve our relationship … and trying to help them. Due to concern about the epidemic continuing eastward, collaborative dynamics extended interprovincially: “Everyone knew that as soon as it hits the boreal we’ve got the rest of Canada to worry about,” and, “It is going to wipe out the entire boreal forest.” While the interviews did not include actors in other provinces, participants in the case study area identified notable consequential incentives for cross-jurisdictional collaboration: “You have the forest industry, you have the tourism industry, … there’s every reason that you’d want to not have the pine beetle spread into your province.” As a result of these strong interprovincial collaborative drivers, at the time of the research, the province of Saskatchewan had been supporting Alberta’s beetle mitigation activities directly through resource contributions in hope that the epidemic could be halted or slowed before reaching the provincial border. In spite of this sense of strong collaborative drivers and dynamics among resource communities and regional—as well as interprovincial—partners, there remained what these actors viewed as a final piece of the puzzle in their theory of collective action for the pine beetle epidemic. This missing piece was the participation of Jasper National Park immediately to the west, viewed by some as a bridge for pine beetle crossing the Rocky Mountains from British Columbia to the boreal forests of Alberta: “All the collective stuff we’ve done … it’s about getting to talk to Jasper … everybody else is onboard.” 5.3.2 Drivers, Dynamics, and Outcomes Within the PA Network Strong drivers of collaborative dynamics were also evident among PA network actors. Foremost was concern and uncertainty about wildfire behaviour due to the landscape of dead and dying beetle-affected trees surrounding the town of Jasper at the time of the interviews. This concern extended to hazards from falling dead trees and increased fuel load adjacent trails, roads, and structures within the town of Jasper itself. Next was the potential for 95 impacts to the primarily tourism-driven economy. In this context, despite some unease about the visual effect of pine beetle-driven tree mortality, the primary concern for tourism had been impacts from wildfire, associated road closures, and smoke. In addition to these mutual consequential incentives, interdependence appears to be another strong driver of collective action among actors in the PA network. This is due to the interwoven dependence of the town of Jasper, the local business sector, and Jasper National Park itself for accommodation, service provision, and tourism attraction. “The town and Parks have a really close relationship,” commented one participant. The unique local governance structure in which municipal authority is shared between the town and Jasper National Park (see Chapter 4) may be an additional consideration for interdependence. Together, consequential incentives, uncertainty about the impacts of pine beetle, and interdependence functioned as important drivers of collaborative dynamics within the PA network, as described below. Several examples of collaborative dynamics, outcomes, and actions within the PA network emerged. These include the Jasper Partnership Initiative, facilitated jointly by the town and Jasper National Park, and viewed as important to dialogue and information exchange among actors in the PA network; a unified emergency command centre involving municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government; NGO support to the tourism economy through advocacy and marketing; a volunteer trail association; FireSmart activities to reduce fuel load inside town limits; evacuation planning; and an agreed plan for fireguard construction adjacent the town. There was also at least one adaptive or perhaps even transformative outcome realized through a strategy to obtain economic value from dead pine trees that were removed for fireguard construction adjacent the town. This approach necessitated some re-thinking of status-quo Parks Canada policy and procedures. Further to these collaborative dynamics and outcomes within the park, there were observations of collective action across scale. These include data sharing between Jasper National Park and the province; pine beetle surveys in the park and related information sharing by the Canadian Forest Service; collaboration between Jasper National Park and adjacent Robson Provincial Park in BC on a prescribed burn; and Jasper National Park participation on cross-jurisdictional pine beetle committees and the board of fRI Research in Hinton. 96 Overall, though, PA network collaborative dynamics across scales and sectors appear somewhat less substantial than those of the RC network. This difference is supported by a social network analysis by Gonzales and Parrott, (2019). In addition, similar to the RC network, there were also some mixed perspectives about collaborative dynamics, including the level of commitment to and the pace of measures implemented by Jasper National Park to protect the town from wildfire. Delays to planned firebreak construction adjacent the town had led to unease and a decline in trust among community members, despite rationale for the delay as noted by one park employee, including a wet spring season that prevented the use of heavy equipment on soggy soils. One NGO participant observed: “We have some people [in the community] that are really panicking … they’re just catastrophically afraid of what could happen.” Articles in the local paper and plans for a public protest further reflected a broad level of unease in the town: “We feel like Parks Canada dropped the ball and there’s stuff that was supposed to be done by this year” and “there’s a lot of negativity right now in Jasper towards Parks Canada.” These sentiments moved Parks Canada to adapt by increasing communication through an additional open house that served to improve understanding and help reassure residents about Parks Canada’s commitment to implementing the planned measures. The sentiment also underscores the sensitive nature of trust in a context of uncertainty and change: “We’re gaining that credibility back ... but the fact that we didn’t get that contract going this year … we lost a lot of ground on that.” Specific to the pace of fireguard construction, and also the beetle response in the park more broadly, some participants directed frustration not at Jasper National Park itself but to the federal government in Ottawa: “They [Jasper National Park] do have plans in place … it’s just Federal Government. They work slowly.” Another participant in the PA network expressed similar sentiments: Everybody saw this coming … we could see it coming from a long way away and had years of notice and things just weren’t done … and those all happened kind of federally I think, so locally yes, there’s a good amount of trust and good amount of transparency and collaboration, but as you start to get to Ottawa just because of the jurisdictional issues. 97 A third participant in the PA network directed their concern toward the systems associated with the larger organizational structure of Parks Canada: “Locally the office would like to do lots and more, but – the systems they work with are slower and it’s not as fast to deal with the hazards like how we’d like to see that done.” For the most part within the PA network itself, however, participants—including those in municipal leadership roles—characterized dynamics as relatively strong and expressed trust in the ability of Jasper National Park to fulfill its role in the collective interests of the town: “I would say that there is definitely mutual trust because there’s collaborative working relationships between all of those organizations.” 5.3.3 Mutual Incentives and Understanding Across RC and PA Networks Mutual consequential incentives for collective action against pine beetle were also evident across the two actor networks, albeit to a more moderate extent than those within networks. The horizontal bars in Figure 5.1 illustrate interests in public safety, local recreation and lifestyle, and restoration of natural ecological dynamics as equally strong among PA and RC networks represented at the left and centre. Figure 5.1 Perceived Compatibility of Interests for Mitigating Pine Beetle Impacts Park Network Public Safety (wildfire; hazards from falling dead trees) Timber Supply - Regional Economy Resource Community Network Indigenous Participants Tourism - Regional Economy Caribou, Traditional Activities Regulating Ecosystem Services; Maintenance and Restoration of Natural Ecological Dynamics Recreation, Lifestyle Cross-Provincial Interests, Interdependencies Linked to Boreal Forest Tourism 98 The right-hand side of Figure 5.1 contrasts RC and PA network perspectives with views from Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participants on the left. In this context, both public safety and ecological dynamics extend across the figure, indicating their importance to Aseniwuche Winewak Nation and to the PA and RC networks. Timber supply is not surprisingly most important to the RC network but extends into the PA network due its relevance to the regional economy. One Jasper participant observed, for example, the significance of visitors from RC network communities to the local movie theatre and restaurants, and to Marmot Basin ski