Join the Healthy Landscapes Program on Wednesday, February 19 at 10am Mountain Time for a presentation about how wildfire and forest harvesting impacts the understory vegetation species that are important to Indigenous communities.
Abstract
In the face of escalating global challenges such as climate change, wildfires, and biodiversity loss, sustainable forest management has become increasingly central to environmental policy and practice. These challenges underscore the need for approaches that utilize natural resources while preserving the ecological integrity of those resources for future generations. In the western provinces of Canada, forests play a crucial culturally significant role for Indigenous communities. For generations, they have utilized understory vegetation for food, medicine, spiritual practices, and economic purposes. Research on potential impacts of disturbances (wildfires and harvesting) on culturally significant understory vegetation in Western Canada is limited. Beyond the Trees (Phase 1) is a Healthy Landscapes Program (HLP) project proposed and implemented to examine potential impacts from disturbances (wildfires and harvesting) on understory vegetation in traditional Indigenous lands in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Phase 1 aims to gain a better understanding of what, where, when, and how various understory vegetation species are/were used by Indigenous communities and to identify potential and/or perceived impacts to that vegetation by disturbances. In addition, the project aspires to build and foster relationships between HLP and participating forestry companies and Indigenous communities through engagement and collaborative input in the project design, future research and data gathering. This webinar will provide an overview of the project, introduce some key findings from data collection in Saskatchewan and describes next steps in Alberta.
Presenter
Sarah Schmid is the Program Coordinator for the Healthy Landscapes Program with fRI Research and is based in Prince Albert, SK. Her background includes working for the Government of Saskatchewan as the Forestry Initiatives Advisor, working on forestry priorities and initiatives and assisting in forest education and outreach with the public. In the past, Sarah has worked for other non-profits and was fortunate enough to work with several Indigenous communities, forestry companies and government on projects that focused on balancing ecological, social, economic and cultural needs and values. From developing proposals and projects, to coordinating and facilitating workshops and events, Sarah continues to work collaboratively with a variety of partners on research that focuses on supporting ecosystem-based management.
This is part of the Webinar Wednesday series of Healthy Landscapes Program webinars going back to 2018. Find recordings of past webinars here.
