Examining Place-based Governance Principles in Two Atlantic Canada Protected Areas
Bibliographic record
Abstract
A historical approach to preserving biodiversity throughout the world is the establishment of protected areas, with the underlying philosophy that the greatest public benefit is achieved by protecting natural resources, despite exclusion of affected human communities. Consequently, protected areas can become arenas of struggle between local communities and state conservation agendas. Some suggest socio-ecological sustainability is gained by shifting to decentralized governance structures and interjurisdictional arrangements. Biosphere reserves allow for policies, management and institutional arrangements that integrate social, economic, political and environmental issues and better aligns them with decision-making processes, place-based governance and dynamic socio-ecological systems. This research project explores the real-life experiences and unanticipated outcomes of public participation in conservation projects and compares them against the scholarly discourse to examine our understanding of public participation and place-based governance in two Atlantic Canada protected areas. Using case studies of South West Nova Biosphere Region, Nova Scotia and Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve region, Newfoundland and Labrador, this study assesses levels of public participation by various stakeholder groups within the two case studies, examines the credibility of the public participation criteria and explores the challenges and opportunities of implementing community-based conservation projects. The case studies were assessed against eight criteria for effective public participation, focusing on public engagement (strategic, inclusive, transparent), the decision-making process (enabling, respectful, constructive) and desired outcomes (instrumental and meaningful). Based on semi-structured interviews, participant observation and a literature review, results suggest that open and public deliberative activities seeking and incorporating public interests into decision-making processes throughout an initiative contributes to local legitimacy, credibility and fairness. The case studies provide insight into the value of the public participation criteria, the long-term regional commitment required, the complexity in shifting to place-based governance arrangements and the importance of linking individual and collective identity with public participation. The primary research findings advocate a comprehensive, flexible, pluralistic, bioregional and contextually responsive approach to public participation and place-based governance.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.013 | 0.013 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".