resort in winter. Due to the significance of forest-sector employment to Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participants, timber supply extends partway to the right, but not fully, given tensions with cultural values as noted above. The tourism economy, most important to the PA network on the left, is also relevant to Indigenous backcountry guiding activities described by Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participants. This is reflected by extension of a segment of the tourism bar to the far right. Extension of the tourism-supported regional economy towards the centre of Figure 5.1 from the PA network at left reflects its importance for the RC network communities. Three Hinton participants observed the contribution of Jasper National Park tourism, stating, for example, “we kind of share their tourist population with them.” Despite the presence of moderate (though comparatively weaker) consequential incentive for collective action across RC and PA networks, there were important disconnects in understanding and associated narratives between the two networks. These disconnects in understanding relate to four topics: the historical presence of pine beetle in the region; the route of its incursion across the Rocky Mountains into Alberta boreal forests; the efficacy of existing pine beetle mitigation options; and the core interests and motivations of actors in neighbouring/adjacent networks. These divergent understandings appear to have had a considerable impact on the prevailing theories of action that developed within each network regarding how to respond to pine beetle in Jasper National Park, making collective action across networks difficult. Moreover, as an intermediate outcome of principled engagement (see Figure 2.1), these divergences in understanding raise questions about the efficacy of communication across networks, and, may have contributed to declining trust and shared motivation between RC and PA networks. 99 In the first disconnect, while actors in both networks widely agreed that pine beetle had been endemic to British Columbia, there was disagreement about whether pine beetle should be considered a natural phenomena or invasive species in Jasper National Park and the broader case study area. Participants in both networks referred to historic photographs utilized in a local study (Mountain Legacy Project) indicating that prominent landscapes in the region had transformed over the past century from non-forested grassland to mature pine forest. These participants agreed that decades of fire exclusion policies had played a role in this transformation. From there, viewpoints diverged. Municipal and industry actors in the RC network with views on this topic emphasized that pine beetle should be considered an invasive species since fire exclusion policy and climate change had contributed the unprecedented nature of the epidemic, and a mature pine landscape now highly vulnerable to beetle. One participant recalled evidence in a recent scientific report: “The forest in the eastern slopes had never seen beetle so there was no sort of genetic defense or ability to deal with it.” A key result of these understandings was that for RC network participants, pine beetle as an invasive species implied and justified a theory of action characterized by aggressive control strategies both in and outside the park to protect timber interests and public safety. Conversely, actors in the PA network with views on this topic, while acknowledging the role of fire exclusion, emphasized what they viewed as a historical presence of pine beetle on the landscape: “Beetles have come through here historically and people forget that.” Though specific locations were not considered in the interview, the historic presence of pine beetle in the area was supported by traditional ecological knowledge from Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participants: “Elders knew what pine beetles were because they said they’d always been around.” One respondent in the PA network viewed climate change implications themselves as reflective of pine beetle epidemic as a natural process: “It’s a climate change issue, right? We haven’t had the cold weather to kill the beetle and that’s about all there is to it … It’s a natural phenomenon.” For PA network actors, the view of pine beetle as a natural phenomenon supported a theory of action characterized by less aggressive or no control measures in Jasper National Park. Irrespective of an evidence-based response to the question of historical presence and the extent eastward from British Columbia that pine beetle presence had occurred, this 100 difference in perspective frustrated actors in the RC network, as their vision or theory of collective action had included aggressive measures in the park. Moreover, these disconnects weakened trust and internal legitimacy across networks and therefore the prospects for effective engagement. One RC network actor felt confused and frustrated by what they felt had been different messages coming from scientists versus Jasper National Park: “I should not have to be the scientist here in the middle … why am I hearing mixed messages? Or is one being a defensive? And you know, where’s the fact?” Another RC network participant felt that the framing of ecological dynamics by Parks Canada had been intentionally misleading: It’s always easy to put pictures in front of people and say, “Here’s what the valley in Jasper looked like 100 years ago” and there’s no trees. … Well, there’s no trees there 100 years ago because a wildfire ripped though there. There’s no trees here this year because pine beetle has killed them all … So people, like, in my mind they were almost spinning the story so the public could not understand that really, the long-term consequence may not be the same. A second disconnect relates to perceptions of the efficacy of available pine beetle mitigation tools, related factors behind a failure to control the pine beetle outbreak in British Columbia, and implications for divergent theories of action in Jasper National Park and Alberta. Actors in the PA network with views on this topic were consistent in seeing pine beetle as something that could not have been stopped in BC regardless of the level of mitigation action. The implication from this viewpoint was that pine beetle was therefore also not stoppable in Jasper National Park or Alberta more broadly. In contrast, industry and municipal and provincial actors in the RC network viewed the failure to control the BC outbreak as due to insufficient control measures. A key implication from this view for RC network actors was that pine beetle could be controlled or mitigated in Jasper National Park and Alberta more broadly through more effective control measures. For example, actors in both networks brought up the failure of a prescribed burn to stop pine beetle in the adjacent Mount Robson Provincial Park in BC, immediately west of Jasper National Park. For PA network actors, this failure illustrated the ineffectiveness of beetle control measures, yet for RC network actors it signified insufficient beetle control efforts. Similarly, actors in both networks raised and characterized a much earlier 101 controversy about pine beetle emergence from BC’s Tweedsmuir Provincial Park as illustrating either that more aggressive park action could have stopped the BC outbreak, or conversely, that control measures would have been equally fruitless in Tweedsmuir as they were in Jasper National Park. As one PA network participant noted: “The reality is if you logged Jasper National Park flat to the ground it still wouldn’t stop the beetle coming through Alberta and into the working forests, but that message is never expressed that strongly.” A third disconnect related to the source of the current influx of pine beetle into the Hinton area was revealed. Participants in the RC network commonly viewed pine beetle incursion into the Hinton area as coming in significant measure directly through Jasper National Park: One expert said, “We’ll be significantly affected by the populations in Jasper.” A common conclusion from this perspective was that Jasper National Park had an important role in either stopping or slowing the spread of beetle through the park due to the implications for resource-based communities to the east. On the other hand, actors in the PA network maintained, based on a map that was circulating at the time that the Hinton pine beetles had been mainly coming from the north due to much earlier flight over the northern Rockies, and not through the park: “This is not the genesis of the pine beetle problem.” The inference from this understanding was that Jasper National Park did not have a relevant role to play in protecting RC network timber values. One PA network actor characterized the media as responsible for what the participant viewed as a false narrative in this regard: There’s a big perception out there, the narrative keeps making it not the same … They’re all coming out of Jasper, they’re not doing anything, they could just log or burn that park and then this would all be solved. It’s like, “No.” However, a different PA network participant noted: “I think we’ve pretty much managed to dispel that rumour, but that was something we had to fight for a long time.” In a fourth disconnect, there was limited evidence that either network clearly