Environments Journal Volume 38(1) 2012

Copyright © Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. Copies may be made for personal and educational use. No part of this work may be reproduced or dis-tributed in any form or by any means for commercial use without permission in writing from the Editor. END-games: The material and political interests of emulating natural disturbances in the Canadian boreal forest Victoria Kramkowski This article explores the political and vested interests that underlie the debate over the emulation of natural disturbances (END) as a harvesting approach in the Canadian boreal forest. I examine the END debate in Ontario, with a second-ary focus on Alberta, and how this dispute plays out in the development of forest policy and guidelines. While this dialogue encodes conflicting ideas of Nature and Culture, this article calls for a deeper analysis of the entrenched assump-tions and material interests that underpin and propagate this concept and the forces that oppose it. These mechanisms include policy and research language, implicit power structures, and existing scholarly and research paradigms. This is set in opposition to what is assumed to be a shift from a productivist to a post-productivist view of the forest in Canadian forestry. END, and the presumed “nat-uralness ” that underlies it, is further complicated by deliberations over climate change, the precarious state of industrial forestry in Canada, and perceptions and justice implications of pre-colonial First Nations ’ relationships with the landscape. As a result, I call for a more open discussion between opposing camps in this debate to better address the challenges faced and raised by END, a land-use planning frame-work that takes multiple values, forest uses, and impacts into account, and a more gen-uine and common language with which to discuss this concept and how, or whether, we as a society want to continue utilizing it. Key words Emulation of natural disturbances, forestry