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Memoria para optar al Título Profesional de Ingeniero en Recursos Naturales Renovables / Actualmente Chile presenta comunidades que se encuentran en condiciones de aislamiento extremo, las que cubren sus requerimientos eléctricos con precarios sistemas de autoabastecimiento basados en el uso de combustibles fósiles, presentando elevados costos económicos y generando procesos de contaminación ambiental. Este es el caso de una comunidad conformada por aproximadamente 80 personas, ubicada en la isla Alejandro Selkirk perteneciente al Archipiélago Juan Fernández. Selkirk es considerada uno de los territorios más aislados de Latinoamérica y más prioritarios para la conservación de la biodiversidad a nivel mundial. En este contexto, el presente estudio tuvo por objetivo elaborar una propuesta estratégica para la implementación de una micro-red eléctrica basada en energías renovables no convencionales (ERNC). Para estos efectos, se planteó una metodología de cuatro etapas, 1) evaluar el potencial de energías renovables, 2) determinar las necesidades eléctricas del poblado, 3) realizar un análisis social e institucional y 4) establecer estrategias para la implementación de un proyecto ajustado a la realidad local. En términos generales, los resultados apuntan a que el territorio presenta viabilidad para aprovechar la energía solar disponible, descartando el resto de las fuentes renovables. Por otra parte, la demanda eléctrica del poblado asciende a 2,43 [MWh mes-1] considerando distintas categorías de consumo, entre ellas recreación (30%), refrigeración (24%), higiene (23%), iluminación (13%), cocina (1%), comunicación (1%) y otros consumos (8%). Del análisis social e institucional, se concluye que la comunidad posee una sólida estructura organizacional y una elevada cohesión social. Los entrevistados demostraron tener una gran valoración ambiental, manifestando la necesidad de remplazar el sistema de generación eléctrica actual por uno basado en ERNC, iniciativa que cuenta con el apoyo institucional del territorio. Considerando lo anterior, se propusieron estrategias de corto, mediano y largo plazo orientadas a la articulación social, búsqueda de financiamiento, alianzas estratégicas, seguridad y sostenibilidad del proyecto, además de recomendaciones para replicar la metodología en otros territorios con aislamiento extremo. Luego de someter las propuestas a un proceso de validación social considerando actores de nivel local y regional, se concluy que las estrategias son pertinentes y factibles de implementar.

Timber-dependent, rural communities in the Pacific Northwest face dramatic economic, political, and cultural change. New philosophies of forest management, primarily formulated in urban communities, require new approaches to the use and extraction of resources. What are the roles of rural communities that wish to adapt and sustain themselves? Two rural communities, one from Washington State, and one from Oregon, serve as case studies for coping with change. These cases build an ethnographic foundation on which to explore the rural-urban dynamic. The theories that elaborate the rural-urban relationship are central-place theory, and hermeneutic theory, which is used to understand the symbols and meaning of actions and ideas. Adaptive management, with new power relations, provides one possible solution to expedite the environmental and cultural sustainability of rural communities. / Graduation date: 1996

This research developed a novel workflow for combining different types and scales of data to understand the development of small, steep, and sheltered glacial forefields across space and time using the Avalanche glacier of the Selkirk Range, BC as a case study. As glaciers recede, symbiotic geomorphological and ecological feedback loops determine the ecological succession in recently deglaciated terrain, which can in turn effect landform stability and water quality downstream. In order to describe emergent land cover patterns in the forefield, this research uses Corenbilt’s (2007) fluvial biogeomorphic succession (FBS) framework to interpret a century of land cover changes. To do so, an experimental protocol was developed that combined remotely sensed data – repeat photographs, historic air photographs, satellite imagery, and digital elevation models – and data collected in-situ using a photo transect method. Analysis of more than a century of photographs determined that the Avalanche glacier is receding at a slower rate than has been observed in the region’s larger glaciers, subsequently leading to a slower rate of forefield habitat expansion. Still, all four stages of fluvial biogeomorphological succession were found across the Avalanche glacier’s forefield. It was found that in the Avalanche forefield, terrain age seems to place a limit on which successional stage is possible at any given location within the forefield, but topographic features like slope angle seemed to influence succession patterns within areas that had the same terrain age. Further research is needed to see whether these findings are consistent for similar steep, small, and sheltered glaciers in the region. / Graduate

In 1817, the fifth Earl of Selkirk and certain Saulteaux chiefs negotiated the Selkirk Treaty to secure the existence of a fragile Euro-Canadian settlement near the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. Selkirk died soon after, and his agents and successors disputed the content of the treaty with the Indigenous negotiating parties. The historiography of the Selkirk Treaty has not reached a consensus on these disputes, in part due to the number of ostensibly contradictory sources it draws upon. This thesis argues that these disputes can be best answered, and these ostensibly contradictory sources best reconciled, by situating them and the Selkirk Treaty within the context of the Indigenous and Imperial land frameworks that operated in Red River in 1817. This thesis first identifies unresolved questions in the historiography of the Selkirk Treaty. Using primary sources cited in the historiography, it then outlines the ideas acting within the Indigenous and Imperial land frameworks operative over Red River. It argues these ideas and frameworks remained intact during the negotiation of the Selkirk Treaty. On the basis of these frameworks, this thesis further argues that neither Lord Selkirk nor the Saulteaux negotiators intended the Selkirk Treaty to consist of a permanent alienation of Indigenous land. However, after Selkirk’s death, his agents and successors came to trust the Indenture of the Selkirk Treaty, a written and signed record of the treaty, as the only trustworthy record of the agreement. Selkirk’s agents and successors then read the Indenture as a permanent alienation of land, but this thesis argues that, on the basis of the borders specified in the Indenture, that document alone is inadequate to interpret the Selkirk Treaty. The primary purpose of this thesis is to provide a point of departure for future research into the Selkirk Treaty. At the same time, it is intended as a corrective against assuming the ideas of either Indigenous or Euro-Canadian actors about land rights in colonization zones. It is also meant to act as a caution against relying any more heavily on the Indenture of the Selkirk Treaty than scholars do on the written records of other treaties. It is further hoped that this thesis contributes to a better understanding of Red River’s Métis population in these early years by situating them within the framework of the broader Iron Alliance.

In 1887, following the completion of the CPR to the Pacific, William Stewart Drewry took part in the Topographical Survey of Canada's first experiment with photographic surveying, which he applied to the Rocky Mountain Railway Belt. He then surveyed the rich mining districts of BC during the Kootenay hardrock mining boom (1893-1909). In 1909, he became BC's first and only Chief Water Commissioner and, in 1911, he returned to surveying as BC's Inspector of Surveys. From 1913 until his retirement in 1929, he surveyed for government and in private practice. Throughout his career, Drewry operated between two land systems: first, a system based on customary rights and local obligations; and, second, a system based on private property and market exchange. Drewry implemented the latter capitalist system, attempting to empower the settlement society, which had the effect of ensuring corporate dominance and, to Drewry's dismay, monopolization of the BC landscape.