or fully understood or respected the legitimacy of interests, goals, and motivations of the other. Through a collaborative governance lens, this is concerning because it further indicates a potential shortfall in discovery and definitional aspects of principled engagement across networks. In this sense, the understanding of, or at least the portrayal of, RC network interests by actors in the PA network was limited to stopping pine beetle from coming 102 through the park. Yet for the RC network it was more nuanced and evolving. Two participants did recall that during the early onset of the outbreak, a commonly held objective was the control and potential elimination of pine beetle, including a halt to spread further east: “We still felt with industry that if we got concerted efforts, we could maybe make a stand … We wanted to focus on what we could control.” A forest industry participant described one aspect of this logic as it related to Jasper National Park: So really for us, our focus is on trying to keep the beetle at bay as much as possible until it dies out in Jasper and then we’ll actually have our own local population that we can fully control and attack. A broadly held rationale tied to the RC network view was that mitigation efforts could slow the beetle, buying time to wait for the cold temperatures that had been occurring less frequently with climate change but would effectively stop or drastically reduce beetle activity if or when it occurred again. A forest industry actor elaborated: “Our efforts there will help keep it contained as much as possible until we get some help from Mother Nature with the right cold snap at the right time of the year.” The low levels of early-onset beetle incursion into the Hinton Forest Management Area at the time of the research contributed to optimism about achieving this goal: “We have a good chance of keeping it contained.” This theory of action drove a sense of urgency among RC network actors in having Jasper National Park do their part in mitigating the spread of beetle through the park by undertaking large-scale tree felling and/or the falling and burning of individually infected trees along the epidemic’s frontier: “You’re trying to save your land base … so that it provides a sustainable flow of timber to the mill and Jasper Park doesn’t treat their beetles and they all overflow onto our Forest Management Agreement, that puts that in risk.” The view of pine beetle as an invasive species further supported this rationale, and these concerns were a focus of collective lobbying to Parks Canada and federal government: “It’s in Jasper’s court now.” As months and years elapsed with no cold spell, in parallel with an unrealized RC network vision for action in the park, and growing signs of the epidemic spreading eastward, this theory of action became less viable: “It became harder to maintain that.” Consequently, the focus evolved from stopping beetle to accepting its inevitability and managing the outbreak to buy time and reduce the impact to industry: 103 Let’s try to manage it even if it’s going to come in we can’t stop it at our front door. Can we start staging it and that’s why we were working hard with industry and the government to say, “Let us go in and maybe take larger stands and different harvest approaches so that we can maybe stage the influx.” The PA network, aligning with a view of pine beetle as a natural dynamic on the landscape, supported a hands-off approach to the epidemic except for addressing immediate public safety concerns. An additional and ultimately a key factor behind the hands-off approach, however, was an ecological integrity policy embedded in the Canada National Parks Act (Canada National Parks Act, S.C. 2000, c. 32), requiring the maintenance or restoration of conditions “characteristic of the natural region and likely to persist” (page 1). This includes the “composition and abundance of native species and biological communities, rates of change and supporting processes.” For Jasper National Park this meant aligning with natural processes by allowing wildfire, implementing prescribed burns, protecting key infrastructure, and avoiding large-scale tree felling: “That ecological aspect is fundamental.” The ecological integrity policy was commonly supported by actors among the PA network and some outside: “Reintroducing fire and forest renewal is how you get back to a more natural forest.” Yet, just as there appeared to be limited nuance in understanding about RC network motivations by actors in the park network, there were indications that Jasper National Park motivations for limiting pine beetle action were not clear to actors associated with the RC network. An RC network actor commented: Why aren’t they saying anything? … there’s, not necessarily secrecy, but there’s not necessarily a lot of transparency at a local level of what Parks Canada is doing or the federal government is doing, so it’s not only we saw nothing getting done, we’ve also heard nothing. One participant from the RC network believed there was a conflict within Parks Canada itself about what to do: “There was a controversy within Parks Canada … keep it green … the way it was in the fifties.” Two RC network actors felt that Jasper National Park had “changed positions” from an earlier, more aggressive effort to having “less appetite” for implementing control measures. One participant suspected that the reversal had been due to a lack of funding: “There has not been enough resources given to the people who manage Jasper and that has severely impacted us ... they haven’t had the funding to do the treatments 104 that they needed to do to stop pine beetle.” The same participant felt that lack of funding had, in turn, affected the Jasper National Park position on pine beetle as an invasive species: I’m wildly speculating … but you know, from our viewpoint it appears that they didn’t have the funding, so they decided that the mountain pine beetle was a natural pest and they didn’t have to do anything about it … So, … do they really believe that or do they believe that because they don’t have the funding. On the contrary, a park employee observed that limited control action was due to low confidence in efficacy of options: “We’ve been doing prescribed burns along the boundary ... and we’ve been doing some work on mountain pine beetle, not a lot because you know, from our perspective there hasn’t been successful techniques shown” and, “if you can show us a means … we probably would have considered it.” Another Jasper National Park employee underscored the Parks Canada ecological integrity policy as primarily responsible: “It’s not really a lack of resources … it’s more ensuring people understand that we have to balance the ecosystem.” Challenges with implementing procedures based on the ecological integrity approach were noted as well, such as risk to public safety and infrastructure from letting wildfires burn, and weather conditions, which had recently caused the delay of prescribed burning. 5.3.4 Dynamics and Outcomes Across RC and PA Networks Implications from the dynamics discussed so far are shown in Figure 5.2, where some factors are illustrated as supporting, and other detracting from, collaborative dynamics across the RC and PA networks, resulting ultimately in poor outcomes and declining social capital. That is, collaborative drivers of uncertainty and mutual consequential incentives at the top of Figure 5.2 are counteracted further down in the figure by diverging interests linked to a timber-based economy, the ecological integrity policy, and tourism. Interdependence is also weaker across jurisdictions due to the absence of reliance on the part of PA network actors for beetle-related action by resource-based communities. 105 Figure 5.2 Supporting Factors, Barriers, and Outcomes from Collaborative Dynamics Across Networks Disconnects in understanding of pine beetle dynamics and a lack of clarity about core motivations led to negative intermediate outcomes (see Figure 5.2) characterized by reduced trust and an apparent decline in the constructiveness of dialogue between networks. RC network actors felt very strongly about what they viewed as a “dismissive” attitude by the federal government and Parks Canada in regard to resource-based community interests: “Its fallen on deaf ears” and, “Parks just didn’t care about us … they don’t care that it’s coming our way, they don’t care that there’s a mill here.” This sentiment extended to interactions at the federal government level: “The higher level up you went, the more—the Teflon factor. Nothing stuck,” and, “I think that there’s an understanding in Ottawa of what the situation is but I do not believe that there’s a willingness to combat the issue.” Another actor described interaction at the Parks Canada level: “I often felt there was a neighbour there that didn’t care Jasper National Park Town of Jasper NGOs; Tourism Industry Province Resource-based municipalities NGOs; Forest Industry Factors Supporting Collaborative Dynamics Across Networks ➢ High uncertainty, and mutual incentives linked to public safety, regional economy, and restoration of ecological dynamics. ➢ Cross-jurisdictional pine beetle committees and research initiatives. Barriers to Collaborative Dynamics Across Networks ➢ Divergent consequential incentives - economic timber value - ecological integrity policy and visual aesthetics. ➢ Limited interdependency in collective outcomes. ➢ Disconnects and lack of clarity in understanding: - Pine beetle history and dynamics on the landscape - Source of beetle incursion into the Hinton area - Efficacy of beetle mitigation options - Nuance and progression in interests and motivations. Park Network Resource-based Community Network Intermediate Outcomes and Collaborative Action ➢ Declines in trust, internal legitimacy. ➢ Divergent theories of action. ➢ Failures in joint determinations, actions. 