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Landscape and Urban Planning 85 (2008) 49–59

Perceptions of landscape change in a rural British Columbia community

John L. Lewis ∗
School of Planning, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
Received 14 February 2007; received in revised form 23 July 2007; accepted 16 September 2007
Available online 5 November 2007

Abstract
As forest dependent communities throughout British Columbia transit from traditional timber dependence to alternative and sometimes less
extractive uses of the forest, the challenge for landscape managers is to plan change that respects the attachments that local stakeholders have
for their landscape. Examining local preferences and developing a fuller understanding of the dimensions or factors that local stakeholders use to
inform their assessment of landscape change is an essential part of developing future landscape management frameworks that have broad local
support. The following paper presents research conducted in the upper Skeena Valley of Northwest British Columbia, where local aboriginal
and non-aboriginal community members were asked to describe the factors that affected their evaluations of alternative landscape management
scenarios. In addition to engaging in a complex assessment of alternative consequences, participants provided lengthy commentaries on the cultural
appropriateness of particular landscape conditions, and conceptions of landscape care or ‘visible stewardship’.
© 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Landscape change; Perceptions; British Columbia

1. Introduction 2005; Satterfield, 2002). Landscape alterations that landscape

A significant challenge for landscape managers is designing
change that delivers commercially marketable products while
sustaining local livelihoods and maintaining the quality of expe-
rience for a wide range of users. A key feature of the current
policy environment in British Columbia is its increasing com-
plexity regarding decisions about the forest. In the past, relatively
few interests commanded attention in decisions about forest
management. Today a host of interests and perspectives demand
access and consideration in decision-making. For instance, in
British Columbia’s upper Skeena Valley (i.e. the study area for
this research, Fig. 1), Crown forests have contributed to the
traditional and material way-of-life of the indigenous Gitksan
community (pronounced git-san), and provided employment,
recreation and solitude for contemporary First Nations and Euro-
Canadian residents alike. As such, the effects of forest manage-
ment decisions can be felt by broad segments of a community.
Recent research provides some insight into how differing
groups perceive landscape change, and the potential meaning
and human consequences of that change (Lewis and Sheppard,
∗ Tel.: +1 519 888 4567x33185; fax: +1 519 725 2827.
E-mail address: j7lewis@fes.uwaterloo.ca.
ecologists or professional land managers may consider a basic
and necessary land management practice may be seen as a chal-
lenge to a community’s customary use of the landscape. On
the other hand, what landscape professionals may characterize
as unacceptable landscape alterations, such as the purposeful
burning of shrub vegetation, may be defined by local residents
as acceptable forms of land husbandry that are rooted in tradi-
tional subsistence or other material requirements. Thus, when
resource managers and related landscape professionals attempt
to balance differing conceptions of acceptable landscape change
they need to know how to respond in a manner that respects
landscape attachments of local stakeholders. Examining local
conceptions of acceptable change and developing a fuller under-
standing of the dimensions or factors that local stakeholders use
to form their assessment of landscape conditions is an essen-
tial part of developing landscape management alternatives that
can gain broad local support. One approach to this requirement
can be stated through the following research question: What are
the dimensions that local stakeholders consider in acceptability
evaluations of modified forest landscapes?
To develop a fuller understanding of these dimensions, the
relevant literature was reviewed and residents of the upper
Skeena Valley were interviewed to explain what landscape
change means to them. The broader focus of this research is

0169-2046/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2007.09.011
50 J.L. Lewis / Landscape and Urban Planning 85 (2008) 49–59
Fig. 1. The Upper Skeena watershed, British Columbia (map prepared by the
author using ArcGIS rel. 9).
not new. Prior studies have investigated stakeholder concep-
tions of acceptable landscape change (Kruger, 2005; Shindler et
al., 2002; Stankey, 1996), particularly within forest dependent
rural communities. In addition to documenting conceptions of
acceptable landscape change among a sample of aboriginal as
well as non-aboriginal participants, the following study differs
in one other key respect. In rural settings, where there has been
an historical dependence on the timber economy, studies often
(and for obvious reasons) focus on harvest patterns and silvicul-
tural treatments as the main drivers of landscape change (Clark
et al., 1999; Clausen and Schroeder, 2004). However, timber
management has not historically been the only factor influenc-
ing landscape change in British Columbia’s northwest and, as
the timber economy in this region of the province declines, it
is unlikely to be the sole driver of landscape change into the
future. Developing a fuller understanding of how local stake-
holders’ react to diverse patterns of landscape change is essential
as the economic evolution of many Northwest BC communities
moves from near exclusive timber dependence to a more diverse
spectrum of forest-based land-uses. Choices of landscape pat-
terns or combinations of patterns, and how local stakeholders
perceive them, are important for landscape managers working
in a socially diverse and rapidly evolving economic context.
