1000 PST | 1100 MST | 1200 CST | 1300 EST | 1400  AST 

The Yellowstone to Yukon vision is an interconnected system of wild lands and waters stretching from the Yellowstone to Yukon region, harmonizing the needs of people with those of nature. The region encompasses a wide diversity of ecosystems, represents one of the most intact mountain systems on the planet, and is also home to some of the most well-known and widely visited parks and protected areas in North America. Y2Y is also an environmental non-profit organization that has worked collaboratively with more than 460 partners since 1993 to achieve its mission of “connecting and protecting habitat from Yellowstone to Yukon so people and nature can thrive”.

Because people are a part of nature, and all conservation issues have strong human dimensions, Y2Y has recognized that all the conservation challenges faced by the organization have a strong social science dimension that can be usefully informed by research.

So today, Y2Y is increasing its social science capacity, not only to inform internal decision-making, but for, and in collaboration with, its many partners. The goal of these efforts is to better understand the roles of equity and justice in durable conservation in order to achieve the Y2Y vision in full.

This newly launched 3-year project of Y2Y and the University of Northern British Columbia looks to build an evidence-based research program in the human dimensions of conservation that will support conservation decision-making by Y2Y and its many partners. The project will systematically review the state of conservation social science knowledge throughout the region, build internal and external social science understanding, create and integrate a social science research agenda across Y2Y, and act on the priority areas of that agenda.

Aligning with the goals of the CPCIL PanCanadian Parks and Protected Areas Virtual Research Summit, this session is designed to connect with those working in the Y2Y region’s protected areas (and beyond) on the human dimensions of conservation. Equal parts presentation and conversation, the session will facilitate discussion with the audience focused on the existing social science research and knowledge gaps throughout the Y2Y region and exchange ideas on how to integrate the social sciences into conservation practice and programming. In addition to networking the session hopes to generate insights and feedback about the progress of the Y2Y/UNBC project to date, and open avenues towards longer term collaboration on the region’s most pressing social science questions. Besides utilizing a series of compelling visuals and graphics, the session will include multiple interactive tools to help capture the audience’s attention and provide opportunities for their active engagement. These include, but may not be limited to, using a whiteboard to crowdsource key social science gaps throughout the Y2Y region and Canada’s protected areas and parks, and polls to help understand the audience’s existing knowledge of both the Y2Y region and the role the social sciences can play in conservation decision-making in Y2Y and beyond.

1015 PST | 1115 MST | 1215 CST | 1315 EST | 1415  AST 

Conservation practitioners widely recognize the importance of making decisions based on the best available evidence when planning the management of protected areas. However, using evidence effectively requires access to a diverse range of sources and disciplinary expertise, and the time and resources to make use of them. Evidence-based practice also requires frank and formal evaluation of lessons learned, both within and among organizations. In this session, based on an article currently in review, we will propose a mixed methodology for empirically evaluating use of evidence, applying social science tools to systematically appraise what kinds of evidence are used in conservation planning, to what effect, and under what limitations. Using this approach, we (the session presenter and larger study team) conducted a pilot study at the Nature Conservancy of Canada, a leading land conservation organization. Our analysis of planning documents showed heaviest reliance on government sources (23% of all claims), peer reviewed literature (18%), and grey literature (17%) but varied substantially across regions, planning scales and sections within documents. Overall, 26% of claims were made without a reference or clearly identifiable source. Survey results indicated a willingness among conservation planners to build partnerships with Indigenous Nations and participate in planning processes that engage with Indigenous knowledges, but demonstrated persistent barriers to doing so in practice.

In this session, I will query what constitutes evidence in the conservation decision-making space, as well as how evidence is applied. I will discuss lessons learned from this case study and lay out a step-wise guide for other institutions to carry out similar mixed method assessments using interviews, surveys, and document analysis. In doing so, our study provides conservation practitioners with an accessible and robust process for evaluating whether the use of evidence in conservation planning reflects in-house standards and more broadly-recognized best practices. I will share insights from this case study which may inform the evaluation strategies of other organizations involved with CPCIL. I will also attempt to comment more broadly on the opportunities and challenges for evidence-based conservation planning in Canada, particularly in light of the need to better align conservation practice with expectations for reconciliation. Because we hope that the tool presented here may be adopted by conservation practitioners, this session will engage actively with audience members by soliciting feedback on the feasibility of our approach in other protected area contexts.

1015 PST | 1115 MST | 1215 CST | 1315 EST | 1415  AST 

Camera traps (also known as remote cameras or trail cams) are a powerful tool in modern wildlife ecology. The goal of WildCAM (Wildlife Cameras for Adaptive Management) is to support the effective management of wildlife by encouraging coordination in camera trap surveys and data synthesis. WildCAM is working to achieve this goal in five main ways:

1. 1. creating a community of practice amongst camera trap researchers;
   2. producing and reviewing best practices and tools for camera trap sampling;
   3. providing a forum for coordinating wildlife monitoring across regions to improve provincial wildlife monitoring and subsequent management;
   4. supporting coordinated and centralized data management, promoting data sharing and synthesis across British Columbia, Alberta, and beyond; and
   5. engaging communities, stakeholders, and the public.

