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Policy

Ecosystem management

Despite the fact that the science behind these bioregional approaches to wilderness conservation (as applied in North America to Y2Y, A2A, or other initiatives proposed by the Wildlands Project and its affiliates) remains extremely controversial, advocates are having growing success in influencing the domestic policy agenda. Enlisting sympathetic members of the scientific community to add authority to their visions, rewilding advocates seek to institutionalize their agenda by changing ecological regulations governing land management rather than engage in a political debate about their proposed regulatory regimes. Gaining acceptance of the ecosystem management approach is the first step for advocates. The first step for a policy analyst, however, is to try to determine what these terms actually mean.

To begin with, "ecosystem management" is an administrative notion that has become loosely tied to the elusive concept of "ecological integrity." The 1994 Parks Canada Guiding Principles and Operating Procedures defines ecological integrity as "a condition where the structures and functions of an ecosystem are unimpaired by stresses induced by human activity and are likely to persist [unimpaired by human-induced stresses]."⁵⁹ To a reader with common sense, the notion of ecological integrity appears to be a positive and responsible guiding principle. Unfortunately, it is a principle that does not translate easily into substantive and stable public policy.

Defining ecosystems

The grave defect of the ecosystem approach to the realities of nature or of the environment, as with all "systems approaches" to non-fabricated realities, is that there is no non-arbitrary way to measure or define the boundaries of the system. That is, while it is possible to define a telephone system or a missile guidance system, there is no way similarly to define an ecosystem or even a political system. The reason one can define a telephone system is because it was constructed as a system in the first place. Ecosystems, however, do not exist in nature; they exist in human discourse, usually scientific discourse. As geographer Allan Fitzsimmons has noted, "Ecosystems are only mental constructs, not real, discrete, or living things on the landscape... While the ecosystem concept may be helpful as a tool for researchers to better grasp the world around us, it is far too ambiguous to serve as an organizing principle for the application of federal law and policy. As spatial units, ecosystems represent a geographic free-for-all."⁶⁰ The habit of mistaking the scientific experience of concepts and models of reality for the common sense experience of reality itself is hardly confined to devotees of "ecological integrity," and "ecosystem management." This "fallacy of misplaced concreteness," as Whitehead called it, has been characteristic of the modern understanding of scientific technology. Ignoring this fallacy has become the effective condition for the conduct of contemporary scientific discourse.⁶¹ Thus, when Y2Y advocates speak so easily of an abstract "region" extending from southern Colorado to the northern Yukon and Alaska, they have no need to specify beforehand just what that region might be: their very words define it.

These self-referential definitions become scientific dogma through the creation of "geographic information systems" (GIS), which are an attempt to mask the ambiguity of the previously noted "geographic free-for-all," in the apprent precision of a computer model. A GIS combines a mass of spatial data concerning vegetation boundaries and individual species distribution in a computer database, resulting in a model that certainly has every appearance of being scientific. Of course, GIS mapping may or may not be a useful tool in land management and land-use planning. The point to be emphasized, however, is that the integration of data within a GIS is an intellectual or conceptual exercise, not an empirical or descriptive activity. It necessarily involves a process of human abstraction and data manipulation resulting in a deceptive picture of spatial precision that necessarily masks the constant, dynamic forces of real ecological change.⁶² Again, notwithstanding the questionable scientific status of GIS-based maps, they have come to form the basis and rationale for new regulatory regimes, which means that the theoretic precision of GIS mapping is "scientifically" persuasive.

One of the preliminary stages in any rewilding scheme such as Y2Y involves establishing ecological boundaries for proposed core areas, buffer zones, and wildlife corridors. For policy-makers in the Banff area, the ecologically-mapped area of the Central Rocky Ecosystem (CRE) has been the focus of debate. Advocates assert first that a 42,000 square kilometre "ecological unit" exists (covering lands in Alberta, including Banff National Park and Kananaskis Country, and additional land in British Columbia) and that it "has significant but not complete closure."⁶³ In real estate terms, the land assembly for the CRE is still under way. The open-ended implications of such rhetoric is considered dangerously misleading by geographers and scientists such as Fitzsimmons, Guilio A. De Leo, and Simon Levin (among others), who stress the point that ecological communities are "open, loosely defined assemblages with only weak evolutionary relationships to one another."⁶⁴ Even ecologists such as Norman Christensen et al., who are supportive of the ecosystem management approach, admit that "there is no single appropriate scale or time frame for management."⁶⁵ The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, for example, has been estimated to cover anywhere from 5 to 19 million acres, depending on who is defining it.⁶⁶ Despite its underlying conceptual elasticity, the CRE has been presented as if it were a precise and relatively contained area of study; moreover, an emotional charge has been added to the area, which has been evoked as the "critical link in the Yellowstone to Yukon landscape."⁶⁷ Of course, such classifications may indeed be descriptively helpful, in the same way that a network of roads can be designated the "Yellowhead Route" or the "southern transprovincial," but they are by no means ecologically definitive.