2. Research setting and landscape history
Situated below the Alaska panhandle, the landscapes of the
upper Skeena Valley are exceptionally diverse (Fig. 2). The envi-
ronment through which much of the Skeena River passes is
Fig. 2. Upper Skeena communities and landscape setting (image courtesy of
Google Earth).
very mountainous, and only in the immediate vicinity of the
river is there any level land. Mountain slopes and valley floors
are heavily timbered, and only on the central plateau of the
Skeena’s eastern tributaries (i.e. the Kispiox and Bulkley rivers)
near Hazelton is there any open grazing country. Both historic
First Nations and more recent Euro-Canadian settlements have
concentrated along the southern extent of the river at or near
major river confluences. Stretching from Kitwanga in the west
to Hazelton in the east, the upper Skeena Valley lowlands are the
site of small-scale agriculture (mostly grazing and hay produc-
tion); vast deciduous forests of cottonwood, poplar and aspen;
and village and town settlements. This is the heart of the Gitksan
territories, as well as the confluence of the Skeena and Bulkley
rivers. These natural endowments provide access to BC’s coast
and interior by way of two major river corridors and a relatively
mild climate has made this part of the Northwest a natural choice
for habitation, as well as a vital nexus for trade among coastal
and interior First Nations peoples.
By most accounts, human induced landscape change in the
Pacific Northwest is a relatively recent occurrence as, it is
believed, the indigenous inhabitants did not improve, culti-
vate or enhance the productivity of their landscape prior to
European contact (Benedict, 1934; Flanagan, 2000). There is,
however, a growing body of evidence suggesting that the pre-
contact people of the region did in fact engage in some form
of landscape modification. Despite its poor (but growing) rep-
resentation in the historical ecology literature, there is clear
evidence among much of the coast and interior of British
Columbia (Gottesfeld-Johnson, 1994; Turner, 1999); Alberta
(Lewis, 1988); Washington, Oregon and California (Agee,
1993; Lewis, 1973) for the indigenous cultivation of Black
Huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum), Low-bush Blueberry
(Vaccinium caespitosum), Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus),
Soap Berry (Sheperdia canadensis) and other ‘ethnobotanical’
food plants through the controlled but large scale use of fire. In
effect, though the forest environments of the Northwest are host
to a rich variety of plant and wildlife resources, their availability
varies considerably both seasonally as well as geographically.
Thus, to overcome naturally occurring resource and nutritional
deficits, the pre-contact First Nations in the Northwest modified
 J.L. Lewis / Landscape and Urban Planning 85 (2008) 49–59
existing plant communities to provide nearby villages with sta-
ple foods that would otherwise have been dispersed too widely
to permit surplus accumulation.
This fire-based ‘cultivation’ is still somewhat debated (Baker,
2000; Lepofsky et al., 2003). However, there seems to be a grow-
ing consensus among fire ecologists and ethnoeologists that,
prior to European settlement, regular burning did maintain or
expand shrub and grassland ecosystems (Agee, 1993; Anderson,
1993; Bonnicksen, 2000; Boyd, 1999; Lewis, 1973; Lewis and
Ferguson, 1999; Johnson, 1999; Peacock and Turner, 2000).
The difficulty lies in finding absolute evidence because many
of these fires were frequent, low severity fires that do not leave
the same signatures as less frequent, more intense fires (Agee,
1993). Moreover, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, visible
evidence of First Nations plant cultivation gradually waned as
population pressures from European diseases, introduced agri-
cultural crops (i.e. potatoes), and fire prohibitions in the 1940s
by the BC Forest Service put a stop to most traditional landscape
burning practices (Parminter, 1995; Fig. 3).
Timber management did not replace indigenous plant culti-
vation and natural fire disturbance as the dominant sources of
landscape change until the 1970s as the demand for wood prod-
ucts from the Pacific Northwest exploded due in large part to the
post-war baby boom, the associated housing boom, sustained
economic growth, a westward shift in the national population,
and the expansion of transportation networks. Combined with
the entry of Japan onto the world stage as a major economic
engine and consumer of North American raw materials, the
demand for wood products from the more remote corners of
British Columbia began to mount, and regions such as the
Skeena Valley became commercially viable. Ultimately, to sat-
isfy this rising demand, forestry officials in British Columbia’s
Fig. 3. A photograph of the village of Kispiox taken in 1948, showing the west-
ern side of a portion of Skeena range. From interviews conducted by the author
in 2005, Gitksan elders identified the lightly colored areas (circled) as two berry
patches maintained by their parents and grandparents using controlled burns.
The size, elevation and western aspect is typical of many Black Huckleberry
patches within the Gitksan territories. Regrowth of the forest canopy over the last
six decades has rendered these patches indistinguishable from the surrounding
forest matrix (image courtesy of the BC Archives, Photo #I-21896).
51
Fig. 4. The visible remains of a clearcut from the region’s period of intensive
timber management in the 1970s and 80s (photo by the author).
Northwest shifted timber management policy from the more
conservative selective harvesting methods that were prevalent
during the inter-war and immediate post-war periods, to a
more aggressive and “efficient” approach based on clearcutting
(Weetman et al., 1990).
The legacy of this management philosophy has produced
large and often highly visible clearcut areas on mountainsides,
lakeshores and roadsides (Fig. 4). In consequence, forest man-
agement has been among the most visible and hotly debated
issues in the Northwest during the past two decades. The rapid
liquidation of old growth forests in the region led to locally and
internationally driven preservation movements that resulted in
significant logging reductions on provincially regulated Crown
lands. Perhaps the most significant contribution to the decline
of the forest sector in the Northwest is that, in the 1970s and
80s, regional foresters set up plans knowing that harvests would
drop precipitously as the Skeena’s stocks of merchantable tim-
ber could not keep pace with demands set by the province’s
annual allowable cut, leading to probable mill closures in the late
1990s (Anonymous BC Ministry of Forests Informant, personal
communication). Unfortunately, this is what happened. Harvests
collapsed at the end of the 1990s, not decisively because of envi-
ronmentalists or beetle infestations, but because planners set it
up that way, perhaps assuming that it was a reasonable price to
pay for getting the forests regulated as fast as possible.
