Dispossessed

As soon as one starts thinking about the history and purpose of national parks, so many questions loom. Can activities such as hunting, trapping and fishing coexist comfortably with camping, hiking, tourism, conservation and educational programs? Who are national parks for? Today most Canadians would consider as indisputable the necessity and value of the national park system, which offers the last best hope for conservation and the protection of biodiversity. But at what cost was the richness of the wilderness secured, and who paid this cost? A new collection of essays, Indigenous Peoples, National Parks and Protected Areas: A New Paradigm Linking Conservation, Culture and Rights, edited by geographer Stan Stevens, documents the ongoing history of how indigenous peoples across the globe, particularly since the 1960s, have been expelled from their traditional homelands to create uninhabited nature reserves, often without compensation. The...