2  A Pathological Examination of Conservation

Failure in Canada

christopher j . lemieux , mark w . groulx , trevor swerdfager ,

and shannon hagerman

We are faculty members in resources and sustainability-oriented programs in

four universities, two in British Columbia and two in Ontario. Between us we
have over 100 years of combined experience in dealing with a wide span of
conservation issues from the perspective of conservation partners, researchers,
and educators and, in the case of one of us, as a government-based conserva-
tion practitioner. Our work has brought us into constant and regular contact
with members of a wide range of equity-deserving community members, and
our interactions with them have tremendously deepened our awareness of the
many of the conservation-related challenges they face, even though these chal-
lenges are not a part of our lived experiences. We have become impatient for
change on this front and are committed to finding ways to move the conser-
vation community forward in an inclusive way. Our ties to nature are diverse
and deep, our passion for conservation strong, which we can use to unite
us and drive change in the regions in which we live and work. These back-
grounds and commitments no doubt shape our values and views, and we high-
light them explicitly here in order that the reader is aware of them as they travel
through these pages with us.
Second, throughout our discussion we refer regularly to the “conserva-
tion community” and to “conservation organizations.” We chose the word
“community” with care, with the intent of being inclusive and embracing of
a wide range of players with interests in the protection and conservation of
nature. Our goal is to avoid the all too common polarization of “industry
groups and environmentalists,” or “government and civil society” and the
like. We consider this community to include elected and non-elected mem-
bers of Indigenous, federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal agencies,
the leaders and members of resource harvesting enterprises, academics, and
a wide range of conservation organizations. By this latter term, we refer pri-
marily to non-governmental, non-industry organizations whose primary
mission is oriented around the protection and conservation of nature and
34 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

the environment more generally. These organizations range in size and scope
from small community naturalist groups to much larger nationally focused
and internationally linked organizations like the World Wildlife Fund or
Oceana Canada. And finally, while several of the examples we touch on to
highlight the various points we make are taken from the provinces in which
we live, our chapter’s analysis is fundamentally national in scope and intent,
and our views, we would suggest, are broadly applicable across Canada and,
perhaps, globally.

1. Introduction

Whatever happens, will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little
should happen.
– Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Third Marquess of Salisbury and three-time
British prime minister

To address widespread biodiversity declines and concurrent ecological deg-

radation, parties to the United Nations (UN) Convention on Biological Di-
versity (CBD) agreed in 2010 to a Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020,
including the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets. While final reporting has yet to
occur by parties, the current literature suggests that most trends continue to
decline (Díaz et al. 2019; Rounsevell et al. 2020; Green et al. 2019; Secretariat
of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2020). Preliminary reporting on
progress on the targets in Canada has been inconsistent and potentially mis-
leading. For example, Canada’s sixth national report to the CBD, published
in 2019, painted an optimistic picture, claiming that 12 targets were on track
to be met. However, Hagerman and Pelai (2016) found that most of Cana-
da’s responses to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets were aspirational, with only a
few being implemented (Hagerman and Pelai 2016). Furthermore, the World
Wildlife Fund (WWF) report 2020 Living Planet Report for Canada revealed
that populations of Canadian species assessed as “at risk” have declined by an
average of 59 per cent, and species assessed as globally at risk have seen their
Canadian populations fall by an average of 42 per cent (World Wildlife Fund
Canada 2020).
Concerns about shortcomings in implementing the Strategic Plan for Bio-
diversity 2011–2020 and achievement of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets has led
to calls for enhanced planning, reporting, and review under the CBD (Guarás,
Weissenberg, and Rivera-mendoza 2021). Building on the Strategic Plan for Bi-
odiversity 2011–2020, parties to the CBD, including Canada, are now focused
implementing the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (Con-
vention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 2022), which will guide global conserva-
tion efforts to 2030. As these and other related conversations about the future of
 A Pathological Examination of Conservation Failure in Canada 35

conservation are active, evolving, and consequential, it is timely to identify the

deep underlying issues as to why the organizations society entrusts to conserve
biodiversity continuously fail to do so.
In this chapter, we use “pathologies” as a metaphor to examine the ways in
which organizational dysfunction emerges and persists, and how it becomes
a precondition to failure in the context of effectively conserving biodiversity
in Canada. By “failure” we broadly mean an inability to achieve the goals and
objectives that Canada’s diverse and growing conservation community sets
out to achieve. Specifically, we examine six pathologies that are chronically
affecting conservation in Canada today and use a series of examples to illustrate
their impacts on conservation. We strive to present more of a diagnosis of the
pathologies, based on symptoms we have observed in conservation, and leave
it to our colleagues in other chapters to take on the more difficult task of iden-
tifying the various prescriptions and treatments needed to achieve improved
conservation outcomes that can support both biodiversity and people.

2. The Pathology Approach to Understanding Conservation Failures

The evidence is clear: despite some successes (e.g., Bolam et al. 2020), the
conservation of biodiversity has failed more often than not. In a quantitative
sense, there is no comprehensive set of indicators of ecosystem or biodiversity
health at any regional scale that are trending in a positive direction. Even com-
monly celebrated aspects of conservation, such as the expansion of protected
areas networks, have not necessarily led to gains in outcomes for biodiversity
(Geldmann et al. 2019; Carrasco et al. 2021). Although temporal lags in species’
responses to conservation action could be masking our ability to observe pro-
gress towards conservation success (Watts et al. 2020), in the Canadian context,
as elsewhere, the weight of evidence indicates that conservation failures persist,
no matter how one defines success.
It is generally accepted that much of the failure to effectively conserve biodi-
versity can be attributed to a number of issues, including, for examples, a lack
of mainstreaming of biodiversity in public policy (Whitehorn et al. 2019); inef-
fective integration of different forms of knowledge into conservation planning
(Lemieux et al. 2021); inadequate human and financial resources (Waldron et
al. 2013; Barbier, Burgess, and Dean 2018); failure to value nature adequately
(Dasgupta 2021); and limitations in raising the profile of biodiversity loss for
politicians and the public (Legagneux et al. 2018) (several of these challenges
are discussed in more detail in chapter 11 by Justina Ray). That said, we argue
that it is the unrecognized yet persistent symptoms of “pathological manage-
ment” that coalesce to produce a gateway through which all other threats to
biodiversity emerge and transform ecosystems and, ultimately, prevent Canada
from achieving its conservation goals.
36 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

Figure 2.1. Conceptual model of the biodiversity conservation pathology in Canada.

