BC Protected Areas Research Forum: Full Schedule

10:30am

A1. Yellowstone to Yukon

Presentations on research related to ecosystem services, connectivity and population persistence

Aerin Jacob - Protected areas and ecosystem services: Synergies and trade-offs among water provision, recreation, and carbon storage
Michael Proctor - Re-establishing population connectivity for grizzly bears and biodiversity: networking and private & public land conservation
Mirjam Barrueto - Cameras, DNA and collaboration: tools to understand wolverine population persistence in large multi-use landscapes

Speakers

Mirjam Barrueto

University of Calgary / Wolverine Watch

Like larger carnivores, wolverines are vulnerable to overharvest and habitat loss. Wolverines’ large spatial requirements transcend most management boundaries and the large, undisturbed areas they rely on are becoming scarce; broad research collaborations are imperative to ensure... Read More →

Aerin Jacob

Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

Protected areas and ecosystem services: Synergies and trade-offs among water provision, recreation, and carbon storage

Michael Proctor

Trans-border Grizzly Bear Project

We have been researching conservation issues and implementing a comprehensive program to improve inter-mountain connectivity by reducing human bear conflicts (HBC) for over a decade in the trans-border region of southern Canada and NW USA across several small fragmented threatened... Read More →

Tuesday December 4, 2018 10:30am - 12:00pm
7-172

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Aerin Jacob
AV Assistant Josh Fouillard

10:30am

A2. Management Challenges

Complex protected areas management challenges from species to climate change

Marcus Atkins - Western Rattlesnakes more than just a walk in the Park
Amanda Weber-Roy and Robyn Hooper - Invasive species management in North Columbia BC Parks
Roger Wheate - Visualising the glaciers of Monkman Provincial Park
Lori Homstol and Steven Hodgson- Managing people and bears on the Atnarko River, Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, BC (Research Snapper)

Speakers

Marcus Atkins

Thompson Rivers University

Periodic assessments on the status of wildlife populations rely on the best available science, however, long-term datasets that utilize historical, comparative data are limited. Additionally, the ways that various land management regimes, including parks and protected areas, impact... Read More →

Lori Homstol

BC Parks

BC Parks and the Nuxalk First Nation are collaboratively starting a research project with a graduate student investigating the impacts of bear viewing on bears using the Atnarko River in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. The Bella Coola valley has become increasingly popular as a bear viewing... Read More →

Amanda Weber-Roy

BC Parks

BC Parks and Columbia Shuswap Invasive Species Society have been working together for the last two years on invasive plant management in four parks in the North Columbia. The work has included invasive plant inventories, community weed pulls, boat launch and trailhead signage/outreach... Read More →

Roger Wheate

UNBC

Monkman Provincial Park is one of many gems in the BC Parks system, but it is remote for many travellers, located on the continental divide northeast from Prince George. Most of the park overlaps with the Tumbler Ridge UNESCO Global Geopark, established in 2015 (the only one in western... Read More →

Tuesday December 4, 2018 10:30am - 12:00pm
5-123 (Gathering Place)

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Lori Homstol

10:30am

A3. Welcoming Visitors

Sessions on universal design, understanding who visits protected areas and changes in visitation levels

Heather Lamb and Nancy Harris - Universal design and its relevance in outdoor spaces: Exploring the benefits of inclusivity for individuals, communities and the economy
Lorraine Copas, Alfiya Battalova and Craig Paulson- Accessibility needs of BC Parks users: Accessibility survey results
John Shultis and Stephanie Coulson - From famine to feast: Park agency responses to low and high visitation Trends from 2005-2018
Becs Hoskins and Andrew Day - Engaging visitors and social science research in BC Parks

Speakers

Lorraine Copas

Andrew Day

BC Parks Foundation

Becs Hoskins

Community Engagement Team, BC Parks

Heather Lamb

Spinal Cord Injury BC

Spinal Cord Injury BC's Access BC team has audited parks and outdoor spaces in several regions in BC and has auditing checklists and an online database with results from selected parks. Join us to learn what universal design is and how it enhances the experience in outdoor spaces... Read More →

