Browsing by Author "Cook, Candice Marion"

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    Constrained conservation: examining legal, policy and organizational obstacles to sage-grouse conservation and recovery in Alberta
    (2010) Cook, Candice Marion; Kwasniak, Arlene
    Though conservation and recovery requires that science identify the biological constraints and provide suggestions for mitigation, endangered species conservation and recovery is not solely a scientific enterprise. Instead conservation and recovery is a complex management task reliant on a regulatory and institutional context that provides support and integration of conservation objectives alongside alternative resource and land management decisions. This thesis seeks to explore this alternative context considering the legal, policy and organizational dimen ions of the task of conservation and recovery. Using the case study method, this thesis examined the legal, policy and organization constraints to Alberta efforts to conserve and recover the Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocerus urophasianus) in Alberta. Using key-informant interviews, observation, document analysis and literature reviews, this then is considered the coordination of development and conservation considerations within Alberta's land and resource management system. In concluding, this thesis identified specific constraints resulting from legal deficiencies in both tool availability and implementation, policy problems resulting from management ambiguity and conflicting objectives and organizational obstacles resulting from inappropriate and significant departmentalization and segregation of authority. The cumulative effects of these individual issues function to hinder the conservation task. Management recommendations are provided at the close as suggestions for overcoming these existent barriers.