Ineffective conservation outcomes are shaped by several pathologies and conditioning
factors (values and behaviours).

Originating in healthcare, pathology is the branch of medicine that inves-

tigates the nature of disease – its structural and functional effects on the body
that produces deviations from a healthy (i.e., optimal or ideal) condition. As
detailed in figure 2.1, several pathologies lead to ineffective and undesirable
conservation outcomes, in reference to the deficiencies associated with tra-
ditional management approaches and institutions that focus on maximizing
short-term benefits to people, a result of unsustainable environmental, social,
and economic outcomes of command-and-control resource management
(Holling and Meffe 1996; Allen and Gunderson 2011; Briggs 2003).
First introduced by Holling and Meffe (1996), the authors argued that in-
stitutions managed by command and control have low resilience to new chal-
lenges because the system discourages innovation and penalizes or ignores
alternative perspectives by employees. Institutions faced with these problems
attempt to solve them by applying more control, which further reduces natu-
ral variability. Expanding on these original insights, we identify the repeated
 A Pathological Examination of Conservation Failure in Canada 37

and often unacknowledged patterns of behaviour and the systems within which
their behaviours are embedded, that co-evolve, coalesce, and continue to lead
to a decline in ecosystem integrity in Canada, with a focus on biodiversity
conservation.
Here, we focus on six interrelated pathologies, which represent repeated
sources of failure. The pathologies as identified and highlighted are matters of
judgment and perspective. There are certainly other pathologies that we do not
address due to space limitations (perverse incentives, for example), and readers
may justifiably take the position that the pathologies presented here may be less
significant than others in terms of affecting Canada’s ability to achieve desired
conservation outcomes. Given that our goal is to stimulate dialogue and to con-
tribute to the identification of the transformative changes required to address
these debilitating pathologies, we welcome this critique.
In addition to preventing the ability to achieve conservation goals, it is our
argument that these six pathologies result in frustrated conservation profes-
sionals (who are literally trained to contribute to effective conservation out-
comes but are unable to maximize their contributions due to these pathologies),
a related inability to meaningfully consider and incorporate different forms of
knowledge into conservation planning and management, an inability to assess
performance with respect to key conservation policy objectives and, ultimately,
a misinformed and confused public. We provide specific examples related to
these pathologies to help illuminate these problems and, more generally, better
understand how they continue to paralyze Canada’s ability to achieve desired
conservation outcomes.

Pathology 1: Chronic Failures in Leadership

Signs and Symptoms:

• inadequate direction, including inadequate/incompatible laws, plans,

­policies, and planning processes
• constant dismantling and reinventing
• inadequate human and financial resources
• inability to exert authority
• inadequate research and monitoring programs

While the conservation and enhancement of components or elements of bi-

odiversity is a key objective of hundreds of laws and related policies at mul-
tiple levels of government, Canada’s conservation policy landscape continues
to be fragmented and lacks leadership and coordination across the political,
program, and process activities of government. A major challenge in Canada
has been the chronic lack of leadership and coordination provided by Canada’s
38 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

National Focal Point to the CBD, Environment and Climate Change Canada
(ECCC). Criticisms have ranged from “having no plan” to failures in imple-
mentation, such as falling short of exercising its authority to protect critical
habitat for species at risk in a timely way (Palm et al. 2020; Bird and Hodges
2017). Independent audits and assessments by science-based non-governmen-
tal organizations (NGOs), researchers, and others have detailed the rather spec-
tacular number of ways in which ECCC has failed to meet its legislated goals
and responsibilities (Office of the Auditor General of Canada 2018b; Palm et al.
2020; CPAWS 2016).
For example, in 1998, ECCC was criticized for having no plan to implement
the 1996 Canadian Biodiversity Strategy and – wait for it – again in 2000, 2005,
2013, and 2018 (Office of the Auditor General of Canada 2018b). The reasons
for this failure in leadership are complicated. However, it is clear that there have
been failures in both the implementation stage, where ECCC has taken on the
implementation of too many policies and goals and targets so complicated and
so beyond their capacity to provide meaningful results, and during the evalua-
tion stage, where they have failed to properly evaluate outcomes pertaining to
various policy objectives and international commitments.
These problems stretch back decades and, to some extent, have become nor-
malized within the agency. This could be linked to an inability to exercise au-
thority, which has resulted in, for examples, establishing or agreeing to establish
overburdened or unattainable policy agendas, and in wasting resources through
repeated litigation (especially related to species at risk). These failures can also
be linked to ECCC’s poor ability to consult and coordinate efforts across Cana-
da’s diverse conservation community, including other provinces and territories
and Indigenous peoples. These issues are discussed in more detail in Pathology
5 below. The collective result has been a spiraling organizational decline with
corresponding failure to achieve conservation goals, and associated declines in
ecosystem health.
For our second example, we turn our attention to another federal depart-
ment, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and the issue of marine protection
standards (or lack of). Canada’s Oceans Act, which came into effect in 1997,
was considered exemplary ocean management legislation (Bailey et al. 2016).
It provided a framework through which Canada could effectively integrate
ocean management, ecosystem-based management, and marine protected
area (MPA) implementation. Despite this positive step in legislation, serious
concerns have emerged regarding Canada’s commitment to implementing the
Oceans Act, essentially since its inception (Office of the Auditor General of
Canada 2018a).
In addition to a failure to develop integrated management plans for ocean ar-
eas other than the Pacific, of particular concern in recent years has been the in-
effectiveness of DFO in achieving its marine conservation objectives, whether
 A Pathological Examination of Conservation Failure in Canada 39

