Stoney Cultural Monitoring of Bison Reintroduction in Mînî Rhpa Mâkoche (Banff)

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Guest Speaker: William Snow, Manager of Consultation, Stoney Tribal Administration

With funding from the Canadian Mountain Network and support from Parks Canada, the Stoney Tribal Administration Consultation Team led a cultural monitoring study—using ceremony, elder Interviews, fieldwork, elder reconnection, report writing, and outreach to describe the cultural impacts of the bison reintroduction and further an understanding of what it means for bison to again roam freely in Mînî Rhpa Mâkoche. Join us for a conversation about how Indigenous knowledge can enhance parks and protected areas and the management of species at risk and entire ecosystems.

Read the report: Enhancing the Reintroduction of Plains Bison in Banff National Park Through Cultural Monitoring and Traditional Knowledge

Webinar Recording:

Conférencier invité : William Snow, Directeur de la consultation, Administration tribale Stoney

Grâce à un financement du Réseau des montagnes canadiennes et le soutien de Parcs Canada, l’équipe de consultation de l’administration tribale de Stoney a mené une étude de surveillance culturelle – utilisant des cérémonies, des entretiens avec des aînés, du travail sur le terrain, la reconnexion des aînés, la rédaction de rapports et la sensibilisation pour décrire les impacts culturels de la réintroduction du bison et approfondir la compréhension de ce que signifie le fait que le bison erre à nouveau librement dans Mînî Rhpa Mâkoche. Rejoignez-nous pour apprendre comment les connaissances indigènes peuvent améliorer les parcs et les zones protégées et la gestion des espèces en danger et des écosystèmes entiers.

Lisez le rapport (en anglais – français en cours) : Améliorer la réintroduction du bison des plaines dans le parc national de Banff grâce à la surveillance culturelle et au savoir traditionnel.

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Webinar Summary – Healthy Parks Healthy People

Healthy Parks Healthy People Webinar

Healthy Parks Healthy People (HPHP) is an international initiative aimed at increasing the overall health and wellness of individuals through positive interactions with nature. The goal of HPHP, according to Ontario Parks, is to “use health to engage people with parks who may not be otherwise engaged and increase awareness of health benefits of parks with the overarching goal of improving health of Ontarians.” This webinar focused on evaluating the efficacy of HPHP as an initiative through community and stakeholder feedback and in situ surveying on parks premises.

Presenters

  • Anne Craig, Ontario Parks
  • Catherine Reining, Wilfred Laurier University

5 Key Takeaways

  1. After five years of the HPHP program being implemented by Ontario Parks, they held a large public consultation in 2019 with largely positive feedback.
  2. Some engagement and communication strategies of HPHP focused on signature events that links parks with health, such as days for free access to parks and challenges to spend time outside. HPHP-themed social campaigns, such as those around mental health, were some of the most popular topics.
  3. Some of the key barriers to accessing the benefits of HPHP include affordability, transportation, accessibility for diverse audiences, the need for more time, and the need for more green space and continued protection of green space.
  4. Research on the role parks and protected areas play in health promotion found that 95% of respondents felt visits to natural areas were important for improving wellbeing and health.
  5. Research found that high restorative outcomes were experienced by participants, irrespective of length of stay, and environment type is not a determining factor. However, the perceived quality of the environment experienced was important.
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Webinar Summary – Parks Day: Past, Present, Future

Parks Day CPCIL Webinar

The first Parks day, back in 1990, was based on a paper commissioned by the Canadian Parks council which provided an opportunity for all public parks to participate in the celebration of parks and their role in natural and cultural heritage conservation in Canada, and to increase public awareness and support for parks. From here, Parks day emerged, and has changed throughout the years and looks different for different jurisdictions. This webinar explores these different contexts and perspectives of these jurisdictions.

