Yellowstone to Yukon: Transborder conservation across a vast international landscape

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Yellowstone to Yukon: Transborder conservation across a vast international landscape Charles C. Chester Environmental Studies Program, Brandeis University and The Fletcher School, Tufts University, 9 Lowell Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

article info

abstract

Keywords:

During the mid-1990s, conservationists in the Rocky Mountains of the United States and

Yellowstone to Yukon

Canada encountered the assonant composite of two nationally iconic words: ‘‘Yellowstone

Y2Y

to Yukon.’’ Y2Y attracted a significant audience within the conservation world, not least—

Large landscape conservation

but not only—because each word connoted touchstone beliefs about wildness, wilderness,

Connectivity

and wildlife. Today Y2Y is widely recognized as one of the earliest transboundary ‘‘large

Vision

landscape’’ conservation initiatives, and the Y2Y label applies to a landscape vision, a geographic region, a conservation mission, a network, and an organization. More indefinite is the degree to which Y2Y has served as a form of mountain governance. Y2Y has helped to establish an interconnected community of conservation practitioners and conservation supporters, has channeled sizeable scientific attention toward the needs of far-ranging wildlife and, via norm entrepreneurialism and discursive shift, has brought about significant coherence within the conservation community on the need for landscape connectivity. Yet while some decision makers have formally recognized Y2Y, the influence on higherlevel governance has been mostly indirect. And although Y2Y has been held up as a model for mountain biodiversity conservation, that model is more reflective of conservation biology than of governance theory. Nonetheless, in its multiple forms, Y2Y does influence and enhance conservation activities in the region. Most recently, the Y2Y Conservation Initiative, a non-profit organization registered in both Canada and the US, has focused on key ‘‘priority areas’’ within the larger region. Looking forward, even as Y2Y has achieved tangible success on a number of fronts, it faces myriad challenges that will require an increasingly responsive, open-minded, and adaptive approach to conservation. # 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1.

Introduction

The Yellowstone to Yukon region spans across the US–Canada border, its southern end rooted in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in the United States while its northern-most point lies in Canada’s Yukon Territory. The region is largely characterized by mountainous terrain, principally, though not exclusively, the north-to-south trending Rocky Mountains

(see Map 1). Even the relatively flatter areas within the region—such as plateaus, valleys, ‘‘breaks,’’ and foothills—are all in some way defined by the presence of mountains. With the realization of Manifest Destiny (the 19th century conviction that Caucasian immigrants would inevitably settle across the North American continent), these mountain ranges and associated landforms of the ‘‘Y2Y’’ region have served as refugia for wildlife species that were disappearing from most of the rest of the North American continent. The consequent

E-mail address: [email protected]. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2014.08.009 1462-9011/# 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Chester, C.C., Yellowstone to Yukon: Transborder conservation across a vast international landscape, Environ. Sci. Policy (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2014.08.009

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Map 1

result was that long before the phrase ‘‘Yellowstone to Yukon’’ appeared, both countries had already identified their respective portions of the region as important for conservation purposes. In addition to a mountainous region, the Y2Y label was also applied to various other incarnations, including a binational network of conservation practitioners that would grow into a

regional conservation organization known as the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2YCI). Y2Y has been highlighted as one of the world’s premier ‘‘large landscape’’ conservation initiatives, and as such has been held up as a conservation model or archetype for other regions (see, for example, Bennett, 2004; Jernigan, 2006; Lindenmayer et al., 2010; Parris et al., 2011; SCBD, 2010; Sodhi and Ehrlich, 2010;

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Wilson, 2002). Yet for most of the world, the utility of Y2Y as a replicable model is suspect if only due to its highly idiosyncratic North American context. However, the question of whether Y2Y offers globally relevant ‘‘lessons learned’’ becomes more tractable by identifying three particular aspects of Y2Y (there are, of course, many more). The first is the physical scale of Y2Y, and in this regard the replicability of Y2Y’s geographic expansiveness has been relatively straightforward. The second is the ‘‘regionalization’’ of Y2Y, or the conceptual delineation of a region that would generate a discursive shift in the world of conservation as well as a new norm for land conservation (this can be seen as a form of ‘‘norm entrepreneurialism,’’ albeit in a very different context from the type of regionalization discussed by Conca, 2012). The description of Y2Y below reveals how Y2Y was an intentional effort to strengthen and expand on existing conservation norms. The third aspect of Y2Y as a potential model, the one of focus here, is in regard to governance. Specifically, does Y2Y offer a useful example of governance at a large landscape level? Compared to Y2Y as a model for geographic scale and norm entrepreneurialism, it is much less clear as to what Y2Y offers in terms of governance in large landscapes. This can be partly explained by (1) the fact that the institutional aspects of Y2Y have changed significantly over the course of its twenty years of existence, and (2) the fact that the strongest form of governance within Y2Y has been at a comparatively low, or weak, level. The difficulty in discerning the manifestation of governance within Y2Y should not be misinterpreted as a critique of Y2Y’s conservation effectiveness; indeed, within its North American context, the subordinate role of governance in the overall character of Y2Y may well mark one of the reasons for Y2Y’s conservation effectiveness. To understand the role of governance within Y2Y, and the degree to which it can serve as an effective model for other regions, the following sections examine: the multiple applications of the Y2Y label; Y2Y’s antecedents; the development and changes within the Y2Y network; Y2Y’s current programs and future plans; and finally, the role of governance and discursive shifts within Y2Y. This review of Y2Y is based on data gathered under two methodological approaches, one traditional (primarily interviews, literature review, and participant observation; see Chester, 2003), the other non-traditional (board service). In regard to the latter, the reader must account for my previous participation on the Board of Directors of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative as reflecting a bias supportive of the overall mission of Y2Y. On the other hand, that role has also allowed for an ‘‘insider’s perspective’’ on the character and operations of Y2Y.

