Wednesday April 19th
Session A: Environment
Shared visions, shared prairies: contemporary attempts to conserve wilderness in the grasslands of Saskatchewan
Human modifications of prairie ecosystems over the past century-and-a-half have produced the ‘most humanly-modified’ natural region in Canada.  The paper explores recent measures to restore wilderness through the combined efforts of environmentalists, NGOs, land-users, government specialists and land-use planners.  Success depends crucially on adaptability, cooperation, compromise and vision. 
Ken Atkinson (University of Leeds)
 Foe, friend and fragility: evolving settler interactions with the inland wilderness of Newfoundland from early settlement to the present
To the first European settlers the Newfoundland interior seemed a foe; nature dominated fragile people: daunting, trackless, yet with care capable of supplying some necessities of life in that harsh location. To contemporary Newfoundlanders the interior seems a friend; nature, now dominated, allows adventure from hiking to hunting, the tracklessness overcome by snowmobiles, atvs and helicopters. Ironically this has turned the tables: the erstwhile terrifying wilderness is now the fragile party; we pose the question - can a lasting balance be developed, turning foes into friends, protecting the fragilities of people and nature?
David N. Collins (University of Leeds)