Birds sing and the wind rustles the trees as young researchers, packs full of tree cores and cross-sections, hike the final few kilometers back to the truck. Above them on a mountain peak, others carefully pack up their camera and tripod as they feel the deep whup-whup-whup of the helicopter on its way to collect them. And farther still, a modeller in Victoria stares intently at her computer screen, crafting lines of code that will simulate the disturbances that have shaped the landscape on which her colleagues stand.

At its heart, this was Landscapes in Motion: the joining of forces by researchers with different backgrounds to learn about how wildfires have shaped the landscapes of the southern Rockies and Foothills through time.

What Was Landscapes in Motion?

The goal of Landscapes in Motion was to uncover the fire history of southwestern Alberta, learn how the frequency and intensity of fires shaped the landscape over time, and develop tools for analysing landscape change on larger scales than ever before. Altogether, this study sought to inform future management and policy in this important region of Alberta.

The Landscapes in Motion team was made up of forest, landscape and fire ecology experts from several institutions in Alberta and British Columbia, including the Healthy Landscapes Program at fRI Research, the University of British Columbia, the Mountain Legacy Project at the University of Victoria, Natural Resources Canada – Canadian Forest Service, and Alberta Agriculture and Forestry.

We acknowledge Treaty 7 territory, the land on which we conducted our research. This land is the traditional territory of the Piikáni Nation, the Siksika Nation, the Kainai Tribe, the Tsuut’ina Nation, and the Iyarhe Nakoda (Stoney Nakoda) First Nation, and is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3. We acknowledge and thank the many Indigenous, Métis and Inuit Peoples and their ancestors who have lived in and cared for these lands for many generations.

An Integrated Approach to Communication

The Landscapes in Motion leads had a clear vision for the research approach, but they also had a vision for sharing the goals, progress and research findings from the very start. They engaged science communication experts at Fuse Consulting to help them share their work with many audiences, in particular with the people who have the keenest interest in the forests of southwestern Alberta: the people who live there. The goal of the communications effort was to build awareness and understanding about the project from the very start of the program. Goals were also identified to build opportunities for open communication and discussion about project results.

Through the website and regular blog updates, the work of Landscapes in Motion has been shared with interested people in Alberta, western Canada, and around the world. But the team takes particular pride in outreach to the communities within the study area, including a successful field tour, several one-on-one field days in 2018, and presentations to the Crowsnest Conservation Society and at Waterton-Glacier Science and History Day. In 2020, they hosted their final wrap-up workshop as a half-day online event, where discussion was so lively that the questions left unanswered were addressed in a follow-up blog post. The Landscapes in Motion team is excited about the communication techniques implemented, and outcomes achieved, and thanks our various readers and event attendees for their interest and support.   

What Comes Next?

Research is a rigorous and continual process. As with all good research, Landscapes in Motion built on the shoulders of others in all three of our focus areas. Also consistent with good research, the project has generated many new questions, for example:

• What were the impacts of human influences on landscape patterns prior to industrialization?
• Is it possible to ‘restore’ the front range to a pre-industrial condition – and what are the costs and benefits of doing so?
• To what degree do other parts of the western boreal and/or Rocky Mountain front range share similar “mixed” fire regime attributes?
• What are the consequences of including partial severity in spatial modelling on other values?
• How could the new visual application tools be used to provide critical historical context, communication, or spatial data needs for researchers, communities, municipalities, and others?

These are just a few of the many new questions that have already been tabled by the Landscapes in Motion team, the Healthy Landscapes Program team, and other partners and stakeholders. The timing, nature, and extent of these and many other possible LIM extensions will be determined by a) need, and b) resources, which are at this point unknown. The partners involved in LIM are still reviewing, processing, and discussing the implications of the large amount of output! However, independent of this, most of the LIM team is already hard at work growing their respective research programs in part based on LIM learnings and output. Moreover, they are doing so with the aid of the new academic collaborations created by the LIM project that will last a lifetime.

Thanks to our Funding Organizations

The following organizations have contributed funds that have allowed Landscapes in Motion to continue in its quest to understand how these landscapes have been shaped by wildfire over time. We thank our funding partners for their support.