Mapping civil society: the ecology of actors in the Toronto region greenbelt

ABSTRACT

Civil society’s potential as a force for solving complex societal problems – particularly those that require a challenge to the status quo – has provoked practical and theoretical interest, with its potential largely reliant on the perception that it is a ready if variable source of social capital resources. However, there are no guarantees that civil society will use its social capital for the greater good. Civil society encompasses a range of groups, some more inward-looking and oriented to private interests, and others more outward-looking and oriented to public interests. This divergent character of civil society was evident in the three campaigns for greenspace protection that eventually led to the creation of the Toronto region greenbelt, where civil society organisations (CSOs) from both growth and conservation camps contended for influence, each succeeding at different times. But over time (a time when state actors were increasingly in need of non-state partners to help solve complex governance problems), coalitions of environmental CSOs in the three campaigns – to protect the Niagara Escarpment, Oak Ridges Moraine and surrounding countryside – became more effective at influencing government to protect greenspace. A comparison of the coalitions using a framework based on key attributes of CSOs – missions and memberships – suggests that the environmental coalitions were more effective when they recruited more members with a diverse set of resources arising from both bonding and bridging social capital. In general, the more inclusive and public-interested the CSOs, the more effective the challenge to the status quo.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society
• social capital
• greenspace protection
• greenbelt
• environmental governance

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the comments of André Sorensen, Richard Stren, Yvonne Rydin and anonymous reviewers on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Wendy Burton http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8187-6973

Notes

1 When the word greenbelt is capitalized, it refers to the area defined by the Greenbelt Act and Greenbelt Plan. Nomenclature has been complicated by the fact that there is another greenbelt in Ontario. The much-smaller Ottawa greenbelt was first created in 1956 when a federal agency, the National Capital Commission, began acquiring the land for it. The Greenbelt discussed in this paper is variously known as the Ontario Greenbelt (because it was created by the provincial government), the Greater Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt (for the region where it is located) or simply the Greenbelt (as it is called in provincial legislation).

2 The entire Niagara Escarpment is 1100 km long and crosses into the United States to the east and west of the Southern Ontario section.

3 Indeed, that dubious “honour” goes to indigenous groups, who have been involved in land disputes for generations. Native groups were not explicitly involved in any of these campaigns. None of them appeared at the public hearings after second reading of the Greenbelt Act. As “first nations”, native communities tend to deal primarily with the federal government. Aboriginal communities were mentioned in both the 2005 and 2017 Greenbelt Plans, with more extensive acknowledgement of their stewardship of the land, treaty rights and right to consultation in the latter plan (MMAH 2005, 2017).

4 An earlier generation of farmers cleared land and caused some of their own problems with run-off and silting. But by the early 1900s, the farmers on the productive land in the southern part of the province were complaining about the impacts of logging upstream from their farms.

5 Agricultural societies that organized fairs, plowing matches, picnics, educational workshops and lobbying for government aid date back to the late 1700s in Ontario (McCracken 2012). Other notable early farm CSOs were the Dominion Grange (1874), the Farmers’ Association of Ontario (1902), the United Farmers of Ontario Cooperative (1914) and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (1936).

6 Environmental Defence Canada has no relationship to the U.S.-based Environmental Defense Fund.