Peace Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program Colloquium
This project provides an education and outreach venue for creating connections and developing relationships with those who have an interest in the area. These events are opportunities to share knowledge and expertise being developed in, or that could be applied to, the Peace Region.
The project will consist of a series of three invited speaker events, which will take place in the fall, winter and spring of each year: two in FWCP Peace Region communities, and the third in Prince George on the UNBC campus. Two of these events will feature researchers from British Columbia or Alberta, while the third will feature a national or international speaker, all of whom will present information or engage in discussion of topics related to fish and/or wildlife species in the Peace Region. These events will help improve management of fish and wildlife in both the short- and long-term.
Final Report: Executive Summary
This project continues a long relationship between the Natural Resources and Environmental Studies Institute (NRESi) at UNBC and the Peace Region’s Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program (FWCP) (previously B.C. Hydro) with the delivery of 3 research colloquium presentations. These presentations provided an education and outreach venue where we could discuss emerging research projects and the current state of knowledge on natural resource issues relating to the PFWCP mandate area. The presentations provided an opportunity to develop relationships between UNBC and local stakeholders and to assess current PFWCP information needs. The project addressed the FWCP’s strategic objective in the Peace Basin Plan – Stewardship and Education and Community Engagement, to increase community engagement by building and maintaining relationships with stakeholders and aboriginal communities. Dr. Kari Stuart-Smith (Canadian Forest Products Ltd) presented on “Forest management and the Migratory Bird Convention Act in Interior BC” and Ryan Bichon (Mackenzie Nature Observatory) presented on “20 years of bird banding at Mugaha Marsh” in Mackenzie, British Columbia, on November 30, 2016. George Desjarlais (West Moberly First Nations) presented “Missing Wildlife: A First Nations’ Perspective” and Dr. Scott McNay (Wildlife Infometrics Inc.) presented “Caribou of the Williston Basin: What do we know of their status after 50 years of reservoir flooding and 30 years of study?” in Fort St John on March 8, 2017 and Dr. Steven Cooke (Carleton University) presented in Prince George on March 22, 2017 on his work, “Exposing the secret lives of fish”. Each of the three presentations were well attended by a broad cross-section of the local community members representing various interest-areas (e.g., industry, academia, First Nations, government, general public) and generated many questions and interesting post-presentation discussions. The five topics presented also contributed to the achievement of Objective 1 in the Peace Basin, Species of Interest Action Plan, Riparian and Wetlands Action Plan, Upland Action Plan, and Lakes Action Plan, as well as Objective 2 of the Peace Basin, Reservoirs Action Plan. It is recommended that this project be continued in the future. Two of the topics presented were on projects funded by the Peace Region’s Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program. Future presentation topics should continue to incorporate suggestions for presentation content from First Nation’s as well as continuing to include previously funded Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program – Peace Region project results. Presentations should also include topics that educate stakeholders on emerging issues within the FWCP Peace Region landbase, including networking to UNBC faculty with research interests in the topic area, provide examples of fish and wildlife management from other jurisdictions that are directly 3 applicable to the FWCP Peace Region landbase, and incorporate regionally appropriate topics for presentations in each of Prince George, Mackenzie, and Fort St. John. Participation by Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program Peace Region Board and committee members should be encouraged.
Click the provincial database link below to read the full final report for this project.