2.

The many faces of Yellowstone to Yukon

While the genesis of the phrase ‘‘Yellowstone to Yukon’’ has been identified to a particular time (Summer, 1993), place (Willmore Wilderness Park), and person (Canadian lawyer and conservationist Harvey Locke; see Chester, 2006), the phrase quickly gathered momentum in the mid-1990s amongst a group of nongovernmental conservationists who shared a strong concern over the fate of wildlife and wildlife habitat in

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the North American West. That these conservationists did not work for the government is a critical point: government representatives—including scientists, land managers, and decision-makers—almost exclusively declined or avoided direct participation within activities conducted under the Y2Y label. Rather, the conservationists interested in Y2Y were of three general types: (1) academic biologists, principally mammalogists who within the previous decade had begun to associate themselves with the burgeoning field of conservation biology; (2) conservation advocates from small to large non-profit conservation organizations located throughout the Y2Y region; and (3) conservation thinkers from non-profit organizations and environmental foundations who lived outside of the Y2Y region but within the US or Canada. This group, which I generically refer to as ‘‘Y2Y participants,’’ consciously and deliberately endowed the phrase ‘‘Yellowstone to Yukon’’ with numerous overlapping meanings. These included: Y2Y as a landscape vision, Y2Y as a geographic region, Y2Y as a conservation mission, Y2Y as a network (both person-to-person and virtual), and Y2Y as a conservation organization. While each of these ‘‘faces’’ is addressed below, it is first important to highlight Y2Y’s iconographic essence. ‘‘Yellowstone to Yukon’’ is, fundamentally, the assonant juxtaposition of two iconic and nationally resonant places, a phrase melded together with the specific aim of drawing attention to an intact landscape at continental scale through a succinct and evocative title (Chester, 2006). In the United States (and beyond), the word Yellowstone connotes flourishing wildlife, untrammeled wilderness, and, as the world’s first national park established in 1872, the wellspring of ‘‘America’s best idea’’ (MacEachern, 2011). In Canada (and beyond), the Yukon is enmeshed in the national identity of a population strong enough to withstand—and hearty enough to celebrate—the challenges of living in ‘‘The North’’ (see Francis, 1997). As noted above, the intention of drawing attention to conservation issues through the Y2Y label was a marked success, with numerous observers having described Y2Y as either a leader in (or a premier example of) ‘‘large landscape’’ scale conservation for both North America and the world.

2.1.

Y2Y as landscape vision

The effectiveness of Y2Y in drawing attention resulted not only from its purposeful iconographic crafting, but also from the optimistic and appealing manner in which it was put forth to both the conservation world and the broader public. From its conception, Y2Y’s participants have described it as a ‘‘compelling vision’’ of the landscape (Locke, 1994, 24). Early discussions over Y2Y emphasized the need to steer away from the habitual doomsday mindset of the conservation movement and its ingrained vocabulary of desperate measures—be it saving ‘‘endangered’’ species or halting habitat ‘‘destruction.’’ Instead, Y2Y was envisioned to celebrate the existence of a largely connected landscape, one that retained a full complement of species that were found there long before Manifest Destiny became Amenity Destination (see Moss, 2006). Accordingly, the word ‘‘connections,’’ along with its scientific variant of ‘‘connectivity,’’ was central in the virtual and hallway discussions of Y2Y’s early years, and the double entendre of both human and biological connections was often

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utilized in discussions of Y2Y. Although there was no dearth of anxiety over the real and potential loss of habitat connectivity in the region, Y2Y constituted a deliberate effort to put forth a positive vision of a region meriting celebration and engagement over and above the specter of a region deserving of dismay and alarm. An early and long-lasting rendition of the Y2Y vision described it as ‘‘people working together to maintain and restore the unique natural heritage of the Yellowstone to Yukon region.’’ In 2013, the staff and Board of Y2Y reworked the vision statement as: ‘‘An interconnected system of wild lands and waters stretching from Yellowstone to Yukon, harmonizing the needs of people with those of nature.’’

