> Partnership to benefit B.C. Central Coast

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Contacts:
Andrew Petter, 778.782.4641; petter@sfu.ca
Eric Peterson, eric@tula.org
Ken Lertzman, 604.817.3586; kenneth_lertzman@sfu.ca
Rick Routledge, 778.782.4478; richard_routledge@sfu.ca
Frank Brown, (Heiltsuk contact) 1.250.957.2303
Jennifer Walkus, 250.949.8625, ext. 2230; fisheries@oweekeno.bc.ca
Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 778.782.3210

Yes

The Tula Foundation is partnering with Simon Fraser University to create the Hakai Network for Coastal People, Ecosystems and Management. The network will focus on the sustainability, resilience and well being of the people and ecosystems of British Columbia’s Central Coast.

The Tula Foundation will provide SFU with up to $8 million in funding over eight years. This will allow SFU researchers to work with their First Nations partners and collaborators from other organizations to study ecological and social sustainability and implement ecosystem-based management.

The network will also address issues related to education, training and capacity building in the communities of the Central Coast, home of the traditional territories of the Heiltsuk, Kitasoo/Xai’xais, Nuxalk and Wuikinuxv First Nations.

The Tula Foundation (www.tula.org) is a B.C.-based private family foundation created by Eric Peterson and Christina Munck in 2002, and headquartered on Quadra Island.

Says Peterson, foundation president: “I have been working with SFU researchers since 2006 and have been impressed not only with their research abilities, but also with the practical working relationships that they have established with the First Nations.

“Together, we will build on this base to achieve some of the lofty ideals set forth in the plan to protect the Great Bear Rainforest. We will be a showpiece of making policy real on the coastal landscape."

SFU President Andrew Petter says the partnership fits well with the university’s focus on the environment and its commitment to First Nations teaching and research.

“This initiative is a strong endorsement for SFU’s new Faculty of Environment,” says Petter. “The Tula Foundation has gained a reputation for making smart and strategic investments that have a positive impact over several years. It is a great honour to have been selected for this important venture.”

The foundation will provide access to its Hakai Beach research station, which will be the home base for much of the field research.

Located on the northern tip of Calvert Island in the middle of the Central Coast, it will provide convenient working access via sheltered waterways to the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest.

The facility includes meeting rooms, dormitories, laboratory space, docks, research vessels and, most importantly, a wealth of technical expertise and scientific leadership.

The Tula Foundation supports and runs a wide range of initiatives including established programs in community nursing, scientific research and stewardship on the Central Coast, which are done in partnership with several B.C. universities and colleges.

Backgrounder
Hakai Network for Coastal People, Ecosystems and Management

The lead researchers for the Hakai Network for Coastal People, Ecosystems and Management work across many disciplines at SFU, including marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecology, resource policy and planning, archaeology and statistics.

Co-Director: Rick Routledge
SFU Professor, Statistics

Rick Routledge is renowned for his work on fish populations. Working with a team based at the Salmon Coast Research Station, he helped to prove how damaging sea lice flourishing near salmon farms can be to wild Pacific salmon. Routledge has worked with the Tula Foundation for five years on research projects similar to those planned for the Hakai Network. He is co-leading a marine monitoring and research program to advance the conservation of the natural environment and promote ecologically sustainable economic activity on B.C.’s central coast. He is also working with the foundation and the Wuikinuxv First Nation to develop a long-term program for monitoring the inlet food chain and provide vital information on the potential recovery of coastal sockeye populations.

Co-Director: Ken Lertzman
SFU Professor, School of Resource and Environmental Management
Director, Cooperative Resource Management Institute

Ken Lertzman is interested in a broad range of topics related to forest ecosystem dynamics, conservation, and management. He has focused on how natural disturbance regimes and management interact to produce pattern and dynamics in forest stands and landscapes. Lertzman has an ongoing interest in how changing climate drives ecosystems and the landscapes and resources available to people who live in them – and how people respond to those changes. Increasingly his work focuses on trying to understand the complex dynamics and resilience of coupled socio-ecological systems. Current research examines climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation, alternative silvicultural systems, analysis of forest light environments, ecological restoration, forest fire risk analysis and First Nations forestry and traditional ecological knowledge. Lertzman and his students work closely with researchers from other disciplines, as well as representatives of government agencies, First Nations, industries, and other non-governmental groups in applying their research to problems in ecosystem conservation, restoration, and management.

Steering Committee Member: Anne Salomon
SFU Assistant Professor and David H Smith Conservation Research Fellow, School of Resource and Environmental Management

Anne Salomon studies how human disturbances alter the productivity, biodiversity and resilience of coastal marine ecosystems. She is interested in how predator depletion affects marine food webs, marine reserve design and evaluation, climate change impacts on coastal ocean ecosystems, and the factors driving alternative state dynamics and the resilience of social-ecological systems. As an early career scientist, Salomon has already been asked to provide policy and research advice to multiple government and non-government organizations in the U.S. and Canada.

Steering Committee Member: Dana Lepofsky
SFU Associate Professor, Archaeology

Dana Lepofsky’s interest is the social and ecological impacts of past human interactions with their environment. Her research focuses on complex hunter-gatherers of the Pacific Northwest of North America, particularly within B.C.’s Coast Salish region. She incorporates diverse technical and methodological approaches in her research, including household archaeology, regional survey, paleoethnobotany, and detailed paleoecological studies. Associations with other archaeologists, paleoecologists, neoecologists, geomorphologists, and experts in First Nations traditional knowledge have considerably strengthened Lepofsky’s research.

Steering Committee Member: John Reynolds
Professor, Biological Sciences
Tom Buell BC Leadership Chair in Salmon Conservation

John Reynolds’ research program focuses on conservation and ecology of Pacific salmon with an emphasis on their ecosystems, including connections between marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats. He leads long-term field studies and experiments in a large number of watersheds in B.C. around Bella Bella on the Central Coast and in the upper Fraser River Basin. These are designed to understand how various human impacts on salmon and their habitats translate into population declines and recovery, including the many species of terrestrial plants and animals that are linked to nutrients and food web interactions involving salmon. His goal is to attain a more holistic management of salmon and aquatic habitats.

The Hakai Network will grow to include a number of other faculty members, post-doctoral scholars and graduate students. The first post-doctoral scholar has been appointed:

Hakai Scholar: Martin Robards
Martin Robards is a marine ecologist and policy analyst who has worked extensively with indigenous communities and their representatives in the Arctic, particularly the Siberian Yupik communities of St. Lawrence Island in Alaska.  For the last two years, he worked in Washington DC to inform policy makers about the challenges of implementing regional-scale policies concerning the conservation of marine mammals in remote subsistence-dominated environments.  His goal is to encourage the development of policies that are more responsive to new scientific understandings and the changes in ecological, social, and economic conditions facing resource dependent communities.

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