Presenters

  • Nic DeGama-Blanchet, Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park, Alberta
  • Caroline Ipeelie-Qiatsuk, Nunavut Parks and Special Places, Qikiqtaaluk Region
  • Tobi Kiesewalter, Ontario Parks, Learning and Discovery Program
  • Michael Nadler, Parks Canada External Relations and Visitor Experience

5 Key Takeaways

  1. For Fish Creek Provincial Park, Parks Day is run by community volunteers so that it can involve a great number of people. Park isn’t merely a space, but rather becomes so because of the relationship people have with that place. 
  2. In Nunavut Parks, Parks Day is utilized as an opportunity to highlight the local cultures’ deep ties to the land and expand the outdoor classroom. For example, they showcase cultural activities like drum dancing, throat singing, tea and bannock, and fried fish.
  3. For Ontario Parks, the concept of Parks Day has melded with the Healthy Parks, Healthy People movement, however the spirit of Parks day is still present as a way to engage people with Parks who might have been otherwise uninterested
  4. Parks Days were collectively seen as an opportunity to host discussions about Reconciliation, equity, and how to keep these conversations and relationships going year round.
  5. All panelists connected with the element of human connection to the land. The future of Parks Day is seen as an opportunity for people to celebrate this connection and contribute to part of a broader national identity.
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Knowing. Doing. Learning: The 2021 Pan-Canadian Parks and Protected Areas Research Summit

From March 9th to 13th, 2021, knowers, doers, and learners from across the country came together virtually at the inaugural Parks and Protected Areas Research Network Virtual Research Summit. This conference was made possible thanks to the collaborative partners of Canadian Parks Collective for Innovation and Leadership, Mount Royal University, Parks Canada, Canadian Parks Council, and York University Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change.

Nearly 200 registrants from British Columbia to Nunavut to Prince Edward Island  were in attendance for various sessions throughout this pan-Canadian summit. All came with the common goal to learn, collaborate, and share knowledge about parks and protected areas. The summit opened with an introduction by Gùdia – Mary Jane Johnson, a Lhu’ààn Mân Ku Dań Elder. Her words resonated with the audience, as she said: 

“We pay our deepest respects and give our heartfelt thanks to those knowledge carriers, keepers, both past and present. For us to be good caretakers we must respect each other’s abilities to learn from the past. By being present, today. For a future where our strength will be each other. Our legacy will be communities where First Nations, Inuit, Metis and other world people can be curious, playful, intelligent, industrious, creative and respectfully strong. Where the winged, the finned, the four legged, the two legged, the rooted and the flowing all continue to thrive to be part of the next seven generations.”

At the start of the event, Dr. Don Carruthers Den Hoed mentioned that both the definition of parks and protected areas and park leaders is not static.

“Park leaders don’t just work for national, provincial, or territorial park agencies. They are also Indigenous knowledge holders and community partners, academics and students, municipal and private landholders, and more. And parks can be the entire continuum of protected areas from private conservancy to local greenspace to IPCAs to marine parks – as Bruce Downie of Yukon Parks once told me, ‘parks are wherever you learn to love life.’”

Though every presentation related to parks and protected areas, topics were incredibly diverse, ranging from knowledge mobilization to behavioural change in parks visitors, accessibility barriers to reconciliation in natural sciences. Presentations challenged common biases and assumptions and increased our awareness of issues, from Reconciliation to youth involvement in parks. To increase the accessibility of the information, presenters were invited to speak in their preferred national language (French or English), and almost all presentations offered a simultaneous live interpretation.

Keynote sessions included “The state of parks-related knowledge mobilization in Canada, cases from Alberta, BC, and Ontario”, presented by Dr. Elizabeth Halpenny with the University of Alberta; “Ecological corridors and networks: key ingredients for enduring conservation in Canada and Globally”, presented by Dr. Jodi Hilty with Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, David MacKinnon with Nova Scotia Environment, and Chris Lemieux with Wilfrid Laurier University; “Towards reconciliation: 10 Calls to Action to natural scientists working in Canadian protected areas” presented by Dr. Carmen Wong with Parks Canada and Gùdia – Mary Jane Johnson, Lhu’ààn Mân Ku Dań Elder; and “Blurring the boundaries: a panel on understanding, valuing, and supporting the ocean and coastal community well-being”, presented by Noémie Roy, Munju Ravindra, Jessica Lambert, Garrett Mombourquette, Gabrielle Beaulieu, Meaghen McCord, and Hali Moreland with Parks Canada. A range of concurrent sessions were part of the conference, allowing attendees to pick from presentations most aligned with their personal interests, as well as several shorter rapid talk presentations. During each presentation, attendees were invited to continue on the conversation through forums and feedback forms exclusive to conference attendees.

