SCI EN CE and RES EA R CH

Governance Challenges for
Wildland Preservation in
Canada and Mexico
BY ANGELES MENDOZA SAMMET and MICHAEL S. QUINN
Abstract: The proposed Castle Wilderness (Canada) and the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
(Mexico) are used to demonstrate the application of a pluridimensional spectrum of governance
framework to evaluate the influence of governance on the establishment and management of protected areas. The objectives are to understand (a) the relevant similarities and differences between
the two countries, (b) the interactions across governance dimensions, and (c) the factors that influence conservation outcomes. The analysis shows that in both cases protected area governance is
affected negatively by weak environmental and economic governance. Public support, funding, and
improvements in protected area governance do not deliver positive conservation outcomes because
of apparent inconsistencies among economic and conservation policies.

Introduction
The conservation of wildlands in North America is crucial
for maintaining ecological processes such as transboundary
migration of wildlife, ecological connectivity, and hydrological regimes. In 2009, Mexico, Canada, and the United
States signed a Memorandum of Understanding on
Cooperation for Wilderness Conservation (Martin 2010).
One identified topic of mutual interest is the “establishment
of sustained relationships between wilderness managers
across the continent for the purpose of mentoring, sharing
research and technology, exploring common challenges and
solutions, and potentially developing transcontinental goals
and plans of action.” We discuss increasing the transcontinental understanding of the role of governance in wilderness
protection in Canada and Mexico.
Wildlands not geographically adjacent may still constitute complementary habitats for migratory species and
contribute to the preservation of biodiversity at multiple
geographical scales. For instance, Canada and Mexico are
connected ecologically through a web of interactions among
species and habitats despite the lack of a shared border. The
success of national and international conservation efforts

Angeles Mendoza Sammet.

Michael S. Quinn.

may be positively or negatively influenced by the way political, economic, and administrative authority is exercised in a
country (e.g., United Nations Development Program
[UNDP]1997).
Governance is reflected in the social, economic, environmental, and political conditions of a country. It results
from, and depends on, the processes, institutions, regulations, and interactions that determine how groups and
individuals behave and relate to each other. Governance is
also related to (a) the way citizens and governments express

PEER REVIEWED

AUGUST 2010 • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

International Journal of Wilderness 13

their interests, exercise their rights and
obligations, and solve their disagreements; and (b) the way resources are
allocated and managed to respond to
collective needs. Finally, governance
also implies accountability for consistent, cohesive polices, processes, and
decision rights (UNDP 1997; World
Bank Group [WBG] 2003).
The management and governance
challenges faced in the fields of natural
resources and protected areas (PAs)
have been described in the literature
(e.g., Graham et al. 2003 and Dearden
et al. 2005). Such discussions focused
mainly on the different styles of management and/or ownership, for
instance private, comanagement, or
public. Effective management of wildlands and PAs in Canada and Mexico
is needed to ensure the survival of
migratory species and native biodiversity. Established protected areas may
exemplify wilderness conditions, but
may not be formally designated as
wilderness.
Wilderness Areas (category Ib
within the World Conservation Union
[IUCN] system) are different and independent from National Parks (Category
II, IUCN 2009). The national systems
of protected areas of Canada and
Mexico have national parks as a federal
category but neither has wilderness
areas as an independent category. In
Canada, wilderness areas are federally
designated as a zone within national
parks: “The Governor in Council may,
by regulation, declare any area of a park
that exists in a natural state or that is
capable of returning to a natural state to
be a wilderness area” (Canada National
Parks Act 14[1], Government of Canada
[GC] 2000). One national park reserve
(Nahanni) and seven national parks
contain wilderness areas: Banff, Jasper,
Kootenay, Yoho, Waterton Lakes,
Fundy, and Vuntut (GC 2009). In
addition, six provinces have wilderness
14

