Conservation constrained : protecting British Columbia's endangered caribou in a political-economy of extraction ...

• Main Author: DiSilvestro, Adriana Maria
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2022
• Subjects: Rangifer tarandus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0417553; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0417553

Intensifying resource extraction poses an existential threat to the world’s biodiversity. This threat is exemplified in the case of British Columbia’s (BC) endangered woodland caribou herds (Rangifer tarandus), which are facing extirpation due to extraction-driven habitat destruction, primarily from oil & gas development and forest harvest. Notably, the decline of BC’s caribou is occurring despite the fact that they are both federally protected under the Species at Risk Act (SARA), and subject to a number of intensive conservation initiatives. In this thesis, I explore how caribou declines are occurring despite existing legal protections by examining how the province’s apparent economic reliance on resource extraction shapes available conservation solutions. To do so, I conduct a two part inquiry using a combination of Critical GIS and policy and textual analysis. First, I quantify the extent to which the province subsidizes oil & gas activities in federally designated critical caribou habitat. Then, ...