Although timber management will not completely disappear
from the upper Skeena, change is likely to be a continuing
part of the region’s landscapes through the advent of a dif-
ferent economic sector, one that does not extract resources
in the conventional sense. This new sector in the Northwest’s
economy finds aesthetic, marketable values in the lofty moun-
tains, majestic views, and sprawling ‘pristine’ forests that have
become valuable both to exurban immigrants and roving tourists
alike (Chipeniuk, 2004). The same landscapes that were once
regarded as difficult to conquer are now valued for hiking, skiing,
camping, hunting and fishing, or simply living “close to nature”
(Chipeniuk, 2004). The influx of new residents and visitors to
the region come with expectations that impact the landscape. At
a general level, the expectations of tourists and newcomers alike
are for landscapes that are perceived as ‘natural’ or unmodified
by the kinds of land-uses that were characteristic of the North-
west’s history. Such expectations have pitted recent immigrants
against long-time residents (First Nations and Euro-Canadian
alike) who characterize natural settings as ‘unproductive’ to
52 J.L. Lewis / Landscape and Urban Planning 85 (2008) 49–59
the extent that they fail to provide the kinds of material ben-
efits that have historically sustained Northwest communities.
Ultimately, the landscape transformations that are occurring in
the Skeena Valley are causing many to worry about a new host
of impacts and conflicts—i.e. loss of livelihood, overcrowding,
habitat reduction, incompatible land-uses, etc.
3. Methods
A case study approach (Miles and Huberman, 1994; de Vaus,
2001) was used to examine perceptions of acceptable land-
scape change within the physical and social context of the
upper Skeena valley. Qualitative interview data were collected
primarily because it would allow for an open and unbiased explo-
ration of the participants’ responses to the interview question
– What are the dimensions that local stakeholders consider in
acceptability evaluations of modified forest landscapes – largely
unconstrained by the researcher’s own preconceptions. In gen-
eral, qualitative data collection methods are often used to provide
‘rich’ or detailed descriptions of concepts or ideas that are rel-
evant to the research participants and, therefore, grounded in
the data that is collected from them and other sources (Geertz,
1973).
The sampling strategy used to identify suitable research par-
ticipants can best be described as purposive (Henderson, 1991;
Johnson, 1990). Commonly used in qualitative research, purpo-
sive sampling is based on the notion that in order to gain the
most insight into a particular phenomenon, a sample needs to
be selected that can provide the most relevant and insightful
information. Ultimately, criteria were needed that would make
the participant selection process focused, appropriate, system-
atic and logistically manageable. Criteria for the selection of
participants were of two general types. The first of these (Cri-
teria 1), refer to the innate abilities or characteristics of the
participants. In essence, participants were sought who, in the
estimation of key informants, have a demonstrated willingness
to co-operate with researchers and possess good communication
abilities. Implicit in both factors was the desire to select partic-
ipants who would be at ease with the research experience, who
would be comfortable in articulating their perceptions of the
world, and would do so in a manner that honestly reflects their
ideas and beliefs. Encompassed within Criteria 1 are Spradley’s
(1979) conceptions of a good participant who not only knows
their culture well, but also is willing to communicate about his
or her world.
In terms of Criteria 2, key informants were asked to
recommend participants with a recognized interest in forest
management. In effect, people were sought who are known by
members of their community to be concerned about the cur-
rent and future condition of the region’s forests, and who may
play an active role in expressing their concerns through formal
channels (e.g. public meetings, citizen committees, newspapers,
etc.), as well as informal channels of communication (e.g. cof-
fee klatches, social clubs, etc.). Although participants with a
high level of engagement and interest in local planning issues
may not be statistically representative of the larger population,
it can be argued that they are potential leaders and influential
in local planning processes. They therefore, provide appropriate
and illustrative data for a case study that will shed light on the
dimensions of landscape preference within this and similar pop-
ulations. Those participants who are most interested in a given
subject matter also tend to be the most accurate and reliable in
their reporting of issues and perceptions. This is consistent with
the conventional wisdom in ethnographic research that ‘key’ or
active people make good participants (Spradley, 1979).
From an initial list of 35 participants, based on key informant
and network referrals, and personal introductions, 30 people
consented to participate in the research (15 First Nations and
15 Euro-Canadians, reflecting the roughly equal representation
of First Nations and Euro-Canadians in the broader community).
For qualitative research designs, Austin (1994) recommends
a sample size of 8–10 participants per sample group when
using semi-structured interviews (Miles and Huberman, 1994).
According to McCracken (1988: 35), the first principle of par-
ticipant selection in qualitative research is that “less is more.”
In effect, it is important to work longer, and with greater care,
with a few people than superficially with many of them. In addi-
tion, the sufficiency of the participant group was assessed, in
part, according to Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) theoretical guide-
line for ending the data collection phase of the study—i.e. the
appearance of regularities in the data. It was determined that,
due to the repetition of information in the interviews, additional
information from other community members would yield little
new information of use to the research.