2.2.

Y2Y as conservation mission

At the same time that Y2Y participants emphasized the importance of a positive vision, they also worked to define a mission statement. This was a somewhat delicate task inasmuch as mission statements are usually about overcoming problems and are typically crafted in a ‘‘call-to-arms’’ manner. The balancing act required a good deal of context, as articulated in a Y2Y compendium (commonly called the ‘‘Y2Y Atlas’’) published in 1998: Y2Y’s mission is to restore and maintain landscape and habitat connectivity along 3200 kilometers (1990 miles) of mountains by establishing a system of core protected wildlife reserves that are linked by wildlife habitat and movement corridors. Existing national, state and provincial parks and wilderness areas will anchor the system, while the creation of new protected areas will provide the additional cores and corridors needed to complete it. (Harvey, 1998) The mission statement has remained relatively consistent since this early iteration, always incorporating a positive approach. This is evident in the most recent iteration: ‘‘Connecting and protecting habitat from Yellowstone to Yukon so people and nature can thrive’’ (2014).

2.3.

Y2Y as geographic region

The vision and mission of Y2Y are inextricably woven into how its proponents conceived of the geographic extent of Y2Y as a region or a territory deserving of a ‘‘large landscape’’ approach to conservation (the latter term entering the conservation lexicon contemporaneously with Y2Y in the early 1990s; see Ankersen, 1994; Noss, 1992). While in Y2Y’s early years the growing number of Y2Y participants expanded the geographic delineation of the region in significant ways from its earliest format (see Locke, 1994), over the past decade the size of the region has remained largely unchanged. Today, as shown on Map 1, the Y2Y region runs approximately 3200 km (nearly 2000 miles) from the southern end of Wyoming’s Wind River Range north to the Mackenzie Mountains of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Encompassing about 1.3 million square kilometers (502,000 million square miles), the ‘‘Y2Y’’ region is just larger than Peru (its closest country match in terms of land area), and includes in its sweep large portions of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, British Columbia, Alberta, and the Yukon Territory, along with small

portions of the states of Oregon and Washington and Canada’s Northwest Territories (Y2YCI, 2014). Given the relatively consistent ecological characteristics of the region (e.g., common geology, forest types, and wildlife), an issue widely discussed during the early years of Y2Y was whether the region constituted an identifiable ecosystem or ecoregion. While the 1998 ‘‘Y2Y Atlas’’ used the term ‘‘ecoregion’’ in its subtitle, it also pointed out that ‘‘our idea of Y2Y as an ecoregion is something of an artificial construct, for there is no hard separation between what is included within the boundary and the lands outside. The boundary on the maps should not be interpreted as a sharp delineation based on a crisp ecological difference, but rather as a permeable membrane, through which animals, rivers, and ecological processes cross continually’’ (Willcox, 1998).

2.4.

Y2Y as a network and organization

Along with these manifestations as a vision, mission, and region, Y2Y also denotes an extensive network (both in-person and virtual) and a conservation organization, the Y2Y Conservation Initiative, that has attracted a sizeable amount of support with operating expenses in 2012 of approximately USD$3 million). While these institutional manifestations will be addressed below, it is first worth attempting to unravel the causes of this attraction to the broad concept of Y2Y, and this in turn is perhaps best accomplished by examining the multiple antecedents that led up to Y2Y (Chester, 2006).

3.

A bevy of antecedents

First conceived in 1993 and now entering its third decade, the core concept of Y2Y descends from a complex web of inspirational and conceptual antecedents. These include its mountainous character, crossborder cohesiveness, large landscape conservation, wildlife biology, and conservation biology, each of which is addressed in turn. The first two antecedents, mountainous character and crossborder cohesiveness, were recognized by the first half of the twentieth century. Although at a much smaller scale than Y2Y, an important antecedent in this regard was the establishment of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park (WGIPP), the world’s first of its kind, lying across the 49th parallel dividing the US and Canada (Mihalic, 2012). As Montana Senator Thomas Walsh wrote in 1932, working to convince the U.S. Congress to enact the novel designation of international peace park: ‘‘Glacier National Park in Montana and Waterton National Park in Alberta and British Columbia, in Canada, are in reality a single great scenic area of unsurpassed glory. . .The region itself gave rise to the thought behind the movement to combine these two parks of Canada and the United States into one international park’’ US (Senate, 1932). While his narrative then immediately turns to recognize the critical role of the Rotarians in promoting WGIPP, Walsh’s initial attribution presaged the ecological insight that the mountainous region ought to be seen as a cohesive whole, one that should understood in terms of its shared characteristics. Equivalently significant, but coming some five decades later, was a growing global consensus in conservation thinking