areas or wilderness parks (Dawson and
Hendee 2009). It is expected that the
Mexican government will take action to
protect wilderness. To this date, however, neither the Secretaría del Medio
Ambiente y Recursos Naturales
(SEMARNAT) nor the Comisión
Nacional de Àreas Naturales Protegidas
(CONANP) have announced the introduction of wilderness areas in protected
areas legislation either as a new category
or in other ways. In 2005, Maderas del
Carmen (Mexico) was announced as
the first wilderness area in Latin America
(Conservation International 2005);
however, in 2010 it is still listed as an
Area for Protection of Flora and Fauna
(CONANP 2010), a designation that
offers a lower level of protection. Its
management plan (Secretaría de Medio
Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca
1997) considers four zones. The plan
allows grazing and forestry in the zones
of Restoration and Use of Natural
Resources, which together cover more
than half of the protected areas. The
Wild Zone is the most preserved. The
Natural Outstanding Zone shows evidence of use of natural resources and of
natural regeneration.
What governance factors influence wilderness conservation? Our
primary purpose here is to demonstrate a framework to identify key
factors of influence by analyzing the
role of governance in establishing and
managing PAs. By comparing the
Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
(Mexico) and the proposed Castle
Wilderness (Canada), we show: (a) the
different actors involved, (b) the types
of governance associated with those
actors, and (c) the similarities and differences between the two countries.

Methodology
A case study method demonstrates the
utility of a framework for governance
analysis to examine the challenges

International Journal of Wilderness

associated with establishing PAs. We
assumed that the chosen case studies,
one from each country, embody critical characteristics of wilderness.
Although they differ significantly in
history, ecology, and socioeconomic
context, their contrast provides a valuable demonstration of the framework.

Document Review
The majority of information was
obtained from official documents available on the Internet. The web pages
consulted for Mexico included the
Official Diary of the Federation (Diario
Official de la Federación), and the
Secretariat of the Environment and
Natural Resources (Secretaría del
Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales
SEMARNAT). The documents included those available at the Monarch Log
(SEMARNAT 2008). Web pages for
Canada included those from the CastleCrown Wilderness Coalition, the Sierra
Club of Canada, and the Government
of Alberta. Additional information
included the environmental impact
assessment for a ski resort expansion
(Vacation Alberta Corporartion [VAC]
1992), court decisions, and notes taken
by one of the authors (Mendoza) during
the court hearing on November 23,
2003. Both cases were complemented
with journal articles, press releases, and
articles from newspapers and environmental newsletters. A chronology of
events was constructed for each case to
get a relation of events and actors
involved (Mendoza 2010).

A Pluridimensional View of
Governance
Mendoza and Thompson (2005) analyzed the influence of governance on PAs
using three dimensions of governance:
1. Economic governance: Governmental and self-imposed rules
guiding a business’s operation and
behavior toward other businesses,

AUGUST 2010 • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

society, and the environment.
2. Environmental-regulatory: Policy
and rules set by a government for
environmental protection.
3. Protected area governance: Policy
and practices guiding management
of PAs and staff attributions.
In this work we add two dimensions:
4. Social governance: Written and
unwritten policies and rules guiding
the participation of different stakeholders in policy design, decision
making, and implementation
(including conservation and park
management).
5. Intellectual governance: Written
and unwritten laws, regulations,
codes, and other formal or informal
agreements determining how data,
information, and knowledge are
generated, owned, shared, and used
by groups or individuals. This
includes popular, scientific, community, and traditional indigenous
knowledge.
The result is the pluridimensional
model of governance (see figure 1). We
define pluridimensional governance as
the combined influence that different
types of governance, acting simultaneously at various spatial and temporal
scales, have on the achievement of
planned outcomes. It is different from
multilevel governance, a term used in
the European Union (EU) to refer to
governance acting across levels of
government (e.g., EU parliament to
municipal government; Organisation
for Economic Co-Operation and
Development 2009). In the pluridimensional model, multilevel governance
corresponds to one dimension such as
regulatory/environmental governance.

Actors, Interactions, and
Factors
Each governance dimension has associated actors and factors at different

Figure 1—Five dimensions of governance that influence the achievement of conservation goals. The
interactions among actors across dimensions and levels (internal to international) are used to identify
the most influential factors (positive or negative).

spatial and temporal levels. Here we
only use spatial levels: international,
national, state or provincial, local,
and internal/park. Theoretically, the
interactions among actors are regulated by the political structures (laws
and regulations) set by a country and
international agreements. The factors,
such as group interests, statutes,
activism, and codes of conduct, work
as driving forces, neutral forces, or
barriers. Some actors may not apply
to a particular situation, their influence may not be known, or they may
have dual influence; the last one usually indicates poor quality of
governance.

