This project examined the potential overlap between Gwich'in First Nations (Northwest Territories, Canada) heritage sites and areas independently identified for the protection of conventional conservation targets. Researchers designed nine hypothetical protected-area networks with different targets for woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) habitat, high-quality wetland areas, representative vegetation types, water bodies, environmentally significant area, territorial parks, and network aggregation. They compared the spatial overlap of heritage sites to these nine protected-area networks.

This master's project focuses on the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR) in the western Canadian Arctic, which is experiencing environmental changes that affect subsistence harvesting practices and are of concern to local communities. In order to assess the impacts of multiple disturbances on culturally important ecosystems in the ISR, researchers created a cumulative disturbance map that represents relative intensity of terrestrial disturbances across the study region. They assessed levels of disturbance in harvesting and management areas, modeled future disturbance scenarios, and assessed the potential for conserving large contiguous areas of unaffected harvesting lands.