related to establishing MPAs under the Oceans Act or for managing aquatic
species listed under the Species at Risk Act. We are particularly concerned
about the frequency in which DFO reviews and changes laws, programs, and
policies and announces new ones to give the false impression that the agency is
both forward looking and able to solve problems.
For example, in 2016 DFO severed itself from Canada’s Pathway to Target
1 conservation initiative, effectively unlinking an integrated terrestrial, fresh-
water, and marine planning process that included all provinces and territo-
ries, the private conservation sector, and Indigenous organizations working
to achieve Canada’s area-based protection targets (as per the former Canada
Target 1/Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 and recently adopted Target 3 of the Kun-
ming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework). This action represented a
classic example of “turf protection,” which occurs when agencies protect their
power preserves and perceive the sharing of power and resources as a zero-sum
game (Kearney et al. 2007). The action resulted in DFO taking a unilateral ap-
proach to “shoe-horn” nearly 60 fisheries closures into a new type of “other
effective area-based conservation measure” (OECM) to achieve Canada’s 10 per
cent marine protection target as per the Aichi Biodiversity Target 11, literally
overnight (Lemieux and Gray 2020).
In the process of establishing what DFO misleadingly refers to as “marine ref-
uge” OECMs, national and international conservation standards and guidelines
were ignored (Lemieux et al. 2019; Lemieux et al., 2022), setting the agency on
a seemingly endless loop of “dismantling and reinvention” of laws and associ-
ated policies, such as those related to conservation standards. Public concerns
as well as concerns by the scientific conservation community over the efficacy of
converting fisheries closures to marine refuges, which continue to permit both
non-renewable and renewable resource extraction (including oil and gas explo-
ration), and a focus on single-species management (as opposed to protecting
biodiversity as a whole), prompted expert reviews of both its marine protected
area standards in 2018 and marine refuge standards in 2020 (figure 2.2).
Through these reviews, it became clear that regulatory conflict within DFO,
an organization responsible for both exploiting and conserving biodiversity,
was compromising the integrity of science and decision-making with respect
to conservation, as well as public perception of that integrity. Consequently,
recommendations by the expert panel were released in 2019 (National Advi-
sory Panel on Marine Protected Area Standards 2019), which was followed by
changes to the Ocean’s Act to expel bottom trawling, mining, dumping, and oil
and gas extraction, effectively reconciling activities that should have never been
permitted in MPAs in the first place.
There are many other interrelated issues that lead to chronic conservation pol-
icy failure in Canada, including failures to (1) integrate measurable endpoints
and timelines into law (e.g., completion of protected areas networks); (2) include
40 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

Figure 2.2. The Northeast Newfoundland Slope Closure, roughly the size of Denmark,
was designated as a “marine refuge” by DFO in 2017 to protect slow-growing, fragile, cold-
water corals and sponges that provide essential habitat for fish and other species. However,
exploratory oil and gas leases have been granted to British Petroleum (BP), which will cover
roughly one-quarter of the so-called refuge that currently contributes nearly 1 per cent to
Canada’s declared conserved area. (Map Source: WWF; Sea Pen Phonot Source: DFO)

mitigation in the first stage of planning processes (e.g., integrate biodiversity pro-
tection in EA/IA processes and F/P/T infrastructure projects); (3) include manda-
tory research and monitoring upon which to adequately measure policy success;
and (4) address policy conflicts: for example, those that either neglect biodiversity
conservation or provide incentives to exploit it. Perhaps most significantly, there
remains no requirements in law to report on the state of any aspect of biodiversity.
This is cause for concern, as lack of baseline and trends data can result in “shifting
baseline syndrome,” where a persistent downgrading of perceived normal ecolog-
ical conditions over time lead to under-estimation of the true magnitude of long-
term ecosystem degradation (Jones et al. 2020). Other challenges associated with
leadership and policy are detailed by Justina Ray in chapter 11.

Pathology 2: Failure to Learn

Signs and Symptoms:

• learning from only limited types of knowledge, or not learning at all

• lack of institutional incentives and processes that support consideration
and incorporation of diverse forms of knowledge
• tendencies to suppress new information, and/or resist new ideas or infor-
mation from outside of organizations
 A Pathological Examination of Conservation Failure in Canada 41

