British Columbia's forest economy is at a crucial crossroads. Its survival, Roger Hayter argues, rests on its ability to remain flexible and open to innovation -- a future by no means assured given recent policy initiatives and the current contested nature of British Columbia's forests. Flexible Crossroads looks at the contemporary restructuring of British Columbia's forest economy, demonstrating how both resource dynamics -- the transition from old growth to managed forests -- and industrial dynamics -- changing technology and global market forces -- have shaped this transformation. Conceptually, the restructuring is portrayed as a shift from a commodity-based, cost-minimizing production system (Fordism) to a more product-differentiated, value-maximizing production system informed by the imperative of flexibility. The first part of the book provides global and historical perspectives by situating British Columbia's forest economy within the wider context of global industrialization, the history of resource dynamics, and the current shift from Fordist to more flexible systems of production. In the second part, Hayter assesses the extent to which British Columbia's forest economy is enacting this shift by focusing on factors such as foreign ownership, the strategies and structure of MacMillan Bloedel, the role of small firms, trade relations, employment and labour relations, forest community development, environmentalism and resource use, and innovation policy. Flexible Crossroads will appeal to geographers, political economists and forestry professionals, as well as to students of British Columbia's economy and forest economies generally.

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Economic Geography presents students and researchers with a comprehensive overview of the field, put together by a prestigious editorial team, with contributions from an international cast of prominent scholars. Offers a fully revised, expanded, and up-to-date overview, following the successful and highly regarded Companion to Economic Geography published by Blackwell a decade earlier, providing a comprehensive assessment of the field Takes a prospective as well as retrospective look at the field, reviewing recent developments, recurrent challenges, and emerging agendas Incorporates diverse perspectives (in terms of specialty, demography and geography) of up and coming scholars, going beyond a focus on Anglo-American research Encourages authors and researchers to engage with and contextualize their situated perspectives Explores areas of overlap, dialogues, and (potential) engagement between economic geography and cognate disciplines

The political landscape of British Columbia has been characterized by divisiveness since Confederation. But why and how did it become Canada’s most fractious province? A Long Way to Paradise traces the evolution of political ideas in the province from 1871 to 1972, exploring British Columbia’s journey to socio-political maturity. Robert McDonald explains its classic left-right divide as a product of “common sense” liberalism that also shaped how British Columbians met the demands and challenges of a modernizing world. This lively, richly detailed overview provides fresh insight into the fascinating story of provincial politics in Canada’s lotus land.

As a core volume in the Dynamics of Economic Space series, contributors from North America, Australasia, Europe and the Middle East each address the constitutive processes of new economic and institutional spaces and the theoretical, methodological and policy-engaging practices of emerging economic geographies. Together, they provide a timely and important overview of the current debates about the geographies of economic change. As national and regional economies change rapidly, so the frameworks, concepts and methods used to describe and analyse those processes also need to evolve. This volume puts forward a comprehensive analysis of a range of different and innovative means currently available, through which to view regional economic activities and interactions.

The history of British Columbia's economy in the twentieth century is inextricably bound to the development of the forest industry. In this comprehensive study, Gordon Hak approaches the forest industry from the perspectives of workers and employers, examining the two institutions that structured the relationship during the Fordist era: the companies and the unions. He relates daily routines of production and profit-making to broader forces of unionism, business ideology, ecological protest, technological change, and corporate concentration. The struggle of the small-business sector to survive in the face of corporate growth, the history of the industry on the Coast and in the Interior, the transformations in capital-labour relations during the period, government forest policy, and the forest industry's encounter with the emerging environmental movement are all considered in this eloquent analysis.

In a world of flux, as old territorial borders dissolve and new nations come together, who controls ideas, information, and creativity? Who patrols the new frontiers? This volume opens a window to the dark side of globalization and the struggles for autonomy it has generated from forest disputes to Indigenous land claims to conflicts between farmers and the patent owners of genetically modified seeds. The work of Palestinian poets, whose attachment to the land is explored in a powerful Coda, shows that a politics of place brings to the fore intense feelings of attachment, something common to all struggles over territory and autonomy.

"This Elusive Land provides an introduction to the literature about women and the environment in Canada. It looks at the ways in which women integrate the social and biophysical settings of their lives, and features a range of contexts in which gender mediates, inspires, and informs a sense of belonging to and in this land. Drawing from geographical, historical, and cultural perspectives, the volume reveals the significance of women's experiences in various landscapes."--Jacket.

At his first cabinet meeting Premier Dave Barrett takes off his shoes, leaps onto the leather-inlaid cabinet table and skids the length of the room. “Are we here for a good time or a long time?” he roars. His answer: a good time, a time of change, action, doing what was needed and right, not what was easy and conventional. He set the tone for a government that changed the face of the province. During the next three years, he and his team passed more legislation in a shorter time than any government before or since. A university or college student graduating today in BC may have been born years after Barrett’s defeat, but could attend a Barrett daycare, live on a farm in Barrett’s Agricultural Land Reserve, be rushed to hospital in a provincial ambulance created by Barrett’s government and attend college in a community institution founded by his government. The continuing polarization of BC politics also dates back to Barrett—the Fraser Institute and the right-wing economic policies it preaches are as much a legacy of the Barrett years as the ALR. Dave Barrett remains a unique and important figure in BC’s history, a symbol of how much can be achieved in government and a reminder of how quickly those achievements can be forgotten. This lively and well-researched book is the first in-depth study of this most memorable of BC premiers.

In recent decades, community forestry has taken root across Canada. Locally run initiatives are lauded as welcome alternatives to large corporate and industrial logging practices, yet little research has been done to document their tangible outcomes or draw connections between their ideals of local control, community benefit, ecological stewardship, and economic diversification and the realities of community forestry practice. This book brings together the work of over twenty-five researchers to provide the first comparative and empirically rich portrait of community forestry policy and practice in Canada. Tackling all of the forestry regions from Newfoundland to British Columbia, it unearths the history of community forestry, revealing surprising regional differences linked to patterns of policy-making and cultural traditions. Case studies celebrate innovative practices in governance and ecological management while uncovering challenges related to government support and market access. The future of the sector is also considered, including the role of institutional reform, multiscale networks, and adaptive management strategies.

The presentation and representation of the environment occurs throughout academia and across all news media. The strict protocols of science often clash with environmental information available from sources that dwell on subjective aesthetic, emotional and personal sensitivities. This book challenge the reader, as student, teacher, researcher or policy maker, to reflect critically on the ways that environments are studied, interpreted, presented and represented, in education and public policy.