Janette Bulkan

Wall Associate

Title

Assistant Professor

Department/School

Department of Forest Resources Management

Faculty

Forestry

University

UBC

Geographic Location

Canada
Janette Bulkan

Janette Bulkan is an Assistant Professor for Indigenous Forestry in the Department of Forest Resources Management. She is a linguist and anthropologist by training and has work experience in social forestry, participatory resource management, monitoring and evaluation, cultural diversity awareness and protection, and teaching. Her area specializations are South America and the Caribbean. She founded the Amerindian Research Unit at the University of Guyana and was its Coordinator from 1985 to 1999; and was afterwards Senior Social Scientist at the Iwokrama Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development in Guyana from 2000 to 2003. Her most recent appointments were at Colby College in Maine, and The Field Museum in Chicago in its Andes/Amazon Program. Janette works on forest certification, control of illegal logging, anti-corruption, and REDD+ (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation). She collaborates in the mainstreaming of Aboriginal and indigenous studies across the faculty (Commitment #4 of the Faculty’s Strategic Plan) and in developing mutually beneficial research collaborations between the Faculty of Forestry and Aboriginal communities in Canada and globally.

Primary Recipient Awards

Janette Bulkan – Research Mentoring Program – 2012
Mentors: Dr. Leila Harris, Associate Professor, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability; Professor Margot Young, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law "Best Practice Guide on Getting Ready for a Payment for Environmental Services (PES) Contract, for Use by Indigenous Peoples in Guyana with Legal or Customary Title to Their Lands"

Co-Principal Investigator Awards

Harry Nelson – International Research Roundtables – 2015

Donning the Regalia: Maintaining Tradition in an Age of Modernity
Principal Investigator(s): Dr. Harry Nelson, Department of Forest Resources Management, UBC; Dr. Janette Bulkan, Department of Forest Resources Management, UBC.

While the national media often focuses on aboriginal protests, portraying a picture of conflict between Indigenous peoples at odds with modern society, underneath a quieter, more transformative change is taking place across Canada and internationally. Globally, Indigenous communities are reasserting their identity as a people and their collective ability to determine their own futures. In doing so, they are finding new ways in which they can govern themselves while being part of society, not apart. Like other governments, they are concerned with how to best provide for their citizens, which requires interacting with the modern economy. In order to do so effectively, they need to rebuild effective governance institutions that also integrate traditional governance arrangements and practices with modern institutions.

The proposed International Research Roundtable directly addresses this challenge by asking: how are Indigenous peoples integrating their traditional values into effective governance systems for land stewardship and economic development? A principal goal of this Roundtable is to identify what community and economic development strategies in modern day circumstances have been successful while respecting traditional values and decision-making. The benefit of drawing together experts and leaders to discuss this point is that it draws on years of practical experience these individuals have in creating a Nation’s vision, developing policies and implementing constitutional and statutory laws. While these Nations have already developed political and organizational structures that are currently in practice, there remains an ongoing struggle to incorporate traditional systems of governance such as hereditary rights, clan families, and social justice community members and elders council into decision-making around these development strategies and associated issues. Indeed, one of the greatest challenges facing modern society today is how to create more economic prosperity but not at the expense of the environment, and there are larger lessons to be learned from examples of how the Indigenous peoples in their respective territories are successfully balancing development while sustaining their environment.