It is a common refrain among conservation scientists and in the literature that a

key barrier to effective conservation is failure to incorporate science into policy
(Lemieux et al. 2021) – or, put differently, failure to learn from new information
(Allen and Gunderson 2011). While it is certainly the case that science – or
more accurately knowledge – ought to be a central consideration for public
policy, including for conservation, it is also true that most examinations of this
pathology simplify two crucial points.
First, by virtue of how the pathology is constructed, there is a tendency to
characterize science and policy as separate spheres and activities and the rela-
tionship between them as being unidirectional and linear (Beck 2011). This is
known as the “linear model of science and policy.” By this pervasive yet empir-
ically unsupported view, science may become politicized through this process,
but science itself is seen as inherently objective and independent of social and
historical context (figure 2.3). Second, this pathology tends to be defined too
narrowly, most often, with a focus on information produced within Western
scientific traditions and worldviews. While it is true that we do often fail to
learn in the context of conservation policy development, we are failing to learn
from a limited stock of knowledge.
These two issues are related. In contrast to the assumptions inherent to the
linear model of science and policy, the realms of science and policy are more
accurately understood as mutually constitutive of each other – a relationship
described by the knowledge co-production model (Jasanoff and Simmet 2017).
By this perspective, science is inextricably embedded within, produced by,
and reproducing of social practices, identities, norms, and structures of power
(Jasanoff and Simmet 2017). Overcoming this pathology requires recognizing
these complexities to develop a more fulsome diagnosis of why challenges of
knowledge, decision-making and learning are (even) greater than typically
recognized.
This is particularly problematic when it comes to considering the process of
knowledge co-production referenced above. We wish to be clear that knowledge
should be a central input to decision-making. But attention to the co-­produced
nature of knowledge invites awareness and reflection on the institutional
processes, learning processes, social order, and the values that underpin and
produce knowledge to begin with. These processes matter for how they shape
the types of knowledge that are deemed credible for decision-making, and they
help explain how dominant regimes of knowledge, once in place, reinforce and
reproduce existing institutional commitments and norms (Jasanoff 2004). We
offer two examples below.
While we have argued in other sections for the importance of institutions
that ensure accountability, monitoring, and target setting, there is simulta-
neously the need to be reflective about how such regimes of measurement –
including targets – can have unintentional consequences, specifically when
42 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

Figure 2.3. Slide presented by one of the large conservation NGOs to parties to
the Convention on Biological Diversity at SBSTTA 21 (November 2017) during a
presentation about how to better link “data” to “conservation decision-making.” The
presentation and this slide are illustrative of the linear model of the relationship
between science and policy at work in practice. (Photo Source: Shannon Hagerman)

it comes to the types of knowledge that enter the realms of decision-making

(Turnhout, Neves, and De Lijster 2014). The Aichi Biodiversity Targets of the
former 2011–2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and the newly adopted 23 tar-
gets of the Kunming-Mongreal Global Biodiversity Framework provide illus-
trative examples of this. Despite clearly being co-produced products of science
and politics (Campbell, Hagerman, and Gray 2014), once negotiated, targets
tend to operate in scientific and policy spheres as a set of neutral objects. Fur-
thermore, by focusing attention on aspects of the challenge targets can serve to
reinforce particular visions of what conservation is and what information and
knowledge that are deemed important and actionable to support it (Hagerman
et al. 2021). Simply put, it is one thing to say that diverse knowledge is valued
throughout the conservation community but quite another to be deliberate in
thinking about the institutional rules and processes that serve to winnow out
ways of knowing in practice.
We see stark evidence of this winnowing in the context of forest conserva-
tion and management in BC’s publicly managed forests. This winnowing arises
from the politics of knowledge (Forsyth and Walker 2008; Vadrot 2014) that
we have described above and speaks directly to the second simplification of
 A Pathological Examination of Conservation Failure in Canada 43

this pathology – that of the tendency to focus on only one type of knowledge
(Western scientific) as “information.” For example, BC’s forest sector is trialing
the use of genomics technologies to identify resilient populations of tree species
for reforestation programs that are anticipated to be more robust to expected
changes wrought by climate – an approach known as assisted migration.
BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations (MFL-
NRO), the agency responsible for conserving and managing forests in BC, has
a mandate to “strengthen public trust in natural resource management prac-
tices by promoting values-based decision-making principles and engaging
with stakeholders and communities” (Ministry of Forests Lands and Natural
Resource Operations 2017). Yet despite proclamations to engage and consider
diverse forms of expertise in the development and implementation of assisted
migration policies, and not to mention the myriad uncertainties and values
embedded in these policies (St-Laurent, Hagerman, and Kozak 2018), in-depth
interviews with agency scientists and managers reveal the subtle and conse-
quential knowledge politics that have led to the consideration and incorpora-
tion of a limited stock of knowledge and, concerningly, the systematic exclusion
of knowledge produced within other worldviews, namely Indigenous knowl-
edge (Pelai, Hagerman, and Kozak 2021). This matters because contributions
from different forms of knowledge are essential to better understand and ulti-
mately address conservation challenges at multiple scales.
All this being said, a slightly different diagnosis and associated set of con-
cerns are illuminated by an “organizational learning” perspective. From this
latter perspective, at least three pre-conditions are notable. First, there must be
an organizational willingness to learn that is predicated on a culture that sees
learning as a valued activity and a primary tool for boosting program perfor-
mance (Collins 2001). In a more government-centered focus, Barber (2015)
draws particular attention to the need for public service learning as a key to
improved service delivery. Second, it requires a reliable stream of data or infor-
mation from which the organization can learn. This stream can, for example,
take the form of raw data about a particular resource or a series of external
audits (e.g., Oceana 2020). Third (and consistent with a knowledge co-produc-
tion perspective), it requires an openness to differing knowledge systems and
ways of understanding nature and its various elements, including how different
groups know, interact with, and value nature. Organizations with this more
open-minded approach would likely feature decision-making that explicitly in-
cludes local knowledge, Indigenous systems of learning, or inputs from differ-
ent communities of practice from outside the agency. It is difficult to conclude
that these conditions are commonly met in today’s conservation organizations
or that the Canadian conservation community could be accurately character-
ized as predisposed to learning or to integrating different knowledge systems
into its functioning.
44 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

Addressing the already thorny pathology of information and learning thus

invites engagement with the even stickier aspects of power, values, and insti-
tutions within which that information is produced and considered. But this
complexity comes with a potential upside. If meaningful progress can be made
in this area, including through the creation of organizations, institutions, and
processes that can foster consideration of previously overlooked or actively ig-
nored knowledge, this holds great promise for addressing some of the failures
of the past and unlocking solutions for the future.

