| This qualitative study is a critical analysis of the Northern East Slopes (NES) Strategy, a regional planning initiative in Alberta, Canada. In addition to evaluating the quality of the involvement of environmental organizations and Aboriginal groups in the NES Strategy, this study used the concept of network governance to characterize state-society relations in Alberta's environmental policy network more generally. Semi-structured, one-on-one interviews with over fifty key informants and a review of NES Strategy documents revealed that the close, facilitative relationship of industry and government in Alberta resulted in the forestry and oil and gas industries playing a central role in the Strategy. Environmental organizations and aboriginal groups faced various barriers to meaningful participation in the Strategy, including the narrow scope of the Strategy that largely excluded ecocentric perspectives; inappropriate mechanisms for Aboriginal representation and participation; and a lack of trust on the part of both groups in government-led initiatives. A key conclusion of this study is that the policy process in this case was tightly controlled to produce a pre-determined set of pro-development outcomes, with minimal opportunity for public influence over the process. |
