Sense of Place as a Source of Tension in Canada’s West Coast Energy Conflicts

Canada’s west coast has been a hotspot of environmental conflict, most recently in defense of climate action and natural places under threat by energy development. This study examined sense of place as a source of tension in conflicts sparked by two energy proposals. The Bute Inlet run-of-river hydroelectric project would power British Columbia’s remote Central Coast, and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion would transport bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands to tankers for export. Surveys, interviews, and mapping were used to investigate the depth and character of participants’ sense of favorite places and places expected to be affected by the projects, with appreciation, concern, and responsibility for nature as organizing themes. We discovered a regional, nature-centric sense of place on the south coast, and a sense of place among Albertans linked to that province’s oil and gas economy and its reputation as Canada’s chief breadwinner. Ties to natural places were found to underpin environmental advocacy by tapping into deep place connections as well as place connections conveyed through network ideologies and the protests themselves. We outline for consideration key characteristics of a regional sense of place, and offer ways to mitigate place-based economy versus environment conflicts.     

The UN’s 2030 Agenda for sustainable development and the maritime transport domain: the role and challenges of IMO and its stakeholders through a grounded theory perspective

In September 2015, the United Nations (UN) officially adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development together with 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) (UN, 2016). The attainment of the SDGs requires a strong commitment by all UN Member States, not least by the Member States at the International Maritime Organization (IMO). This empirical research aims to identify the role and challenges of stakeholders at IMO, when implementing the UN’s 2030 Agenda in the international maritime transport domain using a grounded theory approach. This paper describes the methodology and the analytical process undertaken and presents the main findings based on empirical data. The results are presented as a set of six propositions. The first proposition presents the phenomena engulfing Member States at IMO stemming out from lack of knowledge and policy incoherency on the 2030 Agenda at national level. The other five propositions suggest how these challenges could potentially be best alleviated through an IMO-led strategy on sustainable development within the context of the 2030 Agenda, supported by an appropriate governance structure that sees the introduction of strategic actors for coordinating the implementation of the SDGs at national level. With the support of a Task Force, and by also making use of the IMO Member State Audit Scheme (IMSAS), to create more awareness and ownership, the strategic actors could work towards balancing the three dimensions of sustainable development—the economic, the environmental, and the social dimensions—which were found to be imbalanced in the international maritime transport domain.