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over the extent of habitat requiring and/or deserving of some form of conservation status (Noss et al., 2012; Trombulak and Baldwin, 2010). Accordingly, conservationists of many stripes—including academic researchers, agency personnel, and NGO activists—increasingly conceived of WGIPP as the core area of a much broader region. For example, efforts during the 1970s by the US federal government to manage and protect grizzly bears led to the designation of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE), which encompassed Glacier National Park and several protected areas to the south (see McNamee, 1984). Soon after, conservationists from both academia and government expanded on the NCDE by looking across the border and appropriating the phrase ‘‘Crown of the Continent,’’ a characterization of the area first published in 1901 (see Spence, 1996; Waldt, 2004). To the south, widespread recognition of the ‘‘Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem,’’ which stretched far beyond Yellowstone National Park, was important in this expanding perspective on the requisite geographic extent for effective conservation (see CRS, 1987). In addition to these geographical precedents, Y2Y was inspired by scientific research on how large mammals use the landscape. In particular, scientists had begun to chronicle the extensive peregrinations of a number of collared animals, revealing new insights into the habitat needs of wide-ranging large mammals. These insights both challenged the assumption that the region’s extant protected areas could effectively conserve the wildlife of the North American West, and spurred conservationists to realign and expand previous assumptions about how these species range across land management boundaries (see Tabor, 1996). A directly related critical factor in the conception of Y2Y was the long list of threats to the region’s animal species, many of which are considered endangered. Although no extinctions have been known to occur in the region since the earliest continental crossings of Alexander Mackenzie (1793) and Lewis and Clark (1805), the Y2Y region has become particularly important for so-called ‘‘charismatic megafauna’’ listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, Canada’s Species At Risk Act, and/or state and provincial legislation (Jernigan, 2006). Although Y2Y participants purposefully focused on maintaining Y2Y as a positive vision, that vision nonetheless constituted a tool for building awareness of the threats to biodiversity in non-apocalyptic terms. These threats included, in no particular order, road building, suburban and rural sprawl, invasive species, dams, grazing, off-road vehicles (ORVs), unsustainable forestry practices (including fire suppression), resort development, and the extraction of oil, gas, coal and minerals. To a large degree, the severity of these threats shifts dramatically from north to south, with the northern portion consisting of wild areas surrounding islands of development, the southern portion largely the inverse with islands of wildlands in the midst of human development. Although climate change was recognized as a threat early on (Holroyd, 1998; Sawyer, 1998), it did not receive significant attention until later on (more on this below). The antecedents listed above are those seen from a panoramic perspective (a closer look at the particular antecedents can be found in Chester, 2006). The conservationists who first participated under the aegis of Y2Y were

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well-aware of these antecedents; indeed, it was this shared understanding that fundamentally endowed the encompassing phrase ‘‘Yellowstone to Yukon’’ with its strong resonance, and thus can be given credit for having played a significant role in bringing together the individuals that formed both the Y2Y network and the organization designated as the Y2Y Conservation Initiative (Y2YCI).

4.

Evolution of the Y2Y Conservation Initiative

This section briefly examines the history and structure of Y2Y as an evolving institution since 1993, focusing on who has been participating and of what that participation has consisted. As a short summation, Y2Y’s institutional history evinces a general shift from (1) a loosely defined network of individuals and conservation organizations, to (2) a more formalized organization with a ‘‘working board,’’ to (3) a conservation organization with a ‘‘governing board.’’ In the environmental world, this pattern is familiar if not common; what is important to note is that this general shift is hardly absolute inasmuch as the older Y2Y network persists—if in an altered format—alongside the newer Y2Y organization. For example (and for reasons discussed below), while Y2Y’s role as a region-wide informational network has dissipated, it has retained key network functions at a sub-regional level. With much of the inspiration for the Y2Y vision rooted in the emerging field of conservation biology, most of the participants in Y2Y during its earliest days were conservation biologists mostly from academia and science-oriented activists concerned about habitat loss and the extirpation of the region’s large carnivores. Meetings co-hosted by the Wildlands Project (now Wildlands Network) and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS, a prominent Canadian conservation organization) were held as early as 1993 under the rubric of the ‘‘Y2Y Biodiversity Strategy.’’ This group of individuals largely stayed closely connected by email and, for many during these early years, by fax. Y2Y participants in the mid1990s deliberately worked to minimize any kind of ‘‘overhead’’ of Y2Y; they did not incorporate Y2Y as a formal organization in either the US or Canada, and its first ‘‘Coordinator’’ (and not, as was pointedly emphasized, an Executive Director) was hired in 1995 through the auspices of CPAWS. Before 1997, in-person meetings under the Y2Y aegis was held to a small group of largely self-selected scientists and conservation advocates. This changed in 1997, when the Y2Y community held its first major ‘‘Connections Conference’’—or what has been informally described as its ‘‘inaugural comingout party’’—in Waterton Lakes National Park (which, coincidentally, was celebrating the 65th anniversary year of WGIPP). Approximately 300 individuals from around the Y2Y region (and some from far beyond) attended the meeting, which received a significant amount of media coverage (Berger, 1997; Mitchell, 1997; Schneider, 1997). While the conservation biologists in the network were largely used to online communications technology during this time period, many of the conservation advocates were only beginning to use email and to subscribe to electronic mailing lists (EMLs). The Y2Y EML was, for many participants, their first EML, and participation on the EML grew rapidly at this

