The Cosmetics of Conservation: The Nature Conservancy of Canada Goes Ranching in Southwestern Alberta Olivier LaRocque Department of Anthropology McGill University, Montreal August 2016 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Olivier LaRocque 2016 Table of Contents Abstracts ........................................................................................................................................................ 2 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................... 5 Lists of Figures and Acronyms .............................................................................................................. 8 Introduction................................................................................................................................................ 11 Part I: A Livelihood Subtext Chapter 1 The ranching livelihood 1.1 What is ranching? ................................................................................................... 60 1.2 What is ranching in southwestern Alberta? ................................................ 81 1.3 Mode of production, property rights and science ..................................... 107 Part II: Amongst Friends Chapter 2 The Nature Conservancy of Canada: a backgrounder ..................... 122 Chapter 3 The ecological governance of landscapes ............................................. 158 Chapter 4 When utilitarianism changes tracks ...................................................... 198 Part III: Meeting the Enemy Chapter 5 Bear attack! ....................................................................................................... 224 Chapter 6 The wolves are back! ..................................................................................... 258 Chapter 7 The predator problem: a maze of approaches .................................... 296 Part IV: Environmentality and place-making Chapter 8 Who gets to decide? ...................................................................................... 337 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 360 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................... 381 1 Abstract: In 1997, the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) came to the southwestern corner of Alberta as a complete stranger. Within a decade, however, the organization was the largest landlord, having bought most of the landscape on the eastern side of the Waterton Lakes National Park. Thus was born the largest private conservation initiative in Canada at the time. Key to its success was an alliance with ranchers who were contracted as tenants in return for selling their ranch. With science on its side and ranchers having refashioned themselves as conservationists, the NCC declared that a unique landscape with a wealth of iconic species had been protected. This thesis demonstrates that aside from bringing together unlikely protagonists, the alliance did not remotely generate in practice what it advertises. To begin with, there is no consensus amongst experts that conservation has any prospect where a livelihood dependent on livestock is expected to coexist peacefully with large predators like grizzly bears and wolves. I explain how scientific findings may vary in concert with the dispositions and affinities of the science-makers themselves, and that land-users as well as conservationists select them strategically to advance their respective agendas. I make a case that the cosmetics of conservation gloss over contradictions on several fronts. Disguise is a default manoeuvre when the inflow of money depends on the public perception that donations produce prompt results. The NCC therefore promotes the idea that the accumulation of property rights is ipso facto a guarantee of conservation. This may be the case where human activities are curtailed, but not where interspecies coexistence is mandated. Yet innovative practices have emerged despite the apparent stalemate, and a 2 multi-sited ethnography reveals the dynamics of place that stifle innovation in some places and foster it in others. Discretion perhaps being the better part of valor in conservation, the NCC is locally a silent partner at the moment, but it has positioned itself as a future land-use broker. As I elucidate, the predicaments of this ‘working landscape’ are so entrenched that it may end up gentrified in the name of conservation. Résumé : Lors de son arrivée dans le coin Sud-Ouest de l’Alberta en 1997, Conservation de la nature Canada (CNC) était un parfait étranger. Cependant, au cours d’une décennie, cet organisme est devenu le plus important propriétaire local grâce à l’achat de la majorité des terres adjacentes à l’est du Parc national des Lacs-Waterton. Ainsi est née la plus grande initiative de conservation privée au Canada existant à l’époque. La clé de son succès fut une alliance avec des éleveurs qui auront accepté de vendre leur ranch en échange de longs contrats de location par la suite. La science étant de son côté et les éleveurs s’étant nouvellement voués à la conservation, CNC proclame la protection d’un territoire unique avec une abondance d’espèces emblématiques. Cette thèse démontre que, à part le rassemblement de protagonistes improbables, les résultats concrets de cette alliance ne tiennent pas du tout les promesses de la publicité. D’abord, il n’existe aucun consensus parmi les experts sur la viabilité de la conservation lorsqu’un mode de vie axé sur l’élevage des animaux doit coexister paisiblement avec de grands prédateurs comme les grizzlis et les loups. Je précise comment les dispositions et les affinités des chercheurs compromettent les résultats scientifiques et explique qu’à la 3 fois les éleveurs et les personnes qui travaillent pour la conservation effectuent un choix stratégique parmi ces résultats afin de promouvoir leurs intérêts respectifs. Je soutiens que la façade de la conservation dissimule des contradictions de plusieurs manières. Le déguisement s’avère la stratégie par défaut lorsque l’entrée d’argent dépend de la rapidité avec laquelle les dons produisent des résultats selon la perception du public. Par conséquent, CNC promeut l’idée qu’accumuler les droits de propriété constitue ipso facto une garantie de conservation. Il est possible que cela soit le cas lorsqu’il est possible de restreindre les activités humaines sans créer de controverse, mais pas quand ces droits imposent la coexistence entre bétail et grands prédateurs. Néanmoins, des pratiques novatrices émergent malgré cette impasse; la présente ethnographie multi-site révèle la dynamique des lieux qui étouffe l’innovation dans certains lieux et qui la favorise dans d’autres. Parce que dans le milieu très politicisé de la conservation, la prudence semble être mère de sûreté, CNC s’est soumis à un rôle d’associé local tacite, mais il garde néanmoins un pouvoir qu’il pourra réactiver au moment propice. Je maintiens que les circonstances fâcheuses de ce « territoire en exploitation » (« working landscape ») sont si bien enracinées que la gentrification pourrait être le résultat éventuel de cette initiative de conservation. 4 Acknowledgements It was an entirely different challenge when I chose to examine ranching in the First World for my doctoral studies instead of returning to Africa to pursue my Masters research with pastoralists. Ranching had been my livelihood for nearly two decades, so I was already very familiar with the milieu. And I had selected for my fieldwork an area which had been my home and workplace for over one decade during the 1980s. Then, only to be expected, from several quarters came questions about my allegiances. My predicament was apparently worse than that of ‘going native’. As an insider taking up the role of observer, my ability to transcend my affinities for a familiar livelihood was somewhat questionable academically. Conversely, as someone who was already privy to insider information yet had returned with an outsider’s agenda, my purpose was suspect from the perspective of those who were the subject of my inquiries. To put this to rest, I suggested that I was committed to be most explicit and to leave no stone unturned to answer questions that were already on the minds of people involved in the affairs of the present landscape. I deliberately delved into contentious issues in dialectical fashion, aiming to reveal a full spectrum of positions instead of highlighting some unduly at the expenses of others. I contend I was not mired in this kind of obvious ‘emic’ or ‘etic’ entrenchments. Instead, I would rather disclose that my allegiances derive from a lasting engagement deeper than a social affiliation of the sort. Hence, my first acknowledgement I direct towards the landscape constituency I have lived with during a significant part of my life, its 5 nonhuman membership so varied that I can only attend to a small part of it in this thesis. It has been my intention to unsettle conventions pregnant with much prejudice. Suffice it for now to state that this endeavor has demanded constant self- examination from the time spent gathering data to the latter part of my stay when I drafted the first chapters – several versions of which did not survive. Therefore,