6th Global Conference
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Monday 2nd July - Thursday 5th
July 2007
Mansfield College, Oxford
Session 2: Identity, Adaptation and Land Tenure
Chair: Linda Hadfield
Authentic Places, Local Identity and Environmental
Discourses
Chiara
Certomà
Politics, Human Rights and Sustainability,
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna,
Piazza Martiri della Liberta', Pisa, Italy
This paper is intended to provide a critic perspective on the definition of places authenticity as proposed in the conventional environmental discourses. It suggests that, by following a very widespread view, modernity is considered responsible for the loss of authenticity and the consequent disenchantment of the world. Anyway, environmental discourses claiming for the defence of places authenticity and adopting a rhetoric of nostalgia for a loss primeval relation between humans and nature are liable of some critics. These especially refer to the essentialist definition of local places and cultures and to the relevance of the underlying power geometries. In order to inquire the possibility for a more positive gaze on modernity an alternative account of modernity is provided, by considering some suggestions from the hybrid geography. A different perspective on places as heterogeneous and porous is proposed together with further developments for the alternative environmental commitment.
Adaptations to Environmental Sustainability:
The Story of the Delta Farmland and Wildlife Trust
Elaine
Anderson
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
The municipality of Delta (British Columbia, Canada) is situated on the outskirts of Vancouver (one of the largest cities in Canada). Delta is part of the Fraser River delta which is essential to the functional integrity of the Pacific Flyway (an internationally significant stopover point for migrating birds). One million migrating and wintering waterfowl and 5 million shorebirds from Asia, Alaska, and Western Canada use the Fraser River delta for feeding and roosting. Delta also has some of the most fertile soil and one of the longest growing seasons in all of Canada. The Delta Farmland and Wildlife Trust (DFWT) was founded in 1993 by local farmers and conservationists as a response to ongoing conflict over agricultural and wildlife resources. Government policies appear to have assisted in the formation and initial development of the DFWT, but there seems to be a lack of government policies that support long-term sustainability of such organizations. Ongoing, consistent, and adequate funding is the biggest challenge facing the DFWT today. The cumulative effect of agro-ecosystem loss in communities around the world has the potential to negatively affect the sustainability of both local and global food systems. The story of the DFWT illustrates how competing interests can work together to enhance both agricultural land and wildlife habitat through a combination of enabling government policy, citizen collaboration, and on-the-ground agri-environmental stewardship.
The Legacy of Land Tenure in Queensland Australia: The Search for
a Cooperative Approach
Jo
Kehoe
Faculty of Business & Informatics Central Queensland University
The degradation of land continues on vast areas of privately held land within Australia and, more particularly, Queensland. Land tenure in the state is primarily divided into private freehold ownership and Crown leasehold or pastoral leases. Such leases are finite instruments, which enable the state government to regulate the use of land in accordance with prevailing societal and, increasingly, environmental expectations. In theory, pastoral leases present an ideal mechanism for cooperative and sustainable development by the Queensland agricultural community and the state government. In practice, this is an aspect of environmental policy making which highlights the intrinsic tensions of public approaches to sustainable land management. Generally, the law and the legal instruments which stem from it, reflect the times and the tensions of those times. This is especially so in the case of state leasehold land in Queensland and the origins of the pastoral lease. The pastoral lease began in the first half of the 19th century, as an attempt by the Colonial Office in London to regulate and control the occupation of land by squatters in Australia. This paper will consider the evolution and journey of leasehold tenure in Queensland and examine the continuing tensions between the agricultural community, the state government and its regulators.