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time. Notably, one of the earliest tasks taken on by Y2Y participants was simply to ensure that conservationists throughout the region had access to the Y2Y EML. Again, it is important to recall that during the 1990s, many conservationists in the region were still moving from word processors and fax machines to online computers. Although impossible to document, it is likely that the existence of the virtual side of the Y2Y network generated a significant incentive for conservationists in the region to become connected. In a pre-Google era (not to mention a pre-Altavista era), the informational benefits of being connected to the Y2Y network were extremely high. During the late 1990s, participation in Y2Y was loosely conducted through a large Y2Y Council and a smaller Y2Y Coordinating Committee (CC)—although ‘‘smaller’’ was comparative given that the in-person meetings of the CC averaged around forty individuals. The Council included most organizations and individuals who wanted to be included in the Y2Y network, while CC members were largely working conservationists, many of them executive directors or program managers of various conservation organizations throughout the region, who were willing to attend the CC’s regular meetings. In these meetings, CC members deliberated on an extremely wide range of issues, from the geographic extent of the Y2Y region and who had the right to use the Y2Y label to the wording of the Y2Y vision and the range of Y2Y’s topical purview (e.g., should Y2Y focus on particular issues such as grizzly bear conservation or on broader issues relating to sustainable mountain development—more on this below). During this time, extensive discussion occurred within the CC over whether the Y2Y network should be formalized under both Canadian and US law regarding non-profit organizational incorporation. There were myriad arguments both ways—at times voiced vehemently—at meeting sessions that lasted long past the scheduled meeting hours. But in essence, those against the idea were concerned about Y2Y losing its informal network character, while those in favor were concerned that the momentum generated by the Y2Y vision would dissipate and/or become disruptively chaotic without a formalized structure to hold it together. According to Wendy Francis ( personal communication), who participated in Y2Y in a number of roles including Board member and Executive Director, the growing budget was another important factor, with it becoming impractical for Y2Y to remain as a project under the fiscal supervision of the Wildlands Network in the US and of CPAWS in Canada. Eventually this latter perspective gained dominance, and in 2000 Y2Y was registered as a non-profit 501(c) 3 organization in Montana and as a non-profit society in Alberta under the formal title of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2YCI). Despite taking on a more formal organizational structure, the CC made a conscious decision to retain the title of ‘‘Coordinating Committee’’ instead of the more formal ‘‘board of directors’’ in order to retain a sense of informality. Nonetheless, it was at this incipient stage that the Y2Y organization began to look to the CC for institutional support in addition to programmatic engagement, and this reliance only expanded with the organization’s growth (for a critique of this development, see Mattson et al., 2011). By 2004, members of the CC had found that the ‘‘Coordinating Committee’’ label was causing

confusion amongst both Y2YCI partners and funders, and the title ‘‘Board of Directors’’ was adopted. Notably, this evolution into a more formal and incorporated organizational structure—one with staff, trustees, and consultants—occurred at the same time that there appeared to be a dissipation in how the virtual network was utilized. Although the Y2Y EML is still widely subscribed and active, over the past few years it has hosted comparatively fewer direct informational requests and a much lower level of engaged conversation (or heated debate) over various conservation issues. One should not infer from this a causal link between incorporation and the change in the network; rather, three developments likely effected this change. First, the informational advantages of the Y2Y network began to weaken due to the external factor of the widening availability and capacity of online informational technologies. This is perhaps best contextualized chronologically: whereas in 1997 a conservationist would find the Y2Y EML the most efficient place to find information (be it regarding wildlife biology, environmental advocacy, computer technology, or a host of other subjects), this function was overtaken by Internet search engines by 2000 or soon after. Second, it is likely the case that as members of the Y2Y network increasingly suffered from the widespread debility of information overload, it became more difficult to keep up with—and engage in—the large number of messages being sent across the Y2Y EML. Third, the early years of the Y2Y network entailed a quantum jump in both (1) any particular individual’s knowledge of ‘‘who’s who’’ in the Y2Y region and (2) the initial interpersonal connections between numerous scientists and conservationists; once these relationships were established, communications could become two-way rather than broadcast over the network. In sum, Y2Y as an institution has evolved from a loose network of conservation biologists and conservation practitioners to a structured organization (Y2YCI) that hosts a networking function—one that lies alongside many other functions, key components of which are discussed in the following section. Amidst these significant developments in Y2Y’s institutional structure, it is worth emphasizing that these changes have not entailed any fundamental change in the Y2Y vision; the means have changed, but not the ends.