John Shultis

UNBC

From Famine to Feast: Park Agency Responses to Low and High Visitation Trends from 2005-2018 -- Beginning around 2005, many Western park agencies began to acknowledge that park visitation had been in decline for several years. Before this time, park agencies had typically associated... Read More →

Tuesday December 4, 2018 10:30am - 12:00pm
5-157

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator John Shultis
AV Assistant Stephanie Coulson

1:00pm

B1. Roundtable Discussions

Roundtable discussions on the Canadian parks collective for leadership and integration of social science

Don Carruthers Den Hoed - The Canadian Parks Collective for Leadership
John Shultis - How can park agencies better integrate social science and indigenous knowledge?
Discussion

Speakers

John Shultis (2)

How can park agencies better integrate social science and indigenous knowledge? Park agencies face a range of issues, from loss of habitats and biodiversity and climate change to changing social attitudes and technological change. The integration of knowledge is an important resource... Read More →

Don Carruthers Den Hoed

Mount Royal University, Institute for Environmental Sustainability

The Canadian Parks Collective for Leadership: What does the 'I' stand for in CPCIL?Innovation? Inclusion? Insight? Interdisciplinarity? In 2018, the Canadian Parks Council partnered with Mount Royal University (MRU)’s Institute for Environmental Sustainability—in collaboration... Read More →

Tuesday December 4, 2018 1:00pm - 2:30pm
5-157

Concurrent Sessions

1:00pm

B2. Living Labs I

Climate and environmental change in protected areas

Darwyn Coxson - The sensitivity of Ancient Forest/Chun T’oh Whudujut wetlands to climate change
Karl Larsen - Are the times really a'changin? Monitoring rattlesnake denning behaviour in BC Parks (and elsewhere)
Cole Burton - Camera Trap Monitoring to Assess Wildlife Responses to Environmental Change in BC Parks

Moderators

Tory Stevens

BC Parks

Speakers

Cole Burton

University of British Columbia

Effective protected area management requires reliable data on species of ecological and societal significance. Rapid advancements in the application of camera traps (CTs) are creating an explosion of archivable data on vertebrate populations, and CTs are now being used to survey a... Read More →

Darwyn Coxson

University of Northern British Columbia

The upper Fraser River watershed east of Prince George is unique in B.C. due to the geological and climatic setting, where the Rocky Mountain Trench provides a 10-15 km wide valley in which extensive post-glacial sediments support rich inland temperate rainforest stands and provincially... Read More →

Karl W. Larsen

Dept. Natural Resource Sciences, Thompson Rivers University

The use of communal denning sites (‘hibernacula’) by northern rattlesnakes in BC is a well documented phenomenon. Emergence from hibernation in the spring (egress) is followed by often-lengthy migrations to summer foraging grounds, with a return to the same denning sites (ingress... Read More →

Tuesday December 4, 2018 1:00pm - 2:30pm
7-172

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Tory Stevens
AV Assistant Rachelle Linde

1:00pm

B3. Conservation Tools

PrioitizR, DNA barcoding and spatial priorities tools

Richard Schuster - Systematic conversation prioritization in R: Democratizing Spatial Planning for Nature and People using the prioritzr package
Gregory Kehm - Dynamic Cascadia: coordinating a BC/WA regional adaptation strategy; building a dynamic spatial priorities tool
Sara Wickham - Cataloguing the biodiversity of the Hakai-Luxvbalis Conservancy though DNA barcoding

Speakers

Gregory Kehm

Greg Kehm Associates

The Cascadia Partner Forum (CPF) fosters a network of natural resource practitioners working to build the adaptive capacity of the regional landscape and species living within it. The CPF was formed in 2012 by practitioners in Washington and British Columbia’s Cascade/Coastal mountains... Read More →

