Wilderness ethics and political ecology: remapping the Great Bear Rainforest

Political ecologists have criticized parks, wilderness and protected areas for abridging the rights and resources of local people. A critical review of the debate over conservation territories, however, suggests an alternative conception of wilderness, as landscapes hospitable to wildlife and to native ecosystems more broadly, rather than off-limits to humankind. This paper argues that the recognition and protection of wilderness are fully compatible with a model of humans-in-nature. It adapts the framework of remapping to examine whether conservation territories can reconcile social justice and a broader respect for the biosphere. A case study of dominant-use zoning in coastal British Columbia suggests that conservation territories need not place social justice and biocentric ethics at odds. The remapping process, designed but not fully controlled by the provincial government, is a window of opportunity in which the tradeoffs between economic, social and environmental priorities can be weighed, and in which difference, both socio-cultural and ecological, can be acknowledged. The paper concludes that the remapping of the region exemplifies an incremental approach to acknowledging the moral considerability of endangered species and endangered cultures.