Pathology 3: Irrational Action Procrastination

Signs and Symptoms:

• delay dealing with known problems

• focus on problems and not causes
• rely on quick fixes usually with a big stick (crisis management)
• miss opportunities
• focus on planning and not action (stuck in planning loop)
• be unwilling to experiment and consider the future

Allen and Gunderson (2011) discuss a temporal gap between identifying po-
litical obstructions, halting of action with calls for “more science,” and the
pursuit of perfection in plan development as contributors to action procras-
tination in natural resources management. In their review of Great Lakes
restoration efforts, McLaughlin and Krantzberg (2012) provide additional
context to the behavioural patterns that can affect regulatory organizations
and policy regimes they belong to, where they identify a pattern of long delay
and the subsequent need to pursue rapid, large-scale, and often unilateral
action (i.e., action procrastination) as a troublesome organizational dysfunc-
tion. Procrastination in conservation is so common yet so precarious and
completely irrational: not only are we aware that we are not addressing a
problem, but we also know that it is probably a bad idea to keep delaying
action.
The smokescreen of information deficit can be a common ingredient in
stalled implementation processes across the conservation fields. A recent study
by Lemieux et al. (2021) clearly illustrates that there is adequate information
to support decisions related to many conservation problems, but that a host
of systemic institutional barriers prevent its effective utilization. Conservation
of Canada’s woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) populations (also
known as Boreal caribou), listed as threatened under the federal Species at Risk
Act since 2003, illustrates the difference between not having sufficient informa-
tion to move forward, and – to the point made under Pathology 1 above – not
 A Pathological Examination of Conservation Failure in Canada 45

Figure 2.4. Despite woodland caribou being listed as threatened on Canada’s Species
at Risk Act (SARA) since 2003, it took over a decade to develop a draft recovery plan.
As of early 2021, critical habitat is yet to be protected in most provinces and territories.
(Photo: rob56vt, iNaturalist)

being able to link legislative mandates to effective leadership and timely action
(figure 2.4). With contributions from a blue-ribbon panel comprised of a na-
tional pool of leading scientists over a five-year period, along with a wealth of
additional academic scholarship, Taylor and Walker (2017) argue that the delay
in effective protection since woodland caribou were listed “is not due to the
lack of information” but an inability to prioritize critical habitat for protection
after it is identified.
In 2013, the auditor general of British Columbia reported on the status of biodi-
versity conservation in BC, concluding among other things that the “[g]overnment
does not know whether its actions are resulting in the conservation of biodiver-
sity” (Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia 2013). Having audited the
authority responsible for adoption and implementation of the province’s conser-
vation framework, the report concluded that an inability to move from identifica-
tion of priority actions to implementation was perpetuated because priorities had
been abandoned in the annual business planning of responsible ministries.
46 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

Like the BC auditor general’s report, Palm et al. (2020) identify the lack of
provincial species-at-risk legislation and inadequate protection under the cur-
rent policy regime as a driver of on ongoing decline of BC’s southern moun-
tain woodland caribou population. They also note, however, that protection of
necessary critical habitat to ensure long-term recovery represents an estimated
loss of $94 million in annual forest revenue. These economic costs are no doubt
a key motivator of the (often local) political opposition underpinning the stag-
gering lack of political will that continues to delay the landscape level protec-
tion measures that are required to ensure the longevity of the population. In
Alberta, Hebblewhite (2017) argues even more forcefully that while short-term
emergency measures like wolf control were able to stabilize the Little Smoky
caribou population, the time bought through such measures was merely taken
by the Alberta government as license to pursue political benefit by permitting
more oil and gas drilling, ensuring a renewed cycle of decline and planning,
and ultimately allowing even more delays in implementing long-term measures
to protect critical habitat. For a more detailed discussion on caribou manage-
ment including recovery in Canada, see chapter 4 by Boan and Plotkin.
In addition to the factors identified above, scholars examining the implemen-
tation gap across various conservation fields have pointed to a range of key con-
tributing factors, including the lack of integrated implementation planning within
conservation science assessment processes, limited efforts to define and measure
implementation success, and the over-utilization of “one size fits all” implementa-
tion processes that ignore context-specific barriers and enablers (Adams et al. 2019;
Knight et al. 2008). Yet, beneath these (and other) structural elements is a vast and
dynamic network of human interactions within and beyond conservation organi-
zations that (re)produce the attitudes, values, beliefs, and ultimately organizational
cultures that form and reinforce factors that constrain action. To more fully under-
stand how such cultures contribute to the implementation gap, Papworth (2017)
calls for greater attention to the nuances of decision-making within conservation
organizations through the lens of conservation psychology. Responding to this call,
in the following section we explore risk aversion in individual and organizational
psychologies as a pathology that is deeply intertwined with those just discussed.

