| Summary: | In response to the current "crisis in the British Columbia forest industry, communities, academics,
non-profit organizations, and government agencies and departments are exploring alternative
strategies for the management of the forested ecosystems of the province, and for maintaining
livelihoods in forest-dependent communities. The focus of the thesis is one such strategy, community
forestry, specifically the planning strategies and principles that the Revelstoke Community Forest
Corporation utilizes in its management of local forests.
Community forestry has been used world-wide to manage the interface between human communities
and local forested ecosystems. In addition to various social and economic considerations, the
community forest model has been posed by many in British Columbia as the most promising means
to enhance the planning for ecological sustainability of forest-based communities, and of forestry in
general. This assertion is based on a number of assumed benefits considered inherent to the
community forest model. The thesis explores whether and how the following proposed ecological
benefits of the community forest model have been actualized in the case study:
1) Community involvement with the forest will create a sense of care for and connection with local
forests;
2) a closed circle of environmental, economic, and social costs and benefits will yield enhanced
stewardship because the community must live with its decisions over the long term;
3) community members will recognize that the forest is more than a timber provider; they will have
a "wholistic" appreciation of it;
4) forest planning will be improved by local ecological knowledge, local feedback loops, and
administrative flexibility; together, these create the conditions for effective adaptive management;
and
5) the above factors will lead to improved forest practices, ecologically speaking.
The thesis shows how, in the Revelstoke case, these theorized benefits have not been fully realized.
In concluding, the author suggests that local factors - such as community values, goals, an
assumptions - could overwhelm any "inherent" benefits of the model in regards to ecological
sustainability. === Applied Science, Faculty of === Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of === Graduate
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