Richard Schuster

Carleton University

Conservation planning can be challenging because researchers, managers, and stakeholders must consider a range of different objectives and constraints, and require analytical tools tailored to specific tasks. We developed the R software package prioritzr, a flexible interface for... Read More →

Sara Wickham

Hakai Institute/University of Victoria

In the past two years (2017 and 2018) the Hakai Institute on Calvert Island (British Columbia Central Coast) has hosted one terrestrial and two marine BioBlitzs. Over the course of these events plant and invertebrate samples were collected from the Hakai-Luxvbalis Conservancy in an... Read More →

Tuesday December 4, 2018 1:00pm - 2:30pm
5-123 (Gathering Place)

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Richard Schuster
AV Assistant Reece Legault

1:00pm

B4. Advancing Accessible and Inclusive Nature WORKSHOP

Universal design and inclusive nature: Workshop to develop a shared vision for an accessible park system

Moderators

Theresa Healy

University of Northern British Columbia

Under the goal of enabling accessible consumer experiences, a recent progress report on BC’s Accessibility 2024 Action Plan states the importance of an accessible parks system, and acknowledges needed improvements to park accessibility as part of a broader agenda to advance inclusive... Read More →

Speakers

Mark Groulx

University of Northern British Columbia

Sponsors

SSHRC

Tuesday December 4, 2018 1:00pm - 2:30pm
10-4072

Concurrent Sessions

3:00pm

C1. Fire

Fires and fire suppression and protected areas

Kira Hoffman - Fire suppression destroys species at risk habitat in a British Columbia protected area
Marc Edwards - Minimum dynamic reserves: maximizing resilience of boreal protected areas to large fires (Research Snapper)
Megan Clare Kinley - Survivorship of Whitebark Pine Seedlings Planted Post-Wildfire

Speakers

Marc Edwards

BEACONs Project, University of Alberta and Yukon College

Protected areas (PAs) in boreal regions should be resilient to regional disturbance regimes to avoid complete loss of habitat in the case of large disturbance events. Fire is an important disturbance in northern BC, and the BEACONs Project has used historical fire data to estimate... Read More →

Kira Hoffman

University of Victoria

Fire suppression has altered the composition and structure of Garry oak and associated ecosystems in British Columbia, which now have some of the highest densities of Species at Risk in Canada. The absence of frequent low-severity ground fires has resulted in dense patches of non-native... Read More →

Megan Kinley

UNBC/Parks Canada

Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaluis Engelm.) is a high-elevation tree species that is federally listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act (SARA), and acts as a keystone species in alpine environments. Threatened by a multitude of pressures, including the exotic pathogen white... Read More →

Tuesday December 4, 2018 3:00pm - 5:00pm
5-157

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Erica McClaren
AV Assistant Kendall Chong

3:00pm

C2. Living Labs II

Climate and environmental change in protected areas

Isabelle Cote - Ecological changes in marine communities at Baeria Rocks
Andrew Simon and Brian Starzomski - Climate change impacts on the foraging landscape of the southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia
Kim-Ly Thompson - Gitga’at Knowledge Project: Enhancing Gitga’at monitoring through use
Philip Burton - Vegetation of the Nisga'a Lava Beds: Complexity and Setbacks in Primary Succession Description
Mary Sanseverino- Let the images speak: Visualizing 100 years of landscape change in Mt. Robson & Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Parks Description

Moderators

Tory Stevens

BC Parks

Speakers

Philip Burton

University of Northern BC

The Nisga'a Lava Beds of the Nass Valley resulted from the eruption of the Tseax Volcano approximately 250 years ago. Important to the history and culture of the Nisga'a First Nation, the lava beds are one of the most recent and most accessible volcanic surfaces in Canada, but have... Read More →

Isabelle Cote

Simon Fraser University

Marine communities of the shallow northeast Pacific region have experienced two large-scale disturbances: the mass mortality of many of species of large, predatory seastars in 2013, followed by a period of anomalously warm water (‘the blob’) from 2014 to 2016, when surface waters... Read More →