Costs of ecosystem management not identified

The ecosystem management approach, and the subsidiary notion of ecological integrity (EI), has inspired some of the most controversial proposals for Banff National Park. It is self-evident even to advocates that notions such as ecological integrity do not come without a price. Alleging the existence of negative effects of the Trans-Canada Highway on wildlife mortality and genetic diversity, one EI solution noted above has been to propose to bury or elevate large stretches of the highway. The costs of such a venture have been estimated to range between $20 million and $130 million per kilometre.⁶⁸ For Jacques Guérin, chair of the Panel on Ecological Integrity, this was a serious suggestion: "A highway on stilts—it sounds crazy, but maybe at some point it will become worth it."⁶⁹ It is perhaps worth pointing out that Guérin did not provide cost estimates or a time-line to indicate when this "crazy" scheme would become "worth it."

More to the point, such a proposal for an enormous capital investment, which "sounds crazy," is based on highly questionable scientific premises, to say nothing of the enormous environmental disruption that constructing the "stilts" to elevate the Trans-Canada Highway would entail. Indeed, much of this sort of advocacy is little more than a kind of romantic projection of human experiences onto poor benighted wildlife. According to Paul Paquet of the Central Rockies Wolf Project (CRWP), for instance, what is involved is a "a quality of life issue for these species. They live right now in an impoverished environment, a wilderness ghetto."⁷⁰ Similar romantic dreaming has likewise motivated the consistent findings of annual studies on wildlife corridors in the Bow Valley, which have consistently advocated the restoration of the Banff Springs Golf Course to "pristine montane conditions."⁷¹

Humans not featured in study

It is also worth noting that since 1995, Parks Canada has annually commissioned researchers affiliated with the Central Rockies Wolf Project to undertake these studies. To outsiders, this action by Parks Canada looks like bureaucratic capture of ostensibly independent research. In any event, marginal attention has been devoted to the study of the quality of life of the existing human population in and around Banff. Moreover, the rhetoric that so easily embraces the notion of "pristine conditions" can do so only by ignoring the very real impact that natives had on the territory that now is part of Banff Park, an impact, incidentally, that most "rewilding" advocates would consider adverse in the extreme.⁷²

The mounting restrictions on human use and enjoyment of the park (apart from the use and enjoyment of the park by wildlife biologists on the Parks Canada payroll) is inversely related to the amount of reserved land needed to accommodate "capacity" populations of wildlife in their "natural" ranges. As indicated above, however, it is highly questionable whether the needs of wild animals can be permanently and objectively measured. The flux of elk population in Banff, for example, has been enormous. Between 1792 and 1872, early explorers reported sighting elk once every 31 days.⁷³ Today, as every visitor to Banff knows, they can be pests, especially in the townsite.

A recent study of the wildlife corridor around Canmore, commissioned by four regional environmental lobby-groups—CPAWS, the Bow Valley Naturalists, Canadians for Corridors and UTSB Research—suggests that even the best of scientific efforts cannot guarantee properly functioning wildlife corridors.⁷⁴ The study, conducted by Jacob Herrero Environmental Consulting and a (GIS) computer mapping company, concluded that the wildlife corridors designed to allow animals to co-exist with tourist development east of Calgary are a failure. In the meantime, a surge of bear attacks during the summer of 2000 have led Kananaskis (provincial) officials to close all trails and hiking areas in the Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park, Ribbon Creek, Wind Valley, the Evan Thomas hiking area and portions of the Bow Valley Wildlands Park.⁷⁵ Environmental groups are now calling for the proposed $1.5 billion Three Sisters development east of Canmore be re-examined to accommodate a renovation of the corridor.