5.

Current Y2Y programs

Y2YCI’s current operations are wide-ranging; while no summary perspective can comprehensively describe the work in which Y2YCI engages, three components of its current agenda stand out: its programmatic strategy, its subregional approach, and its climate change agenda.

5.1.

Programmatic strategy

Much of Y2YCI’s work has been ad hoc, responding to both opportunities and threats on the landscape wherever they have arisen. Yet by 1999, participants in the Y2Y network had developed a nascent strategic planning process, one that was soon formalized and has subsequently been continuously updated (the most recent Y2Y strategic plan was adopted in January 2014). Over this time, Y2Y has consistently held to the

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two core programs of (1) Science & Action and (2) Promoting the Vision (formerly described as ‘‘Vision & Awareness’’). Only recently has Y2YCI added (3) a distinct Policy program, although policy goals and objectives had been housed elsewhere.

5.2.

Subregional approach

As noted above, the early participants in the Y2Y network found it challenging to promote the idea of conservation at the Y2Y scale not only to the public, but to many members of the conservation community. Yet once the Y2Y vision had taken root and such a ‘‘large landscape’’ approach to conservation had become widely accepted in the conservation community in the Y2Y region, Y2YCI found itself facing the difficult task of implementation. That is, beyond the actual promotion of accepting conservation at the Y2Y scale, how does one put into effect the implementation of conservation at this scale? Not surprisingly, a great deal of time and effort has gone into answering this question. Through an iterative process that began with Y2Y network participants and was followed through by Y2YCI staff, one pragmatic response to this question was to divide the Y2Y region into subregions that were largely (though not at all entirely) ecologically derived, and then to prioritize those subregions in terms of conservation needs, staff capacity, and other criteria. Of the ‘‘priority areas’’ identified through this process (there are currently 12, and can be seen at http://y2y.net/our-work/priority-areas), Y2YCI has been particularly active in the Cabinet-Purcells Mountain Corridor, where it has played a significant role in bringing together a range of conservation-oriented actors—in this case including scientists, advocates, industry representatives, and governmental officials—for the purposes of strategic land acquisition for grizzly bear conservation (Locke and Francis, 2012). This work has necessitated extensive organization, negotiation, fund-raising, financing, and monitoring activities on the part of both Y2YCI staff and its subregional partners. In engaging in this targeted subregional approach, one can discern how Y2Y’s networking function has evolved from a geographically disbursed process of self-selection (viz., the Y2Y network) to a focused and sub-regionally targeted network-enhancing task performed by Y2YCI staff. Overall, whereas in the mid-1990s Y2Y met the strong need for an active informational network, the following decade saw the need for coordinated networking amongst specific Y2Y partners working on specific projects in particular regions of Y2Y.

5.3.

Climate change

In addition to the above focal areas, in recent years Y2YCI has increasingly addressed the issue of climate change (Chester et al., 2012). In light of the likely climate change effects that will become even more pronounced across North America during the coming century, the Y2Y region provides one of the best potential areas anywhere on the continent for an adaptive approach to climate change. This is largely due to the region’s range of elevations, its north-south orientation, and its various mountain micro-climates. A major report on climate change and Y2Y was produced in 2010 (Graumlich and Francis, 2010),

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which emphasized that by working out how these landscape changes might occur, Y2YCI must be prepared to adapt its landscape-scale conservation strategies to the now-inevitable challenge of a changing climate. Y2YCI also sponsored a major investigation on the effects of climate change in the MuskwaKechika Management Area of northern British Columbia (Y2YCI, 2012).