Mary Sanseverino

University of Victoria

Using historic images taken in 1911 (Mt. Robson) and 1913/16 (Mt. Assiniboine) by Arthur Wheeler and re-photographed from 2010 to 2017 by the Mountain Legacy Project (MLP), this presentation will demonstrate advances in visualization techniques to help historic/modern image pairs... Read More →

Andrew Simon

University of Victoria

Climate change portends increasing seasonal drought and extreme winter rain events in the southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. Protected areas in this region are home to rare herbaceous communities representing an important foraging landscape for pollinators that is likely to... Read More →

Kim-Ly Thompson

University of Victoria

Most environmental monitoring programs in parks focus only on physical or biological monitoring, missing the observations and experiences of people. At their invitation, we are working with the Gitga’at First Nation on the north coast of BC to continue the development of an environmental... Read More →

Tuesday December 4, 2018 3:00pm - 5:00pm
7-172

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Tory Stevens
AV Assistant Rachelle Linde

3:00pm

C3. Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas

Indigenous and community conserved protected areas issues

Darwin Horning, Gwen Bridge and Matthew Rempel - The State of First Nations Involvement & Use of Indigenous Knowledge within Land Use and Conservation Planning in British Columbia
Tanya Chi Tran - A Review of Successes, Challenges, and Lessons from Indigenous-led Protected and Conserved Areas, and Ways Forward
Agnieszka Pawlowska-Mainville - Protecting ‘the land that gives life’: The Asatiwisipe Anishinaabeg and the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Site
Aggie Weighill and Kristina Vaudry- Sustainable livelihoods within a Ghanaian protected area

Speakers

Darwin Horning

UNBC

The “State of First Nations Involvement & Use of Indigenous Knowledge within Land Use and Conservation Planning in British Columbia”, preliminary research project seeks to develop an understanding of the degree of First Nations involvement throughout various phases of resource... Read More →

Agnieszka Pawlowska-Mainville

University of Northern British Columbia

This presentation will elaborate on the northern Manitoba community of Asatiwisipe Anishinaabeg and their attempt to protect their traditional territory. For the past decade, this fly-in community collaborated with neighbouring First Nations to establish the United Nations Educational... Read More →

Tanya Chi Tran

University of Victoria

Indigenous-led Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) have gained global attention in recent years due to renewed interest in improving and creating protected areas during a time of Indigenous resurgence. We systematically reviewed the academic literature to synthesize the contexts... Read More →

Kristina Vaudry

VIU

Aggie Weighill

Vancouver Island University

Improving Visitors' Experiences Through International Partnerships: Ecotourism has long been used for economic development while also trying to meet conservation goals (Sakar & Sinha, 2015); however, in the global south this has often occurred in communities where access to formal... Read More →

Tuesday December 4, 2018 3:00pm - 5:00pm
5-123 (Gathering Place)

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Agnieszka Pawlowska-Mainville
AV Assistant Joel Lavigueur

3:00pm

C4. Advancing Accessible and Inclusive Nature WORKSHOP

Universal design and inclusive nature: Workshop to develop a shared vision for an accessible park system

Moderators

Theresa Healy

University of Northern British Columbia

Sponsors

SSHRC

Tuesday December 4, 2018 3:00pm - 5:00pm
10-4072

Concurrent Sessions

9:15am

D1. Conservation Planning in BC

Conservation planning in BC

Tim Burkhart – Mapping to conservation: The Wild Harts
Ian Curtis – Systematic conservation planning in the Wild Harts
Jerrica Mann – Climate change conscious conservation planning
Debbie Cichowski, Scott McNay and Diane Culling - The role of protected areas in caribou management in BC

Speakers

Tim Burkhart

Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

Working with partners in local communities, conservation organizations, government and First Nations, Y2Y used the Data Basin platform to gather and share conservation maps and data for northeast BC. Through that research, we discovered a particularly important bridge of habitat connectivity... Read More →