The study involved multiple data collection methods, includ-
ing: (1) review of documentary material (e.g. scientific reports,
deputations to government hearings, and court transcripts); (2)
attending meetings and informal discussions at community
events; (3) accompanying community members into the field
to visit sites affected by timber and non-timber forest products
management; and (4) conducting semi-structured interviews
with study participants. In addition to photography and field
notes, the bulk of the data came from the recorded interviews.
These primarily one-on-one, in depth interviews were guided
by a list of questions, enabling researcher responses to ideas as
they arose, so as to explore more fully the perspectives of each
participant (Merriam, 1988).
A form of photo-elicitation was employed in discussions with
the upper Skeena participants (Ball and Smith, 1992; Collier and
Collier, 1999; Harper, 1994). Visual materials can be useful in
semi-structured interviews since they can help participants elu-
cidate perceptions or concepts that may otherwise be difficult to
articulate. They can also enhance the participant’s comfort with
the interview process by shifting focus away from the participant
and towards a common reference point for both researcher and
participant. To elicit participant evaluations of hypothetical (i.e.
non-existent) landscape change scenarios, computer generated
(Visual Nature StudioTM , Release 2), photo-realistic simula-
tions of the upper Skeena landscape were employed depicting a
range of alternative landscape conditions (see Lewis, 2006 for a
more detailed description). Existing-condition photography was
obtained from three viewpoints identified with community mem-
bers, which represented sites that are both accessible and familiar
to most upper Skeena residents (Sheppard, 1989, 2001a). Four
 J.L. Lewis / Landscape and Urban Planning 85 (2008) 49–59 53

Fig. 5. Aboriginal fire management simulations. Fig. 6. Industrial timber management simulations.

landscape change scenarios were simulated for each viewpoint

location (i.e. 12 images total, see Figs. 5–8). These repre-
sented possible future conditions in the upper Skeena’s forested
landscapes, based on the reintroduction of historic manage-
ment regimes and probable changes in the social and economic
foundations of the region. For the scenarios that represented his-
torical conditions, physical patterns that allowed the researcher
to reproduce the past appearance of the Skeena Valley (as closely
as possible) were obtained from archival photography of the
Skeena landscape maintained by the provincial archives in Vic-
toria, descriptions of the Skeena region written in the 19th and
early 20th centuries by surveyors (Dawson, 1881; Poudrier,
1891, 1893) and Christian missionaries (Tomlinson, 1993), and
interviews with local aboriginal and non-aboriginal elders. The
assumptions on which the future appearance of the Skeena
landscape was predicated were derived from landscape ecol-
ogy specialists in Northwest British Columbia’s transition-zone
landscapes (Haeussler et al., 1985) and local forestry officials.
Pre-tests were conducted with key informants and a sample
of eight Gitksan and Euro-Canadian participants to ensure the
clarity and credibility of the following simulated landscape sce-
narios (Sheppard, 2001a):

• Scenario 1 (Fig. 5), Aboriginal Fire Management: assumes the

reintroduction of traditional burning practices by local First
Nations for the management of ethnobotanical food prod-
ucts – i.e. berries, root crops, wildlife browse, etc. – based
on growing demands to diversify the local economy through
the management of non-timber forest products, as well as a Fig. 7. Multi-Use Forest Management simulations.
54 J.L. Lewis / Landscape and Urban Planning 85 (2008) 49–59
Fig. 8. Natural condition simulations.
renewed interest by indigenous communities in the manage-
ment of traditional resources.
• Scenario 2 (Fig. 6), Industrial Timber Management: posits
that large scale clearcutting may be reintroduced to suppress
the proliferation of beetle infestations, provide incomes for
local residents, as well as to control ‘decadent’ overmature
stands.
• Scenario 3 (Fig. 7), Multi-Use Forest Management: assumes
that timber management will continue to be a part of the
upper Skeena’s future, albeit at a reduced scale and with
a different landscape footprint. As new residents enter the
region seeking a bucolic rural lifestyle, forestry will need
to compete with aesthetic interests and forest uses that are
increasingly varied. The scenario depicts timber harvest open-
ings that emulate natural disturbance patterns, and which
coincide with range management, ethnobotanical products
management (i.e. burning), and intensive riparian protection.
• Scenario 4 (Fig. 8), Natural Condition: assumes that the
region’s forestry sector will continue to decline and even-
tually be replaced by non-extractive, recreational land-uses.
The scenario reflects a desire for visually pristine landscapes
by allowing natural processes to determine dominantly the
course of landscape patterns and processes.
The interviews began with a general discussion of the partic-
ipants’ perceptions of their environment and relationship to the
forest landscape. Participants were then shown the simulations
of the alternative forest conditions, in order to stimulate discus-
sion. The interview schedule prompted discussion of important
landscape features and evaluations of the alternative conditions.
Interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed and, together with
the researchers’ field notes, subjected to a form of qualitative
content analysis, based on the Constant Comparative Method
(Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Goetz and LeCompte, 1984). The data
were organized into a research database by iterative readings,
development of a list of initial themes, and sorting comments
into groups. These eventually emerged as conceptual categories
or final themes used by the participants’ in their evaluations of
the forest conditions. Interview transcripts were returned to the
participants, and community members were invited to review
interpretations of the data, as a verification review for accu-
racy.
