Project Title: CREATE Environmental Innovation Project Leader: Murray Humphries Project Focus: enhancing Canada's prosperity through innovative environmental assessment, monitoring and management. How can northern resource development proceed while minimizing environmental impacts and maximizing community benefits? A multidisciplinary graduate training program oriented around industrial, government, and indigenous engagement.

CREATE Environmental Innovation: Northern resource development Industry Government Indigenous

CREATE Environmental Innovation: The collaborators… Industry 3 consulting firms 7 industries 2 NGOs

Industry 5 territorial/provincial governments 2 federal ministries Government CREATE Environmental Innovation: The collaborators…

Industry 5 indigenous organizations Government Indigenous CREATE Environmental Innovation: The collaborators…

CREATE Environmental Innovation: The research and training… Industry Government Indigenous

Eye-opener courses Complexity faced by environmental managers Science-human value interface in resource management Case-studies of actual area-based resource management issue Challenges and skills required for effective resource assessment, management, and monitoring Core courses Indigenous Rights & Engagement Natural Resource Economics, Industry, & Regulation Ecoinformatics, Data Analyses, & Experimental Design Model Development & Scenarios CREATE Environmental Innovation: The graduate training…

Recruitment of northern and aboriginal students is a project priority Internships with industry, government, and aboriginal organizations Thesis-based research in environmental sciences CREATE Environmental Innovation: The graduate training…

CREATE Environmental Innovation: The McGill research team… Nil Basu (Natural Resource Sc and CINE) Contamination of aquatic resources Genetic susceptibilities to contaminant exposures amongst First Nations Food safety and oil-contamination of traditional foods near oil sands Toxic exposures amongst workers involved in informal mining and electronic waste recycling in Ghana Elena Bennett (Natural Resource Sc) Changes in ecosystem service interactions in a changing North Relationships between ecosystem service provision and livelihoods in northern communities Comparisons of the ecosystem service interactions of 'working landscapes' in Canada's North with more well-studied southern working landscapes Recovery of ecosystem services (and their interactions) after resource extraction

CREATE Environmental Innovation: The McGill research team… Jeff Cardille (Natural Resource Sc) Maintaining wildlife corridors in Canada's North Dynamic assessments of land-use change from the Landsat record Merging information from multiple remote sensors Correspondence between estimated wildlife corridors and observed movements of target organisms Jim Fyles (Natural Resource Sc) Forest functions and dynamics Scientific knowledge, policy and forest management Interrelationships between plants, soil, and disturbances Functioning of complex ecological and socio-ecological systems across multiple scales

CREATE Environmental Innovation: The McGill research team… Jessica Head (Natural Resource Sc) Species susceptibility to toxic effects of oil contaminants Molecular tools for ecological risk assessment Birds as sentinels for environmental quality Gordon Hickey (Natural Resource Sc) Sustainable natural resource management and policy of complex social- ecological systems Resilience of natural resource-dependent communities, particularly of their food systems as a function of the social actors and institutions involved in governing resource use and stewardship Northern indigenous communities’ benefits and engagement in natural sciences research

CREATE Environmental Innovation: The McGill research team… Murray Humphries (Natural Resource Sc and CINE) Impacts of northern resource development on traditional food security Biologging wildlife to predict, assess, and mitigate the impacts of northern resource development Contributions of wildlife co-management and participatory research to sustainable development Chris Solomon (Natural Resource Sc) Ecological and social-ecological dynamics of fisheries Fisheries management in the northern context Carbon cycle processes in pristine and impacted northern lakes

CREATE Environmental Innovation: The U of Alberta research team… Erin Bayne (Biological Sc) Cumulative ecological impacts of human activities on biodiversity Wildlife behavioral, population, and community ecology Ecological trade-off assessment Inform and provide recommendations for biodiversity conservation Stan Boutin (Biological Sc) Human- and climate-induced ecological changes and their effects on wildlife phenotypic plasticity, evolution and population dynamics Provide decision-makers with the information and tools necessary to make ecologically-informed landuse decisions Conservation issues related to human landuse and climate change

CREATE Environmental Innovation: The U of Alberta research team… Mark Boyce (Biological Sc) Population-level mathematical and simulation models of ecological systems for wildlife conservation and management Population viability analysis, resource selection functions, time series, and predator-prey models Life history evolution and sexual selection of birds and mammals Mark Lewis (Mathematical & Statistical Sc) Mathematical biology and spatial ecology Modeling space use, population spread in biological invasions, optimal strategies for biocontrol, and the effect of habitat fragmentation on species survival

CREATE Environmental Innovation: The U of Alberta research team… Evelyn Merrill (Biological Sc) Using remote sensing, GIS, and biotelemetry systems to study animal movement in heterogeneous landscapes Foraging and nutritional ecology of ungulates, plant-herbivore interactions, and landscape modifications on wildlife populations Linking small-scale processes to large-scale patterns in animal distribution and population dynamics

CREATE Environmental Innovation: The recruitment… Graduate students interested in northern resource development and environmental sustainability and in completing thesis research enhanced by coursework and internship experience with industry, government, and/or aboriginal organizations Once the candidate student-supervisor-project is identified: complete and submit admission