On the other side of the issue, commercial operators in and around the Banff area rely on Long Range Plans (LRPs) as an element of stability necessary to undertake business plans. Moreover, Parks Canada has said that adhering to these LRPs is an important priority for them as well. But when new information is suddenly introduced into an otherwise stable regulatory environment by environmental consultants who rely on the highly flexible notions of ecosystems, wildlife corridors, natural ranges, and the like, prudent long-term planning concerning land use grows much more difficult. In principle, one conclusion seems obvious enough: handing over an indefinable ecological jurisdiction to wildlife biologists with little or no interest in, or knowledge of, the economic consequences of their "scientific" conclusions necessarily results in an uncertain business and policy environment.

Science needs to be examined

The growing emphasis on allegedly scientific management principles for Canada's national parks invites greater scrutiny into the nature of the science being employed. The testimony of the federal Heritage Minister before the Standing Committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources on 28 June, 2000, was in this respect quite revealing. The Committee was reviewing Bill C-27; the Minister, responding to questions about the controversy surrounding well-publicized proposals to restore the "ecological integrity" of Banff National Parks including proposals mentioned above to remove poppies at Lake Louise and poison Moraine and Bighorn Lakes, replied: "I would love to get involved to that level of detail, but I leave it to the scientists."⁷⁶ In other words, the Minister responsible for Banff Park considered the decision to rip out ornamental gardens and sterilize mountain lakes to be a scientific, not a political or worse, an ideologically-inspired, decision.

No one denies that sound scientific knowledge is necessary for guiding officials in their decisions governing the wise use and protection of Canada's national parks. It seems clear, however, that environmental preservationists and restorationists with a fluent command of the scientific discourse of wildlife and conservation biology have become central actors in everything from establishment of jurisdictional boundaries to the definition of appropriate activities within, and even beyond Canada's national parks. In other words, there is good reason to be concerned that ideology as much as science is inspiring current and proposed regulatory and land management regimes.

Conservation biology

Politics is as much about the distribution of scarce resources—who gets what—as it is about justice, order, and the precarious and temporary but public representation of the meaning of life. Like human existence, it aims high in its aspirations; its realities, however, are dependent on more practical considerations. It is important to keep these practical realities in sight in any discussion that merges the aspirations and the necessities of politics with the discourse of disciplines such as law or science. As has the language of law, the discourse of science has come to assume great moral authority in politics and society. Claiming an accuracy, empiricism, and objectivity that sets it apart from ordinary political debate, scientific discourse can provide its proponents with a powerful rhetorical technique to translate their interests and preferences into public policy. Nowhere is this clearer than in the politics of wilderness conservation.

Over the past two decades, conservation biology has become, by its own understanding, a value-laden blend of science and activism tailored to specific political purposes. Michael Soulé, the father of conservation biology (founder of the Society for Conservation Biology and co-founder of the Wildlands Project, an applied version of the conservation biology mission), explains: "As growth and technology eat away at nature, they also cause social disintegration. Moreover, each of these diseases exacerbates the other in an accelerating downward spiral of human alienation and species loss."⁷⁷ Such language is revealing, and it has nothing to do with any commonsense understanding of science. Grizzly bear scientist Stephen Herrero (now head researcher for the Eastern Slopes Grizzly Bear Project) echoed these sentiments in a 1970 paper published in the scientific journal Bioscience. Describing his "soul-deep love of nature," Herrero admitted: "I know my biases and values have significantly influenced even the scientific or factual data that I have collected."⁷⁸ It is a short step from an awareness that personal bias can influence the methods of data collection and analysis to designing research projects that confirm—which is to say, that express—personal preferences and commitments.

As the goals of scientific and activist communities merge, however, the realities of politics threaten (or promise) to undermine sound scientific method. Explicitly "mission-oriented," the goals of conservation biology are expressly tailored to the perceived policy problem at hand.⁷⁹ Research programs and institutes have begun to devote themselves not only to the cause of sound science, but to influencing public policy. Parks policy in the Banff area in particular has been significantly modified by the efforts of a small, tightly-bound group of environmental scientists, who, while asserting their status as independent researchers, are significantly funded, staffed, and resourced by the federal government. Their research is then publicized by environmental activists and lobbyists as the scientific basis to justify the interventionist policies they advocate. In fact, political agitation and scientific discourse have become two elements of a single, unified strategic initiative.