Pathology 4: Decision-Makers Are Risk Averse

Signs and Symptoms:

• craving for certainty of outcomes

• discomfort with decisions that generate uncertainty or potentially negative
outcomes
• fear of looking bad
• avoiding hard truths
 A Pathological Examination of Conservation Failure in Canada 47

Uncertainty in management outcomes and expected benefits complicates just

about all conservation decisions (Canessa et al. 2019). And while risk analysis,
a method to deal with uncertainty, is routine in the health, financial, and insur-
ance sectors, it is a relatively new field of study within biodiversity conservation
(excluding fire risk), but increasingly used in the area of invasive species (Man-
drak and Cudmore 2015), species-at-risk assessments (e.g., via Committee on
the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC)) (Favaro et al. 2014)
and, more recently, climate change adaptation planning (Mantyka-Pringle et
al. 2015; Hagerman and Satterfield 2014). For a discussion on how uncertainty
affects local support for caribou recovery, once again refer to chapter 4 by Boen
and Plotkin.
Canadian conservation regimes generally exhibit a pathological and deeply
embedded craving for certainty of outcomes, which is mirrored by an equally
entrenched discomfort with decisions that generate uncertainty and pose
risks of negative outcomes. Conservation agencies constantly face the di-
lemma of whether to invest in actions with high probability of success (guar-
anteed benefits) or to choose projects with a greater risk of failure but might
provide higher benefits if they succeed. As Tulloch et al. (2015) note, “In
conservation, the consequences of making a risky decision and being wrong
include failing to adequately mitigate threats, wasting resources on an action
that does not succeed, and damaging the reputation of the management or-
ganization.” And while our experience suggests that most conservationists see
themselves as change advocates committed to innovation in achieving con-
servation objectives, examples of significantly risk-laden innovations at the
organizational level are few, exemplifying a personality mismatch between
the practitioner and the rigid organization that resists learning and change
(Pathology 2 above).
In our view, rather than simply repeating the “bureaucracies are risk averse”
bromide, a more nuanced approach to considering risk in the conservation
community context is to focus on how a regime manages the risks that vari-
ous conservation challenges pose. It should be emphasized that conservation
regimes don’t just fear risk, they crave certainty. This is not mere semantics; the
magnetic pull of certainty is very strong and consistently deflects bureaucratic
attention towards decisions that generate highly predictable outcomes and that
present virtually zero risk. This is the primary underlying factor why protect-
ed-areas organizations remain paralyzed with respect to adaptation to climate
change (despite a growing information base and significant concern identified
by practitioners for over two decades) (Barr et al. 2020) and tend to prefer con-
ventional management strategies over unconventional ones (Hagerman and
Satterfield 2014). In most conservation challenges, however, zero-risk options
are not available, and the regimes must instead consider and balance a suite of
unavoidable risks.
48 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

The way conservation regimes have responded to the widespread call for
the adoption of biodiversity indicators is instructive in terms of how they do
so. Despite widespread calls by the international conservation community
for the need of biodiversity indicators and monitoring frameworks (Con-
vention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 2020; Bhatt et al. 2020), indicators
pose at least two major risks for bureaucracies, which have yet to be ac-
knowledged in the extant literature. First, the establishment of indicators
and the collection of data with respect to them create a substantial risk that
program failures will be highlighted, or that substantial new problems will
be discovered and lead to more pressures on the program. In national organ-
izations, like federal/provincial/territorial (F/P/T) departments, a wrinkle
on this risk is that consistently adopted indicators can expose differences in
program performance within a department, something senior leaders could
view as a negative dynamic that promotes internecine rivalries and other
staff morale problems. Some indicators, while globally considered impor-
tant, continue not to be reported on at all. For example, we are not aware of
a single F/P/T agency that reports on traditional knowledge and customary
sustainable use.
Second, the creation of a widely endorsed indicator suite poses financial risks.
Indicators data collection is typically labour intensive, monotonous, politically
uninteresting, and expensive. Moreover, because the power of most environ-
mental data sets only really becomes apparent after a significant time series is
built up, most investments in this area feature large upfront expenditures that
only generate benefits over the medium- to long-term. Accordingly, indicator
programs can be seen as high-cost, low-reward initiatives posing clear and
present danger to a program’s financial integrity (see Waldron et al. 2017). The
absence of a climate change impacts monitoring program in Parks Canada, or
in the National Wildlife Area (NWA) program of ECCC, or the demise of En-
vironment Canada’s Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN)
offer good examples of this dynamic at play.
These twin risks are real and cannot simply be avoided, as they will not just
disappear. Management of these unavoidable risks typically involves the deploy-
ment of a cascading set of risk management strategies, including (1) blocking
the establishment of the indicator suite in the first place; (2) assigning indica-
tor development to a multi-stakeholder process and insisting that only when
consensus emerges can the indicators be adopted (which is another form of
action procrastination, as detailed above); or (3) assigning no resources to any
new data collection associated with the accepted targets. Should data collection
against an indicator become unavoidable, data are often kept confidential and
not placed in the public domain where they can be used to form critiques of a
regime (e.g., CWS’s waterfowl population data or DFO’s annual fish stock sur-
vey data, which are not made easily available).
 A Pathological Examination of Conservation Failure in Canada 49

In the absence of accountability structures described in Pathology 6 below,

regime leaders are left to make their own risk calculations and to determine
what is acceptable or not. The net effect of these risk management calculations
and strategies is generally to preserve the status quo and to put in place a set
of generally invisible obstacles to innovation and change. This dynamic often
exacerbates or accentuates the other pathologies detailed in this chapter, and
creates cultural norms that render innovation, transparency, and creativity
“abnormal” and difficult to foster and maintain. As a result, most of Canada’s
conservation regimes are left to deal with the challenges of today and the future
with the tools and programs of the past.