4. Results
Based on their appraisals of the simulated landscape condi-
tions, the participants were able to describe at length the factors
that influenced their acceptability judgments. In general, three
dominant themes appeared to affect the participants’ landscape
appraisals:
1. Perceived Balance of Impacts,
2. Perceptions of Cultural Disturbance,
3. Perceptions of Care or ‘Visible Stewardship’.
4.1. Balance of impacts
Consistent with the broader field of social acceptabil-
ity research (Kruger, 2005; Stankey, 1996; Schindler et al.,
2002), participant appraisals addressed the perceived balance
of impacts associated with the different landscape conditions.
In effect, the participants engaged in a complex evaluation of
multiple consequences when evaluating the simulated condi-
tions. As the comments discussed below attest, considerations
of scenic quality factored into the participants’ evaluations, but
they also discussed what is right for natural – i.e. erosion poten-
tial, habitat protection, etc. – and human communities – i.e.
material livelihood, resource waste, public relations, etc. It was
difficult to gauge whether the participants carried out a rudimen-
tary form of multi-criterion analysis. However, the complexity
of their evaluations and effort to consider multiple issues within
the context of a single response is illustrated by the following
interview comment:
FN14: That’s what strikes me first about this picture. It’s not
very cosmetic, but they’ve left the mountainsides alone. It’s
all a matter of, if you’re looking at it just like fibre, fibre,
fibre then that’s no good. There would be massive seepage
into the creeks, and stuff like that. I’ve seen a lot of graze-
lands up the Kispiox Valley where’s there’s absolutely no
in-stream vegetation, and the fish populations there have just
been decimated. And here, what if you want to go shoot a
moose, or what if you just want to walk through a nice for-
est? Yeah, there’s other values there besides the fibre. (Similar
comments expressed by 5 other participants.)
For many participants, the large-scale harvest patterns
depicted by the Industrial and, to some extent, the Multi-Use
 J.L. Lewis / Landscape and Urban Planning 85 (2008) 49–59
conditions reflected the management style that predominated in
the region during the last 30 years and, from their perspective,
failed to balance important forest attributes. In general, com-
ments pertaining to both conditions reflected a common tension
between conflicting material uses of the forest – e.g. the forest as
a source of economic timber wealth, subsistence or non-timber
forest products – and comments that addressed either the scenic
quality of the landscape or its intrinsic importance for wildlife
and aquatic habitat:
EC11: . . .to me, you’ve got a larger visual impact because
of the clearcuts, and then for wildlife. If you have smaller
clearcuts it’s better for wildlife . . . and just for public relations
too. (Similar comments expressed by 7 other participants.)
While comments of this sort were anticipated for the indus-
trial condition, participant evaluations of the Multi-Use harvest
treatments were slightly more surprising. Despite the ‘naturalis-
tic’ cutblock configurations, several participants focused on the
large openings and effectively dismissed the attempt to soften the
visual imprint through patch retention, smaller openings (40 ha
and less), as well as irregular and feathered edges arguing, in
effect, that “a clearcut’s a clearcut”:
FN10: I’m a little more comfortable with this, but not much.
These are still clearcuts. (Similar comments expressed by 6
other participants.)
More directly, a group of First Nations and Euro-Canadian
participants who depend on the forest for income from trap-
ping, argued that clearcutting in any form – i.e. using geometric
or naturalistic patterns – represents a threat to their material or
subsistence livelihoods. In effect, the Industrial and Multi-Use
treatments provide insufficient cover for small fur bearing ani-
mals, and the degree to which the conditions destroy habitat or
render valued species vulnerable to higher levels of predation
from other animals or recreational hunters, clearly affected their
judgments:
FN1: if that’s a trapline, and if it’s your trapline, you’d be
pretty well heartbroken. Like I say, the animals don’t go in
anything that’s charcoaled or if there’s nothing there to feed
on.
EC8: . . .if you do this, you’re asking for trouble. This isn’t
going to stay anyways. It’s all just going to get washed out.
We harvest and eat a lot of fish up here and this is one of
the places they come up to lay their eggs. (Similar comments
expressed by 6 other participants.)
Addressing multiple values is an important principle in the
management of Crown lands in British Columbia, and the evi-
dence presented here reinforces the salience of balanced use to
the Skeena participants. Rural communities approach landscape
management with some sophistication in the breadth of issues
that they consider. What this ultimately means for landscape
managers is that they will need to work with local communi-
ties with more than a policy manual or guidebook approach
to landscape management. Instead, landscape managers ought
to come equipped with some awareness of local circumstances
55
such as the biophysical setting, prior land use history and, as
the following discussion of aboriginal burn treatments attests,
the cultural context in which the landscape modification is pro-
posed.
4.2. Perceptions of cultural disturbance
Participant evaluations of the burnt portions of the Multi-Use
and Pre-Industrial conditions tended to elicit a broad range of
opinions from comments that largely focused on material con-
siderations, to expressions of concern or support that were rooted
in competing notions of cultural identity. Comments that favored
the burn treatments were generally of two types. The first empha-
sized the material benefits associated with the management of
non-timber products, underscoring both the dietary and poten-
tial economic benefits that the community may realize from the
cultivation of berries and other forest-based food products (e.g.
wild mushrooms). In many cases, however, preferences for the
burn conditions was qualified by reflections on the scale of the
disturbances and the practical necessity of large berry patches
for small communities:
EC4: . . .it’s pretty positive, I think. You’re feeding people,
and it’s local and it’s high quality. But boy it looks like
a big burnt area. (Similar comments expressed by 8 other
participants.)