Results
Protected Areas in Canada and
Mexico
Canada exemplifies a developed
country with relatively stable governance. Mexico exemplifies a developing
country with governance challenges.
Although PAs originated in both

AUGUST 2010 • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

countries in the same period, the corresponding park agencies and
legislation did not. In 1876, a presidential decree established Desierto de
los Leones as the first Mexican protected area. In 1887, the Rocky
Mountains Park Act declared Banff
(then Rocky Mountain) as the first
Canadian national park (McNeely et
al. 1994). In Canada, the Dominion
Forest Reserves and Parks Act of 1911
set the basis for managing PAs and created the world’s first modern park
management agency, the Dominion
Parks Branch, which later became
Parks Canada (Dearden and Rollins
2002; McNeely et al. 1994). In Mexico,
the General Law of the Environment
and Environmental Protection of 1988
(Ley General del Equilibrio Ecológico
y Protección al Ambiente ) was the
first law that set clear objectives for
PAs. PAs were passed from one secretariat to another from 1876 until
2000, when the National Commission
for Natural PAs (CONANP) was cre-

International Journal of Wilderness 15

ated (Mendoza and Thompson 2005).
Both countries have the capacity to
designate protected areas at the state or
provincial level.
The efforts to protect the proposed Castle Wilderness and the
forested areas that constitute Monarch
show the challenges faced by society to
protect habitats and the species that
depend on them. Space limitations
dictate that we only highlight some of
the key factors arising from the case
studies. For additional information
about the case studies and interactions,
please see Mendoza (2010).

Castle Wilderness
The Castle Wilderness (CW) is a
region of forested land along the
eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains
(southwestern Alberta, Canada) (see
figure 2). In 1914, the area was designated as part of Waterton Lakes
National Park. Its level of protection
was subsequently lowered to a game
reserve in 1921 when its lands were
transferred to the province of Alberta.
In 1954, it lost its protected status
and became public multiple-use land.
Since 1958, wilderness advocates
have been actively seeking formal
protection of this landscape as wilderness. In 1994, Alberta’s Natural
Resource Conservation Board
(NRCB) recommended establishing
a PA in the CW after reviewing the
environmental impact assessment
statement (VAC 1992) for a proposed expansion of a downhill ski
resort within the CW region. To
date, no strictly protected designation has been established and
wilderness advocates continue to
pursue its protection. It is currently
designated as the Castle Special
Management Area Forest Land Use
Zone, a category of public land established for multiple use, including
recreation and industrial resource
16

Figure 2—Eastern approach to the Castle Special Management Area Forest Land Use Zone. Photo ©
by Michael Quinn.

extraction. Continuing debates on
the use and designation of the area
provide an ideal context to examine
the role of governance in PA establishment.
Thirty-two actors were identified, most of them at the local and

state/provincial levels (see figure 3).
Twelve of the 27 interactions identified among actors had a positive
influence. The social and environmental/regulatory dimensions account
for more than half of the actors (nine
actors each).

Figure 3—Actors involved in the CW Case: CQBA = Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta; CA = Court of
Appeals of Alberta; MDPC = Municipal District of Pincher Creek; WCDA = Westcastle Development
Authority; AVC = Alberta Vacation Corporation; CPAWS = Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society; WA
= Alberta Wilderness Society; SCC = Sierra Club of Canada; CCWC = Castle-Crown Wilderness
Coalition; ORV = off-road vehicles; ATV = all-terrain vehicles.

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AUGUST 2010 • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

Monarch Butterfly
Biosphere Reserve

MARCH 22, 2004

The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere
Reserve (MBBR) is a region with
relict mountaintop forest patches of
Oyamel fir (Abies religiosa) located in
central Mexico. Between 1971 and
1986, the wintering areas of monarch
butterfly (Danaus plexippus) were discovered in Oyamel fir patches
scattered over the states of Mexico
and Michoacán (Bower 1995). The
land belongs to indigenous communities and ejidos (farming communal
lands) whose main activity is forestry
(see figure 4). In 1980, MBBR was
decreed a Reserve and Wildlife Zone;
in 1986, a Special Biosphere Reserve;
and in 2000, a Biosphere Reserve. In
2009, a new decree modified one of
the three core zones. The core zones,
scattered on the two states, cover
approximately 24% of MBBR’s surface. The rest is declared as a buffer
(Gobierno de México 2009).
Degradation of MBBR due to legal
and illegal activities increased after
2000. This happened despite the
establishment of the Monarch
Conservation Fund (Missrie and
Nelson 2005) and collaboration with
Canada and the United States (Fox
2006; Trilateral Committee for
Wildlife and Ecosystem Conservation
and Management [TCWECM]
1997). MBBR provides a relevant
context to examine the role of governance in the establishment and
management of PAs.
Forty-four actors were identified
in this case (see figure 5), most of them
along the environmental/regulatory
dimension. Six of the 40 interactions
across actors had a positive influence.
The influence of three recent interactions is still unknown. International
actors dominate in the intellectual
dimension.