Many of the 72 projects that are part of WildCAM are either occurring within BC or AB parks or are being conducted by Parks leaders. At the core of these goals is collaboration between all people making decisions about wildlife and their habitat. WildCAM has been developing short videos to demonstrate field skills and FAQs for camera trapping. Videos and discussion would be two major tools for ensuring audience engagement throughout the session.

Alexia, the presenter, is also a college instructor and frequently builds small group, think-pair-share, artistic and outdoor activities into workshops and lessons.

1030 PST | 1130 MST | 1230 CST | 1330 EST | 1430  AST

Parks Canada collaborated with the Canadian Parks Collective for Innovation and Leadership (CPCIL) to conduct a Horizon Scan of issues likely to impact management of Canadian protected and conserved areas over the next 5–10 years. Eighty-eight individuals participated, representing a broad community of academics, government and nongovernment organizations, and foundations. This community initially identified 187 issues, which were subsequently triaged to 15 horizon issues using a modified Delphi technique. The session will present the 15 emerging priority issues and will discuss next steps.

1200 PST | 1300 MST | 1400 CST | 1500 EST | 1600  AST

Parks and recreational facilities in the Canadian context are critically important to health and wellbeing as they typically provide opportunities to connect with nature, pursue recreational activities, and facilitate social connections for the entire population.

The ParkSeek project (parkseek.ca) through three distinct objectives aims to establish new datasets, tools, and communities of practice around the population health benefits of parks and recreational facilities. The first objective is to analyze the geographic accessibility of parks and recreational facilities to create a set of open-access measures. The second objective is to collect information about the quality of parks and recreational facilities from a culturally and regionally representative sample of park and recreational facility users in communities across Canada. The third objective is to develop a searchable database of strategic and operational policies, analyzed through a health equity lens, explicitly related to parks and recreation in Canada. Join us for this rapid talk session to learn about our progress, and where the project is headed in 2022 and beyond!

1200 PST | 1300 MST | 1400 CST | 1500 EST | 1600  AST

The health and well-being benefits of nature contact through rural outdoor tourism and use of recreation spaces are now well established. Despite this, accessing this health resource can be challenging for persons with a disability due to historical policies and lack of investment in inclusive visitor experiences. Recently passed accessibility legislation in Canada and the Province of British Columbia calls for direct action to address this by enhancing inclusivity across all sectors and levels of government.

This rapid talk reflects on new legislative requirements and the future implications for evidence collection, planning, and organizational change related to accessibility for persons with a disability. Ongoing partnership activities within the Nature for All project are discussed and new tools for collecting, managing, and sharing accessibility standards evidence are shared.

1200 PST | 1300 MST | 1400 CST | 1500 EST | 1600  AST

This session is a follow-up to last year’s plenary presentation on the Parks and Knowledge Mobilization study that included five distinct Canadian case study sites (Tofino-Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve; Bruce Peninsula; Pinery Provincial Park; Kananaskis Valley; Beaver Hills Biosphere Reserve). The inaugural CPCIL research summit focused on knowledge mobilization and the communication of conservation knowledge, and this continues to be a prominent conversation in our field.

The current comparative study uses a cross-case analysis approach (Khan & VanWynsberghe, 2008). We analyzed data from all five case studies to determine how knowledge is valued, accessed, and mobilized in an effort to support conservation and park management across Canada. Data included 48 interviews and focus groups with various stakeholders across the 5 sites. Throughout this process we used Nguyen et al. ‘s, (2017) Knowledge Action Framework to guide our understanding of how knowledge moves through a process of production to action. Nguyen et al. (2017), call for the use of frameworks to provide structure and allow for the comparisons of results in order to improve our understanding of the knowledge-action gap within protected areas in Canada.

This framework outlines three core factors from which knowledge can be mobilized. The first factor is knowledge production or co-production. Knowledge is produced typically by academic institutions, government agencies, and research scientists. This knowledge then goes through a process of mediation. This is primarily where the knowledge-action gap is found.  Our analysis identified three dimensions within this factor, which includes:

1. 1. barriers to knowledge sharing;
   2. environmental and contextual factors; and
   3.  the knowledge network.

Within the first dimension, the most significant barrier found to knowledge sharing is grounded in the ideologies of individuals and systems that value certain types of knowledge over others.

In the second dimension, the environmental and contextual dimension, we found factors such as:

1. 1. institutional norms and structures;
   2. the political climate; and
   3. environmental, historical, or general context of the place.

The final dimension we identified within mediation is the knowledge network. This includes the actors that use and create the knowledge, the relationships between institutions, people, and communities, and the ability to share knowledge. The third factor in the framework is knowledge action. Our cross-case comparison found knowledge is often stalled in the knowledge mediation sphere, not making it into this final stage to be used in evidence-based decisions.