106 and didn’t take notice and didn’t even acknowledge the concerns that we were raising.” Even a tourism-industry actor within the PA network concerned about the pace of wildfire protection measures commented: “You get the blanket response. ‘We are dedicated to protecting the ecological integrity of the National Park.’” Regarding the outcome of these dynamics, one RC network participant stated that “there was a real sense of betrayal,” while another summarized that “nobody in Jasper cares, in the national park cares,” and, “I would say the tone is that the Parks and Federal has pretty much screwed Hinton.” The band of brothers was characterized as “fighting alone.” Just as the sense of trust and legitimacy declined among actors in the RC network, there were comparable sentiments in the other direction. One park employee felt that Jasper National Park had in fact attempted to engage constructively with the RC network: “We’ve been on calls with various stakeholders … we understand that we’ve got a role to play in being a good neighbour” and yet felt that despite these efforts, communication and positions from the RC network had been aggressive and inflexible: “To have a discussion has been difficult,” and “the only message back is like, ‘Oh you’ve just got to cut things down or let us in and cut it down.’” Another park employee felt similarly that RC network actors had not indicated willingness to understand the challenges of managing protected area: “Some people would have us clear cut absolutely everything, but we can’t do that for a whole variety of reasons.” Even one respondent from the RC network felt that the dialogue and narrative had been unfairly simplistic: They [Jasper National Park] are almost always painted as the bogeyman. They are the reason we have pine beetle at all is because Jasper didn’t stop it which I think is very simplistic and very—like what was Jasper supposed to do that would have somehow stopped pine beetle? How do you stop pine beetle? … Nobody is doing it now with the amount of funds that we have. 5.3.5 Improving Collective and Institutional Adaptive Capacity in a Context of Change Three strategic and policy-oriented opportunities to improve community and cross-jurisdictional resilience to disturbances like pine beetle epidemic emerge based on the study results to this point and some additional participant observations are discussed here. First, is the need for a more effective process or platform for communities and other actors to engage across jurisdictional boundaries on issues like pine beetle. Irrespective of any specific 107 determinations emerging from such a process, a worthwhile outcome would be the advancement—versus deterioration—of trust, of mutual understanding, legitimacy, and commitment to working collectively on concerns like the pine beetle. This need is especially pertinent to the case study context where mutual consequential incentives and interdependence between resource community versus park actor networks were weak. It is also relevant in a broader sense, given the likelihood of cross-jurisdictional issues arising from environmental change in the future. While the detailed characteristics of what a more effective collaborative process might look like are beyond the scope of this chapter, considerations related to participation, impartial leadership, and space for safe deliberation arise based on the study results. For example, the disconnects in Figure 5.2 occurred despite the presence of what were characterized as multi-stakeholder committees in the region. These divergences in understanding occurred despite a substantial body of existing and emergent pine beetle research at the time of the case study, and multi-stakeholder science forums held annually, and sometimes even more frequently, in the region. This leaves a question about the capacity for existing multi-stakeholder platforms in facilitating what Emerson et al., 2011) summarize as the discovery, definition, deliberative, and determination elements of principled engagement. When asked about the presence of effective forums for dialogue across jurisdictions, participants observed a need for greater attendance by federal government scientists and high-level decision-makers. One RC network actor regretted that at least early in the epidemic there seemed to be a reluctance by the federal government to allow their scientists to attend multi-stakeholder forums: “They initially said no, they would not allow their scientists to go … they wouldn’t allow their biologists and the science people to speak.” Another RC network participant felt that a pine beetle science forum facilitated by Hinton-based fRI Research had been “as close as we ever came” to an effective cross-jurisdictional dialogue due to the attendance of a Parks Canada representative, but at the same time lamented the general absence of higher-level decision-makers at forums and regional committee meetings: “The right forum would drive that but that never did happen that I saw.” A final point related to effective process and platform comes from the remaining driver of Emerson et al.’s (2011) framework, which bears further consideration: impartial 108 leadership. Here, while existing leadership structures were successful in achieving collective outcomes within RC and PA networks individually, greater consideration to a neutral, non-advocating leadership may have helped enable engagement across networks where other drivers of collaboration were weaker. Such leadership could potentially come from a vested party, through a boundary organization, or government official (Emerson et al., 2011). However, impartiality, or at minimum the perception of impartiality, and a safe venue for cross-jurisdictional deliberation was challenging given the high level of tension. One participant recalled hesitancy on the part of Jasper National Park in allowing one of their representatives to attend a multi-stakeholder pine beetle meeting: “I had to promise the management of Parks Canada that I would not allow him to get attacked viciously.” In this sense, a more intentional approach to providing an impartial and safe platform for engagement may have helped. A second area of policy consideration comes from more formal institutional perspectives with links to collaborative process but extending to specific policies that were contentious for participants. These considerations have interprovincial implications. Several municipal and NGO participants in the RC network were concerned that due to the consequences from pine beetle both to provincially and federally managed forests (and associated communities), the pine beetle issue should be addressed through a higher level of decision-making authority with a mandate to consider the interests of all affected parties: “If something from nature travels from one jurisdiction to the other, that jurisdiction it hits first shouldn’t be judge, jury and executioner for the community next to it.” An Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participant framed this concern similarly as it pertains to scale and collective action: “Pine beetle doesn’t follow jurisdictional boundaries,” yet, “decision-making is very compartmentalized ... they need to work together.” The same participant expressed these concerns as extending to an even broader context of environmental change: “It’s not just pine beetle, it’s not just oil and gas … in order to make any sort of headway in this or the next thing that comes through, they need to look at the bigger picture.” Moreover, and notwithstanding the presence of interjurisdictional natural resource policy in Canada, three RC network participants from the forest industry and NGO sectors perceived the need for mechanisms that would be effective in triggering federal government financial support and involvement in decision-making for cross-jurisdictional concerns like 109 pine beetle. Another participant extended this topic, expressing frustration that despite cross-jurisdictional implications of pine beetle epidemic, its slower rate of onset relative to more typical natural disasters did not sufficiently fit within existing criteria for emergency designation. A third area of policy opportunity pertains to the role of adaptive action as a potential outcome of collaborative dynamics (Emerson et al., 2011). As stated above, the intent in this chapter is not to suggest that specific policies or their implementation should have been different, but rather reflect on key areas of contention among case study actors and related implications for the role institutional responsiveness, cross-scale learning, and adaptive governance in a natural environment characterized by change and uncertainty. Learning and responsiveness in this context may range from adjustments and incremental change in existing practices to a deeper questioning of underlying assumptions and priories (Pahl-Wostl, 2009). A further level, or triple loop learning (Pahl-Wostl, 2009), involves a more potentially transformational questioning of existing paradigms and associated policy or other frameworks. In this regard, while drivers and collaborative dynamics appear to have supported learning and adaptive action within PA and RC networks individually, there was little evidence of this across networks. In the context of tension over interpretation and application of the ecological integrity policy itself, one study participant felt that the framing of the policy may have additionally contributed to difficulties in engaging constructively across networks: “Those two words alone are devastating … how do you argue … anything you do, you could say it’s going to affect the ecological integrity of the park … it makes it very difficult.” A PA network actor had similar concerns: “Well what does that mean? Do you mean what it looked like a hundred years ago when there was a whole bunch of forest fires? Do you mean you’re going to protect the town? What does that mean?” Learning and the potential for adaptive action may have additionally benefited from a greater incorporation of traditional ecological knowledge perspectives. Aseniwuche Winewak Nation participants had expressed their desire (see Chapter 3) to be more involved in decisions pertaining to landscape-level decisions in the park. From their perspective, the beetle response should have been more aggressive both in Jasper National Park and in the adjacent provincially managed Willmore Wilderness Park to the north: “Our Elders told them 110 to torch the forest … because they said taking one tree at a time is not going to kill them [pine beelte].” This view pertained not to destructive fire but controlled burns: “Our community burned like vast areas of land … to keep the vegetation down.” Regarding Jasper National Park itself, these participants felt: “They should have been way more aggressive taking care of it” and “They were overly cautious in how they approached the whole issue.” This observation extended to thoughts about the removal and utilization of timber as a control measure: It might have made sense ten years ago to log it … it might have been better use of the resource, whereas … now it’s just dead wood, which is not useful for really anything, anymore … they were too focussed on preservation to realize that in this case, preservation was actually damaging it. There were similar differences in interpretation among PA network actors related to ecological integrity and broader beetle management in the park: “Why aren’t there more controlled burns or you know, stuff like that?” Another PA network actor commented: We could see it coming from a long way away and had years of notice and things just weren’t done, or policy decisions were made and then adhered to … there would have been more things that the federal government could have done in those ten years. Finally, with parallels to the role of triple loop learning in response to change, one PA network actor cautioned against what they characterized as the “entrenchment of an ideological value” by making an analogy to the decades-long policy paradigm of wildfire suppression in North America: “Like Smokey the Bear, this whole notion that fire is bad, trees are good … it’s just very simplistic … these kind of ideological or value-laden positions are dangerous.” A complex systems and flexible institutions lens would equally caution against entrenchment in other policies, especially in view of an increasing rate of climate and environmental change and the potential for policies becoming disconnected from the interests of rural communities, as contended by many of the participants in this study. More effective cross-jurisdictional collaboration and capacity for cross-scale learning would reduce tendencies to become entrenched in ineffective or inappropriate policy paradigms. 111 5.4 Discussion Using a conceptual lens rooted in collaborative governance this study found that strong mutual consequential incentives, interdependence, and uncertainty within each of two jurisdictionally defined networks helped rural communities achieve significant collective outcomes that improved resilience to pine beetle epidemic. Collaborative outcomes included collective advocacy, multi-stakeholder committees, resource allocation toward pine beetle and wildfire mitigation interventions, and interprovincial support to control the spread of pine beetle further east. This success occurred despite some initial challenges in each network related to communication, perception of transparency, and the pace of government response. Conversely, weaker collaborative drivers across/between these networks were insufficient to drive a successful collaborative process. This weakness, in conjunction with the emergence of significantly different understandings about pine beetle dynamics, the efficacy of control measures, and the underlying interests and motivations of counterpart networks, resulted in tension, reduced trust, and a failure to arrive at joint determinations or mutual theories of action for pine beetle mitigation. Collaborative scientific research efforts, existing boundary organizations and multi-stakeholder committees were insufficient to facilitate better collective outcomes. Implications for rural community resilience include considerations at the community level and higher scales of governance. Where mutual consequential incentives and interdependence are weak, communities wanting to influence outcomes and collective action across jurisdictional scales should consider using a more formal and impartial collaborative process that could be led by non-advocating stakeholders, government, or boundary organizations. Furthermore, effective mechanisms for triggering higher-level intervention and support are needed, especially in a context of climate change and the likelihood of even more cross jurisdictional concerns in future. Such mechanism and policy-related considerations might include revisions to criteria for the designation of invasive species and formal emergencies. There was a high level of contention around Parks Canada’s ecological integrity policy among actors within and outside Jasper National Park, as well as among Indigenous participants. Irrespective of the ultimate suitability of the Parks Canada’s ecological integrity policy and its application, more effective cross-jurisdictional dynamics would build capacity 112 for better cross-scale learning and policy adaptation where it is deemed appropriate. In the context of pine beetle epidemic this is particularly important due to contention over high level policy and its application as related to ecological integrity, invasive species, and emergency designation, and the implications of these policies for rural community resilience. Adaptive governance theory would caution against entrenchment in existing policy paradigms, especially in a context of increasing threats from climate and broader environmental change. 113 Chapter 6: Summary and Conclusions 6.1 Recommendations for Decision-Making, Policy, and Cross-Scale Action The research in this dissertation set out to advance an interdisciplinary understanding of resilience, demonstrate how an integrated resilience approach can be operationalized for research and practical decision-making, and develop insights about how rural communities in Alberta and elsewhere can be resilient to the impacts of current and future environmental change. To accomplish these objectives, Chapter 2 developed a structured comparison of important distinctions, trends, and opportunities for the integration of diverse resilience analytical orientations and proposed an integrative resilience framework and typology. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 presented the results of case study research based on the framework and typology developed in Chapter 2. Due to the distinct focus and results of each chapter, the results are synthesized briefly here and framed specifically to highlight implications for decision-making, action, and policy. For brevity and to provide a structure from which resilience planning and decision-making can be organized, the results are provided in tables that are aligned with the results for each chapter. Chapter 3 explored the exposure and stability of biophysical, socioeconomic, and cultural values identified by case study participants. The results indicate that there are significant resilience strengths among all the case study communities, including strong social cohesion and sense of identity. Also, significant differences in the timing and rate of onset of pine beetle impacts (short- to medium- and longer-term) leaves a range of latitude for municipal level planning and action. However, the impacts themselves can be far reaching and challenging to overcome. Also, due to the limited contingency resources available to rural communities, the cumulative impacts from pine beetle and other stressors have the potential to drive communities beyond important thresholds of social and economic viability. Table 6.1 summarizes recommendations for planning, action, and policies to improve resilience. For example, in the left-hand column, strengthening municipal contingency resources and planning capacity are important short- to medium-term interventions due to the relatively rapid onset of some pine beetle impacts. The one-way horizontal arrow in the next column depicts these actions as being relevant to the municipal scale (applied within community jurisdictional limits). The vertical arrow indicates a likely need to access funding at other jurisdictional scales. 