Deborah Cichowski

Caribou Ecological Consulting

The role of protected areas in caribou management in British Columbia Description / Abstract:Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) distribution and numbers have decreased in British Columbia (BC) since the early 1900s. Currently, most of the caribou populations in the southern and northeastern... Read More →

Ian Curtis

UNBC/FLNRORD

The Wild Harts Study Area (WHSA) supports a wide range of ecological diversity and connects a network of protected areas spanning the length of the Rocky Mountain Cordillera. The WHSA occurs within a region of northeastern British Columbia that is poorly represented by protected areas... Read More →

Jerrican Mann

University of Northern British Columbia

Anthropogenically driven climate change is now recognized to be one of the most serious threats to biodiversity and the conservation thereof. Climate reshuffling, disappearance, and the emergence of novel climates forces species to tolerate climate changes, adapt, or migrate to more... Read More →

Wednesday December 5, 2018 9:15am - 10:45am
7-172

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Pam Wright
AV Assistant Reece Legault

9:15am

D2. Building a Culture of Conservation

Social science research on conservation ethic and protected areas

Philip Mullins - Ethics without borders: re-tracing the practice and impacts of outdoor recreation
Stephanie Coulson - “Raising environmentalists”: Key determinants of pro-outside play parenting practices and motivations to bring children to parks
Aggie Weighill - Improving visitors' experiences through international partnerships
Don Carruthers Den Hoed – Parks and restoration, reconnection and reconciliation

Speakers

Don Carruthers Den Hoed (2)

Parks and 3R's: Building on a decade of work fostering inclusion in parks—and recent research on nursing in nature (mental health effects of inclusive outdoor recreation and impacts of parks at end of life)—this study explores how transdisciplinary inquiry offers a useful exploration... Read More →

Stephanie A. Coulson

Capital Regional District

“Raising environmentalists”: The decline of children’s outside play and visitation to natural spaces in western societies has been the subject of academic inquiry and targeted strategies from protected area managers for several years. Childhood experiences in nature are believed... Read More →

Philip M. Mullins

UNBC

Educational management in the form of Leave No Trace (LNT) has been hugely successful at establishing new social/environmental norms, altering visitor behavior, mitigating direct damage, and maintaining particular ecological and aesthetic realities within protected and recreation... Read More →

Aggie Weighill

Vancouver Island University

Wednesday December 5, 2018 9:15am - 10:45am
5-157

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Phil Mullins
AV Assistant Stephanie Coulson

9:15am

D3. New Approaches and Tools

New approaches and tools from TEM maping, to wetland layers to ecological benchmark approaches

Sharilynn Wardrop - Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping (TEM) in Naikoon Park: Working together across park boundaries
Kim Lisgo - Protected areas as ecological benchmarks
Leanna Warman and Nina Morrell- Developing a riparian and wetland layer to aid in conservation evaluation (Research Snapper)
Pierre Vernier - Web-based tool for evaluating ecological benchmarks at the ecoregion-level in the northwest boreal region of North America (Snapper)

Speakers

Kim Lisgo

BEACONs Project, University of Alberta and Yukon College

The Northwest Boreal Landscape Conservation Cooperative (NWB LCC) envisions a dynamic landscape that maintains functioning, resilient boreal ecosystems and associated cultural resources. To support this vision, the NWB LCC partnered with the BEACONs Project to implement a new approach... Read More →

Pierre Vernier

BEACONs Project, University of Alberta and Yukon College

Ecological benchmarks provide anchors for landscape conservation by establishing the foundation for a robust and resilient protected areas network, and reference conditions for identifying sustainable land management practices. Benchmarks support implementation of active adaptive... Read More →