FEBRUARY 23, 2008

Figure 4—Deforestation at MBBR, 2004–2008. Photo courtesy of GeoEye satellite image; www.
geoeye.com.

Protected Area (PA)
Governance
In a study of global trends in PA governance, Dearden et al. (2005)
identified the need for secure funding,
capacity building, and community
involvement. We expected those factors to be influential in Mexico, a
developing country. However, our pluridimensional analysis identified poor

AUGUST 2010 • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

economic and environmental governance as the primary factors hindering
the successful creation of both PAs.
The principal actors concentrate at
local and provincial levels for CW,
whereas in MBBR there is a mix from
local to international actors.
In both cases, jurisdictional
authority for the lands has changed
over time. This affected conservation

International Journal of Wilderness 17

participates in illegal activities because
of economic alternatives (Merino
Pérez and Hernández Apolinar 2004;
Consejo Civil Mexicano para la
Silvicultura Sostenible [CCMSS]
2007; Lazaroff 2002).

Intellectual Governance

Figure 5. Actors in the MBBR case: CEC = Commission for Environmental Cooperation; COFEMER =
Comisión Federal de Mejora Regulatoria; CONAFOR = Comisión Nacional Forestal; CONAGUA =
Comisión Nacional del Agua; CONANP = Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas; CORETT
= Comisión para la Regularización de la Tenencia de la Tierra; INE = Instituto Nacional de Ecología;
NAFTA = North American Free Trade Agreement; PROFEPA = Procuraduría Federal de Protección al
Ambiente; SAGARPA = Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentación;
SARH = Secretaria de Agricultura y Recursos Hidráulicos; SE = Secretaria de Economía; SEDESOL =
Secretaría de Desarrollo Social; SEDUE = Secretaría de Desarrollo Urbano y Ecología; SEMARNAP =
Secretaría de Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca; SEMARNAT = Secretaría de Medio
Ambiente y Recursos Naturales; TCWECM = Trilateral Trilateral Committee for Wildlife and Ecosystem
Conservation and Management; U = University; UNAM = Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México;
US F&WS = US Fish and Wildlife Service; NPS = U.S. National Park Service.

negatively through lack of continuity
in PA policy. The transfer of the CW
lands from national park protection to
provincial multiple use was particularly detrimental. The CW is currently
under the jurisdiction of Alberta
Ministry of Sustainable Resource
Development, but would transfer to
the Ministry of Tourism, Parks and
Recreation if Provincial PA designation were to be achieved (Government
of Alberta [GA] 2009). Two positive
changes in Mexico were creating
CONANP in 2000 and giving it the
administration of funds for community sustainable development programs.
However, CONANP is still subordinated to SEMARNAT in matters of
land use, environmental policy, and
enforcement.
18

Social Governance
The work of conservation groups is
the main factor supporting conservation in both cases. The Castle-Crown
Wilderness Coalition (CCWC) and a
cadre of related environmental organizations are pursuing the NRCB
recommendation to protect the CW as
the Andy Russell-I’tai sah kòp Wildland
Provincial Park. The coalition of environmental groups has received
international support for the request.
Most social actors support protecting
the CW. The opposition comes from
groups of snowmobile and other
motorized recreationists not keen on
restricting motorized vehicles in the
wilderness (Houghtaling 2009). Local
communities support the protection
of MBBR. Still, part of the population