Environmentalists influential in scientific panels

The Eastern Slopes Grizzly Bear Project (ESGBP) was established in 1994, billed as a joint venture between University of Calgary researchers, conservation groups, government, and business. The project is guided by the unique blend of science, ideology, and activism characteristic of contemporary environmentalism. Oriented towards specific park management issues, the project is part human impact assessment and part political strategy.⁸⁰ A Project Steering Committee uses strategic targeting to determine its research agenda, and even to structure its data analysis and frame its goals. The ESGBP is largely responsible for making grizzly bears a focal species for what they call "cumulative effects assessments" (CEAs) of people and development in Banff.

CEAs have formed the rationale for many of the policy changes that have been made in Banff National Park over the past five years. Much of the scientific data for these assessments were produced for the Banff-Bow Valley Study, and focused on certain "key ecological indicators" of which grizzly bears and wolves figured prominently. Two years into a five-year research project, Stephen Herrero reported on the status of the grizzly population and habitat, and Paul Paquet, director of the Central Rockies Wolf Project (CRWP), was responsible for wolf research.⁸¹ The cumulative effects of stressors on vegetation (Peter Achuff), aquatic systems (David Schindler) and elk (John Woods) were also measured and aggregated for the assessment. The purpose of the CEA, apparently, is to raise alarm over the "alienation" of wolves and bears from the prime montane habitat in and around the park.

When the species in question are also described as "keystones," they become exponentially important in the campaign to save spaces. Keystone species are said to play a pivotal role in regulating ecosystem diversity.⁸² Such wide-ranging predators as bears and wolves are also sometimes called "umbrella species," since their habitat needs can be used to justify large reserve areas, which will in turn support a great range of other species. Such metaphorical language is based not on the actual science of biology but on policy advocacy. Thus Noss, for example, described these creatures as "charismatic megavertabrates" because they serve as highly evocative symbols of major conservation efforts.⁸³ Typically, they are among the dominant species of a particular trophic level (i.e., place in the food chain). However, in 1996, this "top-down theory" focusing on large carnivores such as grizzly bears and wolves was staunchly rejected in the scientific journal American Naturalist; at the November 1998 London Zoological Society carnivores conference, for example, not a single paper on the theory was presented.⁸⁴ It is at least equally common for scientists to assume that the lowest trophic level serves as the key regulatory role ("bottom-up theory").⁸⁵ Michael Soulé has dismissed such critics with the contention that while "the ecological community as a whole is not convinced yet... in the next decade, it will be."⁸⁶ Wildlife biologists commissioned to study Banff (and increasingly, Parks Canada itself) appear convinced right now, and are using the habitat and population data of these charismatic, megavertabrate carnivores to provide justification for reserving, or rewilding, increasingly large areas of public and private land. Despite its controversial status as science, the doctrine of "keystone species" was given broad acceptance by the government-sponsored Banff Bow Valley Study, and is currently being integrated into new park management strategies.⁸⁷ Given the historical role of humans as predators in what is now Banff Park, and given the historical impact of the real "keystone species," namely homo sapiens, on "ecosystem diversity," however defined, it is a major omission to ignore the human use of the area over the past few hundred years.

Some members of the scientific review committee of the Banff Bow Valley Study were willing to acknowledge that "a capacity to predict precisely what is going to happen in the future with some of these ecological indicators is not possible," but then immediately added that it was not "necessary" to have such a capacity either.⁸⁸ This is unquestionably true: a capacity for accurate prediction is by no means "necessary" to make public policy. Such a capacity is, however, necessary if administrators are going to make sound public policy in the area of wildlife management in a national park. Notwithstanding the absence of adequate predictors, species numbers, especially those of large carnivores such as bears and wolves—the charismatic megavertabrates—are being used as an important benchmark for evaluating the general ecological health of the Banff Bow Valley area (as well as being made the baseline for policy decisions concerning land management and use in Banff National Park). Rather than letting uncertainty undermine the new approach to ecosystem management, advocates invoke the notion of a "precautionary principle."

This "principle" underlay the conclusion of the Banff-Bow Valley Study: "We must postpone making decisions that could harm the environment, until we do know, until we are sure."⁸⁹ The EI Panel commissioned by Parks Canada has also advocated a definition of ecological integrity that facilitates management according to the precautionary principle: "There is no implicit requirement for 'proof' that particular components of the ecosystem are necessary for its persistence nor to engage in any debate about it."⁹⁰ Of course, no one disputes the prudence of taking precautions. The problem with turning this morally elevated notion into a decision-making principle is two-fold: first there is no principle by which this principle can be applied in any particular instance, and second, in this particular instance, the invocation of the "principle" serves only to obscure the transparently obvious fact that advocates of a specific regulatory policy are relying on highly contentious science. Perhaps if enough people (including wildlife biologists with no particular environmentalist axe to grind) repeat the slogan loudly and often enough, a sufficiently draconian regulatory regime can be imposed. And draconian regulatory environments are not conducive to scientific investigation, even for environmentalists.