Pathology 5: Lack of Effective and Meaningful Engagement

Signs and Symptoms:

• poor mechanisms and funding to support stakeholder participation

• blocked communications
• stakeholders reject results
• constrained roles of different actor groups
• managers lack training in social sciences

Holling and Meffe (1996) present the reduction of natural variation in a system
and the consequent loss of system resilience as a core feature of the pathology
of natural resource management. To this, they add a burgeoning disconnect be-
tween agency staff and the systems they manage and society’s axiomatic belief
in the need for growth, delivered through tightly managed systems of control.
The topic of stakeholder and rights-holder engagement, and, more relevant
here, the lack of effective engagement is extensively discussed within the con-
servation literature, and we believe is inextricably and intimately related to the
persistence of this pathology within the conservation realm.
Emphasizing the specific, and in their words, “common failure” of adaptive
management programs, Allen and Gunderson (2011) present the omission of
key actors in management processes and networks as a key contributing driver
to the ongoing pathology of natural resource management and its downstream
environmental impacts. Scholars from the fields of conservation management,
public participation, and collaborative planning broadly agree, arguing that
processes that draw narrowly on perspectives, lived experiences, and knowl-
edge systems (e.g., as in Pathology 2) contribute to the institutional, legal, and
cultural barriers that condition the failure of conservation goals (Fischer 2000;
Sterling et al. 2017).
For instance, engagement initiatives can be “externally driven” by indi-
vidual or institutional actors like government agencies or researchers, or
50 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

“self-organized” by local groups who have active influence over management

issues (e.g., NGOs) (Sterling et al. 2017). In either case, there is a similar risk
of poor engagement practices becoming an impediment to conservation goals
when engagement (1) occurs late in planning and/or decision making pro-
cesses; (2) promotes the recurrent inclusion of actors/groups at the expense of
the recurrent exclusion of others; (3) follows a one-size-fits-all approach with-
out consideration of cultural and place-based context; and (4) takes a trans-
actional form that emphasizes narrow management objectives rather than a
whole-systems approach (Shackleton et al. 2019; Charles et al. 2020).
A comprehensive discussion of the roadblocks that are perpetuated through
poor engagement is beyond the scope of this chapter, but the implementation
gap within conservation appears to be widened when individuals or groups
are treated as passive information recipients or sources of public perception,
rather than necessary partners in co-defining conservation challenges, and
thereby the nature of the pathway to addressing their root causes (Jolibert and
Wesselink 2012). A rapidly growing literature on citizen/community science
aptly illustrates the press for greater democratization of Western science and
the management processes it feeds (Charles et al. 2020). Although still taking
the weakly democratized form of contributory citizen science, as opposed to a
co-creation approach that includes community actors in defining research goals
(Dickinson et al. 2012), the adoption of the iNaturalist mobile platform by both
Ontario Parks and Parks Canada illustrates the needed shift to greater active
public engagement in conservation practice. At Cape Merry, near Churchill,
Manitoba, this includes the opportunity to join a “BioBlitz” documenting the
biodiversity surrounding the 250-year-old Fort Prince of Wales and, at least in
theory, the opportunity to collect evidence that informs conservation manage-
ment decisions.
The issue of engagement in conservation practice is often expressed in terms
of absent engagement processes or absent voices and representation within en-
gagement processes. While we do not dispute these challenges, to the point
made under Pathology 2 above, even when stakeholder and rights-holder map-
ping has carefully identified potential contributors, processes can fail when ac-
tors are unwilling to challenge the dominance of certain knowledge systems or
their own limited frames of knowing. Within Canadian conservation practice,
there are growing calls to recognize the complicity of conservation tools like
protected areas in the dispossession of traditional territories from First Nations
and the need to fully recognize Indigenous knowledge systems as a distinct and
equal source of wisdom informing conservation efforts (Youdelis 2016; Zurba et
al. 2019) (see also chapter 5 by McDermott and Roth and chapter 6 by Pictou).
As an alternative to inviting Indigenous rights-holders into engagement
processes that have (often unilaterally) been defined by state actors, Barry
and Porter (2012) define the need for “contact zones,” where new approaches
 A Pathological Examination of Conservation Failure in Canada 51

to upholding legally recognized Indigenous rights and title, self-determination,

governance innovation, and environmental stewardship might be explored. Set
within the context of Indigenous land rights and title in Australia, Porter (2006)
explores the structure and function of the Wimmera Indigenous Resource
Management Partnership (WIRMP) as a point of connection for social
learning. The WIRMP was established as a deliberative space to facilitate
ongoing relationship building between state agencies (the Department of
Sustainability and Environment) and the Wotjobaluk people as rights and
title holders (represented by the Wotjobaluk Traditional Land Council) in
support of shared land and water management. As a deliberative space that
included joint scheduling, agenda setting, and chairing, the WIRMP cre-
ated opportunities for shared problem solving before management consid-
erations ever entered the formal realm of consultation. In particular, Porter
(2006) notes that the WIRMP sought an ongoing conversation and means
for relationship building, even the in absence of specific projects or plans,
highlighting the importance of engagement that moves beyond instrumen-
tal transactions.

Pathology 6: Lack of Accountability and Transparency

Signs and Symptoms:

• lack of clear, measurable goals

• lack of timelines
• inability to consider biodiversity as a whole (i.e., single species
management)
• poor reporting
• lack of enforcement and repercussions for poor performance