The second group of comments suggested that ethnicity
mediates landscape appraisals, at least to the extent that the land-
scape condition being considered is an embodiment of cultural
identity. For some of the First Nations participants, the rein-
troduction of berry cultivation would not only be conducive to
a healthier lifestyle, but would also reinforce culturally based
patterns of land-use:
FN12: . . .it’s cultural and it’s cultural in that the Gitksan, and
in other areas the Wetsuweten, have through the generations
made use of non-timber forest resources. I think it’s important
that we continue to have access to those values, to those
activities, to those areas within our own traditional lands.
(Similar comments expressed by 5 other participants.)
In part, the reintroduction of aboriginal burning to the upper
Skeena valley may serve as a marker of First Nations culture
through the visible imprint that traditional land uses may leave
on the landscape. On a more abstract level, activities themselves
(i.e. the harvesting of traditional food plants) are capable of forg-
ing intimate bonds between settings and people who possess a
distinct ethnic identity (Lewis and Sheppard, 2005). In effect,
people who have historically been rooted to and derived their
livelihood from the land will often characterize their relation-
ship with the landscape in terms of “the earth is part of us” or
“we are the land, and the land is us” (Lewis, 2000). These sen-
timents tended to be a common refrain among the First Nations
participants.
For other participants, considerations of ethnicity factored
into their evaluations mostly to the extent that ethnobotanical
products management by local First Nations would be a waste-
ful use of resources. Euro-Canadian participants who remain
56 J.L. Lewis / Landscape and Urban Planning 85 (2008) 49–59
actively employed in the local forest industry provided the most
vocal expressions of opposition to the burn treatments. Initially,
most of these participants quickly recognized the scorched col-
oration displayed by the simulations as an indication of some
form of burning and concluded that these were clearcuts that
had subsequently been broadcast burned:
EC9: I think it’s an acceptable management tool. Fire has
always been a natural part of forest disturbance up here any-
way. (Similar comments expressed by 4 other participants.)
However, these assessments changed with the knowledge
that the burn patterns reflected aboriginal food plant cultivation
rather than timber management. The four Euro-Canadian partici-
pants who had formerly supported the use of fire as a silvicultural
tool, appeared to base their concerns on the appropriateness of
aboriginal burning and, in particular, on the competence of First
Nations as fire managers:
EC9: I think that it’s not two hundred years ago now, that we
know enough and there’s enough value in that timber that it
would be stupid to burn it just to make some huckleberries.
You see I take issue with the idea that anything the Indians do
is just automatically good because they’re so in touch with the
land because they’re Indians. (Similar comments expressed
by 4 other participants.)
Whether these statements are rooted in competing and ques-
tionable notions of cultural identity (i.e. they are our forests
to manage and no longer belong to the ‘Indians’), or simply
expressions of concern regarding the reintroduction of forest
management practices that have unknown risks, are questions
that were not explored in greater depth through the interviews.
I am inclined to think that both factors may have contributed to
this noteworthy reversal of opinion by a handful of the Euro-
Canadian participants.
Other participants offered interesting suggestions on the
potential for non-timber products management as a visible
marker of active use and care for the forest landscape:
EC14: Well when it’s clearcut, companies just come in, take
the logs and then just disappear. At least this way, with peo-
ple on the land harvesting and tending to the berry patches,
people may actually start caring for these areas. (Similar
comments expressed by 3 other participants.)
Conventional timber management suffers from the public per-
ception that, once the resource has been removed from the land,
little (visible) interest or effort is expended into caring for the
landscape to ensure that it will remain healthy and productive. As
one participant described it, forestry appears to be characterized
by a “make a quick dollar and just grab it and run (FN 7)” style
of land management. Cultivating non-timber resources may be
one means of providing a continuous stream of benefits from
the landscape while the timber ‘crop’ grows, which ultimately
places people on the land throughout the rotation and provides
a visible human presence that reflects ongoing stewardship and
care. This approach to ‘Visible Stewardship’ (Sheppard, 2001b)
is discussed in more detail in the following subsection and in the
concluding remarks.
4.3. Perceptions of care or visible stewardship
Despite the overwhelming preference for natural landscapes,
most participants expressed a pragmatism that affirmed the
need for forest management largely to maintain the region’s
standard of living. In effect, without returning to the con-
ditions of the last 20–30 years, there was an unambiguous
sense that forest management will remain an important part of
the upper Skeena’s economic future, and that ‘pristine’ land-
scapes such as those depicted by the Natural scenario do not
appropriately reflect the social and economic reality of the
region:
FN5: I would prefer this, but it’s not natural the way we
live nowadays. You know. You have to create employment
you have to live. (Similar comments expressed by 7 other
participants.)
However, recognizing the need for timber management of
some form, a consistent statement made in reference to the
Industrial and Multi-Use conditions was the degree to which
they failed to demonstrate proper care for the forest:
FN10: I think all this multiple-use stuff needs to be done
with care because even the thinning where they do selective
logging, because of things like mushrooms and medicinal
plants, treat them with respect. (Similar comments expressed
by 4 other participants.)