International Journal of Wilderness

The existence of traditional and scientific knowledge (provincial and
international) supports protection of
the wilderness and provides it with
additional cultural and spiritual values.
Contrary to what might be expected,
the Environmental Impact Assessment
(VAC 1992) conducted for a proposed
ski hill expansion had little positive
influence due to the disregard for the
potential impacts that the expansion
would have on aquatic ecosystems and
of the regional cumulative effects.
Despite that, the NRCB was able to
determine the significance of the potential impacts on the regional ecosystem
and recommend the protection of the
CW (Court of Appeal of Alberta 2005).
Traditional knowledge and cultural
values are weak in MBBR. International
actors dominate, having dual influence.
On the negative side, the scientific
community has been divided with controversial delays in publishing some
research findings (e.g., Brower 1995).
On the positive side, most research on
the monarch butterfly has been by U.S.
and Canadian scientists, but with little
collaboration between Mexican and
international scientists to provide a
solid strategy to protect habitat along
the butterfly’s migratory range.

Economic Governance
In both cases, economic actors are
present from local to international
levels. The CW has been significantly
degraded by an economic policy based
on energy/oil and gas production and
forest exploitation (Alberta Wilderness
Association [AWA] 2007; Sierra Club

AUGUST 2010 • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

of Canada 2009). Nevertheless, the
petroleum and forest industries supported its protection as a special place
(Hryciuk and Struzik 1999). Because
of the NRCB ruling, expanding the
resort incrementally through municipal approvals suggests poor
environmental governance by the regulator and poor corporate governance
and social responsibility by the ski
resort operator.
The major threat for MBBR is the
loss of fir forest, which has accelerated
with every decree (Brower 1995) and
despite the creation of the Monarch
Fund (World Wildlife Fund 2006).
Illegal logging led by criminal groups
supplies more wood to the market than
legal forestry (CCMSS 2007; United
Nations Environment Programme
[UNEP] 2008). Clearing for agriculture, grazing, or urbanization represents
80% of forest loss in Michoacán (Osorio
2007). This results from much higher
subsidies for agriculture than for forestry, subsidies to inefficient agricultural
and forestry programs, excessive regulation to access development funds or
harvest permits, corruption, and poor
control of forest permits (CCMSS
2007; Osorio 2007; Agren 2009). The
interest of social actors to exploit natural resources is a negative influence in
both cases. However, it is likely that
such influence would not be significant
if there were strong environmental governance.

Environmental Governance
The effect of land tenure on conservation of wilderness is highly complex.
The CW was part of Waterton Lakes
National Park in 1914 but was removed
from Waterton and transferred to the
province in 1921. It was a Provincial
Game Reserve from 1921 to 1954.
Calls to protect it again started in
1958 (AWA 2007). Calls for formal
establishment of a PA arising from the

NRCB decision in 1994 were unrealized due to disagreements among the
actors (Court of Queen’s Bench of
Alberta [CQBA] 2004). The CW was
subsequently proposed for protection
under the “special place” program
however, the program concluded in
2001 (GA 2009) and discussions
regarding protected area designation
remain unresolved (Houghtaling
2009). The removal of protection for
CW apparently is a local/regional decision, but it has repercussions at
provincial, national, and international
levels. As part of the Crown of the
Continent Ecosystem, which includes
the Waterton-Glacier International
Peace Park World Heritage Site, its
protection is crucial to maintain the
ecological integrity of Waterton, the
smallest of Canada’s Rocky Mountain
Parks (Parks Canada 2008). In addition, failure to come to resolution on a
protected area has resulted in a loss of
trust toward the government from
industry representatives and conservation groups. Governance issues
contributing to the failure of protected
area establishment include not setting
standards for protection of special
places (Francis n.d.), failing to set priorities for land use, and refusing to
consider trade-offs for conservation
suggested by the industry, such as land
swaps, lease credits, or outright cash
settlements (Hryciuk and Struzik
1999).
Despite having four decrees,
MBBR is still a “paper park.” The lack
of compensation to communities and
ejidos affected by its creation is one of
the causes of illegal land use within it
(CCMSS 2007; Merino Pérez and
Hernandez Apolinar 2004). The
Monarch Fund was created to help
communities in the MBBR move to a
conservation-based economy. However,
it has not been successful because of
corruption in government at different

AUGUST 2010 • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

levels (Martínez Elorriaga 2007), institutional
complexity,
excessive
regulation to access funds, and lack of
integration of social goals into conservation policy (Missrie and Nelson
2005; CCMSS 2007). The area is
under control of criminal gangs that
use heavy weaponry to subdue the
forest patrols and discourage local
population from protecting the forest
(Grillo 2005). Foreign PA and wildlife
authorities represent international
concern for the destruction of MBBR.
Other major threats for MBBR derive
from poor environmental-regulatory
governance (Martinez Elorriaga 2007;
UNEP 2008).