Sharilynn Wardrop

BC Parks

Leanna Warman

The Nature Trust of British Columbia

Since 1971, The Nature Trust of British Columbia (NTBC) has dedicated effort to securing and managing ecologically significant land in BC. NTBC is continually made aware of potential properties that could be acquired for conservation. Having the ability to assess the relative ecological... Read More →

Wednesday December 5, 2018 9:15am - 10:45am
7-212

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Sharilynn Wardrop

11:00am

E1. Planning for Climate Change

Incorporating climate-change data into conservation planning

Justin Beckers - Interactive application exploring climate displacement in North American protected areas
Carlos Carroll - Understanding and using climate-adaptation-related spatial data in regional conservation planning
Diana Stralberg - Incorporating climate-change refugia and corridors in conservation planning

Speakers

Justin Beckers

Canadian Forest Service

We present an interactive web application that has the potential to inform conservation initiatives and contribute to assessing climate change vulnerabilities and adaptation in protected areas, both locally and regionally. The application transforms previously published climate velocity... Read More →

Carlos Carroll

Klamath Center for Conservation Research

The unprecedented challenge of climate change has led managers to search for new types of information for identifying areas whose conservation would facilitate persistence of biodiversity in the face of this novel threat. However, the uncertainty and complexity of climate science... Read More →

Diana Stralberg

University of Alberta

To inform broad-scale conservation priorities in a changing climate, multiple integrative metrics of conservation value have been proposed and mapped across large areas of North America. Previous syntheses have demonstrated the general lack of concordance among such metrics, suggesting... Read More →

Wednesday December 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm
7-172

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Hayley Datoo
AV Assistant Rachelle Linde

11:00am

E2. Marine Protected Areas

Marine protected areas research from design to management of impacts

Stephen Ban - Challenges for MPA Establishment in BC
Sonia Jind and Jacob Chila - Integrating marine ecology research into MPA Network design
Carrie Robb - Incorporating cumulative effects into MPA network planning in the Northern Shelf Bioregion

Moderators

Stephen Ban

BC Parks

British Columbia's first provincial park with a marine component was established over a century ago in 1911, but it took another 50 years before a marine provincial park was established for the express purpose of protecting biological rather than recreational marine values. Today... Read More →

Speakers

Sonia Jind

Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society - BC Chapter

The Government of Canada, Province of BC, and 17 First Nations have committed to creating a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) off northern BC’s pacific coast. How can we ensure that the necessary science is being meaningfully integrated into that planning process? At... Read More →

Carrie Robb

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

In the Northern Shelf Bioregion (NSB) along the North Pacific coast of British Columbia (BC), the Governments of Canada, BC, and 16 First Nations are developing a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). MPA networks are designed and implemented globally to meet a range of biodiversity... Read More →

Wednesday December 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm
7-212

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Stephen Ban
AV Assistant Joel Lavigueur

11:00am

E3. Conservation Targets

How much space for nature? Opportunities and challenges for meeting targets

Chris Lemieux, Paul Gray and Mark Groulx- Get Out of Your Own Way: Canada and the chase for Aichi Target 11
Heather Lazaruk - Alberta Parks experiences with Protected Areas Management Effectiveness to address Aichi Target 11/Canada's Target 1 goals.
Pam Wright and Farhad Moghimehfar- Canadians’ perspectives on how much space nature needs

Moderators

Jen Grant

BC Parks

Speakers

Heather Lazaruk

Alberta Parks

Christopher Lemieux

Wilfrid Laurier University

In 2010 Parties to the United Nations (UN) Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) agreed to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss within a decade by achieving 20 objectives that are commonly known as the Aichi targets. In this article, we explore aspects of Canada’s work on one... Read More →

Pamela Wright

University of Northern British Columbia

Canadians’ perspectives on how much space nature needs: Determining how much to set aside in a system of protected areas is widely discussed. In the past, targets that have been set internationally and domestically are best described as politically-driven. In recent years, there... Read More →

Wednesday December 5, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm
5-157

Concurrent Sessions

Moderator Jen Grant
AV Assistant Odinn Steinsson