When pressed to explain how they would recognize a care-
fully managed forest, some First Nations pointed to the burn
treatments in the Multi-Use and Pre-Industrial condition to sug-
gest that the smaller patchwork pattern of burning approximated
the traditional practice of rotating burn treatments:
FN4: When the old people did this (i.e. burn for berries) they
used to burn off one area and leave the area nearby to grow
and produce berries. Kind of like they do on a farm, you know,
they would rotate the crop. Why can’t forestry do that? Why
do they have to take everything and leave nothing behind for
the other plants and animals? (Similar comments expressed
by 4 other participants.)
There is some evidence that aboriginal berry patches were
managed according to a rotating system of applying fire to
a subsection of a much larger berry producing area (Trusler,
2002). Only after a ‘sub-patch’ had reached its peak production
capability would it be burned (usually, after 5–10 years of pro-
duction), allowing the rhizome base beneath the soil to sprout
more vigorous and productive shoots. While recently burned
areas regenerate and reach a subsequent phase of peak produc-
tion, adjacent areas that were burned 3–5 years earlier are fully
productive and harvested for their fruit crop. In this manner,
berry cultivation areas are maintained in a constant state of food
production. From the perspective of both First Nations and Euro-
Canadian participants, emulating this pattern of traditional land
management would embody ‘care’ to the extent that the dis-
turbances are smaller than conventional timber cutblocks, the
periodic burning of overmature vegetation returns nutrients to
the soil and, moreover, a regular and more sustained presence
 J.L. Lewis / Landscape and Urban Planning 85 (2008) 49–59
on the landscape may suggest that the forest is actively being
tended:
EC14: To me, it would be nice to see that these areas are being
cared for. . . . At least this way, with people on the land har-
vesting and tending to the berry patches, people may actually
start caring for these areas. (Similar comments expressed by
6 other participants.)
For many of the First Nations and Euro-Canadian partici-
pants, selective stem removal represented the most obvious and
preferred approach to careful land management. However, some
Euro-Canadian participants expressed views that were consis-
tent with their First Nations counterparts in that a sustained and
visible human presence on the landscape would embody care.
Among this group, suggestions for how to accomplish this var-
ied from erecting built structures (e.g. silvicultural camps or
growth monitoring stations) to direct community involvement
in the restoration of damaged landscapes or recently harvested
areas:
EC14: . . .it might be good to see some kind of building or
permanent camp set up in areas that have been disturbed. That
way you could see that someone is looking after the area.
EC15: Why not just get people out there looking after the
land? I mean, if you have people involved in looking after
their backyard wouldn’t that go a long way towards making
people feel better about how the forest is managed? (Similar
comments expressed by 5 other participants.)
A few observations are worth noting about these comments.
First, there is a clear recognition that humans are dependent on
the environment and that some visible alteration of the forest
is to be both expected and regarded as part of the ‘natural con-
dition.’ Indeed, as one participant remarked, upon coming to
the region 40 years ago, the desire to see untrammeled nature
was tempered after several years by the realization that, whether
for timber, grazing lands or berries, human beings have in var-
ious ways transformed the landscapes of the Skeena valley for
generations:
EC15: I guess when I came here as a young guy I expected to
see more of a wilderness, and it really got to me, you know,
how the forest was being abused. But I guess with age I’ve
either just mellowed or come to the realization that using
the forest is what makes this area tick. (Similar comments
expressed by 2 other participants.)
Second, where participants express a desire to see forest man-
agement conducted according to a standard of care, that standard
may have its basis in familiar or culturally recognizable patterns
of land stewardship. For instance, for some First Nations partic-
ipants, care is implicit in the traditional pattern of berry patch
rotation. Similarly, for the Euro-Canadian participants, care is
seen largely through built structures and people present on and
actively tending to the land, perhaps reflecting a more Euro-
pean conception of agricultural management. The implications
of these findings for landscape management and research are
addressed in the following discussion.
57
5. Discussion: implications for landscape planning and
research
A few basic caveats need to be stated before interpreting
these exploratory study results. The participants selected for this
study are from a local context and, as such, their perceptions
may not reflect broader or more systemic landscape manage-
ment issues (e.g. the value of forest resources to the provincial
economy), or the landscape management perceptions of British
Columbians in other regions of the province. In addition to being
locally derived, the sample of participants is small when com-
pared to most quantitative studies, and was purposively selected.
Therefore, the results cannot be statistically generalized to other
communities in British Columbia (or elsewhere) and should be
replicated in another community setting. In addition, the possi-
bility cannot be ruled out that, enabled by the semi-structured
qualitative process, our explanations of the landscape conditions
and questioning may have inadvertently influenced the prefer-
ence responses. However, given the measures taken to minimize
this possibility (e.g. participant review of transcripts and the
research report) and, as revealed by repeated examinations of
the interview transcripts, the disclosure of interview questions,
and lack of obvious bias in the questioning, this explanation for
the responses that emerged seems unlikely.