Grizzly moralism

The wildlife biology dealing with large carnivores, even before they are transfigured into charismatic megavertabrates, is particularly helpful in advancing the policy preferences of preservationists and restorationists. Because bears and wolves, for example, typically range over large areas, the argument for setting aside ever larger areas as wilderness preserves can be bolstered by the opinion that the land in question—the Y2Y corridor, for example—is part of the natural or historic habitat range of the animal involved. Leaving aside the issue of the scarcity of historical data for such "keystone species" as grizzlies, it is apparent that the chief component of the rhetoric used to advocate more space for grizzlies is moral intensity. Thus, wild nature, which is somehow more incarnate in bears than in newts, reminds us of our "humility" and thus holds the promise of reducing the "arrogance" inherent in modern technological society. Grizzly bear researcher Stephen Herrero, for example, has argued that "human beings, in visiting grizzly country, face a situation which educes qualities phylogenetically [based on natural evolutionary relationships] developed in man, but which are often not allowed simple expression in our modern and complex technological society."⁹¹ Harvey Locke expressed the same sentiments using language less opaque than that favoured by Herrero. Locke lamented having lost his childhood experience of "magic in nature" and explained his membership in CPAWS as a way of expressing his "connection to creation" and "duty to try to protect Her." Most environmentalists, he explained, have relied on rational arguments. He proposed, instead, that they should take advantage of an "unsatisfied spiritual hunger" that is said to exist among Canadians and "reach out at the level of values to the religious community, to First Nations and other spiritualists and to engage in charting a brighter future for creation."⁹²

Freedom of religion is, of course, an important part of Canadian constitutional liberty and, Locke is surely at liberty to worship at the altar of his choice. Moreover, if he is anxious over having lost the magic of childhood, his plight is bound to evoke sympathy from adults. There is, however, more to his touching confession than an appeal to a sort of romantic religious gnosticism. In this same article, which was initially delivered as a speech at a CPAWS banquet, Locke indicated that he had already begun the work of putting his "dreams" into practice. The "long-range visioning meetings" of the CPAWS national board, he said, confirmed their advocacy of Y2Y and the Wildlands Project. The immediate result was CPAWS "Wild at Heart" campaign, "designed to make our values about nature or prominent part of our work" at "the intersection between spirituality and the environment."⁹³ In short, Locke's animus against modern technology and his idiosyncratic religious opinions and commitments constitute the moral—or rather, moralizing, hectoring—core of the preservationists' and restorationists' arguments for such otherwise mundane and commonsensical public policy issues as protection and restoration of grizzly bear populations and habitats, along with protection of human hikers and other park users.

Other religiously-inspired environmentalists include Michael Soulé of The Wildlands Project. He has given voice to a highly imaginative apocalyptic scenario. "As nature flies apart," he says, "so does society; and as alien species invade habitats, alienation negates human congress."⁹⁴ On the other hand, Robert Bailey has ridiculed the preference for native over non-native species as "ecological xenophobia." Ridiculous though it may appear to common sense, just such "xenophobia" has inspired the various rewilding programs and the proposals to poison mountain lakes and replace poppies with weeds. Bailey pointed out the rather obvious fact that, in reality, no scientific criteria exists for distinguishing between "disturbed" ecosystems and allegedly pristine ones.⁹⁵ This basic problem in wildlife biology makes scientific evaluation of the alleged "biodiversity crisis," even more problematic: exotics are frequently not counted as part of the biological stock of an ecosystem, and their functional value (either for the ecosystem or for humans) is usually dismissed.⁹⁶ Moreover, the place of human nature or human animals in any biodiverse context is almost always conceptualized as one or another type of "alien" or "disturbing" species.⁹⁷ In other words, the religious or vaguely spiritual commitments of preservationists and restorationists have led them to make use of scientific and quasi-scientific discourse for decidedly unscientific purposes.