6. Governance, non-governance, and discursive shifts in Y2Y The Y2Y region spans across an international border, multiple state and provincial-territorial boundaries, Native American and First Nation land holdings, and hundreds of local governmental entities. In addition, the Y2Y region is home to a myriad number of independent and/or overlapping ecosystem-based and watershed-based institutional entities. Associated with all of the former, and with many of the latter, are various forms of governance that are clearly discernible. In contrast, for the Y2Y region as a whole there is no comprehensive system of governance, at least inasmuch as societal decisions regarding land and natural resources are not made at the regional scale of the Y2Y region. So why speak of governance within Y2Y? There are four possible reasons. First, despite the probable appearance of homogeneity amongst participants in the Y2Y network from an external perspective, there were strong internecine battles between different factions within the group. For example, in the historical relations and deliberations amongst participants in the Y2Y network, one of the strongest and longest-standing disputes writ large was over whether (1) to focus conservation efforts on efforts related to particular wildlife science and policy decisions or (2) to focus on more on broader issues related to sustainable mountain development. This dispute was most typically debated in relation to specific issues rather than a generic discussion, and thus took many reiterated forms. Although neither ‘‘side’’ won the argument, at least a nominal balance—or truce—between the two perspectives came to predominate the Y2Y network and Y2YCI. Moreover, although in-person debates amongst network participants were not conducted according to any third party guidelines (e.g., Robert’s Rules of Order; note that this was before the formal establishment of Y2YCI), they were often conducted through a mutually acceptable and consistent process. To the degree that a large portion of the conservation community within the Y2Y region was engaging in—or at least, closely observing—these disputes, the definition of governance as ‘‘the processes and institutions, both formal and informal, that guide and restrain the collective activities of a group’’ (Keohane and Nye, 2000) is arguably apt—although in this context it must be emphasized that the Y2Y network was more about ‘‘guidance’’ than ‘‘restraint.’’ Nonetheless, this application of the term governance is, at best, a weak form. A second reason that governance might apply to Y2Y is that it may have some influence on decisionmakers. Notably, although government officials have played little direct part in the operations of the Y2Y network and Y2YCI, in 1998 the US National Park Service and Parks Canada signed a ‘‘Memorandum of understanding on cooperation in

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management, research, protection, conservation, and presentation of national parks and national historic sites,’’ an appendix to which includes mention of the ‘‘Yellowstone to Yukon corridor’’ amongst twelve ‘‘priority areas for possible collaboration’’ between the two agencies (Sandwith et al., 2001). While there is no evidence that this MOU led to any collaborative efforts at the Y2Y level (and, notably, a search for ‘‘Y2Y’’ on both agencies’ websites results only in a few isolated mentions), it does show that these land managers are at least beginning to recognize the need for conservation at this scale. A third possible form of governance related to Y2Y has been the strategic approach to land conservation that it has applied at a subregional level over the past decade. As noted above, Y2YCI staff brought together a range of subregional actors to acquire strategically located land parcels in the CabinetPurcells Mountain Corridor, and to the degree that the extensive coordinating work required the ‘‘steering’’ of the multiple players involved, at the subregional level this constituted a form of ‘‘transnational governance’’ (defined by Andonova et al., 2009 as involving ‘‘the authoritative steering of network constituents to achieve public goals’’). More broadly, however, governance both within and beyond the Y2Y region has been manifest in the discursive shift that occurred with the introduction of the Yellowstone to Yukon concept. When first presented to the conservation community and the broader public in the mid-1990s, the idea of a ‘‘conservation target’’ at the enormous scale of Y2Y was widely perceived as overreaching at best, and dangerously utopian at worst. Again, it is important to recall that at this point in time, it was only within the previous decade that the North American conservation community had pushed such concepts as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (at about 6% the size of the Y2Y region) into widespread political and popular recognition—and this had required a tremendous political effort and determination. Many individuals and conservation organizations within the conservation community were extremely wary that any further extension would foster external perceptions of the community as grandiose and/or naive—and indeed, many detractors in resource industries portrayed Y2Y in just this light. Over the subsequent decade, however, the idea of ‘‘large landscape conservation’’ has become integral to the conservation agendas of most medium to large conservation organizations across both the US and Canada. Indeed, widespread acceptance and adoption of the ‘‘large landscape conservation’’ is perhaps the most important discursive shift within the international conservation arena of the past two decades (and perhaps the most important discursive shift since the introduction of the term ‘‘biodiversity’’ in the 1980s). The idea that conservation needs to take place at the scale of the ‘‘large landscape’’ is one that has entailed important policy ramifications at the level of public land management. As the Y2Y concept was widely cited in discussions of large landscape conservation, it was on the vanguard of this discursive shift.

7.