114 Table 6.1 Recommendations Based on Exposure and Stability Framework Dimensions Recommendations for planning, policy, and action Focal scale a Short- to medium-term response (1-to-10-year latitude for planning and response) Strengthen social and financial contingencies, and buffers in light of potential impacts of cumulative stressors to key thresholds   Strengthen municipal planning capacity and resources to address short-term impacts to infrastructure, public safety, and recreation   Mitigate pine beetle spread on the regional landscape   Monitor and evaluate the impacts of pine beetle-related policy, including potential for negative (maladaptive) outcomes to ecosystems, communities, and vulnerable groups   Long-term considerations (greater than 10-year latitude for planning and response) Strengthen knowledge and capacity to anticipate and plan for longer-term cumulative stress including declines in timber supply; retention; harvesting season   Strengthen and diversify municipal contingency resources during economic upswings   Economic diversification   Restore natural ecological dynamics to promote forest ecosystem resilience   a  indicates actions at the community level;  indicates actions at the community level and across horizontal scales (e.g., between municipalities);  indicates actions across different levels of governance. Recommendations for long-term considerations in Table 6.1 include the strengthening of knowledge and capacity to anticipate and plan for declines in timber supply. This is represented by a two-way horizontal arrow in the column to the right due to the need for collaboration across horizontal scales, such as information sharing with industry and other municipalities. The vertical arrow indicates the need for information sharing and collaborative action between local and provincial jurisdictional scales regarding concerns like forest planning and timber supply. Not surprisingly, given the stability focus of this resilience dimension, some of the recommendations could be characterized as stability-oriented versus 115 transformative in nature and tend toward addressing specified resilience. Overall, however, the recommendations incorporate insights from a range of resilience analytical orientations including RH, SES, components-development, and critical perspectives. Chapter 4 examined attributes associated with latent adaptive capacity, including social, natural, financial, human, political, and cultural capital; structural considerations related to planning and local autonomy; critical perspectives on inclusive engagement; and social-ecological considerations about resilient landscapes and interactions across scales. A key strength in latent adaptive capacity among all case study communities is the considerable extent of natural capital associated with adjacent landscapes. Equally important are the high degree of collaborative spirit, resourcefulness, intermunicipal and intersectoral collaboration, leadership, and network building. Examples of factors that limit resilience include shortfalls in financial capital and infrastructure; declines in volunteerism; complacency and resistance to change; tensions around how to manage for diverse values on the landscape; limited recognition and opportunity for community and First Nation participation and influence on the landscape-scale response to pine beetle; limits to local autonomy to engage in innovative and transformative action; and insufficient resources and opportunities for cross-scale learning to support communities in managing through rapid change. Table 6.2 highlights recommendations for planning, policy, and action based on the adaptive capacity lens of Chapter 4. Recommendations linked to a components-development resilience orientation at the top of Table 6.2 include measures to diversity the economy (as noted for stability above), while also increasing local autonomy from cyclical global markets; strengthening financial capital and infrastructure during economic upswings to support adaptive and transformative activities during decline; and supporting Indigenous economic activity and innovation. As indicated in the right-hand column, these interventions require action across both horizontal and vertical scales. Strategies such as strengthening community cohesion would focus to a greater extent at the local community scale. Further down in Table 6.2 are critical and SES-oriented insights for local and regional planning. Here, for example, municipal planning should consider that some pine beetle impacts might be particularly harmful to vulnerable groups identified in the case study research. 116 Table 6.2 Opportunities to Improve Latent Adaptive Capacity and General Resilience Recommendations for planning, policy, and action Focal scale a Capitals focus (components-development) Diversify use of natural capital while advancing local autonomy from international markets.   Strengthen financial capital and infrastructure during upswings to support adaptive and transformative activities during declines.   Empower and support Indigenous economic activity, innovation, and values.   During economic upturns ensure follow-through on adaptive actions initiated in periods of decline.  Strengthen community cohesion to minimize downward spirals.  Foster connectedness and engagement around a broad range of community strengths and identities.  Minimize complacency by fostering a culture of innovation and change.  Improve political capital; cross-jurisdictional communication processes; responsiveness at higher jurisdictional scales.   Encourage and foster local leaders, champions, and agency.  Build local capacity to respond to rapid change through training, tools, and cross-scale learning.   Support training programs for skill transferability within and beyond the natural resource sector.   Critical and Social-Ecological Insights for Local and Landscape-Level Planning Diversify and strengthen support to small business and vulnerable groups.   Prioritize inclusive, collaborative approaches that adequately recognize traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous values.   Increase capacity to respond effectively to change by minimizing existing land-use tensions through inclusive and cross-jurisdictional planning.   Nurture resilient landscapes that consider cumulative impacts to the landscape and maintain sufficient buffers and options to adapt to change and surprise.  a  indicates actions at the community level;  indicates actions at the community level and across horizontal scales (e.g., between municipalities);  indicates actions across different levels of governance. 117 In addition, planning at municipal, provincial, and federal levels should prioritize inclusive, collaborative approaches that adequately recognize traditional ecological knowledge; increase capacity to respond to change effectively by minimizing existing land-use tensions; and nurture resilient landscapes that consider cumulative impacts and maintain space (buffers) for adaptation in the event of pine beetle and other disturbances. These recommendations are characterized in the left-hand column of Table 6.2 as relevant to action across both horizontal and vertical jurisdictional scales. Overall, opportunities to improve latent adaptive capacity tend to be medium- to long-term in nature and many are relevant both to pine beetle epidemic, and specified resilience to other forms of anticipated disturbance and surprise. Chapter 5 evaluated the efficacy and outcomes of collaborative action in response to pine beetle and community-level efforts to exert agency and influence across jurisdictional scales. The results indicate that while collaborative drivers and dynamics were strong within each of two jurisdictionally defined actor networks, there were considerable obstacles to effective collaboration and collective action between networks. The evaluation also highlighted concerns about the capacity of government (particularly at the federal scale) to adjust processes and policies in response to the rapidly changing ecological dynamics associated with the pine beetle outbreak. Table 6.3 summarizes three categories of recommendations for improving collaborative and adaptive governance. 118 Table 6.3 Recommendations to Improve Collaborative Capacity and Cross-Scale Responsiveness Themes Opportunities Cross-Jurisdictional Capacity for Collaborative Governance and Collective Adaptive Action Prioritize contextual awareness of the extent of collaborative drivers Ensure effective platforms b for principled engagement, especially where collaborative drivers across jurisdictions are potentially weak Monitor for negative intermediate collaborative outcomes including disconnects, decline in trust Formal Decision Mechanisms to Address Environmental Change Across Horizontal a and Vertical Jurisdictional Scales Implement policy triggers to broaden decision-making beyond existing jurisdictional silos in cases of multiregional environmental disturbance Reconsider existing policy triggers including emergency and invasive species designation in light of climate and broader environmental change Foster Cross-Scale Learning, Responsiveness and Adaptive Governance Improve opportunities for learning between rural communities with experience in or entering a process of confronting change Promote agile organizational decision-making responsiveness and decision-making in contexts of rapid- to medium-onset disturbance Foster a culture of double and triple loop learning in regard to cross-scale implications of existing policy paradigms a For example, interprovincial and from provincial to federal levels. b For example, impartial, non-advocating leadership; participation from appropriate decision-levels; safe space. 