The goals of the conference were first to help connect individuals and create an inclusive community of park leaders, and second, to share and gain knowledge. Based on the feedback received to date, we are confident that the Park Summit has made an impact in both these areas. One youth attendee remarked, “thank you for creating such a meaningful space for youth to voice our opinion — we often talk about youth engagement, but it is rarely done as well as today”, while another said, “since (the conference), I’ve had a couple of fruitful conversations with federal colleagues — I look forward to digesting the presentation a little bit more when they’re available online and to continue participating with the CPCIL”. 

Although the reality of COVID-19 meant hosting this event online, many registrants expressed appreciation for this virtual format. It allowed them the opportunity to attend the conference when they otherwise would have been limited by travel or cost. But this conference wasn’t made up entirely of screen time. Attendees were encouraged to take a break from their desk and connect with nature throughout the conference. During these nature break sessions, all were encouraged to test the ParkSeek online GIS application by making observations about parks in their local areas. During other nature breaks, participants were encouraged to simply go out in nature and engage with their senses to reflect and connect with their local environments, sometimes involving prompts from mailed leaflets included in participant welcome packages.

The interactive component was also brought back online through breakout sessions and regional task groups. These groups were invited to collaborate on virtual murals with the goal to map the network of key players in the parks and protected areas field, make both personal and landscape level connections, and brainstorm and prioritize possible research projects. 

Through these generative activities, real life connections were made, whether it be an individual with resources to support a project, or networking suggestions for potential contacts. Some attendees even met colleagues from within their own office or agency for the first time via the summit, an occurrence that is surely unique to our current reality!

Over 40 youth registrants were also in attendance, and this energized group gave accolades on their experience as individuals newer to the field of parks and protected areas research or practice. One of the CPCIL Knowledge Gatherers, Ebany Carratt, shared her perspective on what it means to be a park leader, and that we are all park leaders regardless of our educational background or experience. This was echoed by more youth attendees touching on the role of youth and inclusivity, including Rhiannon Kramer, a member of the Canadian Black Scientists Network , and Peter Soroye, a PHD student at the University of Ottawa, both with the grassroots group Kaleidoscope Canada. Both highlighted that people who are Black, Indigenous, or persons of colour have had a big role in the outdoors in ways that are often not part of the narrative, and that it is common to not feel comfortable participating in these spaces. Going forward, they challenged Summit attendees to find the many areas in which we can improve this because we are all park people. 

The conference ended with moving words from Gilles Seutin, Chief Scientist of Parks Canada and champion of the Pan Canadian Parks and Protected Areas Research Network. Providing his perspective on contributing to the institution of knowledge and what is needed as a community of conservation-minded people to be able to deliver on living in harmony with nature, Seutin shared:

“It’s a growing ambition to have 30% of the planet’s waters and lands under a good form of protection,” he said. “To be successful, we’ll need to be better equipped than we are now. In Canada, there are currently about 10,000 people working full time at managing protected areas, from lock operators on historic canals to project managers in provincial parks, and Canada is committed to more than double the amount of land and water we want to protect. So we have a huge need for new people, new brains that need to enter the workforce. 

“But in the long term it’s about not only creating those events and moments of individual training and capacity building, but also about institutional building. And that’s what this network is about to do. This week I’ve seen the growing recognition for the diversity of knowledge, and the diversity of knowledge systems, that need to inform protected areas management and, in future, establishment of more places and their management in a broader sense.”

Dawn Carr, Executive Director, Canadian Parks Council, echoed these sentiments, saying,

“Several years ago, there was a recognition that there needs to be better and stronger relationships between Park agencies and different knowledge holders, there was a very specific effort that was put in place to create CPCIL.

One of our priorities is to support the growth and development of an inclusive and connected network of professionals in the parks community, who engage, learn, and share expertise across boundaries. These past four days have been a testament to that priority. But it is also an absolute, and very clear expression of the fact that we’re really coming together to grow this community, which is extraordinary and amazing”

Feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly positive, and there is a lot of excitement and interest to keep the momentum going. Recordings of summit sessions are now available online under ‘CPCIL Virtual Research Summit Archive’ and can be publicly viewed and the Summit forums and other content are available on the 2021 Research Summit Legacy Page.