International Collaboration
The discussion for the CW presented
above focused on the Canadian side;
however, its regional ecosystem includes
the Waterton-Glacier International
Peace Park World Heritage Site. The
regional ecosystem is threatened by
development and industrial activities in
Alberta, British Columbia, and the
United States. Both countries have
agreements for maintaining air quality
and protecting migratory species, for
instance, the North American Waterfowl
Management Plan. Yet such agreements
do not seem to help protect the CW.
The discussion for MBBR focused on
Mexico; however, the monarch butterfly is also threatened by loss of
habitat and pesticide use in the United
States (Brower 1995). Conservation of
the monarch butterfly has been a priority for trilateral collaboration at least
since 1997 (TCWECM 1997). Not
much has been achieved to date despite
memorandums of understanding and
informal agreements such as the
Trilateral Committee for Wildlife and
Ecosystem
Conservation
and
Management (TCWECM 1997) and
the Trilateral Monarch Butterfly Sister
Protected Area Network (Fox 2006).

International Journal of Wilderness 19

The implications of a new Memorandum
of Understanding on Cooperation for
Wilderness Conservation between
Mexico, the United States, and Canada,
signed at WILD 9 in Mérida, Mexico
(November 2009), remain unclear, but
promising.
Another factor is the lack of influence that international agreements had
at the local level to produce tangible
conservation outcomes, despite their
positive influence in national environmental policy. This may result from
the voluntary nature of many conservation agreements and the consequent
lack of accountability (Mendoza 2010).
This pluridimensional analysis shows
the need to work from local to international levels to effectively protect
wilderness. Perhaps it is time to set
higher priorities for regional conservation and introduce more accountability
for conservation outcomes in North
America. Further research could analyze mechanisms to do so through the
Commission for Environmental
Cooperation or the TCWECM.

Conclusion
The pluridimensional analysis of governance for the CW and MBBR provides
a more detailed picture to target factors
that influence protected areas and conservation success than simply looking at
protected areas governance alone. It
shows that successful conservation outcomes are hindered by deficiencies in
environmental/regulatory governance,
especially the inconsistency between the
economic and conservation policy set
by the respective governments and their
lack of leadership. Both case studies
have had federal protection, although
today CW is under provincial government jurisdiction and MBBR is under
federal jurisdiction. Both cases showed
governance limitations in three aspects:
implementing conservation policy, setting priorities for land use, and solving
20

conflicts among actors. In the case of
the CW, poor environmental governance resulted in lost opportunities to
protect the wilderness and loss of trust
of economic and social actors on the
ability of the provincial government to
create the conditions to reconcile economic and conservation interests. In
the case of the MBBR, poor environmental governance combined with poor
economic governance resulted in loss of
productive alternatives for the communities that used to make a living
from forestry before the reserve was
decreed. This situation favored criminal gangs who took advantage of the
lack of vigilance on protected sites and
deficiencies in the control of forest
industry to dominate the market commercializing wood harvested illegally
by unemployed people.
Protection of the CW may
improve if it can be designated as a
provincial park. It is still uncertain
how the new decree will work for the
MBBR. Nevertheless, both cases show
that improvements in PA governance
can do little in absence of good environmental and economic governance.
The Commission for Environmental
Cooperation could be a starting point
to introduce accountability mechanisms for conservation outcomes in
North America.

Acknowledgment
A version of this paper was presented
at the Symposium on Science and
Stewardship to Protect and Sustain
Wilderness Values: 9th World
Wilderness Congress; November 6–13,
2009, Mérida, Mexico.

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ANGELES MENDOZA SAMMET is a Ph.D.
candidate at the faculty of Environmental
Design, University of Calgary, 2102, 12
Avenue NW Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2N
4X1;
SammySolution.com;
phone:
403-210-2603; email: angeles@angeles
mendoza.com.
MICHAEL S. QUINN is an associate professor in the faculty of Environmental
Design, University of Calgary, 2500 University
Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2N
1N4; phone: 403-220-7013; email: quinn@
ucalgary.ca.

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