Conceptually speaking, accountability is often used as a conceptual umbrella

for a series of evaluative steps related to “active responsibility,” including trans-
parency, responsiveness, equity, efficiency, and effectiveness (Bovens 2007) and
is often used interchangeably with “good governance.” There are many exam-
ples of mechanisms that flow under the guise of accountability at various levels
of governance in Canada. At the international level, parties to the UN CBD
must submit national reports every six years (submitted by ECCC). At F/P/T
levels, ministerial mandate letters and government accountability offices levels,
where they exist, represent formal, administrative types of accountability, the
latter of which various agencies are provided with the opportunity to respond
to. For example, in a recent audit of protected area performance in Ontario, the
auditor general of Ontario recently concluded that “Ontario lacks an overall
plan or long-term target and the staff it takes to protect the province’s parks
52 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

and other protected areas.” (Office of the Auditor General of Ontario 2020).
Finally, private conservation organizations, such as the Nature Conservancy of
Canada, are mostly held accountable to their donors through annual reports,
which represent financial statements and do not include aspects of conserva-
tion outcomes.
Although these types of mechanisms exist, we must ask whether organiza-
tions or officials who exercise public authority are subject to accountability at
all, as the mechanisms tend to be “soft” in the sense that there are very little
or no possibilities for sanctions – that is, there are no consequences for not
achieving goals and commitments. As our first Pathology indicates, laws should
matter. Some may argue that the role of law in conservation is of diminishing
importance and that future success lies primarily in the meaningful engage-
ment of conservation actors collaborating to forge common solutions based
on shared interests and a pooling of resources. While this is certainly relevant,
the reality is that conservation outcomes for which no agency or actor is legally
accountable are rarely achieved.
In considering the accountability issue, a nuanced consideration of the soci-
etal niche occupied by legislation suggests that laws should matter deeply and
that their impact on conservation should be dramatic. Legislation confers a
societal value or priority to one or more dimensions of conservation. It codifies
society’s conservation values and expectations, and it circumscribes acceptable
behaviours with respect to nature and its resources. In many instances, it has
created conservation institutions, such as the Canadian Wildlife Service (1947)
and COSEWIC (1977) at the federal level and the Environmental Bill of Rights
in Ontario (1993) at the provincial level.
This is of critical importance in understanding the accountability pathology
infecting conservation in Canada. In our view, most conservation theorists and
practitioners would likely agree that achieving conservation goals requires, in-
ter alia, the establishment of biodiversity focused programming, the collection,
storing, and sharing of ecosystem indicator information, the establishment of
effective and equitable decision-making systems, and rigorous and regular re-
porting of conservation program results to Canadians.
Unfortunately, despite some of the mechanisms noted in the first paragraph
of this section, no minister or her department is legally accountable to under-
take any of these initiatives. Perhaps most importantly, no conservation goals
or targets are set in law, and no F/P/T minister is required to report to Par-
liament or a provincial legislature regarding progress towards achieving con-
servation program goals. This creates problems with vertical and horizontal
aspects of accountability within and between F/P/T departments responsible
for biodiversity. Only the Oceans Act speaks to the need for integrated ecologi-
cal planning but, as noted in our first Pathology, implementation of the act has
been poor overall.
 A Pathological Examination of Conservation Failure in Canada 53

The consequence of this void is that much of the burden for accounta-
bility has fallen to NGOs, which have grown in number and power to drive
improvements in performance and to identify capacity gaps, a service that gov-
ernments are either unwilling, unable, or ineffectively provide (Lehman 2007;
Jepson 2005). Most prominently in Canada, the Canadian Parks and Wilder-
ness Society (CPAWS) has taken a lead role in holding the federal government
accountable for its terrestrial and marine protected areas effectiveness, while
WWF Canada has focused on biodiversity status and trends.
At the international level, while the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the
CBD have undertaken reviews, the impacts of these reviews in terms of step-
ping up and broadening action to implement the CBD and the Strategic Plan
for Biodiversity 2011–2020 are not reported, monitored, or tracked. It is not
known to what extent, if at all, they feed into subsequent (or ongoing) national
planning, implementation, monitoring, and reporting. In addition, the CBD
does not enforce any accountability on parties whatsoever, leaving countries to
report on the status of biodiversity and various conservation initiatives without
any form of peer review. The lack of a review process within the CBD leaves
little room to assess whether actions taken are really leading to improvements
in the status and trends of biodiversity (Lemieux et al. 2019).
The overall situation in Canada coalesces and accumulates to stifle inno-
vation in conservation. Problematically, the legal accountability risk of being
non-compliant with laws requiring setting biodiversity goals, advancing data
sharing, or establishing transparent and inclusive decision-making systems,
for example, are nil because there are no such requirements. Therefore, it
comes as no surprise that conservation regimes deflect to tried and true ap-
proaches and away from program initiatives or innovations which they are
not required to consider or support. These accountability deficiencies make it
difficult if not impossible to determine where conservation successes to em-
ulate and challenges to remedy lie and further impede conservation success
in Canada.

3. Conclusions

Twenty-five years ago, Holling and Meffe (1996) warned that institutions that
are dominated by cultures of control, resistance to new ideas, and unwillingness
to change contribute to on-going degradation of ecosystems. We have detailed
the many ways in which conservation in Canada is deeply affected by patho-
logical management and chronic organizational dysfunction. Treating these
pathologies will be painfully slow because, as we have detailed, dysfunctional
organizations have closed cultures, avoid risk, crave certainty, are not forward
thinking, and are not accountable because there is nothing to be accountable
for in law.
54 Lemieux, Groulx, Swerdfager, and Hagerman

The pathologies we detail have become so entrenched, there is little reason

to believe that they will change in the short- to medium-term. To learn, ap-
propriate lessons must be drawn about the specific type of failures involved
in past, present, and future biodiversity conservation policies and policy pro-
posals, and about all their program, process, and political sources. Effective
achievement of the UN CBD Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Frame-
work , the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the sce-
narios for the 2050 Vision of Biodiversity in Canada will require an integrated
mix of incremental and transformative adaptations in law and policy, action
plans aligned with reporting and monitoring, and more effective alignment
with other national initiatives related to climate change, human health and
well-being, and sustainable development, some of which are discussed in the
second half of this book.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This chapter was inspired by personal discussions on organizational patholo-

gies and management dysfunction with Dr. Paul A. Gray, a retired civil serv-
ant who dedicated his career to conserving our Home Place. Paul, you made a
difference.

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