We thank all presenters, applicants, attendees, and team members who each played a part in the overall success of the event.

Climate Change and Protected Places: Parks Canada’s adaptation framework and workshop approach

Journal: Parks Stewardship Forum, 36(1)

Title: Parks Canada’s adaptation framework and workshop approach: Lessons learned across a diverse series of adaptation workshops

Permalink: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4jf7c0x1

Authors: Nelson, Elizabeth, Mathieu, Elyse, Thomas, Julia, et al.

Publication Date: 2020

Citation:

Nelson, Elizabeth, Elyse Mathieu, Julia Thomas, Hilary Harrop Archibald, Hilary Ta, David Scar-
lett, Lydia Miller, Blythe MacInnis, Virginia Sheehan, Kristina Pompura, Donya Hassanzadeh,
Lillith Brook, Jennifer Grant, Dawn Carr, Laura Graham, Jenny Harms, Ramon Sales, Karen
Hartley, Robert Cameron, Cameron Eckert, Jessica Elliot, Delaney Boyd, and Dinah Tambalo.
2020. Parks Canada’s adaptation framework and workshop approach: Lessons learned across a
diverse series of adaptation workshops. Parks Stewardship Forum 36(1): 77–83.
https://escholarship.org/uc/psf

Abstract:

In 2017, the Canadian Parks Council Climate Change Working Group, a team of federal, provincial, and territorial representatives, developed a Climate Change Adaptation Framework for Parks and Protected Areas, guiding practi- tioners through a simple, effective five-step adaptation process. This framework was adapted by Parks Canada into a two-day adaptation workshop approach, with 11 workshops subsequently held from September 2017 to May 2019 at Parks Canada sites in the Yukon, Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Newfoundland, and Ontario. Lessons learned from each workshop have been integrated into the approach, with the development of tools and guidance for each phase of the process, and a shareable, visual “placemat” that describes each step of the framework, acting as a map for those navigating the process.

Link to Article

Unearthing Restorative Justice in a Parks Setting

By Capstone Team E – Travis Halliday, Maria O’Hearn, Kelly Stein, Jennifer Szakacs

This project was completed as part of the CPCIL Park Leaders Development Program, an applied leadership program exploring transformative leadership approaches to complex park issues and concepts.

Restorative justice is a criminal justice approach with the goal of healing both victim and offender.  It aims for participation with all involved while holding offenders responsible for their actions and encouraging introspection of the cause of their behaviour.

This approach is increasingly being applied across Canada leading to better outcomes for both victims and offenders. However, its application in a parks and protected areas context in Canada is unknown.

Our objective as a capstone team in the CPCIL Park Leaders Development Program was to pull the curtain back to find out if and how the process is used within our parks collective. This would result in a snapshot of the current state of restorative justice that others looking to venture down this road could access.

Photo by Ben den Engelsen / Unsplash

Our preliminary research of journals, news articles and other online resources turned up very little on the use of restorative justice within a parks context. So were we boldly going where no one has gone before? A bit more time plus a thorough jurisdictional review and numerous interviews would tell.

We set out to delve deeper into restorative justice application in a conservation context to get a baseline of usage from jurisdictions across Canada. Our online survey posed questions to the Canadian Parks Council network like:

  • Who is using restorative justice?
  • What cases are referred?
  • What training is used?
  • What challenges are faced?

So, did we boldly go into uncharted territory? Most certainly. We received six responses from across the country, five of which do not use restorative justice and one respondent applies restorative justice in a marine conservation context.  The responses received, along with the fairly low response rate, indicates that restorative justice is not widely used in parks and protected areas.

However, our interviews with subject matter experts show that restorative justice is applied in other contexts, such as offences involving wildlife and natural resource-related enforcement. This presents an opportunity to build a restorative justice program for parks and protected areas by basing it on these related programs.  There is more work that can be done to dig deeper.