Native species emphasized

In searching for strategic allies, the preservationists and restorationists have, as have other interest groups, looked to international NGOs. Thus in May 2000, in Nairobi, Kenya, the discussion at the fifth Convention on Biological Diversity proceeded to consider the issue of "alien" species as if it were a self-evident premise rather than a highly contested question in contemporary scientific ecology.⁹⁸ Obviously such international meetings of advocacy groups can become "a germination level for environmental policy ideas."⁹⁹ As we have seen in Banff, these specific notions have been given policy currency in the previously mentioned plans of Parks Canada for Bighorn and Moraine Lakes. A religious preference of native over non-native species becomes even more bizarre when the natives involved are human. Indeed, the enlisting of First Nations as allies in the spiritual crusade of environmentalists simply looks expedient.

The appeal of natives to non-natives emphasizes an "aboriginal ethic" that respects an unmediated, holistic relationship with nature. CPAWS trustee emeritus, J. Stan Rowe, for example, looks to indigenous culture to "teach us the fundamentals of living with one another and with Earth in ways that are relation-based rather than consumption-based, responsibility-based rather than right-based. We look at these aboriginal cultures and marvel at their ways-of-living that seem so wholesome compared to our own."¹⁰⁰ Likewise in 1998, the CPAWS newsletter, Wilderness Activist, claimed that aboriginal and environmentalists shared certain "philosophy and principles." More important, however, as Juri Peepre, a past-president of CPAWS, observed, was the practical usefulness of an alliance with natives: "Working through land-claims agreements is one of the best tools available for gaining on the ground protection" of wild areas.¹⁰¹ Peepre added, "First Nations can benefit from CPAWS' public advocacy clout. We're well-respected and we know how the government agencies think."

The environmental movement has clearly recognized the need for strategic alliances and moral justification in the battle over public lands policy. Native Canadians look like a group that might be useful in this regard. As noted above, however, the actual practices of Indians in wildlife and forest management were anything but benign.¹⁰² More to the point today, however, things look rather different to the actual members of First Nations.

For example, the Siksika Nation has threatened to occupy sites on (sacred) Castle Mountain in Banff National Park. The band was intending to use the protected land for housing, and elk and buffalo ranches. Since the Parks Act prohibits individuals from taking up residence or doing business on park land, the Siksika have launched a lawsuit along with five Treaty 7 bands in southern Alberta, suing the federal government over rights to natural resources such as timber, oil, gas, and other minerals.¹⁰³ The fishing practices of natives from the Burnt Church reserve in New Brunswick do not inspire confidence in the holistic and wholesome spirituality of the Mi'kmaq on Miramichi Bay. The Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Matthew Coon Come, informed the federal environment minister that First Nations had a right to hunt any animals, whatever the Species at Risk Act might have to say.¹⁰⁴ Similarly, it is unlikely that the restorationists would approve of the extensive clear-cutting done by natives on forested parts of the Morley reserve just east of Banff. Within a few months in 1994, about 20 percent of the pine and spruce on the reserve was hauled to BC, through the park, for milling.¹⁰⁵

While one can hardly criticize First Nations for wanting to share in the social and economic benefits stemming from the development of resource potential, it hardly coincides with the romantic mythical vision of a special (morally superior) aboriginal ethic towards nature. Even a superficial awareness of the historical practices of Indians in North America ought to have indicated to spiritually-inspired environmentalists that First Nations would be unreliable allies in their crusade.¹⁰⁶

In any event, many native communities are today no longer willing to be used as pawns in the greater regulatory agenda of powerful environmental groups. The divergence between aboriginal and environmentalist interests prompted the signing of the First Nations Protocol on the Environment, Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada, in 1997. It specifically forbade environmental groups from using "any crests, totems, dances, songs, or other symbols of our First Nations culture for the purposes of representing our First Nations."¹⁰⁷ Other aboriginal people have also objected to the distortion of their "natural" interest. For example, Fabienne Bayet, an Australian Aboriginal (and self-proclaimed "environmentalist, conservationist, greenie") explains the source of this resentment, noting that "Aboriginal people now perceive national parks and wilderness legislation as the second wave of dispossession which denies their customary inherited right to use land for hunting, gathering, building, rituals, birthing rights."¹⁰⁸ In the future it may not be unreasonable to anticipate increasingly divergent views between restorationists intensifying their spiritual efforts and natives seeking economic and, indeed, recreational benefits.

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