119 6.2 Limitations The strengths of this study in considering a complexity of factors also leads to a related shortcoming due to the study’s limited capacity to explore individual topics deeply. A greater focus on formal institutional considerations, for example, might look in more depth at the structure of existing federal and provincial policy as it relates to cross-jurisdictional concerns like pine beetle, and ask related questions about invasive species designation, triggers for emergency designation, and existing frameworks for multijurisdictional decision-making. A greater components-development focus would further consider limitations in community capital. There was only limited attention in this study to vulnerable groups or components-health perspectives. A greater social-ecological focus might pay more attention to ensuring the ecological resilience of adjacent forest landscapes. Another topic for further study, as identified in the Figure 2.5 framework, is the evaluation of the activation and effectiveness of the local- and cross-scale response to pine beetle epidemic in the case study area. Data collected during the case study interviews in relation to these factors, but not utilized for the dissertation, will be considered for future publication. A further important limitation of the study relates to the scarcity of Indigenous perspectives in the community resilience literature and the limited mandate of the study in engaging with Indigenous peoples. Despite these limitations in scope, the contributions from Indigenous participants provided very important for the resilience not only of First Nations communities themselves but for other communities and at the broader regional level. This underscores the value of traditional perspectives and knowledge for a wide spectrum of resilience considerations, which for the case study included perspectives on the management of natural resources, collaborative governance, and cross-scale considerations. Resilience assessment should be careful not to overlook this, or the substantial economic contributions from Indigenous peoples to their own communities and broader regional economies as encountered in the case study. 6.3 Conclusions This research advances and operationalizes a multidisciplinary resilience framework that responds to important needs identified in the literature for the integration of SES resilience approaches with the agency and predictive strengths of RH approaches, the 120 components-centred focus of development and human orientations, and critical social science perspectives. The study applies this framework and its associated typology of dimensions, attributes, and indicators in a context of rural communities facing impacts from a severe mountain pine beetle epidemic. The framework generates practical insights about the exposure, stability, adaptive capacity, collaborative capacity, and cross-scales institutional considerations for improving community resilience to pine beetle and other types of regional environmental disturbance and change. The high degree of variability in these attributes and the associated vulnerability between communities in relative proximity underscores calls in the literature for resilience approaches that are responsive to individual contexts. The integrated framework proposed in this dissertation helps meet that need. The study also highlights that how we conceive of community resilience determines to a large degree the options for achieving it, and these can be both narrowed or broadened depending on the conceptual starting point. For example, in the case study region, substantial effort was invested in the science and practice of predicting pine beetle dynamics (a RH approach), and in striving for a stability-oriented perception of resilience through resistance to pine beetle in sense of “making a stand.” This perspective coincides with how many participants described resilience as stability or the “bouncing-back” from pine beetle. Without taking from the value and importance of these perspectives, a central contention of this dissertation is the need to consider a broader spectrum of resilience trajectories that include adaptation and transformation. The significance of this is apparent in the fact that aspirations of resistance and stability in the case study region turned out to be unachievable, as in the end the outbreak was not controlled. A holistic view, as emphasized by some case study participants, would include ensuring the leadership capacity and resources to manage rapid change and adapt or transform to a broad range of socioeconomic change over short to medium and longer time frames. Finally, if we are to take community resilience seriously, we must consider it as a collective and cross-scale endeavor. Alberta communities facing pine beetle did not want to be passive victims. They desired to be active agents at jurisdictional levels that were relevant to the scale and multiregional nature of the epidemic. The obstacles to doing this point to implications not just for municipal governance but also for decision-makers and natural resource policy at provincial and federal levels. The governance of natural resources for 121 management and conservation should consider the potential impact of policies to the well-being and sustainability of rural communities. 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Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203144916 Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage. 132 Appendix Guideline for Semi-Structured Interviews Sept 28, 2017 Interview topics and questions are outlined by category. Question design and sequencing reflects established process for semi-structured interviews (e.g., Ayres, 2008; Berg, 2007; Morgan and Guevara, 2008; Roulston, 2008). General probes will follow suggested wording such as “can you give an example that?” and “what else can you tell me about that?” and “could you tell me more about that? Topics and questions selected for each interview will be responsive to each participant’s background and expertise. That is, not all questions will be asked of each participant, and interviews will be sensitive to remaining within estimated time limits. Significant changes to topics or process will be identified to the BREB prior to interviewing. 1. Opening—Introductions, Welcome and Review of the Project and Consent Process. 2. Community Profile. This category seeks to understand social, economic and ecological features of the forest landscape that are valued by case study communities and that are exposed to impacts from a mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreak. Also explored are factors that help indicate how stable (versus vulnerable) these values are to MPB outbreak. Topic: locally valued features and their exposure to pine beetle Questions to community leaders, managers, key stakeholders: ▪ How important are local forests to economy and employment in the community? ▪ What types of livelihoods or other basic needs come from forests? ▪ How do community members use the forest for recreational or traditional activities? ▪ What role do pine trees located within or adjacent to community boundaries have in local well-being? {probe: can you give me an example of that, e.g. for recreation or tourism?} Questions to experts in forestry and pine beetle, other industry and the local economy: ▪ [economic diversity] To what extent does the local economy relies on forestry and forest-based tourism? ▪ What short and longer-term risks are presented to your industry (forestry; tourism, etc.) by MPB? ▪ What is the geographic area important to this community for timber supply, tourism? 133 Topic: Stability of values affected by pine beetle Questions for community leaders, managers, key stakeholders: ▪ [contingency] What funds, spare capacities, redundancies are in place to cope thru surprise events? ▪ [equity] How might different social groups be affected by a decline in forest-related economy? ▪ [cohesion, attachment to place] To what extent do community members see themselves as staying long-term? Questions for experts in forestry and pine beetle: ▪ [adaptive cycle] In what state is the forest age-class in terms of immature, mature and older? ▪ [species diversity] How will existing tree species diversity affect forest vulnerability to beetle? ▪ [modularity] How will the presence/absence of geographical or other barriers affect spread of beetle? ▪ [impact] What percent of the timber supply would be affected by low, med, or high attack levels? ▪ [latitude for response] What do you expect will be the approximate timeline and duration of beetle attack? ▪ [latitude for response] How would you rate the effectiveness of existing beetle control measures? Questions for leaders and experts on local industry, economy and municipal service provision: ▪ [latitude for economic response] When do you anticipate economic impacts from beetle to begin occurring? ▪ [impact] How significant do you expect these impacts will be to overall employment in the community? ▪ [efficacy of response-substitution] What options are there for using non-pine species or making new products? ▪ [efficacy of response] What options are potentially available for economic diversification? ▪ [thresholds] How much room is there for a decline in tax base while still providing essential services? ▪ [thresholds] How quickly would economic decline affect community configuration and function? {e.g. affect population levels, geographic boundaries, governmental and other functions?