Bull elk bugling in a grass field with elk herd.
Photo by Briana Touzour / Unsplash

Recommendations for further work to promote the use of restorative justice in parks and protected areas across Canada include:

  1. Follow up with survey respondent from the jurisdiction currently applying restorative justice to build a case study.
  2. Develop case studies in related fields such as wildlife offences which could provide the groundwork for developing restorative justice programs in parks and protected areas.
  3. Promote the use of restorative justice in parks and protected areas across Canada through the Canadian Parks Council network.
  4. Start a forum devoted to restorative justice on the CPCIL website to facilitate information exchange among interested practitioners.
  5. Consider revisiting this topic to explore how restorative justice is applied in 5-10 years.


The benefits of restorative justice are far-reaching yet underutilized in parks and protected areas. So we have a mission for a future capstone team: to go boldly into this new world of restorative justice in a parks and protected areas context. We are keen to see what the future holds.

What restorative justice programs or examples have you heard of? Let us know in the comments below.

Launch of PanCanadian Parks and Protected Areas Research Network

In October, 2019, a diverse group of parks and protected areas researchers, practitioners, students, community partners, and knowledge holders held a full-day workshop to ask “how can we work together to improve parks and protected areas research, knowledge mobilization, & the development of advice for evidence-based decision-making.” 

Despite the disruptions of recent months, CPCIL has made progress behind the scenes with support from Parks Canada, the Canadian Parks Council, and our collaborating universities of Mount Royal University, York Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, and Royal Roads University. We are pleased to announce the launch of the Pan-Canadian Parks and Protected Areas Research Network as part of the Canadian Parks Collective for Innovation and Leadership (CPCIL). 

This will be a new network for scientists, researchers, Indigenous knowledge holders, and students to connect and collaborate with parks and protected areas leaders, specialists, practitioners, and managers. Over the next three years, we will work with the parks and protected areas community to:

  1. Connect a network of researchers and practitioners, focusing on landscape-level networks and links to other existing networks.
  2. Share existing knowledge by curating and presenting transdisciplinary research in inclusive ways, highlighting practitioners and areas of expertise, and identifying mutually beneficial research ideas.
  3. Support academics, practitioners, journalists, elected officials, and decision makers in understanding and applying evidence in parks and protected areas.
  4. Build an intergenerational, interdisciplinary, inter-industry, and intercultural conversation about the value of parks and protected areas research.

The platform includes space to search profiles and connect with others, a tool to crowdsource research ideas, and space to share resources and highlight research and scholarship publications and events. We are also teaming up with Parks Canada to launch a Parks and Protected Areas Horizon Scan through the research network.

We invite you and your associates to join us on virtually on November 10th at 1pm Eastern Time to hear about the network, explore the platform, and engage in dialogue with others interested in parks and protected areas research and knowledge. A recording will be made available in the future.

Register for the November 10, 1pm Eastern, Launch and Dialogues

English Language Registration

French Language Simulcast Inscrivez-vous

Visit the Research Network: https://www.cppcl.ca/research-and-knowledge/

 

2020 Canadian Parks Council Awards

Each year the Canadian Parks Council (CPC) presents Agency and Individual Awards of Excellence to recognize and encourage extraordinary achievement, innovation, organizational leadership and the advancement of park and protected areas programs by Canada’s national, provincial and territorial park agencies. This year, this special awards ceremony will be delivered virtually and co-hosted with CPCIL on its 1st Thursday Webinar Series. Join the leadership of the CPC and CPCIL as we offer a virtual glimpse of the work of parks across Canada while we honour and acknowledge excellence within Canada’s extraordinary parks community.

Watch the recording (English)

Regarder l’enregistrement(Français)

Recipients

Individual Awards of Excellence

Eddie Ramsay
Assistant Maintenance Foreman, Killbear Provincial Park
Ontario Parks
Derek Petersen
Ecological Integrity Monitoring Ecologist
Parks Canada

Agency Award of Excellence

BC Parks
Accessibility Guarantee
Parks Canada
Restoration of Cap-des-Rosiers Beach in Forillon National Park
Saskatchewan Parks
Program Innovation during COVID-19

Micah Messent Young Professional Award of Excellence

Kristen Bartmann and Logan MacDonald

Nova Scotia Parks