However, there appears to be a strong degree of analytic gen-
eralizability (Miles and Huberman, 1994: pp. 27–8) as some
patterns of landscape evaluation are clear and broadly consistent
with other forest landscape evaluation and social acceptabil-
ity studies (Kruger, 2005). For instance, participant comments
demonstrated that multiple factors are brought to bear in the
evaluation of alternative landscape conditions. The complexity
of participant appraisals is reflected in the attention to visual
factors, but they also care about how natural and human com-
munities will be affected by landscape alterations. Sustaining
multiple values in landscape management is an important prin-
ciple in the management of British Columbia’s Crown forests,
and the salience of balanced use to the Skeena participants rein-
forces its significance. No matter how harvest methods appear
from a visual quality perspective, landscape managers will still
need to address stakeholders’ concerns for a range of multi-
ple and locally salient issues such as the location and extent of
harvest operations and effects on non-timber resources (Lewis,
2006). The importance of fish, wildlife and plant harvests to
both the residents First Nations and Euro-Canadian populations
was a common refrain in the interview comments, and the future
of landscape management in the upper Skeena will need to pay
considerable attention to the integrity of these important values.
Balancing trade offs between desirable and undesirable
outcomes among multiple forest users will invariably make
landscape management in the upper Skeena valley more of
a diplomatic than a technical exercise. Further complicating
matters for landscape managers is the finding that landscape
appraisals may depend to an important degree on the type of
knowledge that is activated at the moment of judgment (Ribe,
2006; Kearney, 2001). This was most clearly demonstrated by
the Euro-Canadian forest workers who changed their generally
favorable reactions to the simulated burn treatments with the
58 J.L. Lewis / Landscape and Urban Planning 85 (2008) 49–59
added information that the conditions reflected traditional pat-
terns of aboriginal berry cultivation rather than a conventional
silvicultural practice. In effect, the same landscape condition can
be associated with different responses, depending on the partic-
ular knowledge that is contextually activated at the moment of
judgment. In other words, the findings reported in this study pro-
vide some support for the argument that evaluations of landscape
change may be information induced or situationally dependent
(Kearney, 2001). A nascent body of research in forest man-
agement has documented the effects of information on public
perceptions of forestry treatments, and research from fields as
diverse as psychology and political science have demonstrated
that the amount of information, prior experience with the attitude
object, and the salience of information to particular audiences
can have significant effects on preference formation and expres-
sion (Althaus, 1998; Davidson et al., 1985). On the basis of this
study alone, it would be premature to derive theoretical insights
or practical guidelines addressing information effects in the area
of landscape management. By including larger participants sam-
ples, more diverse landscape types and controlled variation of the
content and amount of information presented to research partic-
ipants, future studies may gain more insight into the moderating
effect of knowledge and information in landscape appraisals.
Although landscape evaluations appear to be contextually
dependent, a more definite finding is the notion that landscapes
themselves convey information and that people actively seek
information when they experience a landscape (Nassauer, 1995;
Sheppard, 2001b). In effect, from natural as well as relatively
developed or urbanized landscapes, people “expect to see the
look of human intention” and, in particular the degree to which
a landscape is perceived to be well cared for. For the upper
Skeena Valley participants, there was a clear desire to see that
forest companies and the provincial government are managing
the forest with care:
FN13: I’d like to see more care in how they design the blocks,
the cutblocks, or how they take measures to protect riparian
areas or areas which, this has wildlife.
While the finding that people desire to see signs of care-
ful human intention in the landscape is not new, particularly as
it is reflected in selective patterns of timber removal such as
retention harvesting and riparian leave strips, it was unexpected
to find that the participants preferred or wished to see forest
landscapes with a visible human presence such as built struc-
tures in forest openings, or indications of short-term ‘domestic’
cultivation and management (e.g. rotating harvest and ‘fallow’
patches with interim uses such as berry cultivation). In terms of
the latter pattern, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal participants
equated the ‘cultivatedness’ of the berry management patterns
with human intention and with a deliberate, sustained and, there-
fore, careful approach to landscape management. For the First
Nations who expressed a preference for the latter form of visible
stewardship, their preferences were clearly rooted in a culturally
recognizable pattern of land management. This finding resonates
with Nassauer’s hypothesis that standards of care are predicated
on culturally based expectations and recognizable patterns of
husbanded landscape form (Nassauer, 1995). Future research
will need to investigate more thoroughly perceptions of differ-
ing patterns of short-term cultivation in the forest landscape,
how perceptions of these patterns vary inter and intra-culturally,
and how information about these patterns affects acceptability
judgments.
The finding that people evaluate the acceptability of land-
scape treatments in terms of indications of human intentionality
and stewardship is highly relevant to decision making in the con-
text of visual management policy. With regard to the assessment
of visual interests, the finding that these may be assessed in
a relatively objective manner through physical manifestations
of careful stewardship suggests that it is feasible to develop
practically applicable visual assessment frameworks based on
objective landscape characteristics that reflect local concerns.
However, before engaging in costly endeavors to adapt visual
assessment frameworks, policy-makers and planners may first
want to know how important visual indicators of care are to local
communities, and how they may design landscapes to accom-
modate expectations of visible stewardship. By including larger
samples of forest landscapes, or perhaps a broader range of mod-
ified landscape conditions than the four employed here, future
studies may attempt to validate the present research findings and
potentially gain more insight into the role and nature of physical
indications of care in landscape evaluations.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to gratefully acknowledge the anonymous
reviewers for their comments on draft versions of this manuscript
and, in particular, the participation and contribution of the Gitk-
san First Nation and residents of Hazelton, South Hazelton, New
Hazelton, Kisipiox, Kitwanga, Gitsegukla and Gitanyow in the
conduct of this research. I also wish to acknowledge the finan-
cial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada.
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