Project Description:

The Pan-Canadian Approach to Transforming Species at Risk (SAR) Conservation in Canada is a national framework to focus our collaborative and collective work to protect SAR. This approach prioritizes using a multi-species and ecosystem-based approaches to maximize biodiversity conservation of shared priorities species, places, and sectors. To support this initiative, the Canadian Wildlife Service and Natural Resources Canada are proposing a project that will combine a suite of models for priority species (e.g. boreal caribou and other SAR) and other important ecological indicators (e.g. migratory birds and carbon sequestration), traditional ecological knowledge, and simulations of future landscape conditions in responses to natural (i.e. wildfire and insect outbreaks) and anthropogenic (i.e. forestry, energy, urban development) disturbances, and climate change across the western boreal forest from 2010 to 2100.

Project Outcomes or Intended Outcomes:

A key component of this project would be the inclusion of traditional ecological knowledge about biodiversity distribution and species ecology. There are examples where researchers have worked with indigenous communities, and examples of community-led initiatives, to produce "knowledge-based datasets and maps" for important boreal caribou areas. These types of products provide the opportunity to co-produce Indigenous knowledge and western science in a comprehensive modelling approach that can result in a more holistic representation of important ecological processes to inform conservation planning.