Valuable recommendations to our sector include the need for more collaboration and knowledge sharing. Our findings pointed towards the knowledge network as being very important to participants. Across all case studies respondents indicated working with key knowledge actors and establishing good relationships were critical to incorporating knowledge into their work. The most meaningful examples of knowledge actions were a result of strong relationships with multiple actors through various organizations and institutions that included multiple forms of knowledge. To reduce the knowledge-action gap, our sector will need to embrace multiple perspectives and innovative communication methods that foster partnerships, meaningful relationships, and increased knowledge sharing between individuals and organizations.

1215 PST | 1315 MST | 1415 CST | 1515 EST | 1615  AST

Protected area managers face a growing challenge: intensifying climate change increasingly propels ecosystems toward irreversible ecological transformations. As once-familiar ecological conditions disappear, managers need a new approach to guide decision-making. The resist–accept–direct (RAD) framework identifies the options managers have for responding and helps them make informed, purposeful, and strategic choices in this context. Moving beyond the diversity and complexity of myriad emerging frameworks, RAD is a simple, flexible, decision-making tool that encompasses the entire decision space for stewarding transforming ecosystems.

In brief, the RAD framework involves the exploration of strategies that resist, accept, and direct change. Strategies that resist change maintain or restore ecosystem processes, function, structure, or composition based on historical or acceptable current conditions. Strategies that accept change allow ecosystem processes, function, structure, or composition to change, without intervening to alter the trajectory. Strategies that direct change actively shape the trajectory of ecosystem processes, function, structure, or composition towards preferred new conditions. All three RAD management options have a legitimate place in ecosystem-based management and each, if intentionally pursued in response to climate change effects, can constitute climate-smart conservation. These three options collectively describe the decision space for responding to climate change; that said, numerous strategies for climate-smart conservation may lie between the extremes of exclusively resisting, accepting, or directing change, and managers can use this portfolio of approaches in a complementary manner to meet conservation goals.

This presentation will share the latest research and scholarship on the RAD framework, as well as some of the potential applications of the framework within a Canadian context. The presenter is a co-author on a recent Special Issue on the RAD framework in BioScience (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab067/6429752), and will draw from a community of RAD knowledge-holders, including protected area managers, scientists, and community members. Questions will be posed to the audience for their feedback, building on an interactive session held in Feburary 2020 at the Adaptation Canada Conference, organized by the presenter and Dr Diana Stralberg (https://www.adaptationcanada2020.ca/cgi/page.cgi?aid=666&_id=1657&zine=show), where the following questions were posed to a diverse audience of climate change and conservation practitioners:

1. 1. What are the key criteria that inform when and where to resist vs accept vs direct change?
   2. What are examples of new and creative strategies and actions to facilitate or resist change?
   3. How do we break down barriers between organizations and stakeholders to coordinate broad-scale conservation planning?

1215 PST | 1315 MST | 1415 CST | 1515 EST | 1615  AST

Through the Tahltan Stewardship Initiative, the Tahltan Nation will establish Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) in three important areas of Tahltan Territory: Ice Mountain, Klappan Sacred Headwaters, and Sheslay. IPCAs are areas where Indigenous governments have the primary role in protecting and conserving ecosystems through Indigenous laws, governance, and knowledge systems. The goal of the project is to ensure up to one million hectares of land in Tahltan Territory will be conserved and managed by Tahltans in alignment with Tahltan law, values and principles. The project is being realised through a Tahltan-led planning process, that is grounded in a relational approach with Tahltan knowledge centered as the most reliable and primary source of information. The Tahltan IPCAs project emerged from a successful proposal submitted to the Canada Nature Fund Target 1 Challenge in the winter of 2019. Funding was announced in August 2019, and the project has evolved into one of 17 projects in the overarching Tahltan Stewardship Initiative (TSI).

The Tahltan Stewardship Initiative (TSI) will support the Tahltan Nation to assert self-determination and fulfill our inherent stewardship and caretaking responsibilities for our Territory. It will ensure we take care of Tahltan Territory now and for future generations. The preliminary vision for the TSI is: “The Tahltan Nation will fulfill its inherent stewardship responsibilities for all lands, water, air, wildlife, fish and natural resources in Tahltan Territory.”

This presentation provides an overview of a project in process and will introduce how Tahltan IPCAs will work toward achieving the vision for the TSI and ensure that Tahltans will be actively involved in stewardship of our territory through the Tahltan Guardians Program and other stewardship initiatives. The timeline is to have a first draft of the Tahltan Stewardship Plan complete and have the IPCAs established by the end of March 2023.

1215 PST | 1315 MST | 1415 CST | 1515 EST | 1615  AST

Environmental nonprofit and community groups have a lot to offer in achieving Canada’s overall conservation goals. Their ability to directly engage with communities and understand local attitudes and politics puts them in a position to leverage key factors in stewardship success. Understanding how the individual elements of a stewardship initiative interact and affect a project is integral to determining outcomes and designing better strategies. In the Niagara Region of Ontario, a number of factors making for stewardship success were uncovered. The results indicate the importance of collaboration to stewardship work and progress. Supported by the recommendation for organizations to continue to pursue diverse collaboration opportunities, the Canadian Parks Collective for Innovation and Leadership (CPCIL) is working to create a space in which nonprofit and community groups are able to more actively collaborate with other groups and with park agencies to achieve collective goals.