| Summary: | This dissertation examines the way that resource-dependent communities in northwest British Columbia respond to environmental problems in the wake of industrial decline. Northwest communities face many challenges in revitalizing their economies, including significant declines in the health of their local resource base and the uncertain impacts of global climate change. Throughout most of the 20th century, the forestry-based economy dominated British Columbia, and relegated Aboriginal rights and the environmental movement to the margins of resource decision-making processes. The decline of forestry, and the weakening of historical structures have created openings for new social movements to influence resource development activities and community planning. Efforts to create a new industrial base thus unfold within a very different social and political environment than in the past era. The analytical body of this dissertation utilizes data from a study of community leaders and resource managers in three northwest towns. It is argued that environmental change represents an alpha-level risk that threatens the ability of these communities to subsist. However, responses to environmental problems are mitigated by the emergence of environmentalism and Aboriginal rights as important forces in the northwest, and by the continuing influence of relationships between northwest communities and external agencies that seek to exert control over the resource base. Settler communities seek to achieve balance between industrial and environmentalist imperatives, and see localized natural resource issues as continuations of the struggle between heartland and hinterland interests. However, climate change provokes stronger calls for environmental protection, and sensitizes these communities to their reliance upon wider society. In contrast, First Nations view themselves as independent from both industrial and environmentalist forces, and see environmental problems as issues to be managed through the assertion of their cultural and territorial rights. Findings reveal that opportunities for new social movements to influence resource development are shaped by the way that communities adapt to the contours of the post-staples economy. Moreover, theories of modernization and risk that find resonance in metropolitan settings may not apply in the peripheries of staples-producing regions. Arts, Faculty of Sociology, Department of Graduate
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