Lessons learned

Whether looking to Y2Y in terms of its geography, conservation vision, or human institutions, many have cited it as an

exemplar of large landscape conservation. And for individuals and institutions looking to implement large landscape conservation programs, Y2Y does offer a large number of ‘‘lessons learned,’’ including the following three key points:  Use ideas and words that resonate. ‘‘Yellowstone’’ and ‘‘Yukon’’ are iconic terms that carry far more meaning and resonance than simply places on a map. Their fortunate assonant conjunction was intrinsically appealing to a wide range of conservation interests, thus generating both an active network and then an effective organization.  Do not shy away from challenging approaches, including ‘‘thinking big.’’ Although many in the conservation community were initially wary of Y2Y’s unprecedented geographic size as a ‘‘conservation target,’’ the debate over whether it was politically pragmatic not only engendered attention and participation, but resulted in a very different way of thinking about how and where to implement conservation within and across the region.  ‘‘Think big,’’ but practice conservation at multiple scales. Once conservationists working in the Y2Y region began to see Y2Y as the ‘‘right scale’’ for conservation, they were able to use the Y2Y framework to identify not only ‘‘priority areas’’ at the subregional level, but specific parcels of land (sometimes less than 50 hectares) to acquire for conservation effectiveness. There are more lessons (see Chester, 2006), yet it is worth pausing here to consider their wider applicability for those looking to enhance large landscape conservation in other regions. While any particular case study will be idiosyncratic, it is not difficult to make the case that Y2Y constitutes a far outlier in the world of transborder conservation—if only due to its establishment in two of the world’s wealthiest nations as well as the ready availability of the iconic appellations of ‘‘Yellowstone’’ and ‘‘Yukon’’ at either end of the region. Moreover, regardless of how much these ‘‘lessons’’ were effective in the case of Y2Y, it is not difficult to imagine scenarios where implementation of any one or more of the three above lessons might prove ineffective (or even backfire). This is not to denigrate these ‘‘lessons learned’’ as inapplicable, but rather to ensure their applicability in any given context is given due consideration.

8.

Conclusion

In 1932, after assuring the US Congress that the proposed Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park would not demonstrably affect the management of either national park, Senator Walsh concluded his case for WGIPP by arguing that the ‘‘result would be the creation of a monument to international good will which, it is hoped, will become as eternal as the mountains of the international park’’ (US Senate, 1932). Walsh’s interest was in the symbolic designation of a ‘‘peace park,’’ which to no small degree was inspired by the potential economic benefits accruing to such a designation. Only subsequent to WGIPP’s establishment have park managers on both sides of the border increasingly looked for more tangible ways to enhance cooperation. Y2Y’s history is

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substantially different, for although it also began with symbolism—viz., the two potent national symbols that constitute its name—tangible cooperative conservation work has been at the heart of Y2Y’s purpose from the moment of its initial conception. Although participants in the Y2Y effort have at times been frustrated with the often slow process of learning from one’s neighbors, it has achieved tangible success in bridging borders—not only international borders, but state borders, provincial borders, land management borders, tribal borders, and cultural borders. Despite such achievements, however, a hard question must be faced: To what degree can both the Y2Y organization and network (1) effectively address the aforementioned litany of threats facing the region’s habitats and wildlife while also (2) meeting the growing needs of the region’s human population? Or to put it in terms of the organization’s mission, to what degree can Y2Y ‘‘connect and protect habitat from Yellowstone to Yukon so people and nature can thrive’’? Certainly, there is no guarantee of success in achieving this mission. Given the momentum backing many of these threats, conservation would remain an imposing challenge even were Y2YCI’s institutional capacity to increase suddenly and miraculously by an order of magnitude. Any way one looks at the conservation challenges within the Y2Y region, it is a daunting scenario. On the other hand, it is hardly a hopeless scenario, for relatively sizeable populations of continentally endangered species inhabit vast tracts of viable habitat remaining throughout the region. The region is also home to a growing human populace who, despite bringing strong development pressures, wish their children to share in the same natural amenities that can be found in the region today. And while decision-makers who represent the region’s various political units face strong pressure from traditional extractive industries, very rarely can they maintain political viability without, at a minimum, voicing nominal support for conservation. How ought one to balance these contrasting perspectives? This type of question arises often in the conservation arena, but it is probably the wrong question; there is no balance to be made, but rather a recognition that the conservation community faces both grave challenges and reasons for hope. Moreover, given the enormous scale of the Yellowstone to Yukon region, it should not be surprising to find a surfeit of both overwhelming threats and beneficial conditions. What perhaps can be stated with confidence is that with the looming problem of climate change, effective biodiversity conservation must of necessity be proactive, open-minded, self-reflective, adaptive, and, when necessary, revolutionary. To some degree, both the Y2Y vision and organization have taken on these characteristics, achieving substantial successes at subregional, regional, and continental scales. Indeed, it is difficult to recall that a mere fifteen years ago, the now commonplace idea of ‘‘large landscape’’ conservation was considered radical and even preposterous by many within the broader North American conservation community. Y2Y was and is on the vanguard of changing that perception, and can take partial credit for helping to normalize the idea of landscape connectivity across a wide swath of the continent. The challenge now is to build on these newfound perspectives,

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and to make tangible conservation achievements a common sight on the ground from Yellowstone to the Yukon.

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