Bozeman News

Author to speak on his transboundary research

Conservation Across Political Borders, What’s the Possibility?

By Lucia Stewart, 1-25-07

While completing his master’s thesis on microbiology work in Yellowstone National Park, Charlie Chester overheard an interesting conversation arising, something called the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y).

Chester became intrigued by its stance of bringing to the round table conservationists and scientists broad foundation of knowledge stretching from Yellowstone National Park, across the 49th parallel of our political boundary with Canada and up the flanks of the Rocky Mountains into the Yukon.

He decided to complete his doctoral dissertation on the idea of creating conversation and cooperation across political boundaries while protecting wildlife across an entire landscape. For five years, he studied two groups, Y2Y and the International Sonoran Desert Alliance (ISDA), therefore being able to compare and contrast their effectiveness, efficiency, philosophies, members and networks.

On tour in Bozeman and Missoula, Chester is appearing with his comprehensive book Conservation Across Borders, Biodiversity in an Interdependent World, and discussing transborder conservation.

New West briefly caught up with him and asked him few questions.

What is the basis of Y2Y?

“Y2Y is special in that it’s the only place in North America where all the original species are present, including those who have been referred to as charismatic mega-faunas by conservationists. Their arc type is the African elephant or the panda bear. In Y2Y, they are icons of the American Wilderness, the grizzly bear and the wolf. In fact, it’s why many conservationists and scientists are involved.

“If you look at America into Canada and Mexico from 1800 to 2000, there is a big swath of grizzly bear habitat that disappeared into isolated island population. As the century wore on, you found the populations that were linked out were just disappearing.

“Localized remnant populations in Sierra Madres, New Mexico and Colorado then too disappeared. The last remaining island population is the in the Yellowstone ecosystem.  Y2Y is about is about trying to ensure that the isolated population doesn’t remain an isolated population and those grizzly bears will be genetically connected. That is one the things Y2Y is about.”

What do towns such as Bozeman and Missoula playing into the Y2Y initiative?

“What Y2Y has done, is it gives people an idea of what needs to be on a landscape level and why they’re part of the world is an important part to this broader landscape.

“In the early 1900, scientists were looking at maps and figuring out place like Bozeman Pass had to be protected because they are needed for genetic connectivity. They become large islands if you cut off those areas, like what Yellowstone National Park would be without the Centennial Mountains to the west.

“And so what Y2Y did was provide those conservationists with why it was so important to protect Bozeman Pass. It didn’t mean protection for grizzly bear but their place up and down the spine of Rockies. What Y2Y does is help us realize that two sides of the border hang onto two cultural icons, ours being the first National Park and in Canada, it’s the Yukon. Y2Y embodies the cultural icons of national identity.”

You researched in depth the history of the environmental conservation movement across borders, did you find anything to be an interesting discovery?

“One of the things that are not a factor in North America as in rest of the world is that people see protected areas as neocolonialism, as people trying to contextualize the resources of the third world. Many take conservation as locking away their resources for the first world. They think conservationists are saying, ‘You can’t use your resources because we have to protect them from yourself.’

“I found out that when it actual comes to implementing conservation across boundaries, you have to think beyond protected areas. What is going to happen to the communities outside the parks boundaries? How’s it going to influence their economy, politics and cultural of the local communities on a domestic level? You can’t think it’s only times two. Communication raised by greater then a factor of 2 when you start to grapple with those issues.”

Charlie Chester will be speaking in:

Bozeman: Thursday, January 25th at the Emerson Cultural Center in the Weaver Room, 6 pm.
Missoula: Friday, January 26th, at the University of Montana at 4 pm.

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