} 3. Adaptive Capacity. This category seeks to understand existing levels of features that facilitate adaptive capacity. Topic: Human resources and knowledge for actors to draw on for adaptive action Questions for community leaders, managers, key stakeholders: 134 ▪ [skills] How adaptable and transferable to new occupations are the knowledge and skillsets of workers? ▪ [knowledge] How effective and current is MPB information for local planning decisions & response? ▪ [communication] When and how is information or resources exchanged related to MPB awareness and action? ▪ [networks] How effective are communication channels in facilitating quick, collaborative response? ▪ [resources to lead] Are there sufficient, capable personnel to plan & implement response to issues like MPB? ▪ [resourcefulness] How would you describe local attitudes related to self-reliance, resourcefulness? ▪ [volunteerism] How would you describe levels of involvement in groups and events? ▪ [entrepreneurialism] How well do local leaders in varied sectors stimulate a culture of innovation? ▪ [political] To what extent are community leaders networked with resources outside the community? ▪ [resources] What resources or information would improve your ability to respond to MPB or similar issues? Questions for experts in forestry, pine beetle and other industry: ▪ [knowledge] How effective are existing knowledge and technology for managing beetle? ▪ [resources to lead] Are there sufficient and capable personnel to plan & implement beetle response? ▪ [resources] What resources, investments, policies etc. are needed for an effective response in your sector? Topic: Capacity for collective action Questions for industry, community, provincial and federal-level leaders, managers, key stakeholders ▪ [drivers] Have impartial leaders been identified to initiate and secure resources for collaboration? ▪ [drivers] What mutual (and consequential) incentives are there to take collaborative action on beetle? ▪ [drivers-interdependence] To what degree is collaborative action needed to achieve MPB goals? ▪ [drivers] To what degree does uncertainty drive the need to cooperate to reduce or share risk? 135 ▪ [shared motivation] How are levels of trust between the community and other beetle stakeholders? ▪ [con’t.] Describe the ability to mutually understand & respect each other’s positions, interests. ▪ [con’t.] To what degree do stakeholders see each other as credible and with compatible interests? ▪ [con’t.-shared commitment] How strong is the potential for commitment to shared direction, action? ▪ What opportunities exist for greater collaboration to be helpful in fostering preparedness or action? {e.g. between industry and local government; local and higher levels of government} Topic: Institutions. Questions for industry, community, provincial and federal-level leaders, managers, key stakeholders. ▪ [response diversity] Which local (or prov., fed.) organizations have a role or potential role in MPB response? ▪ [response diversity] What types of MPB initiatives (e.g. local, provincial, federal) currently exist? {possible probe topics: reactive (beetle control) versus proactive (resilient landscape, economic diversity)} ▪ [response diversity] How do you envision the tourism sector responding to a landscape transformed by MPB? ▪ [response diversity] What actions or opportunities exist for industry to manage beetle or adapt? {probes, examples: input substitution, value added, product recovery, dry wood utilization (biofuels)} ▪ [response diversity] Where do you see opportunities for action that are not currently being addressed? {e.g. use of local knowledge, local monitoring, information sharing} ▪ [response diversity] What factors are helpful to or hinder decisions & action around MPB or other concerns? {probes, examples: local policies, resources, relationships; provincial, federal policies} ▪ [learning] How is information and learning shared between local and provincial/federal levels? ▪ [learning] How are results monitored and this information used to adjust strategies where needed? ▪ [learning] How is the community involved in monitoring related to pine beetle attack? ▪ [learning] Are different stakeholders able to discuss and debate science, values and strategies? {probe: e.g. can these discussions result in changes to viewpoints or strategies?} 136 ▪ [learning] How effectively do plans or policies facilitate flexibility to adapt actions in response to learning? ▪ [institutional memory] How does this level of flexibility help or hinder taking strategic action? {example: policies designed for valid historical concerns remain inflexible to changing conditions} ▪ [autonomy] How do local or higher level policies affect local autonomy to improvise and change? {i.e. in response to beetle or other sustainability, climate change concerns} ▪ [autonomy] How do regional or global market factors affect local autonomy to make change? ▪ [autonomy] How does existing infrastructure affect local autonomy for decision-making? {e.g. transportation; energy grids} ▪ [autonomy] How do local views, ideologies or preferences affect flexibility for taking proactive action? ▪ [legitimacy] How would you describe local public support for local-level MPB or similar initiatives? ▪ [legitimacy] Describe local public support for higher-level MPB or similar initiatives? ▪ [equity] To what extent does decision-making engage diverse perspectives and groups? {e.g. which groups are more involved or less involved with MPB decision-making?} ▪ [responsiveness] How much influence does the community have in areas of direct interest? {e.g. sustainability of local forest resources; outcomes from pine beetle; wildfire} {e.g. are community interests adequately addressed in related public policy?} 4. Activation, Strategic Action and Integration. This category seeks to understand the presence of (and barriers to) features that help to activate latent adaptive capacity and support the effective integration of MPB response within existing plans and processes. Topic: Awareness, perception and leadership for the activation of latent adaptive capacity. Questions for community leaders, managers, key stakeholders: ▪ [risk awareness] What kinds of beetle impacts have you observed in surrounding forests to date? ▪ [risk awareness] How would you describe community awareness of the risks from pine beetle? {e.g. local elected officials, town administrators, employers, community members} 137 ▪ [perception] How would you describe current levels of concern about the risks from pine beetle? {probe: what is the level of concern for taking measures to respond to beetle?} ▪ [leadership] What is your community vision for long-term social and economic well-being? {e.g. employment sources, this question can be broadened to more general sustainability questions} ▪ What formal leadership roles have responsibility for MPB or similar concerns? ▪ [leadership] What high-level (local, provincial, federal) leadership directives exist around response to beetle? ▪ [engagement] How are available resources and assets being engaged to take action on beetle or other issues? {e.g. human, knowledge. Probe: what factors are helpful to or hinder the engagement of available resources?} ▪ [agency] How strongly do local leaders believe in their ability to affect community well-being? Topic: Effective strategic action. Questions for community leaders, managers, key stakeholders: ▪ [conscious planning] To what extent is available information used local planning? {e.g. information on risks, natural resource sustainability, climate change} ▪ [cont.] To what extent do leaders, managers look beyond the community for resources to support endeavors? ▪ [mainstreaming] Where have MPB or similar strategies been integrated in local processes or plans in the past? ▪ [mainstreaming] Where do you see the best opportunities, e.g. existing plans, processes, for doing this? 5. Closing Questions and Discussion ▪ What factors have I missed that contributed to resilience in your community during past challenges? ▪ Which of the topics covered seem most relevant to your community’s response to beetle or similar issues? 138 ▪ Is there anything I haven’t mentioned related to community resilience that you would like to add?
Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Interdisciplinary Studies
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Hanna, Kevin S. (Kevin Stuart), 1961-
Parrott, Lael
Taking resilience from concept to practice : an interdisciplinary assessment of rural communities facing regional environmental change in Canadian boreal forests
Text