The environment has long been viewed as a policy priority area for Canada: once seen as a boundless resource of raw materials, the need to sustain and conserve has grown in significance along with increasing concern about environmental change. The notion of the environment remains, however, both multi-faceted and contested.

We encourage contributions on any facet of the topic of Sustaining Canada within and beyond the field of Canadian Studies. Proposals for 20-minute papers, to be presented in either English or French, are invited from any single disciplinary or multidisciplinary perspective. Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and comparative panel proposals, including those from postgraduate students, are welcome.

The following aspects are indicative and not comprehensive:

• The origins and growth of environmentalism in Canada.
• Inter-Provincial contrasts? The impact of NAFTA? The sub-prime recession?
• The environment of Canada and resource extraction
• Long-term sustainability issues for energy and other sectors on a global level
• Actions to sustain the environment of Canada.
• Local activism, municipal, provincial, federal dimensions
• The environment of Canada and the human scale
•  Actions towards conservation: recycling, non-motorised transport
• The environment of Canada: depicted, remembered, imagined
• Idealised and devoid of human input? Or incomprehensible without it?
• The environment of Canada and policy-making
• A concern only in the good times or an enduring preoccupation?
• The environment of Canada and the Law
• Enforcement, conflict, Indigenous peoples’ land rights etc
• The environment of Canada and ecological fragility
•  Threatened environments: when, where, how?
• The environment of Canada and the Business sector
• Implications for corporate social responsibility: business costs, business practices

Enquiries and proposals to:

Jodie Robson, BACS Administrator
Email: bacs@canadian-studies.org
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/canadian-studies.org/bacs2012/

Proposals (panel and individual) and deadline:

Email abstract(s) of 200–300 words and brief CV (please do not exceed one side of A4) which must include your title, institutional affiliation, email and mailing address by 20 November 2011. Submissions will be acknowledged by email. Postgraduate students are especially welcome to submit a proposal and there will be a concessionary conference fee for students. BACS regrets that it is unable to assist participants with travel and accommodation costs.

Linking the North and the South: Responding to Environmental Change

Registration will be open some time this Fall, 2012.

Important dates:
Panels proposed to organizers due by Janurary 15, 2012
Abstracts due January 15th, 2012
2012 Student scholarship applications due Feb 15th, 2012
Electronic versions of presentations sent to ISSRM 2012 web site due May 25th 2012
Student papers submitted to ISSRM web site April 1, 2012

Venue:
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

For more information about ISSRM 2012 Conference, please contact ISSRM2012@ales.ualberta.ca